A whodunit gone haywire
At first, “Every Five Minutes” suggests a whodunit. Jay Jagim’s set threatens to drown us; it suggests a swimming pool, blue, sloping away to the far corner. Laura Sparks’ [...]
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Posted May 18, 2016in Center Stage
Posted May 11, 2016in Center Stage
Kathy Griffin, pumped up for crazy business
Over the phone, Kathy Griffin comes on like gangbusters. The call is just one in a long day of interviews — Griffin’s comedy tour is hitting 80 cities — [...]
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Posted May 04, 2016in Center Stage
Two dudes and big smiles
“What Matt and Trey do is an amazing thing,” exclaims Daxton Bloomquist, referring to Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of “The Book of Mormon,” the uproarious musical about [...]
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Posted April 27, 2016in Center Stage
The thrill of the silence
For Improvised Shakespeare Company, according to Joey Bland, part of the thrill of opening in a new town is the silence. “In a city where we haven’t played much, for [...]
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Posted April 20, 2016in Center Stage
Double-barreled bard
Rest in peace, William Shakespeare? Not with this ruckus. April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death, and theaters around the world are celebrating the occasion, including [...]
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Posted April 13, 2016in Center Stage
Orphans singing anthems
Daddy Warbucks has thought a lot lately about Donald Trump. Our day-glo presidential wannabe, after all, can seem something like Warbucks, the tycoon who adopted Lil’ Orphan Annie. In [...]
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Posted April 06, 2016in Center Stage, Featured Story
Silence and song
Few community theaters would take the risk Tallgrass has in “Children of a Lesser God.” The 1986 movie made a star of Marlee Matlin, the first deaf actor to [...]
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Posted April 01, 2016in Center Stage
Who ya gonna call?
When Wanda Sykes came to Hoyt Sherman recently, she wound up in a horror show. A bat swooped down on her onstage. Sykes kept up the patter, but she got [...]
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Posted March 23, 2016in Center Stage
Jeans, a work shirt and a sense of wonder
When you ask Nate Staniforth what inspired his stripped-down brand of magic — doing the impossible right under our noses — he says it was his first Bob Dylan concert. [...]
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Posted March 16, 2016in Center Stage
Shadows on a seesaw
Tennessee Williams finds strange ways to break your heart. Toward the end of “The Glass Menagerie,” his first masterwork, there is a crushing moment when the hapless Laura hands Jim, [...]
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