Reviews for Alchemy Theatre Company Performances
Review: Grand Hotel by Alchemy Theatre Company, Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 05, 2025
GRAND HOTEL is one of Austin's best theatre experiences of the current season. Maybe the very best. More, please; this is quality theatre art in every detail.
Grand Hotel is one of Austin's best theatre experiences of the current season. Maybe the best. This musical rendition of the complex, interlocking stories of guests and staff of a Berlin hotel began as a 1929 novel, followed by a play that same year, followed by a 1932 Hollywood-star-studded movie that was the uncontested winner of the 1932 Academy Award for Best Picture, followed by this 1989 musical theatre adapation. Entering the intimate Whisenhut theatre …
Review: KING OF HEARTS by Alchemy Theatre Company, May 31 - June 16, 2024
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 07, 2024
Alchemy Theatre's magic takes place almost within reach of the audience in a whimsical, savagely satirical and charming "lost" musical from 1976.
Alchemy Theatre’s magic is potent, both because of its powerful ingredients and because it’s been brewing for a long time. Artistic Michael Cooper’s concept of reviving neglected musicals dates back to before 2020, for that’s when Alchemy cast Mack and Mabel, the 1974 musical that closed after 66 Broadway performances. COVID delayed the Austin production until 2022. In 2023 the company recreated the 1976 musical The Baker’s Wife, which toured the U.S. but never made …
Review: The Baker's Wife by Alchemy Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 13, 2023
There's always pain within comedy; in THE BAKER'S WIFE with beautiful performances by Sarah-Marie Curry and Sebastian Vitale pain teaches us something.
There's an achingly beautiful love story at the center of The Baker's Wife. Sebastian Vitale as Aimable Castaignet the baker, newly arrived in the tiny village of Concorde, is quiet, a bit battered, and absolutely devoted to his young wife. Sarah Marie Curry's Geneviève was battered emotionally somewhere else along the way and rescued by the baker, much older; she's withdrawn, correct with him but short-spoken with others in Concorde. Love yearns in both directions …
Review: The Virgin Trial by Alchemy Theatre Company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on September 18, 2022
Character-driven and gripping, THE VIRGIN TRIAL is a night of must-see theater, both timely and timeless. Soleil Patterson is a powerhouse as Bess, the future Elizabeth I
Austin’s own Alchemy Theater continues to do its part to take on challenging drama with vital political significance. While it would certainly be easier to fall back on feel-good performances especially during such trying times, the company persists on producing daring theater which sparks not only joy but heartfelt conversation. Their latest offering, Kate Hennig’s The Virgin Trial (originally produced in the U.S. at the Cygnet Theatre in San Diego in September, 2019) tells the …
Review #2 of 2: Mack and Mabel, A Musical Love Story by Alchemy Theatre Company, Austin
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 03, 2022
The story of Mack and Mabel is not often told but it is a story as old as Hollywood itself, full of goals and aspirations as big as the letters of the famous Hollywood sign. And as with many Greek myths, the higher one reaches for dreams, the farther there is to fall.
Mack and Mabel opened on Broadway in 1974, garnered eight Tony nominations, and closed after only eight weeks. It is known for the songs “I Won’t Send Roses,” “I Promise You a Happy Ending," and "Hundreds of Girls" which were composed by Jerry Herman, who also brought the world La Cage aux Folles and Hello, Dolly! The musical was written by Michal Stewart, known for Bye Bye Birdie, Carnival!, and 42nd Street. The debut production …
Review: Mack and Mabel, A Musical Love Story by Alchemy Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 04, 2022
This is almost certainly your last chance to enjoy in person the heights and experience the depths of Herman's gorgeously sad musical tragedy. It will stay with you long after the applause fades.
An image comes to mind for the musical theatre piece Mack and Mabel (1974) by Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman: a black pearl, infinitely rare, darkly lustrous, almost never seen. I see so many ways to approach this piece: Michael Cooper's darkly intimate staging of it in the oddly shaped forty-seat Mastrogeorge Theater used by the Carol Hickey Acting Studio; discussion of the sparkling, sometimes blazing talents of this choice cast; examination of why this …