Broadway Show Reviews & Critics' Ratings - Page 2

A great show for the school holidays- with great values, humour, colour and with the added bonus of a real Toto  dog on stage- what more could you want?

The B Street Theatre has been riding a wave of hit after hit, continuing with Aurora Real de Asua’s surfing comedy, Wipeout. Set in one of my favorite locales, Santa Cruz, Wipeout explores the friendship between three unique women. Rolling surfboards, a hunky instructor, and the bluntness that comes with age make this an engaging, relatable, and completely hilarious take on how our relationships –with ourselves and others – change in each season of life.

Stuart Ross’ 1989 jukebox homage to boy bands of the 1950’s is a pleasant whiff of nostalgia sure to remove you from the stress of today’s less naïve and chaotic present. Forever Plaid follows The Plaids, a youthful quartet with stardom in their eyes killed in a car accident in 1964. Like the baseball players in Field of Dreams, they return to perform one final concert and we’re here to bear witness.

What is theatre fundamentally about? Why do we create any form of literature or performance? Why do we tell stories? Stories are such a formative part of life, forging our knowledge of the world and helping to bring communities together.

A brand-new, reimagined regional iteration of the Tony-winning 2005 musical JERSEY BOYS now at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts is exceeding all expectations. Featuring a superb ensemble cast performing The Four Seasons' greatest hits, this spectacular, high-energy, crowd-pleasing production continues through May 12, 2024.

Brett Young made a memorable stop at the Mystic Lake Showroom during his tour on April 25, 2024 at the Mystic Lake Showroom in Prior Lake, Minnesota. Brett delivered a captivating performance that left a lasting impression on the audience. The stage was adorned with a backdrop featuring his name, accompanied by his talented band and crew, creating an immersive atmosphere enhanced by occasional stage smoke.

Coming on like some kind of sadistic Mr Bean, the scarier-than-Pennywise Doctor Brown has been terrorising audiences with his silent comedy since 2009 and returns to Soho Theatre with his first new show in over a decade.

Adorável Trapalhao, the Musical, is a show that will pay homage to the unparalleled career of famous Brazilian comedian Renato Aragão, wich actively joins in the show, as a special participation, as it will be up to Rafael Aragão, the actor who created the project, to play the role of the iconic Didi Mocó.

 “Sense of Decency” makes its world premiere using misdirection, manipulation, and magic to try to find the difference between a monster and a man.  “Sense of Decency” is playing at North Coast Repertory Theatre through May 12th.

Director Jeff Larson  and the cast of LOVE AND INFORMATION, a play by Caryl Churchill, have delivered a standout production that plays really well in an intimate space like White Wall Studios. The actors that portray the various characters reveal layer after layer of personality and emotion in this wild ride of thought and introspection. 

A Raw Material and Capital Theatres co-production, James V: Katherine continues the theatrical series with the vivid historical storytelling of the previous instalments, set during the reigns of Scotland’s generations of Stewart kings. James V places a lesser-known female historical figure front and centre in the story, with an intimate and up-close performance with focussed, raw and humorous storytelling, directed by Orla O’Loughlin (Enough Of Him / What Girls Are Made Of / Mouthpiece).

In her PhD on “Deconstructing the Spectacle: Aerial Performance as Critical Practice”, Dr Laura Murphy had a singular mission: “to challenge normative ideas attached to and embedded in aerial work”. In A Spectacle Of Herself, she delivers on this challenge with style and conviction.

Walking into Shelf: Teenage Men, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Based on the show’s description, there would be “anecdotes, songs, jokes about performing for kids, the Instagram algorithm, confronting your toxicity, and more.” How was all of this going to fit into an hour-long show? Luckily, I had nothing to worry about.

A charming adaptation of Herman Melville’s masterpiece, Sebastian Armesto’s Moby Dick mixes music and drama in an effective, atmospheric production that never gets lost at sea, no matter how daunting a task it is to stage the novel.

A person’s life can be dictated by many things - career, relationships, decisions made… In the case of Andrée Bernard’s What (is) a Woman it seems that men have dictated the protagonist’s life.

Under the meticulous direction of Chuck Smith, the Goodman’s newest revival of JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE emphasizes the play’s continued relevance through masterful performances that find cause for celebration and laughter even in the face of oppression. The production has already been extended through May 19 due to popular demand.

If there’s one thing, Dear Readers, that Disney is good at, it’s spectacle. But when you take that spectacle and combine it with one of their most musically magical properties such as “Aladdin”, it should end up with theatrical gold for the whole family. When the genie first poked his head from the lamp on stage back in 2011, I’ll admit it was less than magical. But, by the time it went to Broadway it grew by leaps and bounds. And even now, this tour currently playing at the Paramount, they seem to have updated some of their Disney Imagineering to make the experience even more magical and when combined with a killer cast, just hold on for a good time.

Most of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals comprise a large cast and elaborate sets. TELL ME ON A SUNDAY is different: this understated, one-woman musical tells the story of Emma, a Brit who journeys to America to find a man and who ends up finding herself along the way.

I’ve seen a lot of extraordinary theatre at Shaking the Tree. This spine-tingling production just might be the best so far.

'A Better Planet, a Better World”,  held last Saturday April 6th, at St. Jean Theater, showcased a unique fusion of visual and performing arts, paying homage to nature, love, and the power of female energy. The Gala performance offered a captivating blend of dance and art inspired by the work of director, choreographer and dancer Analia Farfan,   inspired by, and featuring art from “A Better Planet, A Better World”, an art exhibit at the UN Headquarters by multimedia artist Alessandra Mattanza, now showing partly at the Permanent SDGs Mission of Italy to the United Nations.