Paul Batterson - Page 10

If you grew up in Columbus in the 80s, the movie THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW at the Graceland Theatre was a teenage rite of passage, much like White Castle runs, midnight rounds of Putt-Putt and Little Kings Cream Ale.

Folk singer/pop singer songwriter Wesley Stace couldn't help feeling nostalgic about sharing the stage with the Steven Page trio Oct. 12 at the Thirty-One West (located at 31 Church Street in downtown Newark, Ohio).

Lisa Glover, Johnathon L. Jackson, Steven Michael Mooney, Sheri Sanders and Jesse Daniel Trieger could probably fit in a Honda Civic and need only one large pizza for the cast party. Yet their performances, with many of the actors taking on an exhausting list of roles, make TOXIC AVENGER seem like a much larger presentation.

Perhaps the Weathervane Playhouse couldn't have found a better way to close out its 50th anniversary season than finishing the summer session with PIPPIN. Written by Stephen Schwartz (WICKED, CHILDREN OF EDEN and GODSPELL), the two-act, two-and-a-half-hour musical tells the story of Pippin (Kenneth Remaklus), a prince who longs to find meaning in his life.

In his review of the debut of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG in 1981, New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote, 'As we all should have probably learned by now, to be a Stephen Sondheim fan is to have one's heart broken at regular intervals.'

When Kevin Connell started to put together the Weathervane Playhouse's slate of shows for the summer, the managing artistic director for the Newark theatre wanted to put an emphasis on dance for the Playhouse's 50th anniversary season.

As any English teacher can tell you, not everyone loves Shakespeare. For some it's like eating Brussels sprouts; it's something you know you should do but you aren't certain why and you certainly don't enjoy the process.

There's enormous pressure in reviewing the Short North Stage's most recent production, ASSASSINS. Imagine looking out onto the stage where John Wilkes Booth brandishes a pistol at the audience only a few feet away while the balladeer (Patrick Beasley) sings, 'Some say it was your voice had gone, some say it was the booze. Some say you killed a country, John, because of bad reviews' in the song 'The Ballad of Booth.'

Each year colleges across the country come up with an odd list of commencement speakers, from Kermit the Frog (Southampton University) to Mike Tyson (Central State University), to offer pearls of wit and advice to their college graduates.

Like the steamboat that chugs into the harbor in its opening scene, THE KING AND I keeps arriving right on time, taking a whole new passenger's list of people to an exotic land. Some of the passengers arrive at the boat's port of call, the Ohio Theatre (located on 39 East State Street in downtown Columbus) for the first time; others have made the journey time and time again.

In the movie, 'FIELD OF DREAMS,' Annie Kinsella attacks a conservative member of the school board who wants to ban the writings of Terrance Mann with the line, 'I think if you had just experienced the Sixties ...'

Americans seem to find as much pleasure in learning about the flaws of heroes as they do in building them up in the first place. A quick search of the internet will reveal George Washington probably didn't chop down the cherry tree or that Walt Disney may not be the beloved creator people often imagine him to be.

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes closed out the regular set with a blazing rendition of their standard 'I Don't Wanna Go Home' at the band's March 9 appearance at the Southern Theatre (5115 21st E Main St in Downtown Columbus). However, pianist Jeff Kazee appeared to be very glad to return to one of the touchstone places in his career.

In most of the national tour musicals that have passed through the Ohio Theatre, dance often seems to be a submissive stepchild to storyline and song. However, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS: A NEW MUSICAL, a reimagining of the music of George and Ira Gershwin, finds the perfect marriage between music and movement.

John Lyon, also known as Southside Johnny, will be making a return to one of the milestone cities in his band's career when he and the Asbury Jukes play the Southern Theatre (21 E. Main Street in downtown Columbus) on March 9

As he walked out of the Columbus Performing Arts Center after viewing SRO's production of TITANIC: THE MUSICAL, one of the patrons turned to his friend and joked, 'Wow, I never saw that ending coming.'

Somehow, it seems fitting that THE PERFORMERS, the David West Read comedy set in the adult film industry, would make its Columbus debut at the Garden Theatre. Before becoming the home base for the Short North Stage, the theatre did a stint as a burlesque theatre between being movie house and a church.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Andrew Lloyd Webber's iconic musical about the ghostly guest who resides in Box 5 of the Paris Opera House, makes its return to Columbus after a nearly four year absence and it spends a two sets at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State Street in downtown Columbus).

When she first saw THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Jordan Ensign admits the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical didn't just knock her socks off. It stole her clogs as well.

The beautiful thing about the Short North Stage's production of writer Tom Eyen's musical is each member of the show brings something unique and beautiful to the two-act, two-and-a-half hour show. The result is not a cacophony of voices but a soul-stirring mixture of harmony and that Columbus should not mis