CLEVELAND THEATER REVIEWS

On November 22, 2014, twelve-year-old Tamir Rice was shot at close range by police officer Timothy Loehmann outside the Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland's near west side. Tamir died the next day....

It was a soggy night at Blossom, but neither the rain nor the humidity dampened the enthusiasm of the crowd that filled the pavilion and covered much of the lawn for the Saturday, August 13 evening concert of the Silk Road Ensemble....

David Mamet, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and author of Glengarry Glen Ross, a play which is now on stage at Blank Canvas, is noted for his unique style of writing dialogue. Dubbed 'Mamet speak,' his vocal tone centers on precisely crafted street-smart narrative style. His characters talk 're...

When the lights went off to signal the ending of none too fragile's production of Johnna Adams' unsettling, haunting, thought-provoking Sans Merci, my immediate reaction was, 'Oh, please fellow audience members, don't clap!'...

The 1984 movie Footloose became a cult movie among teens and young twenties, not only because it showcased a rebel with a cause standing up for his rights, and displaying victory over misguided-adults, but because of the performance of Kevin Bacon as Ren McCormick....

Walking down Queen Street, the main shopping boulevard in beautiful Niagara-on-the Lake, during the third week of July, was like being in downtown Cleveland. Cav championship t-shirts and Indian's garb were worn by many of the strollers. Our Toronto friends shared that in almost every play they atte...

'There's Another National Anthem, folks. For those who never win . . . for the ones who might have been.' A line from a Trump election advertisement? No, its from the Stephen Sondheim, John Weidman musical, Assassins, now on stage at Near West Theatre....

The indoor-outdoor Alma Theatre was seasonally comfortable with almost all of the seats full on opening night of Groundworks Dance Theater's 14 th annual performance at the Cleveland Heights hilly, tree-covered Cain Park. What the participants didn't know was that the almost always proficient Ground...

What happens when a happily married gay couple's home is invaded by one of the duo's pot-headed, manipulating sister, with her teen daughter in-tow? According to Chad Beguelin, the author of the play Harbor, which is now on stage at convergence-continuum, the answer is angst, frustration, revelation...

The year is 1984. Margaret Thatcher, the first woman British Prime Minister, declared war on the coal labor unions, closed 20 mines and laid off 20,000 workers in what she called 'the process of bringing the British coal industry up to competitive levels.'...

Johnny Cash, 'The Man in Black,' was noted as a somber singer of such songs as 'I Walk the Line,' 'If I Were a Carpenter,' and 'Ring of Fire.' The latter was chosen as the title for Richard Maltby, Jr.'s jukebox musical, now on stage at Porthouse Theatre, which loosely centers on the trials and trib...

What happens when a new musical opens at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse in California and becomes the highest grossing show ever at that venue? Obviously, it is grabbed up by a Broadway producer who opens it on the Great White Way. Right? Wrong!...

It's been seen by over 140-million people in 30 countries and 151 cities. It's been translated into 14 languages. It's Broadway's longest running show. What is it? Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, which is now on stage at the State Theatre, in a reimagined form....

In 2011, Kelly Williams-Bolar served a 10-day jail sentence for illegally sending her children to a suburban school outside of her Akron, Ohio district. The sentence disqualified Williams-Bolar from getting her accreditation as a teacher. A storm of protests, both pro and con, quickly followed the s...

There seems to be a trend in the choices theaters are making regarding musicals they produce. Maybe it's a desire to attract younger audiences, or it's the popularity of comic book heroes as the subject of television shows and movies, but like it or not, the age of 'unusual' protagonists is here....

A teenaged girl snarls at another, 'I know who I'm sitting with at lunch, do you?' Yes, high school can be a time of great angst or hellish glee. Depends on which clique you are in! Jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, drama-kids, brains...what was your place in the high school hierarchy?...

Purpose is to develop "a playwrights' center," which means they will "develop  plays (and playwrights), produce plays, and otherwise provide our dramatists with a long-needed home." ...

STEEL MAGNOLIAS is now in an extended run at the Hanna Theatre, as part of the Key Bank Broadway series. It is based on author Robert Harling's sister's 1985 death from diabetic complications following the birth of his name-sake nephew....

THE WILD PARTY is a musical by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe based on the same poem....

Edward Albee's THREE TALL WOMEN, a version of which is now on stage at convergence-continuum, has quite a pedigree. In 1994 it won Best Play recognition from the Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama....

THE FANTASTICKS, the Tom Jones (book and lyrics) and Harvey Schmidt (music) musical holds the honor of being 'the only Off-Broadway show to have won a Tony.' In addition, the show, which has been playing in New York for 56 years, is also the longest running theatrical production in American theater ...

Shortly into WRESTLING JERUSALEM, Aaron Davidman's self-written and performed one-man play, now on stage at the newly remodeled James Levin Theatre at Cleveland Public Theatre, Davidman tells a joke. A joke which is, in actuality, not funny, but very sad and prophetic....

Matilda Wormwood is a precocious five-year old who loves to read and has the ability to perform telekinesis. She also likes to meet life's obstacles. She comes from a family in which her father wanted a male child, so he calls her 'boy,' has a mother who didn't know she was pregnant and when Matilda...

The Irish are a unique brand of people. Living in a land of rocks, hills, harsh weather, poverty and isolation, they have developed attitudes toward life that lend themselves to dark thoughts and bleak tales....

If you go to see JERUSALEM, now on stage at Ensemble Theatre, don't expect it to be about people living in the Israeli city of that name, or of the 2013 film of the same name concerning a group of messianic pilgrims abandoning their native Sweden to emigrate to Palestine....