Posted September 09, 2015in Center Stage, Featured Story
You might think Alex Scolari is too young to appreciate “Dirty Dancing” and too much of a California girl to care about Iowa. The movie made a sex symbol of Patrick Swayze back in 1987, years before Scolari was born. Yet in conversation, she upends your expectations. “I’ve always been
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Posted September 02, 2015in Center Stage, Featured Story
Up in Ames, they’ve joined the new millennium. Over at the Playhouse, the audience creates a Beatles set, while Des Moines Young Artists participate in a high school shooting. Tallgrass, meantime, offers a reading of an all-new homegrown script. The Temple Theater will bring back Dixie in drag, and the
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Posted August 26, 2015in Center Stage
The best homegrown American theater might be here in the Midwest. Few companies have the impact of Chicago’s Steppenwolf, the birthplace of stars like John Malkovich. Yet when Steppenwolf first won recognition, it was local. It began with the city’s “Jeff Awards.” The Jeffs (named for a 19th century actor)
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Posted August 19, 2015in Center Stage
Among African-Americans, for decades, it was an honor to be called a “race man.” The term referred to those blacks who strove hardest for equality, from Jackie Robinson to Malcolm X. So, too, Charles Fuller, author of “A Soldier’s Play,” turned to writing when he discovered his high school library
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Posted August 12, 2015in Center Stage
The goodwill in the room practically spills out the windows. Upstairs in West Des Moines Public Library, laughter punctuates the run-through of “Masha,” the latest project for the Tallgrass Iowa Playwrights Workshop, one of two new local programs for developing fresh talent. At this rehearsal, the script has reached “version
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Posted August 05, 2015in Center Stage
Anyone stuck in traffic on Oralabor Road can tell you: Ankeny is booming. Last year the population jumped again, and the town lured up city hotspots like Jethro’s. Yet one institution goes back to the days of the cornfields. Ankeny Community Theatre (even the spelling is old-school) is finishing its
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Posted July 29, 2015in Center Stage
For “Rent” the staging is in-the-round. Inside the entrance, designer Tim Wisgherof set up a riser for the guitar, keyboard, drums and bass. The musicians riff and tootle, pumping up the energy even as you find your seat. So, too, at show’s end, while the heroine Mimi languishes near death,
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Posted July 22, 2015in Center Stage
Imagine you’re Eric Idle, founding member of Monty Python, and a Broadway producer comes calling with a bucket of money. All that long green can be yours, providing you whip up a musical out of your hit movie from 1975, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” Well, Eric? So what
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Posted July 15, 2015in Center Stage
The company calls itself Rising Phoenix, and its latest show makes you think of the myth — the bird consumed by fire and then rising from the ashes, more beautiful than before. Founded in 2011, the next year Phoenix mounted a solid run-through of Nora Ephron’s “Love, Loss, and What
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Posted July 08, 2015in Center Stage
“We do have a pumpkin that turns into a carriage,” says Antoine Smith. “We have a glass slipper and things you’re sure to recognize.” Still, he goes on: “This is nothing like the Disney cartoon.” Instead, the “Cinderella” coming to the Civic Center has a distinguished Broadway pedigree. Composers Richard
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