Review: THE MUSIC MAN Is Still Charming at Pittsburgh CLO
by Greg Kerestan - July 11, 2024
I'll admit, I had a huge smile on my face all the way through The Music Man that had little to nothing to do with the production itself. You see, I'm a nerd and a theatre kid in my thirties, and to that demographic, there was a cultural phenomenon just as big as Monty Python and Star Trek were to Ge...
Review: UNNECESSARY FARCE Updates the Formula at Saint Vincent Summer Theatre
by Greg Kerestan - June 28, 2024
The funny thing about farce as a genre is it seems to be perpetually stuck in the past; the constant misunderstandings, cross-dressing and door-slamming seem tied to a time before the internet, before cell phones... hell, maybe even before the Pill. It's a Ken Ludwig world that seems tied to the Ken...
Review: THE COLOR PURPLE Brings All the Feels at Pittsburgh CLO
by Greg Kerestan - June 28, 2024
As a literature major, part of me has always found it unbelievable that tight, two-hour adaptations of Alice Walker's The Color Purple have been so successful. The novel is sprawling, complex and dense, with an epistolary structure not unlike the similarly tricky-to-adapt Dracula. Nonetheless, my st...
Review: THE COFFIN MAKER Deftly Blends Genres at Pittsburgh Public Theater
by Greg Kerestan - June 05, 2024
Folks, this is a first. I've been writing reviews for BWW for about ten years now, and rarely have I seen a new work that so deftly and fearlessly blends genres and tones together. Director Monteze Freeland and playwright Mark Clayton Southers have achieved the impossible: The Coffin Maker is an exe...