Reviews for touring company Performances
Review: Anastasia by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on February 14, 2019
ANASTASIA is a spectacle in more ways than one: background videos, lighting, wildly entertaining choreography, period costume design, and Lila Coogan's lilting and powerful voice.
The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was born in June of 1901 and passed away at the young age of 17 in 1918. Or did she? Modern fable, urban myth, or conspiracy theory, call it what you like, but this mystery has gripped many minds for many years. Anastasia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. Though he had abdicated the year before, Nicholas and his family were executed by …
Review: Zvizdal by touring company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 12, 2019
One left the theatre emotionally disturbed but understanding clearly how the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone was transformed into a secret island and enchanted oasis,.
Much like the recent Heartland, the mixed media presentation (video documentary, music, scale modeling, digital compositing) Zvizdal [Chernobyl—So Far So Close] brings huge geopolitical issues home to individuals who are living their lives with the best of intentions. Part of the title refers to the name of the abandoned, wrecked village in the middle of the nuclear exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded and melted down in 1986. Video teams researched and won permission …
Review: Waitress by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 24, 2019
Christine Dwyer, as our titular waitress Jenna, has a goose-bump-inducing voice and an onstage aplomb that was neither over-bearing or restrained. It would be silly to say she stole the show, when she actually WAS the show.
“Sugar. Butter. Flour” These three words begin the show and are a common refrain through out the next two acts. It’s a simple and sweet refrain for a simple but not always sweet story. Our titular waitress learns in the first scene that she is expecting and must quickly re-evaluate her life -- but then again not really, because the truth is she has long known what she wants and, perhaps more tellingly, that what …
Review: Paradise by touring company
by Samantha Hendel
Published on January 14, 2019
A visiting “For Profit Prophet” promises a financial revolution if the people of Paradise agree to use a reality TV show to raise money. The townsfolk aren’t completely sold; they’re just good ol’ hillbillies who enjoy their way of life.
Austin Playhouse is hosting LA-based Ruskin Theatre’s bluegrass musical comedy Paradise: A Town of Sinners and Saints through February 3. This is apparently a first for Austin’s #2 commercial stage, housed for several years now at the former Highland Mall. For well over a decade Don Toner, his daughter Lora Toner Haddock, his son Mike Toner and associates have relied on a stalwart company of local artists and a strong clientele of subscribers to …
Review: Love Never Dies by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 29, 2018
This is very much a sequel in the Hollywood sense, in that one gets the impression that the producers and creative team sat down and made a list of everything fans loved about THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and then began checking things off that list.
Love Never Dies is Austin’s latest chance to see Broadway theater on their doorstep. First things first, it is a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, which makes it an ambitious production on multiple levels. Not only was Phantom hugely successful, but it still is, and it continues to run all over the world. The official website reports it has played to more than 140 million people in 35 countries in 166 cities around the …
Review: The Book of Mormon by touring company
by Justin M. West
Published on April 24, 2018
If you have yet to see this show, you owe it to yourself. The laughs come fast and furious and straight from the gut, with hardly a moment to spare.
In 2010, you’d have been forgiven for laughing at the suggestion that the 2011 Tony Award winner for Best Musical would discuss such scholarly subjects as magical sex frogs, scrotal parasites, and why one should probably not attempt to engage in coitus with an infant. But, after its premiere in 2011, The Book of Mormon did just that, and had its audiences crying with laughter in the process. The brainchild of South Park creators …