Hitler, heartbreak and lingerie
On the chalkboard outside the Des Moines Social Club Basement, I saw some sad news. I was there for last week’s late-night “Cabaret,” but for this week, I saw conventional [...]
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Posted October 29, 2014in Center Stage
Posted October 22, 2014in Center Stage
Letting their hair down
The title says it is all about the girls. The standout performance comes from Nancy Zubrod as a “woman of a certain age” who is nonetheless party-hearty. Yet the essence [...]
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Posted October 15, 2014in Center Stage
Making magic with voice and imagination
Onstage, drama comes in three dimensions. The players have heft and the set can trick you into thinking you see a house, a cornfield, a Metropolis. What happens, though, when [...]
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Posted October 08, 2014in Center Stage
Soul-searching, by way of songs and scares
Just before one of the last rehearsals for “Carrie: The Musical,” two of the leads treated everyone to a few bars of lovely harmony. This, too, was rehearsal, of course, [...]
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Posted October 01, 2014in Center Stage
Harriet Potter, entirely homegrown
Few shows put the “community” in community theater more emphatically than the one in Ankeny right now. The cast of “The Little Princess” includes six adults, with day jobs like [...]
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Posted September 24, 2014in Center Stage
Emotional whipsaw, unflagging spitfires
The set shows the baggage they carry. Even before the start of Repertory Theater of Iowa’s flawless new production, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” you feel the burdens on George [...]
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Posted September 17, 2014in Center Stage
Thwacking waltzes and splendid surprises
The attack comes in a song, and there’s no defense against it. Late in the first act of “South Pacfic,” Ensign Nellie Forbush shucks off her reservations about Emile de [...]
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Posted September 10, 2014in Center Stage
“The biggest ever, with grit and grandeur”
Quick: Name the single most lucrative piece of entertainment ever. The single biggest earner — movie, CD, whatever. “Avatar?” Wrong planet. “Thriller?” Deader than disco. No. 1 is the show [...]
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Posted August 20, 2014in Center Stage
A do-over done Latin-style
Broadway loves a do-over. The Tony awards include “Best Revival,” and every season sees former hits rejiggered. “South Pacific” may have been a smash in 1949, but there’s a streamlined [...]
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Posted August 13, 2014in Center Stage
High-energy tragedy and backflips in a mosh pit
What hooked me was the bit with the table. Early on in “Spring Awakening,” the in-the-round set converts to a boys’ classroom, with no more props than chairs and a [...]
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