Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas

by SOPHIE KERMAN I look for two things in a children’s show: first, that the kids like it, and second, that it’s got something to entertain adults, too. The Children’s Theatre Company leaves no doubt about either in its revival of the holiday favorite, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It’s a book most Americans have…

Anna Bolena

by  MICHAEL J. OPPERMAN Keri Alkema as Anna Bolena in the Minnesota Opera production of “Anna Bolena” Anyone with a glancing knowledge of British history knows all does not end well for Anne Boleyn.   Anne was Henry VIII’s second wife (“divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived”), and, after specious charges of adultery and treason, spent…

The Skyless City

by MIRA REINBERG Living in Western countries generally implies having access to a vast array of media venues that provide an abundance of uncensored and updated news. Journalism is charged with the sacred task of unveiling democracy’s biggest enemy: collaboration of institutions in repressing crime, corruption, and injustice. It is not at all certain that…

Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps

by SOPHIE KERMAN As the opening to the MORPHOLOGIES Queer Performance Festival, Scott Turner Schofield‘s Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps is a perfect balance of art and storytelling. The three companies organizing MORPHOLOGIES – Pangea World Theater, 20% Theatre Company, and RARE Productions – have spent the last two years putting together the festival, which aims to celebrate…

Old Times

by SOPHIE KERMAN The process of getting to the Loring Alley Theatre last night was long and circuitous. The space – a chilly concrete room also used as an indoor skateboard park, when not as a theater – is tucked away in the alley behind Joe’s Garage and Lurcat, and my friend and I walked past…

Kill Me Don’t Go

by SOPHIE KERMAN Kill Me Don’t Go, a brand new play by Trista Baldwin, does not shy away from marriage’s most harrowing moments. Ambitious in its emotional scope, Kill Me explores the profound connection and dangerous interdependency that can develop between two people who have chosen to wind their lives around each other. Although the situation between…

In the Next Room or the vibrator play

by MIRA REINBERG That the vibrator gained wide and accepted usage to treat hysteria in women during what is considered one of the most demure of social ages – Victorian times, is a historical reality brimming with irony and asking to be dramatized in theatre. Playwright Sarah Ruhl put history into literary action in In…