Reviews for Scottish Rite Theater Performances
Review: Barney Carey Gets His Wings by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 29, 2024
Irish playwright Brendan Murray creates a bright, deep world where both the young audience and attending adults can soar enthusiastically. This is a thoughtful, playful and effective lesson, especially for first-time theatregoers.
Children's theatre—well performed, as Austin's Scottish Rite Theatre does—is magic. The young person's world of play and imagination is lit by a play crafted with imagination. One sure, snug adult pleasure is to sit close to the stage, the actors and musicians, and the very young in the audience with their family members. There's very little suspension of disbelief, for there's a lot of wide-eyed, appreciative, open belief. Magic and enchantments are immediately accepted, as …
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 14, 2016
Susan Gaye Todd's staging of Shakespeare's THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR was a gem in a jewel box, a cleverly ironic cross-gendering of a middling Shakespeare comedy that gave it joy and bite.
Susan Gaye Todd's staging of The Merry Wives of Windsor was a gem in a jewel box. For the last couple of years Todd has directed the theatre programs at the Scottish Rite Theatre (SRT) in downtown Austin, housed in a 19th century building just south of the University of Texas. The SRT has long played to audiences of children and parents, and Todd has continued that tradition with something of a quirky international flair …
Review: Alice In Wonderland (SRT) by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 18, 2010
The problem with nonsense, of course, is that it just doesn't make -- sense. Dear Alice faces enigma after enigma, encountering the most positively arbitrary personages the author could imagine.
Macey Mayfield with her china doll good looks and silvery little voice is a lovely match for the imaginary Alice whom Lewis Carroll sent off to Wonderland. Children's theatre in the style of the Scottish Rite Theatre requires of actors a special willingness and ability. The actors have their audience just two steps away, on mats spread in the wide open space at the center of the theatre. SRCT scripts pretty much banish the fourth wall, as …
Review: The Little Mermaid by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 13, 2009
SRCT keeps it simple, keeps it colorful and keeps it moving. The four actors and stage manager are funny and appealing. Characterization is broad and comic. The cast frequently speaks directly to the audience.
The excitement of theatre vibrates in the air in the classic space of the Scottish Rite Children's Theatre in central Austin. On Saturdays, Sundays, and some mid-week performance days a bubbling crew of 3-to-8-year-olds occupies the mats in the center of the auditorium, while parents and less daring children occupy the conventional theatre seats. The energy level is as high as any Broadway opening night. This is a volatile crowd, in the literal sense of …
Review: As You Like It by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 10, 2009
No tears, no swashbuckling, lots of laughter at human folly -- this is a captivating night of amusements.
As You Like It is one of the gentlest and most whimsical of Shakespeare's works, a playful edifice built on oppositions.The court versus the forest, autocratic brothers excluding their less influentialbrothers; lovers vying in vain for their ladies and, inevitably, a fair maid cross-dressing as a fair youth. An aged servant finances with his last savings the flight into the forest of his impetuous young master. That master braves a fight for the sake of his ancient …
Review: The Frog Prince, musical by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 15, 2009
how often are you going to get to see a grown-up frog do a rap lesson foretelling the plot? He can't reveal to anyone his real princely identity, and (1) he has to live in the palace, (2) the princess has to tell him a secret, and (3) she has to fall in love with him.
Concerning children's theatre, let me come clean in the first paragraph. By the time I was 18 I had performed as a pasha, a pirate and a king for a children's theatre in north Alabama. I was stage-struck for life. That particular community children's theatre is entering its 49th season. The Scottish Rite Children's Theatre (SRCT) is much younger than that but it is much more richly endowed. Established in 2004 through the efforts of …