Keith Waits - Page 2

What you consider to be the turning point of the 1960s may depend on where you were standing. If you lived on the west side of Detroit it may have been July 1967, when five days of rioting left 42 dead. In Detroit '67, Dominique Morriseau creates a story just a short distance from the epicenter of that moment in history, one that puts a face to the volatile social dynamics that we tend to view with an almost abstract perspective 50 years later.

Acting Against Cancer identifies itself as 'a nonprofit semiprofessional theatre company that strives to change the lives of children touched by cancer through the arts.' Within the Kentuckiana theatre scene, they have also developed a reputation as an ambitious theatre company most likely to perform modern musicals often labeled as 'counter-culture' or 'edgy.' Their current production of Duncan Sheik's American Psycho is absolutely the type of show we have come to expect from this talented group.

Actors Theatre of Louisville's current production of The Wolves has an embarrassment of riches, onstage and off. Sarah DeLappe's Pulitzer Prize nominated, soccer-centric play is an important script that features 10 girls and femmes who pass the Bechdel Test as easily as the ball. They probably only spent about five minutes of the hour and a half run time talking about boys, and even those five minutes were really more about girls, friendship, and betrayal. The Wolves also has a production staff that is 90% women. That offstage commitment to forwarding gender parity at the industry-wide level is even more rare than the onstage corollary, and includes director Pirronne Yousefzadeh, and movement director Rocia??o Mendez, both of whom are clearly functioning at the height of their game.

With flat out, incredible singing and excellent movement through complicated issues, Pandora Productions' Choir Boy is no-doubt about it a winner.

Would you believe that Jesus Christ Superstar has been a part of our musical theatre repertoire for 50 years now? That almost stops me in my tracks as I can recall singing choral arrangements of this production when I was but a budding and promising middle school student. Songs such as 'What's the Buzz', 'I Don't Know How to Love Him' and the title song have been part of the shaping of many a young singer.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??The Band's Visit is an unusually styled musical based on the 2007 Israeli film. Performed without an intermission, it features Arabian-flavored musical numbers and a mostly upbeat plot. It premiered on Broadway in 2017 and is one of only four musicals to win the 'Big Six' Tony Awards, which include Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical, and Best Direction of a Musical.

God Bless us, everyone! My childhood came back to me while witnessing the holiday classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This annual production by Actors Theatre of Louisville hit all the high notes on opening night and delivered a magical feast for the eyes, ears, and heart. After four decades this production still thrills and delivers the message of redemption and kindness from the past, present, and future. I was so happy to experience it among many families and I especially enjoyed hearing and seeing children's reactions to the show.

Derby Dinner Playhouse has earned a reputation in the Kentuckiana area for putting on excellent productions that audiences really enjoy, and their production of Elf: The Musical certainly reinforces this reputation. Elf is based on the 2003 film featuring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf. The musical ran on Broadway during the holidays in 2010, and, once again, in 2012, and broke box office records at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

A young woman, an actor (Mollie Murk), recounts her experience of being raped by an important theater director. The understanding and compassionate handling of the incident by company producers doesn't obscure the truth that a formal report will almost certainly prevent her inclusion in future productions. One of the roles she takes on is Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, and she draws insightful parallels with herself and the fact that the traumatized character's inability to speak of her own sexual assault is brutally restricted and her life forfeit for the sake of honor.

Tom Stoppard may not have created the notion of meta-theatricality but he established his reputation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a play that quickly became a milestone in Western theatre and influenced a tendency for heady self-awareness in generations of future playwrights.

Ring Of Walking into the Henry Clay Theater for Pandora Productions' Fun Home, the first thing you notice is the white stage. Blank and solid, like a canvas or a sheet of paper. An artist's stand sits to the side of the stage with drawing pads, pencils, and other supplies. Based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel, the musical follows Bechdel as she reflects, creates and struggles to draw each panel of her memoir. As her drawings pop up on a screen behind the actors, we see Bechdel's parallels with her father, his struggle with mental illness and self-acceptance and the effect on the family. While looking back at adversity, coming out, and family bonds, Bechdel's story of closure and clarity is one relatable to any family.

If a live performance is memorable for how it surprises you, Mandee McKelvey's My Left Boob is a show I will not soon forget. A stand up comic for 13 years, and a frequent participant in the Character Assassination series of Roasts of Fictional Characters, McKelvey certainly knows how to be funny, yet the laughs are not the most crucial element here.

When Theatre [502] launched in 2010, it was a personal project from a Louisville Theatre power trio, Amy Attaway, Gil Reyes, and Mike Brooks. All three brought strong experience and sound reputations for working with actors and designers. Their vision for the company was to produce contemporary plays that would be new to Louisville, '...filling a gap in what small theatre companies were doing here at the time' according to Ms. Attaway. All three were directors and the first seasons tended to take a three-point stance, each one in charge of one production.

Holding On Too LongIn The Secret Garden, Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Marsha Norman writes, 'They're only a ghost if someone alive is still holding on to them.' It is very clear from the top of Haunting Julia that the three characters we meet are haunted by Julia long before she gets the chance to do any haunting of her own. Set in November of 1993 at the newly established Julia Lukin Music Centre, Haunting Julia tells the story of Julia Lukin, a piano prodigy who apparently committed suicide at the age of 19. Twelve years later, her father (Joe), her would-be boyfriend (Andy), and a psychic (Ken) gather to revisit that fateful night, and, from there, the plot begins twisting.

Caryl Churchill's 1982 play Top Girls has so much to say about women that it is staggering to realize that it is no less relevant thirty-seven years later. However it speaks to today, it does so from within an elliptical, non-linear narrative structure emblematic of the time of its creation.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??Measure for Measure has long been considered one of Shakespeare's 'problem plays' because it doesn't clearly fall into the constructs of his comedies or tragedies. While the play has many of the comedic elements that Shakespeare is known for (mistaken identities, eccentric side characters, and witty repartee), it tackles more complex issues such as the abuse of power for sexual purposes, moral dilemmas, and the difficulty of exposing leaders who grossly misuse their power - an eerie (and - in this case - sad) example of how Shakespeare's plays still remain so relevant today.

Playwright Ken Ludwig has made a name for himself writing some of the funniest modern comedies of any living writer, including Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo, and perhaps most notably, The Game's Afoot. The latter was a mystery-comedy involving real-life actor William Gillette (best known for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage) getting pulled into a real-life murder mystery. It was a funny show, and I had the pleasure of seeing it last year at Clarksville Little Theater.

Writer Cormac McCarthy subtitled his play The Sunset Limited, 'a novel in dramatic form', and that immediately calls into question exactly what is going on here. Basically it is two guys talking for a couple of hours. They also have coffee and eat. White (J. Barrett Cooper) is a professor whose suicide attempt was thwarted earlier by Black (Clyde Tyrone Harper). Now they are in Black's apartment engaged in conversation about theology, morality, and the nature of human existence.

A great story, well told, could and should move the audience into feeling something. Whether it's empathy for the protagonist's plight, revulsion at the villain's crimes, or laughing at a clown's antics, if you don't come away from a tale without feeling something, then the author/actors/director/etc. have failed their audience.

Ghost, a faithful adaptation of the novel by Jason Reynolds, tells the story of Castle 'Ghost' Crenshaw (played by the always-excellent Crystian Wiltshire), an earnest seventh grader who finds himself unexpectedly recruited onto the track team thanks to the encouragement of Coach (Louis Robert Thompson). Ghost is haunted by the memories of an abusive father, and a large part of this play's journey is watching how the discipline of sports and the support of friends and mentors help Ghost keep his life moving in a positive direction.