5 Women Wearing the Same Dress at Playmakers Theater through Sept. 8 To the lesbians, gay men and straight folks who want to avoid the magnificent takeover of the French Quarter and environs known as Southern Decadence, I have something for you to do Labor Day weekend and the following one as well. To those local gay men who, after Decadence’s inundation of maleness, … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards August 27, 2019
Trodding the Boards
Trodding the Boards August 13, 2019
100 Years of Women in Blues at Teatro Wego! through August 25 It only seems like a 100 years since Dorian Rush has graced our local stages. So it’s a treat to have her back in her new solo show 100 Years of Women in Blues which delivers just what it promises, a marvelous overview of the women who were the founders and torchbearers of this uniquely American art … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards August 13, 2019
Trodding the Boards July 30, 2019
Hamlet at Tulane’s Lupin Theater Seven years ago, I ended my appraisal of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane’s (SFT) production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with the observation “Patrick Bowen, son of Danny [Bowen, the play’s director] and currently a high school student, was very good as Hamlet in his scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Might … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards July 30, 2019
Trodding the Boards July 30, 2019
Hamlet at Tulane’s Lupin Theater Seven years ago, I ended my appraisal of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane’s (SFT) production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with the observation “Patrick Bowen, son of Danny [Bowen, the play’s director] and currently a high school student, was very good as Hamlet in his scenes with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Might … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards July 30, 2019
Trodding the Boards July 16, 2019
She Loves Me at Tulane’s Dixon Hall I wish we had a different occupant in the White House. I wish Hurricane Barry had not caused all the ruckus he did. And I wish Tulane’s Summer Lyric Theatre’s (SLT) production of She Loves Me had a longer run as this delightful and utterly captivating musical, not seen here in more than a generation, lingered an extra day due to … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards July 16, 2019
Trodding the Boards July 2, 2019
1776 at Playmakers Theater thru July 7 When 1776 opened on Broadway in 1969, it was a turbulent time. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated less than a year earlier. The Vietnam War was raging. Nixon had just been inaugurated that January. A musical dramedy about the signing of the Declaration of Independence did … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards July 2, 2019
Trodding the Boards June 18, 2019
Much Ado About Nothing at Tulane’s Lupin Theater through June 30 If you’ve never seen Much Ado About Nothing, you might want to head to Tulane’s Lupin Theater for the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival’s opening production of their 26th season. As is often the case at NOSF, Director Burton Tedesco gives us a mostly straightforward rendering of one of the Bard’s most … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards June 18, 2019
Trodding the Boards June 4, 2019
How to Kill a Diva at Westwego Performing Arts Theatre through June 9 Chris Wecklein starred as Max Bialystok in The Producers for the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) nearly 10 years ago, winning an Ambie Award as Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. If Max Bialystok were around today he might consider presenting How to Kill a Diva, in which Wecklein is … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards June 4, 2019
Trodding the Boards March 5, 2018
As One at Marigny Opera House After many years of four-opera seasons, New Orleans Opera has been expanding its programming, commendably, with its Chamber Opera Series. In 2016, NOO presented Brundibár, a children’s opera that had been performed in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, in a memorable, fully staged production at the WWII Museum. Earlier this year at the … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards March 5, 2018
Trodding the Boards
Escape to Margaritaville at the Saenger Theatre It’s not often that we in New Orleans get to weigh in on a show before it heads to Broadway. Sure, The Bodyguard stopped by earlier this year, but that doesn’t look like it’ll ever make it to New York. Escape to Margaritaville, however, will with a planned March 15 opening at the Marquis Theatre. How long it will stay there … [Read more...] about Trodding the Boards