Recent Reviews
Review: A Charlie Brown Christmas by Zach Theatre
by Vanessa Hoang Hughes
Published on November 20, 2025
Welcome (or welcome back) to the world of Charlie Brown, everyone who's young at heart!
A Charlie Brown Christmas follows Charles Schulz's beloved cartoon character Charlie Brown as he struggles to find the true meaning of the holidays. Charlie’s then appointed to direct the annual Christmas play put on by the classic Peanuts crew. The audience discovers the value of Christmas and importance of friendship along with Charlie Brown as he strives to put on the perfect festive play. The show, directed by Betty Marie Muessig, is staged in the …
Review: Caesar & Antony & Cleopatra by Walking Shadow Shakespeare
by Hannah Neuhauser
Published on November 16, 2025
Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project's two-fer becomes a brilliantly designed post-apocalyptic survival fantasy—one cool adaptation!
We are, but countrymen - a silent audience, witnessing the faults and plights of those who are in power, wielding our lives like grains of sand underneath someone’s foot. In Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project’s latest production Caesar + Antony + Cleopatra, director Stephanie Crugnola merges Shakespeare’s political tragedies Julius Caesar (1599) and Antony and Cleopatra (1607) into a post-apocalyptic survival fantasy. Marc Antony (Laura D’Eramo), warrior of Rome, must choose his allegiance – his lover …
Review: Much Ado About Nothing by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 14, 2025
MMNT's MUCH ADO is full of tears, laughter, dancing, singing, flirting, scheming, and acceptance. It's not overly reverential and makes the classic story its own.
“I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.” The distance between mirth and matter sometimes seems like a marathon worth of miles and sometimes seems like mere meters. Much Ado About Nothing is mostly mirth but it’s matter still… well matters. The plot of the play is atypical Shakespeare on a meta level. It contains all the most well-known Shakespearean elements: double entendres, puns, mistaken identity, forbidden love, shotgun weddings, inept authority figures, …
Review: House of Frankenstein by Silent House Theatre (SH.), Waco
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2025
Silent House's HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN by company member Jamie Coblentz is audacious in concept and SH's production was thoroughly astonishing. It merits this rave review.
Silent House's House of Frankenstein, which ran for the five evenings culminating on Halloween, astonished. For the intellectual but gripping treatment of its subject matter, for language which flawlessly evoked early nineteenth-century Britain, for the uniformly expert and convincing performances of its fourteen-member cast, for direction, lighting, special effects and music, and the evocative venue of the historic McCulloch mansion in Waco. Okay, do you hear me raving? Let's face it, the end of the …
Review: The Outsiders by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 02, 2025
It was great. Truly entertaining, fast-pced, familiar, a story flowing fast and loose. Solid performances by an energetic young cast.
The Tulsa Race Massacre happened on May 31st and June 1st, 1921. Thirty-five square blocks of the neighborhood known as "Black Wall Street" were destroyed, thirty-nine Black people were killed and more than eight hundred were hospitalized. Approximately six thousand were imprisoned in detention camps. This event cast a long shadow over the city that a sixteen-year-old Susan Eloise Hinton began writing about in 1965. Hers was a world of deep-seated segregation, gang violence, parental …
Review: Dulce by Ramón Esquivel, Scottish Rite Theater, Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 31, 2025
DULCE at the Scottish Rite Theatre is a sweet tale that plays effectively for all its audience members, whether young or old.
Ramón Esquivel's Dulce speaks of loss, memory, growing up and death. It's no Halloween show; it's far gentler than that. Esquivel uses a young boy's frustrations and dreams to construct a picture of a struggling but brave immigrant family. A single mom has just lost her own mother and must also deal with two boisterous children who don't entirely understand what has happened—either the disappearance of their grandmother or the hardships their elders overcame to …