AUSTIN THEATER REVIEWS

LUNGS is a 2011 play by Duncan MacMillan that is a wickedly funny, yet touching, look at the insecurities and fears of a generation for whom apprehension and precariousness are the norm. When the concept of bringing a child into the world comes up (in of all places, IKEA), W (Liz Beckham) and M (Mic...

Terrence McNally's take on the dog eat dog world of producing on Broadway, IT'S ONLY A PLAY, currently playing at Sam Bass Theatre, is a bitingly funny regional premiere....

Present Company's current production of Shakespeare at the Market, TWELFTH NIGHT by William Shakespeare is beautiful, hilarious ode to the Bard....

THE TOTALITARIANS is a new play by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb that had its world premiere in 2014. It is a satirical comedy that takes a behind the scenes look at modern politics and how a speech writer can make or break someone running for public office. Although the play is about a woman running for Att...

SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD is a musical theatre piece by Jason Robert Brown. Originally produced Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in 1995, this was Jason Robert Brown's first produced show. It is neither a book musical or a revue and has been called a 'song cycle', which was put together out of songs he h...

The Georgetown Palace Theatre's current production of 42ND STREET is a greatly entertaining extravaganza of old fashioned song and dance....

ORPHANS is a play by Lyle Kessler that premiered in 1983 in Los Angeles, winning the Drama-Logue Award. It made its Broadway debut in 2013. Earlier this Spring, Street Corner Arts selected Aaron Johnson and native Austinite Sarah Kimberly Becker to helm this debut production of their new Sidewalk Se...

W is a new play that is a translation of Woyzeck which was written by Georg Buchner. This new translation by John Hood has been adapted by Zachary Christman. Buchner's original work remained incomplete at the time of his death. It has been posthumously 'finished' by multiple authors, editors and tra...

HAND TO GOD is a fiendishly funny black comedy about the divided human soul written by Robert Askins. It was originally produced Off-Broadway in 2011 and 2014 and made it's Broadway debut in 2015, receiving five Tony Award nominations, including for Best New Play. Described by Askins as an 'irrevere...

SILENCE! THE MUSICAL is a 2005 musical created by Jon and Al Kaplan and Hunter Bell as a parody of the 1991 Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs. The project began in 2003 as an internet musical made up of nine songs that retold the entire story. The audio tracks became so popular tha...

CARNIVAL is a musical that originally appeared on Broadway in 1961, with a book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Bob Merrill. You may better know Merrill as the writer of the lyrics for Funny Girl. It is based on the 1953 MGM film Lili. The show is seldom produced; outside of the original ...

In ZACH's production of MARY POPPINS, director Dave Steakley has assembled one of the strongest casts in Austin this year. Chock-full of perfectly-timed comedy, incredible voices, and mind-blowing choreography, POPPINS is a production the entire family will adore....

Few creations have enjoyed the cultural longevity of Charles Addams characters The Addams Family. This satirical inversion of the typical American family was first introduced back in 1938 as a series of 150 single panel cartoons in the pages of The New Yorker that continued until Addams' death in 19...

SPUNK, three tales by Zora Neale Hurston, adapted for the stage by George C. Wolfe, produced by Spectrum Theatre Company and currently playing at Austin Playhouse, is an evening filled with laughter, love and the blues....

THE GLASS MENAGERIE was Tennessee Williams first successful play. It premiered in Chicago in 1944 and later transferred to Broadway. This four character memory play took Williams from obscurity to fame, winning the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. The most strongly autobiographical of hi...

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR started out in 1970 as a rock opera concept album with music by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. The response to the album was so great that a stage version debuted on Broadway in 1971. Like opera, the musical is sung-through, with no spoken dialogue. Loosely based ...

Playwright Eva Suter has taken tropes from 70's sci-fi and plot elements from Shakespeare's Othello to create HOLD ME WELL. In her play, making it's World Premiere (outside of the UT production a few years back), Suter has crafted a dystopian tale of a desolate Central Texas inhabited solely by wom...

Penfold Theatre Company's annual 'Shakespeare in the Park' at Round Rock's Amphitheatre adjacent to the Baca Senior Center, is a lovely setting for an utterly delightful show. This year's production of COMEDY OF ERRORS showcases their expertise with the Bard as well as the company's seemingly boundl...

THE FLICK is the 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning play by Annie Baker that also won the 2013 Obie Award for Playwriting. Set in a run down old movie palace called The Flick, the action of the play concerns three low wage ushers: newbie Avery (Delante G. Keys), veteran Sam (Shanon Weaver) and film project...

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. Virtually unknown and only published in pulp magazines, he died in poverty at the age of 46, and is only now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in ...

Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, currently playing at City Theatre takes the Bard to a 1920's circus sideshow....

BWW Review: THE GONDOLIERS - Comic Opera At Its Finest Celebrating its 40th year, The Gilbert and Sullivan Society of Austin brings us a world class production of THE GONDOLIERS. A sumptuous feast for the senses, the entire show is on point perfection....

JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN is Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's second-to-last play written in 1896. The source material for the play comes from an incident from an earlier period in his life, revolving around the suicide attempt of an army officer accused of embezzlement. While the play falls along sid...

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, it involves the romantic lives of several couples. Since its original 1973 Broadway production, the musical has been produced in the W...

DOGFIGHT is a musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul and a book by Peter Duchan. It is adapted from Nancy Savoca's 1991 film and premiered Off-Broadway in 2012. The current production by Austin Theatre Project is the Central Texas premiere. An intimate new musical with a small...