Connecticut Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 20

BWW Review: A WONDERFUL LIFE at Goodspeed Opera House
by Joseph Harrison - October 19, 2015

It's a tricky thing when a popular film is adapted for the musical stage. Sometimes it works and sometimes it simply falls flat. For A WONDERFUL LIFE, presented by Goodspeed Musicals, it falls somewhere in-between. To be fair, It's A Wonderful Life is not just a "popular film", it's practically an A...

BWW Review: THIRD at TheaterWorks
by Karen Bovard - October 12, 2015

The title character of THIRD is male:  Woodson Bull III, called 'Third' for short.  He's a blonde, blue-eyed athlete, with the kind of name that suggests he's a scion of a powerful upper class family-but looks can be deceiving. Unfortunately, the central character in the play, Professor Laurie James...

BWW Review: THE ODYSSEY: AN EPIC DANCE JOURNEY at Carol Autorino Center, University Of St. Joseph
by Karen Bovard - October 12, 2015

Hartford, Connecticut's Sonia Plumb Dance Company is celebrating its 25th anniversary season with an ambitious original production:  THE ODYSSEY: AN EPIC DANCE JOURNEY....

BWW Review: TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE at Playhouse On Park
by Joseph Harrison - October 05, 2015

At the beginning of the premiere production of Playhouse on Park's seventh season, TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, we learn that we are present for the last class taught by Morrie Schwartz, and that Mitch Albom, the author of the book on which the play is based, will be the sole student. But seated in the aud...

BWW Review: AN OPENING IN TIME at Hartford Stage Company
by Karen Bovard - September 29, 2015

At the top of Christopher Shinn's new play at Hartford Stage, AN OPENING IN TIME, the lights never dim to blackout. Instead, they brighten to lead us into a familiar suburban world occupied by a collection of characters whose lives intertwine as they yearn, in varied ways, to love and be loved....

BWW Reviews: BEDROOM FARCE Leaves Audiences in Stitches as Westport Country Playhouse's Grown-Up Bedtime Tale
by Lindsey Sullivan - August 31, 2015

Alan Ayckbourn makes another delightful, not-so-clean comedy sweep at Westport Country Playhouse with Bedroom Farce. The play captures all the fun, frustration, fighting, frivolity, and fidgeting that inevitably goes into any all-nighter....

BWW Reviews: I'LL EAT YOU LAST in Hartford
by Karen Bovard - August 10, 2015

TheaterWorks in Hartford is closing out its 29th season with the one-woman talk fest based on one of Hollywood's first female super agents:  Sue Mengers.   "Gossip is mother's milk to me," she says, and, indeed, the performance is an 80 minute dish session without intermission....

BWW Reviews: Playhouse on Park Closes Season With a HAIR Do
by Jacques Lamarre - July 13, 2015

Playhouse on Park lets their freak flag fly....

BWW Reviews: GOOD PEOPLE at TheaterWorks in Hartford
by Karen Bovard - June 01, 2015

Hartford's a good city for a production of David Lindsay-Abaire's play GOOD PEOPLE, which centers on questions of class in America: how is it that some people get out of the 'hood' and get ahead while others who work plenty hard don't?...

BWW Reviews: KISS ME KATE at Hartford Stage Company
by Karen Bovard - May 26, 2015

Director Darko Tresnjak, who won big with A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER on Broadway last season, has masterminded another Broadway-style musical confection with his new production of KISS ME KATE at the Hartford Stage Company....

BWW Reviews: GUYS AND DOLLS at Goodspeed Opera House
by Karen Bovard - May 04, 2015

The current production of GUYS AND DOLLS at Goodspeed is infectious, fast, and smart. It does Frank Loesser's topnotch score justice, nailing the balance between vocalists and the pit orchestra, letting us enjoy both the witty lyrics and memorable tunes of so many of the best songs ever written for...

BWW Reviews: PLAYING THE ASSASSIN at TheaterWorks
by Karen Bovard - April 06, 2015

Impassioned and topical, David Robson's new play at TheaterWorks in Hartford offers a gripping confrontation between two men: one a former football legend, the other a generation younger....

BWW Reviews: THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE at Hartford Stage Company
by Karen Bovard - April 04, 2015

Historically accurate, THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE at Hartford Stage Company is genuinely uplifting due to the tremendous virtuosity of Mona Golabek, the sole performer. This is especially true as she uses the piano to tell a story that matters deeply to her: her own mother's life....

BWW Reviews: THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE at Yale Repertory Theater
by Karen Bovard - March 30, 2015

Yale Rep's production of Bertolt Brecht's classic CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE is very faithful to his intentions as a politically motivated playwright and theorist....

BWW Reviews: BAND OF THE BLACK HAND at Connecticut Repertory Theatre
by Karen Bovard - March 30, 2015

BAND OF THE BLACK HAND is a stage mashup of film noir tropes (both visual and story based), interpreted with the aid of clever shadow screen work derived from Indonesian puppetry roots....

BWW Reviews: LYSISTRATA at Connecticut Repertory Theatre
by Karen Bovard - March 16, 2015

Outrageous, bawdy, and pointed: LYSISTRATA may be one of the oldest comedies we have (written in 411 B.C.E. by the great Greek troublemaker Aristophanes) but it remains both wickedly funny and pertinent. He wrote it 20 years into a bloody war that seemed endless. His premise? Have women conspire to ...

BWW Reviews: REVERBERATION at Hartford Stage Company
by Karen Bovard - March 02, 2015

Loneliness in the big city takes center stage in Matthew Lopez' new play at Hartford Stage Company....

BWW Reviews: THE DINING ROOM at Playhouse On Park
by Karen Bovard - February 25, 2015

Order. Decorum. Control. In A.R. Gurney's play, these are the values celebrated in the ritual of formal dinner parties of yore. We glimpse the barest beginning of one in the final, elegiac moments of his first widely successful play....

BWW Reviews: DANCING LESSONS at TheaterWorks
by Karen Bovard - February 10, 2015

She's a Broadway dancer who's sustained a devastating injury and may never dance again. He's a brilliant but autistic professor with an extreme aversion to touch. What brings them together? He's got to learn enough dance moves to survive an upcoming gala where he's the honoree....

VIDEO: Preview Connecticut Playmakers' MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS; Runs 3/20-28
by Robert Diamond - February 07, 2015

The madcap antics behind a script overhaul that led to the iconic film 'Gone With The Wind' unravel as comedic farce in the first of at least two productions Connecticut Playmakers is offering for its 68th year of Broadway-style theater in Greenwich....

BWW Reviews: PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE at Long Warf Theatre
by Melinda Zupaniotis - December 15, 2014

A Short Comedy to Liven up your Holiday Season...

BWW Reviews: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PLAY at Westport Community Theatre
by Cindy Cardozo - December 11, 2014

Westport Community Theatre's production of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO PLAY is a perfect way to jump start your holiday spirit....

BWW Reviews: THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND: THE SONGS OF KANDER & EBB at Music Theatre of Connecticut
by Cindy Cardozo - November 14, 2014

Music Theatre of Connecticut opened their 28th season with a re-imagined production of The World Goes 'Round: The Songs of Kander & Ebb. With a talented cast of musicians and an uber-talented cast of performers, this show will captivate and delight anyone who loves musical theater....

BWW Reviews: Square One Theatre Company Invites You to A WALK IN THE WOODS
by Cindy Cardozo - November 14, 2014

This play combines comedy and drama to give an intelligent and compelling look at the delicate art of arms negotiations between Russian and American diplomats....

BWW Reviews: Darien Arts Center Explores the Dark Side in GOD OF CARNAGE
by Cindy Cardozo - November 13, 2014

This refreshingly feral and ferociously funny production is a brutally honest look at the instinctual animal natures that manners and etiquette merely mask....