Though its cast is extremely talented and its vibe is fun, the musical adaptation of the edgy, problematic 1983 film Trading Places, onstage at the Alliance Theatre through June 26, feels much too safe to be memorable. This feels like an odd conclusion to reach when Trading Places: The Musical has gender-swapped the Eddie Murphy […]
Alice Childress’s 1955 play about power and race in the theater is a satire and a tragedy that deserves to be a classic. So far this season, five plays by Black authors have opened on Broadway, each with something urgent to say. Whether despairing (“Pass Over”) or lighthearted (“Chicken & Biscuits”), broadly representative (“Thoughts of […]
The latest blockbuster video game just made entertainment history on its opening weekend, its publisher said Tuesday. Rockstar Games’ “Red Dead Redemption 2” skyrocketed to a $725 million worldwide retail consumer sales during its first three days. The studio’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, said in a release that the game had achieved “the single-biggest opening […]
Huge praise to director Don Stephenson and compliments to choreographer Kelli Barclay as they present a resplendent production of The Will Rogers Follies (subtitled A Life in Revue) at Goodspeed Opera House. Starring gracious, humble, nifty David M. Lutken as Will, the bright and breezy show continues in East Haddam, Connecticut, through June 21st. Working […]
Will Rogers is mostly forgotten now, but he used to be famous in a way that has a peculiarly modern feel to it. A self-styled Cherokee cowboy turned lariat-twirling vaudevillian, he told jokes, most of them political, in between rope tricks, blandly assuring his listeners that “all I know is what I read in the […]
Damn, there’s that bloody song again! It’ll worm its way into your earwaves during the overture, long before they proceed to stop the show and the act and the traffic outside City Center, and from past experience I can diagnose that it’ll take about three weeks to set it out to pasture. We speak, of […]
by Ted Otten Hot on the heels of the world premiere musical “A New World,” an unconventional retelling of the first American Thanksgiving story, New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse unveils that theater’s third brand new show of the year, yet another variation on the Charles Dickens’ holiday story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemptive encounter with three ghosts, […]
By Anthony Stoeckert There are so many Scrooges to choose from — Alastair Sim, George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey, Mr. Magoo, Fred Flintstone, the list goes on and on. No way we need yet another version of “A Christmas Carol,” right? Wrong! A genuine Christmas miracle is taking place at the Bucks County […]
by Tim Dunleavy How many versions of A Christmas Carol have you seen? Probably too many to count. But I can guarantee you’ve never seen one that mentions Doylestown, Lambertville and Peddler’s Village before. They all get shout-outs in Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG Playhouse Christmas Show, this year’s Yuletide offering at Bucks County Playhouse. Yes, it’s an […]
by John Dwyer The miracle of Christmas is just not a tale of Baby Jesus. The celebration of Chanukah is not just about the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after it had been profaned and the miracle of a one-day supply of oil lasting eight days. The miracle of these days in our lives […]
