Buffalo Theater Reviews

Review: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST at Shaw Festival
by Michael Rabice - July 14, 2022

A breezy comedy of manners, as only Oscar Wilde could pen, is a welcome way to return to Niagara-on-the Lake's SHAW FESTIVAL. For it's 60th anniversary audiences are in for a familiar treat as THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST returns to the stage in all it's witty charm. Hints of covid still pervade ...

Review: GASLIGHT at Shaw Festival
by Michael Rabice - June 20, 2022

A Victorian thriller melded with a dash of 21st century female fortitude makes up the fabric of the Shaw Festival's gripping new production of GASLIGHT. Over the years the Festival has mastered presenting these chilling stories in it's quaint jewel box  Royal George Theatre. Memories of REBECCA and ...

Review: THE ONION GAME at Irish Classical Theatre
by Michael Rabice - June 16, 2022

Another wholly dysfunctional family has entered the literary realm in a new play by Bryan Delaney and Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre gets to show them off in all of their wretchedness. Dublin-born playwright Delaney has been named ICTC's Playwright in Residence and is best known to Buffalo audien...

BWW Review: DAMN YANKEES is a Winner at Shaw Festival
by Michael Rabice - May 23, 2022

Americana and the Golden Age of the Broadway musical has happily landed at the Shaw Festival in their knock it out of the park production of DAMN YANKEES. After years without a staged musical at the Festival Theatre and repeated cancellations of it's production of GYPSY (thanks Covid!), the magic of...

BWW Review: AIN'T TOO PROUD at Shea's Buffalo Theatre
by Michael Rabice - May 11, 2022

The evolution of the American musical has morphed from operetta to Vaudevillian musical revue to the classic  integrated musical comedy. The advent of the jukebox musical began as MAMMA  MIA and ALL SHOOK UP shoehorned popular music into a script to showcase Abba or Elvis Presley’s music into paper...

BWW Review: ANASTASIA at Shea's Buffalo Theatre
by Michael Rabice - April 20, 2022

Romance, Russian espionage and a bad case of amnesia in short order sum up the plot of the latest Broadway tour to land in Buffalo as ANASTASIA took to the stage at Shea's last night. Inspired by the animated 1997 musical film of the same name and endless other films and books, the story of a Russia...

BWW Review: STAGE KISS at Irish Classical Theatre
by Michael Rabice - April 09, 2022

A modern day farce is unfolding, and I'm not speaking of the 2022  political  scene or a worldwide pandemic. but rather onstage in  Sarah Ruhl's comic play STAGE KISS. Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre is presenting this Off-Broadway play that has become quite popular among regional theatres. The Br...

BWW Review: TRIBES IS A COMPELLING DRAMA at Road Less Traveled Productions
by Michael Rabice - March 11, 2022

In typical form, Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo presents a play to challenge and stimulate the senses in it's gripping production of TRIBES by Nina Raines. Never a company to shy away from forthright complex topics, TRIBES has been in the works for over 2 years, derailed by the Covid pand...

BWW Review: A Sumptuous MY FAIR LADY at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - March 02, 2022

How to turn a classic play into a classic musical? Find the best of the best, of course. But even the powerhouse duo of Rodger's and Hammerstein couldn't figure out to to turn George Bernard Shaw's comic masterpiece PYGMALION into a musical. They attempted but ultimately passed. Happily another tale...

BWW Review: OKLAHOMA! at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - February 16, 2022

In March of 1943, the audience that poured into New York’s St. James Theatre had no idea they were witnessing the the birth of the musical comedy as we know it today. The maiden production of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein’s OKLAHOMA! would change the face of Broadway fore...

BWW Review: WAITING FOR GODOT at Irish Classical Theatre
by Michael Rabice - January 27, 2022

After a near two year absence, live audiences have returned to Irish Classical Theatre. And the production that inaugurated the company is back again, nestled into it's home stage, which may never have been dreamt of 30 years ago. Irishman Samuel Beckett's WAITING FOR GODOT is on the boards and audi...

BWW Review: HAMILTON at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - December 16, 2021

HAMILTON and it's brilliant company have taken up residence at Shea's Buffalo Theatre  through January 2nd and the phenomenon deserves to be seen by one and all. The ingenuity that pervades the entire production combines a modern day sensibility and color blind casting that always seems befitting wi...

BWW Review: PRETTY WOMAN-THE MUSICAL at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - December 01, 2021

Welcome to the 1980's where acid wash jeans, big hair, shoulder pads and the music of Bryan Adams pervades the air. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere were starring in the rom-com blockbuster 'Pretty Woman'  and audiences were enthralled. Flash forward 30 or so years and everything old is new again as  ...

BWW Review: THE BAND'S VISIT at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - November 03, 2021

A visiting Egyptian band loses their way and a small town is forever changed. It seems that THE BAND'S VISIT is the TONY Award winning musical that no one has heard of. But that changed last night when the luminous National tour opened at Shea's Buffalo Theatre. It was evident that most audience mem...

BWW Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME at SHEA'S 710 Theatre
by Michael Rabice - October 29, 2021

After 20 months of sitting on a darkened stage at Shea's 710 Theatre, All For One Theatre Productions dusted off the set that has sat idle for the brilliant production of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME. The production closed on opening night in March 2020, never being able to be s...

BWW Review: TOOTSIE at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - October 14, 2021

TOOTSIE has taken the town as the first National tour of the Broadway musical opened in Buffalo this week. A full house of Covid vaccinated theatre goers packed into Shea's Buffalo theatre. Based on the 1982 movie, this non-Equity  tour has been rehearsing in Buffalo prior to launching it's visits a...

BWW Review: ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT at Alleyway's Main Theater
by Mark C. Lloyd - September 25, 2021

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BWW Review: “LET'S GET TO KNOW” LARA D. HERBERGER
by Mark C. Lloyd - September 18, 2021

Lara D. Herberger ...

BWW Review: FROZEN at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - September 15, 2021

Excitement filled  the air as the Shea's Broadway season kicked off with  Disney's FROZEN.  Adults and children clad in costumes and clutching their Olaf dolls patiently entered the theatre, all wearing  their obligatory face masks. Covid was not going to dampen anyone’s spirits. The warm Buffalo ev...

BWW Review: THE MUSIC OF DISNEY ON BROADWAY at Shea's Buffalo
by Michael Rabice - July 30, 2021

'A Whole New World' is not only the theme from Disney's ALADDIN but may also be the theme of life as we know it in 2021. Happily audiences returned to Shea's Theatre last night for the first time in 504 days, after the Broadway tour of HELLO DOLLY closed abruptly due to a pandemic that changed the w...

BWW Review: THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING at Irish Classical Theatre
by Michael Rabice - April 16, 2021

Unfurling the raw emotions associated with sickness, death and grief are not new  topics in literature. But author Joan Didion has suffered immense loss and tragedy in losing her husband and daughter, and uses this as the narrative of her book turned one woman play  THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING. In ...

BWW Review: I'M STILL SINGING WITH LINDSEY BRETT CAROTHERS at STARRING BUFFALO
by Michael Rabice - March 19, 2021

How to survive during a pandemic? Well that not only depends on your personal health, but your chosen occupation. Many a starving artist had trouble making ends meet pre-Covid, but post-Covid? Can we talk? Well, that's just what actress Lindsey Brett Carothers is doing in her one woman cabaret 'I'm ...

BWW Review: Dazzling Young Broadway Talents ZACHARY NOAH PISER AND ADAM ROTHENBERG at Starring Buffalo And Musicalfare
by Michael Rabice - November 22, 2020

Creative programming for theatre companies has become a do or die venture during the covid pandemic, so Starring Buffalo and Musicalfare Theatre have joined forces to give their own patrons and the world of the internet a chance to escape lockdown woes. Their recent online concert showcases two of...

BWW Review: A Brilliant SEA MARKS from Stage to Screen at Irish Classical Theatre
by Michael Rabice - October 25, 2020

Even the untamable powers of the sea could not keep Buffalo's Irish Classical Theatre from beginning it's 30th season under a veil of a pandemic. Artistic Director Kate LoConti Alcocer has joined forces with Buffalo's own Pan-American Film Division to bring theatre into it's audience’s homes with th...

BWW Review: A Jubilant HELLO DOLLY! at Shea's Buffalo Theatre
by Michael Rabice - March 11, 2020

Many may think that the heartwarming and brassy American musical comedy of yore with it's hummable tunes will never be seen again. That the days of star driven shows have dried up. The era when the names of Mary Martin, Ethel Merman, or Carol Channing all but guaranteed a hit musical. Now produce...