BWW Review: The City Theatre Closes Season By Opening a LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORSAugust 25, 2016'On the twenty-third day of the month of September in an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places.' And so goes the prologue to the popular small cast musical LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Based on the 1960 movie directed by Roger Corman, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS by writer Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, is the marriage of a 60's love story and the apocalyptic sci-fi films of the era set to music. The result is a crowd pleasing intimate campy black musical comedy. Its success led to the musical being produced as a movie in 1986 with Rick Moranis, Vincent Gardenia, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin in the lead roles.
BWW Review: Salomé Gets A Reprieve in Gale Theatre Company ProductionAugust 11, 2016Taking on a story of such biblical proportions (pun intended) as SALOME is a courageous act and The Gale Theatre Company, is a courageous ensemble. 'Everyone is safe but no one is comfortable,' is a commitment the company shares in the program for their interpretation of SALOME. Salome, the 'dancing woman' from the New Testament, has been depicted in all manner of artful medium - theatre, opera, poetry, film, ballet, even a video game. She is an icon, arguably more interesting even than the first woman Eve. And so it is that the Gale Theatre Company, under the direction of Katherine Wilkinson and choreography of Earl Kim, tackle this biblical figure made icon by playwright Oscar Wilde, portrayed in film by the likes of Theda Bara and Rita Hayworth. In this depiction though, we start at Salome's end, rather than her beginning. 'What does a woman do when she is left alone to grieve?'
BWW Review: Consider DEATH AND THE MAIDENJune 7, 2016Consider any country in Latin America wherein a dictatorship has preceded a democracy. Consider a woman has been held captive as political prisoner and tortured and raped by her captors in this country. Consider then, the effect that such trauma can have at every level. Consider then, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN.
BWW Review: Pulitzer Winner CLYBOURNE PARK Takes on GentrificationJune 1, 2016CLYBOURNE PARK is a play worthy of producing and seeing in any city that claims to be as progressive and liberal as Austin. It's a couple hours worth of good theatre by a theatre company that consistently produces excellent work. We can sit in the dark and laugh at ourselves and race relations and enjoy some theatre that is, by the way,suffering from gentrification itself.
BWW Review: Pollyanna's YOUNG BEAR Educates and Entertains Austin's KidsMay 18, 2016Based on the life of a young girl who is taken in the early 1800's to live among Native Americans in the Mid-Western U.S, Lou Clark's YOUNG BEAR follows five year old Frances Slocum's personal journey through two different cultures and looks at each through the eyes of a young child.