CLEVELAND THEATER REVIEWS

Theater Ninja is a nomadic theatre company which has no permanent home and appears in store fronts, art spaces, and churches. It was founded in 2006 with the goal of developing innovative, nontraditional theatrical experiences. As founder Jeremy Paul explains, 'We are a risk-taking company.'...

COCK, Mike Bartlett's compelling script, under the meticulous and creative direction of Corey Atkins, and some of the very best acting seen on a local stage, is an absolutely must see production. It's an A+ experience....

The Case Western Reserve/Cleveland Play House MFA Acting Program's class of 2014 has some excellent actors who should do well in their professional pursuits. Their production of TWELFTH NIGHT has some performance highlights, but the students appear to have been done a disservice by what could be dec...

As audience members smilingly walked out of Blank Canvas's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MUSICAL! covered with spatterings of stage blood, I could only think that something appears to have gone off-course in Cleveland theatre. On stage at local venues are the blood revenge musical, SWEENEY TODD, as well as the...

French Canadian playwright Michel Marc Bouchard's LILIES, with the subtitle 'the Revival of a Romantic Drama,' is a moralistic melodrama which is now in production at convergence-continuum. The author's best known work, it was recognized in 1992 as the best Canadian play. It was transformed into the...

One of the major questions musicologists have asked for years is why the brilliant Ludwig van Beethoven devoted four years of his life to writing 33 variations of what is considered to be a very mediocre waltz by Anton Diabelli....

RICHARD is a finely crafted production and is a perfect compliment to SWEENEY TODD as the partners of the ' maniacs gone wrong' duet that comprises Great Lakes Theatre's fall 2013-2014 season. Go see both!...

The recent release of a list of the 100 greatest musicals of all times has brought about much controversy in the theatre community. Though there has been conflict created by the plays on the list, there was no controversy over who was the best composer. Stephen Sondheim was the only writer/lyricist/...

Matthew Bourne's SLEEPING BEAUTY: Gothic fairy tale, is a ballet not only for the ballet aficionado, but for the person who knows nothing about the dance form, but wants to see a well told tale, marvelously performed, as one will probably never see it again. As a male acquaintance, who only went bec...

ANIMALS OUT OF PAPER is an often amusing, thought provoking play about what happens when the lives of mismatched people collide in complicated ways that highlight hurt and the challenges of individuals who don't know who they are or how to be in the world. The Ensemble production doesn't quite reach...

Farce is light comedy which contains exaggerated, extravagant and improbable situations. It often contains slapstick incidents and lots of people ducking in and out of slamming doors. Though farce was supposedly started in the 13th century, the modern tone for this format, which is highlighted by th...

Nathan Motta, in his first full season as Artistic Director of Dobama, not only selected a dynamic script to start his reign, but has conceived a production that is not only thought provoking, but well conceived....

If you are a fan of old-fashioned, escapist musicals with pleasant music, performed by a talented cast, you'll love SHE LOVES ME....

If your definition of a musical is an orchestra in the pit, dancing, and a plot in which the songs perfectly fit into the story line, WOODY SEZ: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF WOODY GUTHRIE isn't for you. If, however, you get off on learning about a real person, and sharing his music and philosophy, presente...

Dance has long been perceived as an art entertainment for the wealthy, educated and performance trained. Terms such as 'fifth position,' 'adagio,' 'camber,' 'shag,' and 'pirouette' are foreign to most people. Dance styles such as hip hop, Tango, jazz, Samba, and Broadway may be terms that have been ...

The Shaw Festival is one of the two major Canadian theatre celebrations, the other being The Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Both are professional high quality venues....

Sean Derry and Alanna Romansky, co-directors of none too fragile theater, have a knack for picking scripts that insight and excite. They reach for creating dissonance in the minds of the audience. In their short existence, the theatre has taken on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, racial hatred, and n...

Nothing but admirable praise can be heaped on Eric van Baars and his Porthouse cast of FIDDLER. This absolutely must see production is everything one would want in the creation of the tribute to a way of life destroyed, but lived! L'Chaim!...

Clyde Simon, the Artistic Director of convergence-continuum, never steers clear of in-your-face, lurid language-laced scripts. He has used this formula to consistently fill his theatre with cult patrons who are drawn to Simon's tastes. SELF DEFENSE OR DEATH OF SOME SALESMEN is a typical con-con offe...

On July 13, 1953, Sir Alec Guiness walked onto a stage located in a large tent in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, and spoke the first lines of what has become the internationally-recognized celebration of theatre known as The Stratford Festival. Now housed in five theatres, offering plays and other ente...

LEONARD BERNSTEIN is a compelling evening of discovery which exposes not only the life of a real person, but is an intriguing probe into the world of music and life in the arts. This is a must see for anyone interested in music and theatre....

Little did Artistic Director Pat Ciamacco realize when he elected to produce Reginald Rose's 12 ANGRY MEN that his selection would be fortuitous. How could he have known that the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman trials would be the major news stories, with the latter being decided the day Blank Ca...

You know you aren't in for the typical Broadway musical, when, at the start of SPAMALOT, now on stage at Beck Center, a historian gives a brief overview of medieval England and a Finnish village appears with dancers slapping each other with dead fish as they perform the 'Fisch Schlapping Song.' That...

SHREK is a creative script. The Mercury Summer Stock production will delight many. This is a community theatre production, and, a fairly acceptable one....

A musical review, by the very nature of its structure, is usually not of great interest to those theatre-goers who want a story line or an over-riding theme. Someone attends a musical review because there is a tuneful style or type of music that you like or there are some singers performing who you ...