Daniel Collins - Page 8

What if Salieri didn't know he was a mediocrity? What if he thought he actually WAS Mozart?making forgettable music that to his ears (and no one else's) seemed the most beautiful of melodies? In Stephen Temperley's comic production, 'Souvenir,' this tone-deaf Salieri is Florence Foster Jenkins, a character based on the real life society songstress of the 1920?s-40s

The failings of old age, the strife between an obstinate father and a 40something daughter, a boy from a broken family, a man's unrequited love...hard to believe such depressing subject matter is actually at the core of the Spotlighters production of Ernest Thompson's sentimental comedy, ON GOLDEN POND.

In the Pulitzer Prize finalist award-winning play, 'Three Days of Rain,' Richard Greenberg has a lot to cover. Exploring the characteristics, aspirations, motivations, emotions and foibles of six people, all related in some way...by blood, by love, both familial and romantic, by history, and more, all in two hours--it's a heckuva job.

Eye-candy TV actor Andrew Rally is facing a 'career in crisis'--he has to play HAMLET. That's bad enough, but toss in an all-too-chaste girlfriend, a realtor who communes with her dead mother, a crazy director, a chainsmoking agent and John Barrymore's ghost, and the result is a raucous comedy, I HATE HAMLET now at the Vagabond Theater.

It's said that there are no worse fates that can befall a man as when his dreams don't come true and when they do. Reno, an apartment 'super' superintendent with a dysfunctional past, discovers the truth of this saying in Julie Lewis' play, SMOLDER, now at The Strand Theater.

Tis Pity She's a Whore is the anti-Romeo & Juliet, a revenge play that mixes elements of the famed lovers tragedy with MacBethish gore with a twist worthy of Quentin Tarantino.

Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard appears to be a simple story, but is so much more; the issues, conflicts and passions burst in color, like a cherry orchard in bloom, on the stage.

Warren Leight's play, 'SIDE MAN,' chronicles the story of a major paradigm shift in American music from the perspective of the Glimmer family.

Is a night at the theater, simply that?an evening?s entertainment where you laugh, you cry, you kiss $15 bucks good-bye? Or should what happens on stage be an evolutionary experience, reality taken to a higher level? If the latter, check out the Vagabond Players' production of Harold Pinter's OLD TIMES now playing...

It's every fox for him or herself as Lillian Hellman's tale of greed, class conflict and social injustice, 'The Little Foxes,' comes to the Dundalk Community Theater.

It's never easy being a teenager, no matter what century you live in, but one can guess it was particularly difficult for adolescents in 19th century rural Germany where playwright Frank Wedekind sets his 1891 play, Spring Awakening.

It's all smoke, gunshots, nudity, violence and adult situations as Single Carrot Theatre presents Tracy Letts' KILLER JOE. Meet the Smith family, the anti-Waltons who enjoy the joys of adultery, murder and reruns of 'Cannon.'

Scanning director Brad J. Ranno's notes about the Spotlighter's Theater production of acclaimed English playwright Caryl Churchill's 'Cloud 9,' I was less than enthused. With references to race, gender and feminism, weighty, stolid issues that 'resonate in our social conscious' (ugh), I wondered, why can't a play just be fun? Instruct, but don't preach. Enlighten, but don't lecture. And above all, pleeeezzzz-ENTERTAIN.