Posted May 25, 2016in Center Stage
Performance around Des Moines keeps trying out new ventures. Just this spring, the city offers both experimental theater and “King Lear.” Two wilder options in the coming days showcase a budding community. One has a name both baffling and laughable: “LARP!” The initials stand for “Live Action Role Playing,”
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Posted May 18, 2016in Center Stage
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’ chatter, at the outset, grates on the nerves. Something is clearly awry for the friends gathered center stage. Their chairs
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Posted May 11, 2016in Center Stage
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 — but the machine-gun energy is the same as onstage. She sounds as if she’s waving her arms around, her red
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Posted May 04, 2016in Center Stage
“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 Mormons seeking converts in Africa. Bloomquist has been with the show for three years, but the subject still makes him
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Posted April 27, 2016in Center Stage
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 the first five minutes the audience isn’t sure what they’re watching,” he says. The tension feels scrumptious for Bland and
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Posted April 20, 2016in Center Stage
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 two here in Des Moines. Downtown, a classic has been put across with youth and edge. Both the title characters
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Posted April 13, 2016in Center Stage
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 both the old comic strip and the later musical, Warbucks, too, lives high above Manhattan, atop piles of cash. “But
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Posted April 06, 2016in Center Stage, Featured Story
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 achieve such success, but Hollywood made a Hallmark card of her romance with her speech pathologist. In its original form
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Posted April 01, 2016in Center Stage
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 out of town that night. Now the bat turns out to be just the beginning. Lately, strange visitors have been
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Posted March 23, 2016in Center Stage
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. “It set off an electrical transmission between us,” claims Staniforth. “Dylan laid down a challenge, showing how little you need,
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