CHARLOTTE THEATER REVIEWS

Linda Woolverton does a masterful job of modernizing - and feminizing - Verdi's libretto for A DA, but despite an excellent Theatre Charlotte cast, slogging through Sir Elton's parade of power ballads grows tedious....

BNS Productions has assembled a strong, deep, and engaging cast for August Wilson's JITNEY, and director Corlis Hayes keeps it chugging at a rush-hour pace....

Three Bone Theatre's fast-paced production of THE SUBMISSION brings out all of playwright Jeff Talbott's backstage comedy and drama - and helps gloss over its clumsy, implausible ending....

Shakespeare Carolina takes a bold step in their adaptation of Dumas's swashbuckling MAN IN THE IRON MASK, casting two women as the twin brothers who claim the title of Louis XIV....

Leaning toward spectacle and theatricality, Bartlett Sher's production of THE KING AND I took me by surprise with its emotional power....

Knight Theater and Abby Corrigan's darker, more vulnerable portrayal of Middle Allison make the big differences in the current touring version of FUN HOME....

While A CHORUS LINE shows signs of age at CPCC Summer Theatre, when it gets intensely personal, it still delivers a dramatic jolt....

CHARLOTTE SQUAWKS 13: CHARLOTTE, WE HAVE A PROBLEM does a better job targeting statewide and national scoundrels than delivering on its promise to face local issues, but there are genuine nuggets among the worthless trinkets - and an absolutely sensational new cast member....

Spoleto Festival USA has gone from last year's 40th anniversary geniality to its customary edginess, and Druid Theatre's WAITING FOR GODOT wonderfully keynotes that shift at Dock Street Theatre....

Physical comedy upstages Chekhovian pathos in Peter Quilter's THE ACTRESS, now at Spirit Square in a well-acted Three Bone Theatre production....

Under the direction of Corey Mitchell, Theatre Charlotte delivers one of their best productions in the past 30, with Joe McCourt delivering a Broadway-caliber performance as Huey Calhoun, the heart of MEMPHIS....

Shame and repression hinder homoerotic love in 1958, but it's easy, nasty love that's the bugbear when we cut to 2008 in Alexi Kaye Campbell's THE PRIDE....

With a brilliantly imagined final scene, Charlotte Ballet choreographer Sasha Janes captures the emotions, manias, and passions of WUTHERING HEIGHTS with surprising success....

If you can find STUPID F@#%ING BIRD at Queens University, you'll find that this mash-up of Chekhov's 'The Seagull' is a goofy lark....

The ugly spectacle of art being turned into money is very much at the heart of MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, but there's also an upstairs-downstairs conflict brewing....

Theatre Charlotte's vivid new staging of A RAISIN IN THE SUN reminds us that Lorraine Hansberry's drama was written to show us all the things, good and bad, that can happen to 'a dream deferred.'...

Robert O'Hara's BOOTYCANDY has a merry old time lampooning trashy black mammas and a grandiloquent Sunday preacher, but the turbulence lurking within his gay anti-hero is indicative of the the playwright's ambivalence toward white people and his inner self-doubts....

Shamelessly borrowing his concept from Paul Rudnick's 'I Hate Hamlet,' William Missouri Downs's WOMEN PLAYING HAMLET hilariously flips the script, giving all the principal parts and scene-stealing cameos to women....

Perry T's latest New York Roundup includes six Broadway shows; NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET, HAMILTON, A BRONX TALE, IN TRANSIT, PARAMOUR, and ON YOUR FEET! plus three off-Broadway shows; PRUDENCIA HART, SPAMILTON, and CAGNEY...

The current CPCC Theatre production of RAGTIME THE MUSICAL is not only timely, but thanks to one of the best casts ever assembled on the Halton Theater stage, it's also newly powerful....

Closing with THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY at the Unknown Brewing Company, their most lavish production since they adapted The Princess Bride in 2011, Citizens of the Universe is going out with a big bang....

After gracing Broadway's Studio 54 with his presence in the body of Jim Parsons, God has chosen Duke Energy Theatre at Spirit Square for his newest abode and the body of Queen City Theatre Company's Kristian Wedolowski as his instrument. David Javerbaum's AN ACT OF GOD arrives in Charlotte with new ...

Theatre Charlotte's revival of CRIMES OF THE HEART affirms how vividly Beth Henley's deftly differentiated Magrath Sisters stick in a theatergoer's memory....

Now celebrating their 40th anniversary season, the Emerson String Quartet was already a marquee attraction when I first encountered them in live concert during the summer of 2002 at the Aspen Music Festival. That was about the time when members of the quartet, except for the cellist sitting on a ris...

With such a fine set of frontliners behind him, John Rapson may not be a dominant as Jefferson Mays was on Broadway, but the touring show comes off as more balanced, the LOVE and MURDER more equally weighted....