Krista Garver - Page 14

MAJOR BARBARA tackles the age-old question of how best to help someone: Do you give them a fish or a job fishing? It's an interesting play to be putting on right now, but I think the material -- and the audience -- would have benefitted from a slightly less dusty, even if that meant less opulent, production.

One summer day in 1974 in a pub in Belfast, Ian and Jimmy's lives changed forever. Now, at age 52, the men arrange to meet in the same pub where a horrific event occurred. After 36 years, can they see each other as anything but enemies? Is any amount of forgiveness possible? These are the questions at the heart of QUIETLY, Owen McCafferty's haunting play currently running at New Expressive Works care of Corrib Theatre.

ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE is more than a vehicle for Cline's classic music. It's a funny, touching account of the night a superfan's dream came true and a reminder of the magic that can happen when we get up the courage to reach out to another human being.

LA BELLE: LOST IN THE WORLD OF THE AUTOMATON can hardly be called a play. It is a play, but also so much more - it's also a musical, a puppet show, a clown act, a dance performance, a visual art installation, and an automated wonder.

THE THANKSGIVING PLAY, which is having its world premiere at Artists Rep, soundly skewers a group of white well-meaning liberals for being so focused on not giving offense that they can't do anything meaningful at all. It's funny, biting, and often much closer to the truth than it's comfortable to admit.

Starting tonight and for five shows only, you'll get the chance to revisit your favorite Queen hits, and probably discover a few you've never heard before, at DON'T STOP ME NOW: THE FREDDIE MERCURY EXPERIENCE, a one-woman show by local actor, singer, and cabaret performer Courtney Freed.

THE MERMAID HOUR is part of a National New Play Network rolling world premiere. The first production opened a few weeks ago in Tucson, AZ, and Milagro's production will be followed by one in Charlotte, NC, and a musical version in Minneapolis, MN.

As a woman, a musician, a writer/illustrator, and a single mother, Block faced her share of setbacks and naysayers. Now in her 60s, she's back once again to prove the naysayers wrong and show that Baby Boomers still have plenty to say with her new solo show, DRAMA OF THE GIFTED GROWNUP: A MUSICAL JOURNEY. The show, which combines Block's music, writing, and visual art, starts a three-city tour in Portland on Thursday.

Andrew Hinderaker's THE MAGIC PLAY, now running at Portland Center Stage, combines some truly impressive sleight of hand with achingly raw emotion into a show that is the antidote to cynicism and could touch even the most jaded of hearts.

BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is a fascinating look at the complexity of being human and the even greater complexity of forming relationships with other complex humans.

There were zero dry eyes and two standing ovations (one during the show) at opening night of SCARLET, Michelle Horgen's excellent new musical adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel The Scarlet Letter.

Shaking the Tree's MACBETH is full of terrifying demons and shadows. Director Samantha Van Der Merwe uses cross-gender casting to explore the theme of what it means to be a man.

ASTUCIAS POR HEREDAR UN SOBRINA A UN TIO was written in 1789 by Fermin de Reygadas, who was born in Spain and emigrated to Mexico. The play was banned in Mexico for its social commentary, namely it's satirization of the upper class. Milagro's production is the first in almost 230 years.

What would you do if you discovered you were ninth in line to be the Earl of Highhurst? Do the other eight in as quickly as possible, of course! That's Monty Navarro's plan in Robert Freedman and Steven Lutvak's A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER, the madcap Tony Award-winning musical now running at the Keller Auditorium as part of the Broadway in Portland series.

KODACHROME is a guided tour of Colchester through the eyes, or rather, the lens, of the Photographer, who uses her camera and her stories to capture moments in the lives of the town's denizens.

THE MADNESS OF LADY BRIGHT and TRANS-FORMATION are two one-act plays about LGBTQ history.

ASTORIA, adapted from Peter Stark's book of the same name, is a broad, very dense history of the expeditions, funded by John Jacob Astor, that led to the founding of Astoria and the expansion of the United States to the west coast.

E.M. Lewis's MAGELLANICA, a world premiere now playing at Artists Repertory Theatre, is the theatrical equivalent of a theory of everything. This epic play is about eight people wintering over at the South Pole Research Station in 1986.