Trodding the Boards

Back to the Future: The Musical at the Saenger Theatre through December 14 It had been a long day and I was in the mood for just some pure entertainment as I headed to the Saenger Theatre to see Back to the Future: The Musical. I wish I could time travel back and, instead, just have stayed home, perhaps binging on some other ‘80s nostalgia like The Golden Girls which … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards December 12, 2025

Carrie the Musical at the Azienda Theater I vividly remember seeing the original production of Carrie the Musical on Broadway. It had opened the night before. The reviews were not kind. It was clear this would be one of the season’s most notorious flops, possibly one for the ages. As Act II began at “The Pig Farm” and the nasty high schoolers sang Out for Blood with its … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards November 30, 2025

Kimberly Akimbo at the Saenger Theatre Having seen Kimberly Akimbo in its original small, off-Broadway theater and then at the Booth Theater, one of Broadway's smaller houses, during its Tony Award-winning run, I wondered how this quirky musical would manage in the vast confines of the Saenger Theatre. The answer? Quite well, thank you very much. Jessica Stone’s sharp … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards November 7, 2025

Dracula at The Orpheum Theater The last time I attended a New Orleans Ballet Theatre (NOBT) performance was in the spring of 2019. I noted then that it had been a while since I had seen one of their presentations and, watching its glorious production of Cinderella made me realize how much I missed taking in live classical ballet. I felt the same way after seeing NOBT’s … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards November 4, 2025

Frankenstein at Lafitte Greenway Station through October 17 They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but that’s being proven incorrect at the Lafitte Greenway Station both literally-ish and figuratively. Literally-ish because The NOLA Project’s new production of Frankenstein employs such special effects just as its Greenway-based Dracula did two years … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards October 15, 2025

Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van Gogh at Big Couch October 8-18 [Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van Gogh played at UNO in 2022. Fat Squirrel will be presenting the production directed by Carly Stroud and again featuring Drew Stroud at Big Couch October 8-18. The following is an excerpt from my March 2022 “An Appreciation” of Drew Stroud (as well as another young … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards – October 1, 2025

Curtain Up Now that the curtain has come down on the performance art event known as Southern Decadence, it’s time to return indoors, most of the time, for more traditional (most of the time) theatrical events. In Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B, playwright Kate Hamill transforms Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic detective duo into a pair of modern-day, female roommates … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards September 4, 2025

2025 Critics’ Choice Gay Appreciation Award winner On behalf of Tony Leggio and myself, I am delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s Critics’ Choice Gay Appreciation Award (GAA) is Summer Lyric Theatre’s production of Anything Goes, Cole Porter’s bubbly 1934 musical that Director Ken Goode made as fresh as a daisy aided by Jauné Buisson’s goose-bump inducing … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards August 22, 2025

The Crucible at Big Couch through August 14 In the past 23 years, there’s been two Broadway revivals of Arthur Miller’s modern classic The Crucible yet, to the best of my knowledge, no productions by local companies, and possibly even longer than that (university and high school productions notwithstanding). I’m not sure why that’s the case (the large cast it requires, its … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards August 9, 2025

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Tulane’s Lupin Theater through July 27 A mere two years after The NOLA Project Gave us a most magical Dream in City Park, To the Tulane Shakespeare Festival’s current Dream, I must object Not just because its stage, when Fairies dwell upon it, is often too, too dark, But, rather, because it tells us nothing terribly new, Its cast members unable … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards July 25, 2025