Once a month, often edgy, and always intimate
At the end of a recent Stagewest “Scriptease,” there was a lovely moment. As the applause rose, the two leads, Mary Bricker and Rebecca Scholtec, beamed at each other and [...]
Read More →
Posted August 06, 2014in Center Stage
Posted July 30, 2014in Center Stage
Ring-a-ding-ding yet right at home
“One thing we’ve learned,” declares Jo Reid, the director, “is that folks in Ankeny just love Neil Simon.” Really? Granted, “Come Blow Your Horn” is far from the first Simon [...]
Read More →
Posted July 23, 2014in Center Stage
Stripping and swinging and inviting the whole country.
One weekend, four events? With acts that range from swinging on a star, sort of, to stripping down to skivvies, sort of? Plus a national competition? “We’d chatted about collaborating,” [...]
Read More →
Posted July 16, 2014in Center Stage
Out of the closet at full, funky roar
Twenty-somethings these days were raised on the Disney Renaissance. The great run began with “The Little Mermaid” in 1989 and may have ended with “Shrek” in 2001. Afterwards, instead of [...]
Read More →
Posted July 09, 2014in Center Stage
Hair-raising outrage and wailing angels
When composer Jake Heggie first heard someone suggest an opera of “Dead Man Walking” back in 1996, he also began to hear the music. As he puts it, “the hair [...]
Read More →
Posted July 02, 2014in Center Stage
All-time and timeless
Off in faraway places, I’m always hearing about our city’s opera. The rising star Michael Mayes, en route from one big stage to another, even got in touch via Skype [...]
Read More →
Posted June 25, 2014in Center Stage
Baseball and fireworks: Across history and in the heart
Landmarks of African-American experience turn up all through August Wilson’s drama, “Fences,” which helped it win the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. But the story of the player who broke baseball’s color [...]
Read More →
Posted June 18, 2014in Center Stage
Random acts of inspiration
Imagine you’re a teenager with dreams of being a comedian. The local club has an open mic night, but you’ve only got five minutes to make ’em laugh. You spend [...]
Read More →
Posted June 11, 2014in Center Stage
Sex, drugs, Kermit and Oscar
Turns out it’s not far from Sesame Street to Broadway. “Avenue Q,” now at Stagewest, demonstrates a terrific musical can combine puppets who look like Kermit and Oscar, kiddie-show singalong [...]
Read More →
Posted June 04, 2014in Center Stage
Fantasy rebels and Queen rockers hit the Civic Center
Imagine the pitch. Out in Hollywood: the band Queen meets the movie “The Matrix,” and the loser ends up being Orwell’s Big Brother. If that sounds like a bit much, [...]
Read More →
