MUSICAL THEATRE GUILD OF BUTLER

by Greg Kerestan - March 20, 2025

The first thing I noticed in the theatre at City Theatre's Birthday Candles was the set. I'm a longtime lover of thrift shops, junk shops and the maximalist 'detail everywhere' aesthetic of the Disney Imagineers. My companion for the night and I spent the preshow prying the set apart with our eyes (...

by Greg Kerestan - March 09, 2025

One of the oddest dramedies in recent history is also one of the most satisfyingly heartfelt....

by Greg Kerestan - February 15, 2025

It's a very good play about a very bad play. That's the capsule version of what you'll see at Justin Emeka's production of Alice Childress's once-controversial Trouble in Mind. Though written in 1955, the mix of seriousness and satire in the piece feels shockingly contemporary, both in terms of its ...

by Greg Kerestan - February 12, 2025

Frank Wildhorn's Jekyll & Hyde has long been a divisive show among theatre fans. Is it a worthy follow-up to the other literary-based megamusicals of the eighties and nineties, like Les Miserables, Martin Guerre and Miss Saigon? Or is it a trashy, boneheaded knockoff of Sweeney Todd with more power ...

by Greg Kerestan - February 03, 2025

Remember Jones is funny, but he isn't a joke. There's a knowing kitsch value to the cabaret artist turned rock revue revivalist's stage presence: he looks like Elton John, dresses like Liberace and sings like Joe Cocker, on a stage full of bandstands and matching-jacketed musicians. But this isn't a...

by Greg Kerestan - January 30, 2025

In some ways, Lolita Chakrabarti's Life of Pi, adapted from the novel by Yann Martel and directed by Max Webster, can feel like a grown-up version of the puppet-heavy visual multimedia spectacles often seen in high-end children's theatre....

by Greg Kerestan - December 18, 2024

It has long been posited that Sherlock Holmes is difficult to adapt well, because the nature of Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Sherlock Universe' is so fragmented. Most of his memorable characters apppear only once and rarely interact; even more vexing, Holmes's own behaviors vary from the misanthropic and c...

by Greg Kerestan - December 15, 2024

CLO's seasonal favorites may not be new, but they have yet to wear out their welcome....

by Greg Kerestan - December 04, 2024

I keep saying it and it keeps being true: it doesn't really matter what Front Porch announces for their season, because 'Front Porch Presents' is a strong enough endorsement on its own. If you told me Front Porch was presenting a notorious snooze like In My Life or Lestat, I'd put my preconceived no...

by Greg Kerestan - November 21, 2024

Like the King of Pop himself, this adventurous jukebox psychodrama blends darkness with joy....