Connecticut Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 27

BWW Reviews: Playhouse on Park's PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM a Rediscovered Woody Allen Gem
by Jacques Lamarre - March 09, 2013

The Woodman's 1969 daffy Broadway comedy gets revived at West Hartford's Playhouse on Park...

BWW Reviews: Extra! Extra! Screwball Comedy HIS GIRL FRIDAY Unfolds at Connecticut Rep
by Lauren Yarger - March 04, 2013

Love in the newsroom, corrupt politics and a murder trial combine for screwball comedy in HIS GIRL FRIDAY over at Connecticut Repertory's Nafe Katter Theatre on the UConn campus....

BWW Reviews: Chatting with Chekhov Sheds Some Light in MAN IN CASE at Hartford Stage
by Lauren Yarger - March 01, 2013

Dramatic music plays, people talk in short sentences expressing their deepest feelings, video mimics what is happening on stage - or the stage action depicts what already has happened - in an atmosphere that feels depressing and foreign. We have stepped into the world premiere of Man in a Case starr...

BWW Reviews: The Music Comes Through Loud and Clear, the Story Not So Much in AMERICAN IDIOT
by Lauren Yarger - February 27, 2013

A group of friends, loud music, drugs, sex, war and rebellion against parental authority. If you're thinking Spring Awakening or Hair, you're close, but just a generation or two off. This one is American Idiot, a Punk Rock musical featuring songs from Green Day and making a tour stop at the Bushnell...

BWW Reviews: CT Cabaret's GREASE is a Rock 'n' Roll Party Scene
by Jacques Lamarre - February 24, 2013

Hop in Greased Lightning and cruise down the Berlin Turnpike!...

BWW Reviews: Riveting Performances Propel Long Wharf's CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS
by Lauren Yarger - February 22, 2013

The darker side of the production is offset by riveting performances by Ivey and Tighe - and that really adorable scene-stealing lamb handled by William Berloni....

BWW Reviews: Seven Angels Takes Us on Trip Down Memory Lane with George Burns in SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE
by Lauren Yarger - February 20, 2013

The play is as much a love letter from Burns to his comedy partner and wife and a tribute to his friendship with comedian Jack Benny as it is a memoir of his career, which spanned 90 years until he turned 100....

BWW Reviews: Little Theatre of Manchester's VIRGINIA WOOLF is Vicious and Vibrant
by Jacques Lamarre - February 17, 2013

Can't afford a trip to see the current Broadway revival? LTM's VIRGINIA WOOLF is nothing to be afraid of......

Cathy Rigby Still Flying High in PETER PAN
by Lauren Yarger - February 18, 2013

...

BWW Reviews: HAIRSPRAY Could Tease Out a Little More Originality at Broad Brook Opera House
by Jacques Lamarre - February 10, 2013

John Waters' tale of hair hoppers and integrationists receives a workman-like production in Broad Brook....

BWW Reviews: Gurney's ANCESTRAL VOICES Blends Nostalgia with Modern Questions About Family, Acceptance
by Lauren Yarger - February 06, 2013

One of A.R. Gurney's lesser known works, ANCESTRAL VOICES, is getting a run over at Music Theatre of Connecticut, where the intimate setting is just right for the nostalgic look at one family, seen through the eyes of a boy growing up in Buffalo before World War II....

BWW Reviews: ALMOST MAINE Offers Warm Love Stories with a Touch of Frostbite
by Lauren Yarger - February 04, 2013

The play has cool charm, blustery humor and just enough frostbite to keep it from being too sweetly romantic....

BWW Reviews: Uncle Fester Takes Flight in THE ADDAMS FAMILY
by Joshua Mamis - February 02, 2013

A new non-equity tour of The Adams Family kicks off at New Haven's historic Shubert Theater....

BWW Reviews: Good Acting, Direction, Make All the Difference for STONES IN HIS POCKETS
by Lauren Yarger - February 01, 2013

When I first saw Marie Jones's play STONES IN HIS POCKETS, I wasn't reviewing, but was working as the Front of House Manager at the Bushnell where Bronson Pinchot was starring in the tour stop there in 2002. About half of the audience left at intermission, most of them asking what the play was about...

BWW Reviews: Spirit of Broadway's DANI GIRL is Moving, Surprising and Funny
by Jacques Lamarre - January 27, 2013

DANI GIRL is chemo-riffic....

BWW Reviews: Playhouse on Park's MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS Wilts Under the Spotlight
by Jacques Lamarre - January 26, 2013

Trying to be a farce and a message play, MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS is neither fish nor fowl and only partially funny....

BWW Reviews: CLOUD NINE Time Travels at Yale January 22-26
by Joshua Mamis - January 23, 2013

Caryl Churchill's gender-bending, time-traveling farce is liberated by the Yale School of Drama....

BWW Reviews: BREATH & IMAGINATION Shouts a Jubilant Song
by Lauren Yarger - January 22, 2013

Humor, drama, history and passion are keys used to play a lovely chord as Roland hears music in everything he does and Tresnjak is the conductor who puts visual artistry to the emotions and plot....

BWW Reviews: JANUARY JOINER is Long on Hope, Short on Results at Long Wharf Theatre
by Sherry Shameer Cohen - January 21, 2013

Why can't we be happy just as we are?...

BWW Reviews: Hole in the Wall Theater Packs a Lot in URANUS
by Jacques Lamarre - January 19, 2013

New Britain's quirky theatre blasts off with ATTACK OF THE SPACE NYMPHOS FROM URANUS...

BWW Reviews: MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET Brings Legends to Life -- Almost
by Lauren Yarger - January 10, 2013

It's 1956 and Carl Perkins (Connecticut native James Barry) is trying to record 'Matchbox,' the song he hopes will put him back at the top of the charts. Providing some distraction during the recording session (and adding to the music), however, are showoff Jerry Lee Lewis (Benjamin Goddard) and leg...

BWW Reviews: Enjoy Some Christmas Cheer from a Disgruntled Elf in THE SANTALAND DIARIES
by Lauren Yarger - December 14, 2012

Kready, dressed in full elf garb that incudes candy-cane tights (Margaret Charbonneau, costume design), often reclining in an ornate Santa throne decorated with a background of Christmas trees (Michael Lenaghan, set design), brings personalities to life with recreations of SantaLand moments under th...

BWW Reviews: CONNetic Dance's NUTCRACKER SUITE & SPICY More Mild Than Wild
by Jacques Lamarre - December 14, 2012

With NUTCRACKER SUITE & SPICY, a critic learns Trix are for kids....

BWW Reviews: Sarah Ruhl's DEAR ELIZABETH, Play About Poets, is Poetry Itself
by Lauren Yarger - December 12, 2012

It's amazingly sad yet funny, intense yet whimsical, deep yet obvious, revealing yet obscure -- all at the same time and both Fisher and Mays capture our imaginations as they creating characters experiencing the wide range of emotions....

BWW Reviews: Playhouse On Park's DRIVING MISS DAISY a Comfortable Ride
by Jacques Lamarre - December 10, 2012

Playhouse on Park's somewhat bumpy production of DRIVING MISS DAISY proves to be smart holiday programming....