Greg Kerestan - Page 5

At this point, writing a review of Lin-Manuel Miranda's almost infamously popular hip-hop musical feels redudant. It's Hamilton, people. Go see it.

It may not be a musical anyone especially asked for, but a winning cast and some splashy production makes this one a winner anyway.

You owe it to yourself to see the most divisive musical of the year... or maybe of the decade.

Pop culture is full of paeans to the composer or the playwright; just this past fall, Andrew Garfield starred in Tick Tick... Boom! on Netflix as the young Jonathan Larson. But outside of insider tell-alls, there's not a lot of focus on the behind the scenes creatives of the theatrical world, especially the dramaturge. As a sometimes dramaturge myself, I know the position is misunderstood if it's understood at all: the shepherd of a new work, the dramaturge assists in the creative development of a piece by advising the author and the creative staff, doing research and providing insight and input on structure, tone and other aspects of the work in progress. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that, one particular weekend, Pittsburgh was showing not one but TWO new plays about the role of the dramaturge in the theatrical process.

While I have my music-nerd quibbles, this is pretty damn good for a non-union touring production.

Hell is other people's favorite restaurant in Wendy MacLeod's quirky date-night comedy.

It's hard to argue with the line-up for Pittsburgh CLO's star-studded concert anniversary.

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, and that includes live event entertainers at your local theme park.

Part play, part TED Talk, and part experimental film, Lauren M. Gunderson blends biography, science and fiction into a heady brew.

Sure, this espionage thriller may be treading old ground, but that's just because nothing has changed.

Is it a play? Is it a movie? Is it a dance show? Who cares, it's 'Frankenstein!'

Scott P. Calhoon's dreamlike staging of the S. E. Hinton classic finds moments of beauty and adrenaline in the sometimes clumsy prose of a young adult classic.

This may be Shakespeare's dumbest play, but Alan Stanford's production is still smarter than just about anything else you'll see this year.

I had a conversation with the cast and director of a local production of Cabaret a few days ago, about how theatre changed with the advent of the Internet. The visual presentation and iconic look of shows became much more relevant, much more permanently associated with shows, once photographs and video were as easy to find as cast recordings. You'll rarely if ever see a Cabaret that doesn't exist in the shadow of the Sam Mendes production, or someday a Hamilton without some of the iconic visual and performance signifiers. I'm not even calling it design laziness or plagiarism: the shows of today simply exist in a more tangible, permanent form than they did before the late 1990s. With that said, there's something to be said for productions that take some of those iconic elements and ignore them, crafting something different instead. Split Stage's production of Next to Normal reinvents one of the central characters, and it changes the entire piece.

There are enough fresh touches in this staging of an iconic musical to keep you from getting bored, but enough familiarity to keep you forever on the verge of singing along.

Something is definitely wrong in Theresa Rebeck's claustrophobic dramedy- but who, or what, is it?

It wouldn't be Christmas without offerings for both young and old... plus one neither for the very young NOR the very old.

People get VERY worked up about their precious Les Miserables- case in point, I saw a seven-year-old boy two rows in front of me, dressed in a full Javert costume at the Benedum stop of the national tour. It is so well-known and so well-loved that even if you're not a theatre person you probably know at least a few of the best-known songs, like 'On My Own' and 'Bring Him Home' from constant media saturation. Others you'd recognize from reference and parody: nearly every send-up of musicals from the 1980s on has spoofed 'One Day More' and its increasingly complex but rousing counterpoint.

The line between parody and nostalgia has never been slimmer than in this slick, funny and beautifully sung production of America's weirdest favorite show.

None of us will likely ever get to see Starkid live, but Acade Comedy Theater's loose-limbed musical farce is the next best thing.