Daniel Collins - Page 4

Review of THE FALL OF HEAVEN by Guest Critic Anne Shoemaker:

It's America's favorite neurotic, psychotic, alcoholic couple! Not Taylor and Burton, though granted both appeared as George and Martha in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Their spirit is alive and well as this Edward Albee classic runs on the Spotlighters Theatre's diminutive stage, now through Oct. 6th.

It's 'Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African Explorer!' and hooray for the entire cast of ANIMAL CRACKERS who pay (and play) fitting homage to the Brothers Marx in this comedy music production at Baltimore's Center Stage.

Was it an ice pick or an axe that did in Communist pioneer Leon Trotsky? Can monkeys really write HAMLET? Is love the true universal language or is it 'Unamunda'? These questions and more are answered, quite comically, in the Fells Point Corner Theater's production of David Ives' ALL IN THE TIMING.

The Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, WVA, is now underway through July 28th, featuring new plays from Liz Duffy Adams, Jon Kern, Jane Martin, Sam Shephard, and Mark St. Germain.

Inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's 'A RAISIN IN THE SUN,' Kwame Kwei-Armah's 'Beneatha's Place' muses on what might have happened when Beneatha Younger and Nigerian political activist Joseph Asagai, left Chicago to live in a Nigeria still fighting for independence from British rule.

Two African-American brothers named Lincoln and Booth were left to live on their own with any parents, surviving as street hustlers. Now grown men, their names and histories haunt them in Suzan-Lori Parks' play, TOPDOG/UNDERDOG, now at the Everyman Theatre.

Center Stage announces the Baltimore premiere of Bruce Norris' 'Cylbourne Park,' the first of two plays slated to run in rotating repertory this spring as 'The Raisin Cycle,' picking up where playwright Lorraine Hansberry left off in her famed work, 'A Raisin in the Sun.'

Put three 40something flight attendants in a motel room, add a pot-dealing geek, some cognac, and shake--you've got Marisa Wegryzyn's comedy, 'Mud Blue Sky,' now at Baltimore's Center Stage theater.

Germaine has won a million S&H stamps. Her sisters and her neighbors rally to help her paste them into booklets...when they're not stuffing them in their purses. It's greed, hypocrisy, and a flurry of back-and-front stabbing comments in Michel Tremblay's 'Les Belles Soeurs' (The Sisters-in-Law) now at the Fells Point Corner Theatre in Baltimore City.

Cathy and Jamie are happy, they're married, they're not happy, they've split up. How this happens is told through the dual-timeline musical, 'The Last Five Years,' now at the Spotlighters Theater, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Take a little Greek tragedy, some Shakespearean comedy, a bit of O'Neill's 'Long Day's Journey' and maybe some Tennessee Williams, bring it to the Everyman Theatre's new Fayette Street stage and you have the recipe for brilliant entertainment--Tracy Letts' 'AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY,' now at the Everyman through Feb. 17th.

Three veterans of World War I contemplate their lives, their mortality and a row of poplars just off in the distance in Tom Stoppard's HEROES, now at the Everyman Theater, the last play to be performed at the theater's current Charles Street location.

A town ready for wealth, a naive scientist, men in power and men seeking power, a battle for the truth--it's all grist for playwright Arthur Miller's adaptation of Henri Ibsen's classic, AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, now at Baltimore's Center Stage.

It's a story of kings and presidents, grandchildren and generals. It's an evening of steely fire, inspiration and quiet grace. It's GOLDA'S BALCONY, now at the Vagabond theater in Baltimore City.

Maddy, Kat and Julia are high-achieveing, super-stressed seniors on the Cross Country team at Thwaite Academy. An email from their former teammate Sarah threatens to push them over the edge. Why? Because Sarah died after winning last year's Cross Country Championship.

A politically charged murder trial rocks a small Texas town when two wealthy brothers are accused of killing the stalker of a teenaged girl. A determined District Attorney jeopardizes his career in his relentless pursuit of the truth.

his is the last week for director Michael Spellman's The Holdup, now at the Spotlighters Theater (www.spotlighters.org). I caught up with actor Frank Vince who portrays "The Outlaw" in this "inventive, picaresque play that mingles humor and sentiment," as noted on the Spotlighters website. I've had the opportunity to review Frank's work in the past, such as his performance as Roy Cohn in Angels in America, and have "strode the boards" with him when I played Jimmy Tomorrow to Frank's Rocky in the Fells Point Corner Theater production of "The Iceman Cometh' this past winter. In this interview, Frank discusses his love of acting, his time at the Spotlighters, and his role as "The Outlaw'

Guest reviewer Mark Squirek provides his insights into local playwright Mark Scharf's HIRED GUN, a melodramatic meditation on aging, Fender guitars, delusions, the music business and marriage.

Shana lives in a state of constant turmoil and instability as she is visited by a number of characters, each one attempting to budge her from a place of indecision and fear. Are they successful? Is Shana? This unsettling play, 'Shana Unsettled,' is part of the 31st annual Baltimore Playwrights Festival.