Reviews for Emily Ann Theatre Performances
Review: Jane Eyre: An Epic Musical Love Story by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 13, 2019
With the musical drama JANE EYRE the Emily Ann Theatre in Wimberley targets and generally achieves a level of sophistication and excellence in musical performance that's rare in community-based theatre. And there's not a bad seat in the house.
Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has long been beloved. Like Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, it takes a solitary, often teenaged reader back to the dark and unforgiving class structures of England's 19th century. Both novels profile protagonists of humble origin who survive, grow up and eventually achieve their goals thanks to diligence, character, and a touch of good luck. Jane's story, published in 1841, is the darker of the two. Paul Gordon and John Caird's musical drama …
Review: Godspell by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 12, 2015
As in most high-energy small-cast musicals, if you don't know individual cast members at the start, you'll feel that you do by the finale.
Medieval guilds and church clergy organized the mystery plays performed before cathedrals or in town pageants. The aim was devotional and pedagogical. Church services were conducted in impenetrable Latin, but festive costumes and drama of Bible stories vividly conveyed stories of the Old and New Testaments to populations that were devout but illiterate. Of the three 'tribal' musicals of late mid-twentieth-century American theatre, the 1970 Godspell by John-Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz is closest to …
Review: The Tempest by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 25, 2011
Bridget's Gang has a good time with their Shakespeare, and they're happy to greet the audience at the conclusion of the play. Like the institution of the EmilyAnn itself, they provide this community with a place of delight -- a magic island in the archipelago of the Hill Country.
In this hottest Texas summer on record you could be pardoned for suffering a touch of cognitive dissonance when you decide to drive through the beginnings of the Hill Country, 45 minutes southwest of Austin, to attend Shakespeare's last work, set upon a magical island surrounded by the Mediterranean. Wimberley, Texas, is ranch country, and these days the rolling landscape is starkly dry. Even the EmilyAnn's illustration reveals the situation: Laura Ray, portraying magician's daughter …
Review: Grease by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 17, 2010
These characters will continue to exist in our imaginations and in their never-never land, especially when they're revived by stagings as smooth, happy and professional as this one.
The EmilyAnn Theatre in Wimberley is not outside space and time, although from Austin you're going to take a leisurely 45-minute drive through the hill country to get there. And Wimberley may be in ranch land, but it's anything but rural. Witness the presence there of two lively and effective theatre organizations, the EmilyAnn with its outdoor amphitheatre and the Wimberley Players in their snug playhouse on Old Kyle Road. Rather, it's Grease that stands outside …
Review: The Elephant Man by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 04, 2010
The confinement of the playing space emphasizes the confinement of the characters -- not only that of Merrick in his lamed body and hospital refuge but also those constraints placed upon others by their social roles and their institutions.
Director Bridget Farias and the EmilyAnn Theatre crew in Wimberley are running The Elephant Man Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for four weekends in January and February, an intrepid undertaking for a community-based arts group in a town with a population of only about 4,000. More impressive than their raw courage in taking on a tough script and slow-motion tragedy is the fact that they carry it out with grace and depth. The company creates a protected time and …
Review: Julius Caesar by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 14, 2009
This production moves fast and far, regularly penetrating the audience space or plunging into the semi-lighted woods on either side of the stage.
The conspirators of the Ides of March are at work deep in the hills south of Austin, Texas.Wimberley is a township with a population of fewer than 4000 persons, but its EmilyAnn Theatre is currently staging a muscular, articulate Julius Caesar that is well worth the winding 45-minute drive through ranch country.Known principally for summer musicals and the long running annual "Shakespeare Under The Stars" for young people, the park and outdoor amphitheatre of the …