No one writes a finely-crafted comedy like the British playwrights of the Restoration and 18th Century. Oliver Goldsmith's 1773 She Stoops to Conquer, the current production at Chapel Hill's Deep Dish Theater Company, is certainly no exception. It is the perfect balance of deception and misunderstanding. The best thing about it is that all of the storylines do not unravel at once, and the truth is revealed slowly, making the comic suspense all the more wonderful.
The national tour of the Tony Award-winning best musical Jersey Boys is starting an engagement at the Durham Performing Arts Center on October 30th. To commemorate the occasion, it was my honor to interview the show's book writer Rick Elice to find out more about this show which has become an international phenomenon.
Calling all Hitchcock fans - the comedic stage adaptation of The 39 Steps is the current production at the Raleigh Little Theatre. For everyone from those who know every Hitchcock movie inside and out to casual fans, there's something to enjoy.
Part of the latest group of movies-turned-Broadway-musicals is Legally Blonde, which is now at the North Carolina Theatre, in the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium of the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
North Carolina Theatre's Legally Blonde opens this week at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium of the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh. Over the weekend, I had the chance to peek behind the scenes and into dress rehearsal to give you a taste of what's to come.
Souvenir is, in some ways, unassuming and small, but in the ways that count, it is big.
The 2011 Tony Award Winning Best Play War Horse is now touring the nation, and is in Durham this week. The play, based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, follows a young man named Albert as he enlists in the British army during World War I to find his beloved horse Joey, who was sold to the army by his father.
There's something magical happening on stage at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. Their production of John Logan's Red is one which you will not want to miss! The play, which won the Tony Award for best play in 2010, tells the story of painter Mark Rothko and his assistant, Ken. Over the course of two years, the two work together to create art, and to discuss the very nature of life, art, and creation.
Despite some instances of singing upstage and offstage, the direction was good, and the cast members certainly tackled the intense vocal demands of the show.
Right in the heart of downtown Raleigh, there is a magical town popping up, thanks to Burning Coal Theatre Company's current production of Brigadoon. Their small space comes to life as the enchanted Scottish village in this classic 1947 Lerner and Loewe musical.
Rocky Horror is so much more than just a musical. It's an experience.
Did you ever wonder what would have happened if Sesame Street grew up with us and continued teaching us important life lessons even as adults? Wonder no more -Avenue Q has made its way to downtown Raleigh with Hot Summer Nights | Theatre Raleigh.
This week, Hot Summer Nights | Theatre Raleigh brings us the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, which tells the story of several puppets and humans on a quest for meaning and purpose while trying to make ends meet in New York City. I had the pleasure of sitting down with the director, Richard Roland, and also the women in the cast. I asked them about the process of putting together the show, handling puppets and humans at the same time, and why Avenue Q resonates with audiences, even a decade after its premiere on Broadway.
It was recently my great pleasure to sit down and talk with Lauren Kennedy and Alan Campbell, of Hot Summer Nights | Theatre Raleigh, about their current production of Race, and their unique creative relationship for the production. The two are married, and this was the first time that Alan has acted in a play which Lauren directed. The two discussed how they met, how they keep their talent crushes alive, and how they worked together to create this emotionally-charged piece of theater.
Marking the first time that actor/director Lauren Kennedy has directed her Tony-nominated husband Alan Campbell in a play, Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy in downtown Raleigh is currently featuring Race, a play by contemporary American playwright David Mamet. Race is the third show of the season, and is one which certainly does not shy away from controversial topics.
Tuesday night at DPAC was a good news/bad news situation. The bad news: the much-publicized Christie Brinkley was not able to perform her role of Roxie Hart in Chicago, due to illness. The good news: Bianca Marroquin was flown in from NYC, right from the Broadway production of Chicago to fill in for Brinkley. The best news: Marroquin is brilliant! She absolutely oozes star quality from every pore of her body, and the audience forgot, within seconds of Marroquin's entrance, that they were not seeing the person they thought they would see in the role.
NC Theatre is keeping kids busy this summer by putting the best and the brightest young performers, from the Triangle area and beyond, center stage in their current production of Oliver! The show, based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, follows young orphan Oliver on a journey from the workhouse to a life of luxury.
Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy, right in downtown Raleigh, is making the most of their small space by taking on the ambitious project of staging Dames at Sea, the musical which is most known for launching the career of Bernadette Peters in the late 1960s. Though the space is intimate, the show is big.
I have a theory when it comes to the theater. That theory states that the number of doors on a set is directly correlated to the hilarity which will ensue onstage. There are 6 doors on stage at Boeing Boeing at Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy - 7 if you count the big double-doors as two separate doors. That's a lot of doors, and a lot of laughter.
Kick off your summer down south in the Mississippi delta with Theatre in the Park's current production of the seminal American play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
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