Tanya Seale - Page 2

The most beautiful thing in the world is a shoe at The Muny this weekend and into next week, as Kinky Boots, based on a 2005 film of the same name, takes the stage in its extraordinary St. Louis premiere after its six-year run on Broadway. There, it won multiple Tony awards, with a book by Harvey Feirstein and music and score by Cyndi Lauper, direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell (direction re-created for The Muny by DB Bonds and choreography by Rusty Mowery). With its many glitzy surprises and its variety of endearing and glamorous characters, this show will have you saying YEAH!

Part awkward teen drama, part eerie sci-fi, Be More Chill with music and lyrics by Joe Iconis and book by Joe Tracz, based on the 2004 young adult novel by Ned Vizzini, is one of the coolest, freshest comedic musicals in years. It already classifies as a cult favorite, and even though it's currently playing on Broadway, you can (and should) be among the first to see New Line Theatre's production through June 22!

As an audience member at Tasha Gordon-Solmon's dark comedy I Now Pronounce, currently playing at the New Jewish Theatre, you are a guest at the wedding of Nicole and Adam. Or is it Aaron? Or Arthur? Or Anthony? Oh heck, the rabbi can't remember, although he attempts in earnest to list all the things the couple has in common before an unfortunate collapse that leaves him deader than a doornail.

Making its St. Louis debut at the Fabulous Fox Theatre right now, a commanding drum beat kicks off a high-energy opening number to welcome the audience of Tony award-winning Come From Away: A New Musical. On its first North American tour with a book, music, and lyrics by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, you'll land on 'the rock' where, for the next 100 entertaining minutes, you'll be treated to a heaping helping of musical hospitality from the residents of Gander, Newfoundland. It is that ill-fated day of September 11, 2001, when 39 planes from around the world transporting close to 7,000 scared and angry passengers - as many as live in the whole town of Gander - are grounded here.

If you know Tennessee Williams, and I hope you do/will, you know there's a lot to unpack in his work. His characters are tormented and textured, plotlines layered with the riddles and aches of the human heart. There's no mercy when Tennessee Williams shines a flashlight into the darkest corners of a soul, and you will likely come away from the work exhausted and amazed for both the damage and any bit of renewal you've witnessed. Such is the case in The Night of the Iguana, playing at The Grandel Theatre now, as the main stage production of the 2019 Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis.

The distant sound of Atlantic Ocean waves receive you when you enter the theatre at the Kransberg Arts Center for Salt, Root, and Roe by Tim Price, which is currently making its US premier with Upstream Theater in partnership with Stages Repertory of Houston. When the lights dim, you'll be transported to a small village on the northern coast of modern-day Pembrokeshire, the most westerly part of Wales. An exterior beach in the foreground; an interior wood-planked room filled with packing boxes, small furnishings, and textiles just beyond that; and on the back wall, an illustrated representation of this place - Anest and Iola's seaside cottage - all aptly set the stage for what is to come.

In the intimate comfort of The Marcelle Theatre right now, you'll find two adjoining playing spaces-a grand library up top, and a bright, sunny room below. This is where an interestingly-constructed little love story comes to life. It is where Jennifer Theby Quinn and Terry Barber deliver a solid performance of Daddy Long Legs, a musical based on the classic novel which also inspired the 1955 movie featuring Fred Astaire, directed by Insight Theatre Company's Maggie Ryan.

An exposed-brick studio apartment in Brooklyn in 2009 is the setting for Time Stands Still, a moving play by Donald Margulies, directed by Doug Finlayson, playing now at The New Jewish Theatre. Romantic partners for 8 ½ years, photojournalist Sarah (Wendy Renee Greenwood) and war correspondent James (Ben Nordstrom), return home, Sarah's face bandaged, her arm in a sling, and her leg bound with a brace as she struggles to maneuver on crutches. We don't know exactly what has happened just yet, but we know it's bad, as the play opens with poignant silences, emerging compromises, and a shared consideration for anguish. We soon learn that the couple has covered the horrors of combat, famines, and genocides; that they have nearly died several times, and that as Sarah begins recovering from the physical wounds from a roadside bomb, James has already been home and is on meds recovering from his emotional ones. The question associated with a recovery of this magnitude is, "What happens next?" And what happens after that and after that?

A play within a play, The Play that Goes Wrong is the tale of the Cornley University Drama Society which, despite several earlier snags, is opening their 1920s murder mystery, The Murder at Haversham Manor. In the moments just before the show opens, an audience member is recruited to help the tech crew (Ryan George as Trevor Watson and Ka-Ling Cheung as Annie Twilloil) mend a few set issues. No biggie, though. It's just a broken mantlepiece that holds several key props. And a main entrance from backstage with a door that won't stay closed. Or open. Or closed. There are a couple of floor planks that need to be nailed in, still. And there's a missing Duran Duran CD somewhere in the theatre. Oh, and a missing dog. What could possibly go wrong? Right?

You don't even have go in a fan to enjoy Beautiful: The Carole King Musical but once you are at The Fabulous Fox and are reminded of all one woman has accomplished in a lifetime of singer/songwriting, you just may go out humming her entire body of work.

If you're a Gen-Xer and/or you've ever belted every totally awesome lyric of a Journey song from the confines of your car and/or you've ever chased a bitchin' dream, you won't want to miss Rock of Ages' one-weekend run at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. Plotted around songs by Styx, Poison, Twisted Sister, Europe, Bon Jovi, Pat Benetar, and many, many other familiar favorites, this over-the-top, bad-to-the-bone jukebox musical has no problem poking fun at the time period and at itself.

Adapted by William Kent Williams from Eleanor Estes' 1945 Newbery Honor-winning novel of the same title, The Hundred Dresses is the second play of Metro Theater Company's 46th season. Suitable for young theatre patrons, families, and for educators as well, this is the story of Wanda Petronski (Sophie Murk), a young Polish immigrant, who is the new kid in an American town.

2017 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Oslo, by J.T. Rogers, is Repertory Theatre St. Louis' artistic director Steven Woolf's final directing project before his retirement begins. It is the story of the Norwegian couple-an academic and social scientist, Terje, who has developed a new approach to conflict resolution, and his clever wife, Mona, who is a dignitary in the office of the Foreign Ministry-who together initiated and facilitated clandestine peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1992 and 1993; talks that would highlight the past and decide the futures of two peoples, each having reasonable grievances, though each striving to find resolution.

Avenue Q, winner of the 2004 Tony awards for Best Book, Best Musical, and Best Score, makes its Playhouse at Westport Plaza debut, and, although I've seen other fine productions of this musical, Westport is the perfect venue-intimate and cozy-for this beloved brazen show.

Playwrights Kristen Adele Calhoun and Michael Thomas Walker's new drama, Canfield Drive, received its world premier this month, after being co-commissioned by 651 Arts in partnership with The St. Louis Black Repertory Company and the National Performance Network. Under development for the past four years, this breathtaking new play takes a hard, serious look at incidents and attitudes surrounding the August 14, 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, the Ferguson protests that followed, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Calhoun and Walker, whose work is well-researched and hard-hitting, uses a documentary theatre structure, its many short scenes based on interviews from people around Ferguson and around the nation whose voices might not necessarily have been heard in traditional media coverage.

Carl Overly, Jr. has made his directorial debut with the St. Louis premier of The Motherf**ker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis at R-S Theatrics, and it is an effort to be applauded. This play, as you might suspect from its title, is graphic and realistic, a dramedy about people who survive in the gritty real world, and all the circular ways in which they hurt one another. It has been described as a 'high-octane verbal cage match about love, fidelity, and misplaced haberdashery,' and it is all of that and more.

Max & Louie Productions has opened its 10th season with the St. Louis premier of the one-woman show Love, Linda at The Marcelle. Debby Lennon, a member of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus for 31 seasons, plays the elegant Linda Lee Thomas (aka Mrs. Cole Porter), whose devotion to her husband drove much of his career. She, a wealthy divorcee, begins by telling how she mistook a piano-playing Porter for the “hired help” at a wedding reception and invited him to entertain at a dinner party soon after. Despite the blunder, Porter showed up to play and their partnership blossomed.

This, as the opening line of Alabama Story tells us, is a story about two rabbits. It's a story about 1959 Montgomery, where cotton is king, where conservative white men call all the shots, and where books that might be about integration are censored. It is a battle of wills between a segregationist senator and a cultivated state librarian regarding a children's book wherein one rabbit happens to be black and one happens to be white. It is a story of childhood friends Lily and Joshua who encounter one another later in life and reminisce over their shared memories while illuminating the dramatic differences in their human experience. It is based on a true story. It is reflective of many true stories.

Anyone familiar with the Tony-Award-winning musical adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables knows it is a grand indulgence for the eyes, ears, and mind. The Cameron Mackintosh and Networks touring production (with new staging and reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo!) does not disappoint.

Based on the classic Charles Dickens novel, the Nebraska Theatre Caravan's touring production of the musical A Christmas Carol opened for this weekend only on December 6 at The Fox. It is the moving tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, whose devotion to his money interferes with his ability to make meaningful human connections.