Recent Reviews
Review: The Book Club Play by Different Stages
by Amanda Paz
Published on April 10, 2019
The spectacular chemistry evident among the five actors in THE BOOK CLUB PLAY brought the characters to life. Standouts were Kelsey Mazak and Makayla Perez.
Secrets and gossip are part of having friends. There may come a time too much is revealed and no one can take it anymore. In The Book Club Play Karen Zacarias introduces five characters who come together to form a book club. The revelation of their different personalities keeps the club continually interesting. Ana the club leader is a control freak trying to hide it, and Robert is a washed-up college quarterback who doesn’t …
Review: 100 Planes by Filigree Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 06, 2019
With 100 PLANES Elizabeth Newman and Stephanie Moore have another found a challenging script, set in the unfamiliar world of female Air Force pilots in the mid-1990's.
The Mastrogeorge is a microtheatre -- maybe a nanotheatre -- just off east Cesar Chavez on Pedernales, tucked behind Blue Owl brewing. This performance space has folding chairs for an audience of about 15 persons. Though it's stark and small, resembling a draped concrete box, surprising things happen here. The facility is associated with the Carol Hickey Acting Studio, so the focus is on the acting, which can be of high quality. Lila Rose …
Review #2 of 2: Fiddler on the Roof by Touring Company, Bass Concert Hall, April 2 - 7, 2019
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 03, 2019
This FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, 55 years after the Broadway premiere, offers scene after scene of vividly masterful scenography, lithe and exuberant dancing, family conflict, quirky characters, love and heartbreak. You'll be getting full value for your ticket.
The first worry for a reviewer of the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof playing this week at UT's Bass Concert Hall is whether there's really anything useful or insightful to be said about this epic musical. First produced on Broadway 55 years ago, it received 1965 Tony awards for best musical, best score and best book. That monster success has been revived five times on Broadway since then, at intervals averaging nine years. It has played …
Review #1 of 2: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF by touring company, Bass Concert Hall, April 2 - 7, 2019
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on April 03, 2019
This touring FIDDLER ON THE ROOF stays very faithful to the original and it may be a bit long for modern audiences. Yehezkel Lazarov with his invigorating comic zeal is perfectly cast as Tevye.
The Tony Award-nominated Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof is playing in Austin from April 2nd to April 7th(including matinees on Saturday and Sunday). And as with many Broadway epics this production has been lavished with praise from The New York Times to New York Magazine. This performance is presented by Texas Performing Arts (TPA), found on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, an organization that produces performances, educational events, and collaborations in their …
Review: Three Shitty Sons by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Amanda Paz
Published on April 03, 2019
Hannah Kenah's comedy THREE SHITTY SONS speaks to the confused amazement that many millennials like me experience in their everyday lives.
Hannah Kenah creates an amusing portrait of life with three rambunctious sons who love the holidays but wish their mother would hurry up and just drop dead. A woman narrator introduces these “shitty” sons and their mom but also gives us background and perspective by evoking the boys’ dad and sister, both deceased. The narrator eventually steps into this dysfunctional family and marries the youngest brother. Kenah even takes the action into the afterlife and …
Review: THE MOORS by Gaslight Baker Theatre, Lockhart
by Kara Bliss McGregor
Published on March 16, 2019
The accents, contemporary music, and occasional sharp modern dialogue in THE MOORS are bracing and hilarious. This cast is gleeful and deft in establishing the button-up Victorian conventions and then punching them in the face.
The “merciless strength” and delightful absurdity of The Moors The English moors are both the setting and a brooding character in the gothic writings of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Their 19thcentury fiction defined dark and stormy literary tropes made more compelling by having come from the imaginations of isolated young women living with a brother, aunt, and maid on the edge of the moors. The Moors by Jen Silverman reconstructs the …