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Review: BOOK OF DAYS at Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre kicks off its 2025 calendar year offerings with an offbeat murder mystery/character study by Lanford Wilson called BOOK OF DAYS performed at The Westport Bowery. The play, originally commissioned by Jeff Daniels in 1998 for his own small town (Michigan) theater company, is set in a southwestern Missouri rural community at a time not specifically named.
Lanford Wilson is best known for his naturalistic use of dialogue. His best- known work is the two-hander “Talley’s Folly.” BOOK OF DAYS draws on Wilson’s own theatrical roots in small-town America. He was from Lebanon, Missouri.
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Review: PARADE at Kauffman Theatre
The touring company of PARADE, now playing at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, recounts the sad, but true tale of Leo Frank and Mary Phagan. Mr. Frank was almost certainly falsely convicted of Ms. Phagan’s April 27, 1913 murder due to an early twentieth century eruption of rampant antisemitism.
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