CLEVELAND THEATER REVIEWS

If you like Elvis's songs, are in the mood for escapist theatre wrapped in a nearly non-existent plot, and want to see lots of high school and college kids have a good time performing, ALL SHOOK UP! could be your thing....

There is a love-in going on at the Cleveland Play House's Allen Theatre between Janis Joplin and the audience. Janis Joplin? She's dead. She died in 1970 at the age of 27. You'd never know it from the happenings on the CPH stage. Mary Bridget Davies, who took over the role opening night, doesn...

Many consider THE SOUND OF MUSIC the greatest American musical. Others think of it as a sentimental piece of fluff. Whatever their view, few can sit and listen passively to the likes of such songs as My Favorite Things, Climb Ev'ry Mountain, Do-Re-Mi, and Maria. This is Rogers and Hammerstein at ...

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It's been quite a year at the Beck Center! Earlier in the season the startlingly good SPRING AWAKENING captivated audiences. Dorothy Silver, the grand dame of Cleveland theatre, spun her web of talent over THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN. BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON with Dan Folino is rocking the complex's...

Probably the golden age of musical theatre in the US was from 1950 to 1960. Great scripts like King and I, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story were staged. Also produced were such flops as Salad Days, Zuleika, Ankles Away, The Vamp, ShaNgri-La, Shinbone Alley, and Free As Air. Most shows were of t...

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Several weeks ago a study listed George W. Bush among the worst presidents of the United States. Also on that list was Andrew Jackson. However, in contrast to Bush, Jackson was also on the roll of the best presidents. That dichotomy is well noted in BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, now rocking the S...

Cleveland Public Theatre's mission is to raise consciousness and nurture compassion through ground breaking new, adventurous work. Under the guidance of Artistic Director Raymond Bobgan, the theatre challenges audiences mainly strong works. Included in the winners have been this season's ANTELBELL...

When all is said and done, Great Lakes Theater should be extremely proud of its first collaboration of PlayhouseSquare as part of the annual Key Bank Broadway Series. The production is on par with the touring shows that stop in Cleveland. Just because SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM is considered a regional pr...

Every once in a while it's nice to go to a theatre, relax, hear some pleasant music, enjoy stories of love and life, and smile. That's the situation at Actor's Summit with their present offering, I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE....

Last year Ensemble Theatre produced playwright Rajiv Joseph's HUCK AND HOLDEN. It was filled with humor and creative storytelling. Those attending Ensemble's newest venture into Joseph's work, GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES, will experience the same type of storytelling, but will probably find the p...

When you think of vibrators, the Victorian era generally doesn't come to mind. Most people would probably find the sexual revolution of the 1960s a far more appropriate time frame … and yet Sarah Ruhl's IN THE NEXT ROOM, or the vibrator play, takes place in 1880s post-Civil War America when vibrat...

GOD OF CARNAGE is a well written comedy that evokes constant laughter. It gets a top-notch production at Dobama. If you want an evening of totally delightful entertainment, to experience rationality being replaced by riot, this is a must go-see!...

The tale is one everyone is familiar with - Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed lovers - fall in love despite the fact they are the children of two feuding families. Their tale ends in tragedy when a series of duels forces them apart … but ultimately reunites them in death....

In IPHEGENIA IN AULIST, which was written by Euripides, the classic ancient Greek writer of tragedy, Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek coalition is about to enter into a battle during the Trojan War. In order to appease the goddess Artemis, and encourage his troops to go into the battle in honor, ...

Since their creation in the 1930s by cartoonist Charles Addams, the Addams Family clan - Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley and Uncle Fester - has managed to infiltrate popular culture. Whether it's singing along to the finger-snapping theme song from the 1960s television show or instant recognitio...

"Lizzie Borden took an ax, gave her mother forty whacks, when she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one." That line from a caustic poem not only attempted to describe the 1892 murder of Borden's parents, but became a limerick used gleefully by girls for jumping rope. ...

What do you see when you see RED at Cleveland Play House? You see a strong, layered production of a thought-provoking play....

If you've ever gone into an art gallery and seen a canvas with a large square within another square on a solid background, or a strip of color vertically slicing through a sea of solid color, you've been exposed to what may be classified as a painting of the anti-figurative aesthetic segment of the ...

There is a new theatre in town…Blank Canvas. Founder Patrick Ciamacco explains that this is a professional theatre which pays designers and actors for their services. He states that the organization's staff is "dedicated to providing a positive working environment and want to show loyalty and inve...

POOR LITTLE LULU, Matthew Earnest's play, which is getting its world premiere at Cleveland Public Theatre where it is being produced in association with The Lunar Stratagem, is a classic Theatre of the Absurd creation. The absurd movement, which was at its high during the turbulent mid-to-late tw...

During the pre-talk of the opening night production of THE MOUSETRAP, William Fee, Great Lakes Theatre's Producing Artistic Director, shared that when the company was designing the 2011-2012 season, they wanted to add a different dimension to their offerings. The show selected had to take a diverse...

The First National Tour of MEMPHIS stops at PlayhouseSquare in Cleveland for a show-stopping run. The cast - lead by Bryan Fenkart and Felicia Boswell - doesn't disappoint on any level....

Cleveland-based playwright Eric Coble's latest work, A GIRL'S GUIDE TO COFFEE, makes its world premiere at Actors' Summit in Akron. Performances run Thursday to Sunday through March 11th....