INDIANAPOLIS THEATER REVIEWS

'Tis the season for merriment and general jollity, and both are guaranteed when you take your seat for JANE LYNCH, A SWINGIN' LITTLE CHRISTMAS at The Cabaret, housed in Cook Theater at the Indiana Landmarks building. And both the setting and the art form lent themselves to an evening of food,...

This season of festivities feels incomplete without the iconic phrase, You'll shoot your eye out, kid! It would seem impossible to improve upon the cinematic genius that brought that phrase into vogue, but A CHRISTMAS STORY THE MUSICAL has proven that wrong....

In May the Phoenix theater will hold its grand opening at its new location. That exciting fact makes this Xmas show particularly special. This year is the very last time audiences can see the holiday hit in the old church the Phoenix has called home for decades. There are years of new memories to be...

With Thanksgiving barely being survived and a nutty Black Friday put behind me, it was time for the 25th (and final) A Beef & Boards Christmas!...

Drawing from ethnic flavors of Latin music and the modern, 21st-century popular styles of rap and hip-hop, IN THE HEIGHTS, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and directed by Karin Stratton, tells the story of a close-knit group of friends in the Washington Heights....

'The middle takes guts. The middle is where you go to sit down with monsters.' The Indiana Repertory Theatre's current Upperstage production, The Originalist, explores that middle, introducing us to a fictional relationship between Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and a liberal law clerk. The ...

Based on the 2004 movie and the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan, the musical Finding Neverland is definitely not without charm and some stage magic. The story at its core centers around the friendship of JM Barrie and a widowed mother of four boys....

When the Theatre on the Square closed its doors earlier this year, the perennial fall favorite Cabaret Poe needed to find a new home. The show settled into the fourth floor of Circle Centre Mall. It's an unexpected choice, but they make it work. All the best elements are still there, macabre humor, ...

If you are a fan of the cult classic film Ghost, you will enter the musical with high expectations. Luckily, you will not be disappointed because the musical includes the presence of all your favorite lines and the requisite sounds of Unchained Melody underlying some of the most tender moments of th...

The Indiana Repertory Theatre opened its season with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It's a murder mystery, but not in the traditional sense. The murdered party is a dog and the 'detective' is a teenage boy named Christopher, whose developmental disabilities allow him to see the w...

Academia. Culture. Anthropology. In-depth study. Research. Data collection. These hardly seem the buzz words for an impactful and insightful play, yet each of those weighty words holds sway in HUMAN RITES....

There's something unique happening in Fountain Square right now. In Grove Haus, an old church being used as a performance space, EclecticPond is presenting an original piece, written, composed, and directed by Indiana's own Paige Scott....

The infamous 'Man in Black' certainly has the legions of fans that merit a musical about his life, but you don't have to be a big Johnny Cash fan to love Ring of Fire. The show, onstage now at Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre, walks audiences through his life song by song; starting with his childhood in...

From the moment Matt Anderson takes the stage, his seething and scheming Richard III demands your full attention. It's a role that would be easy to over act, but instead Anderson's portrayal is raw and visceral. He has frequently popped up in supporting roles over the years, but this play gives him ...

The Golem of Havana is set in the 1950s as the people of Cuba waver on the brink of the revolution. A young Jewish girl named Rebecca is growing up in her father's tailor shop, oblivious to the turmoil around her. She writes stories of a superhero, the golem; the fabled protector she's grown up hear...

Now on stage at Beef and Boards is the ogre-sized, greatest fairy tale never told: the breathtaking Broadway musical adaptation of the hit movie Shrek. On one level, SHREK THE MUSICAL is silly family fun, but digging deeper into the story, there are messages that are crucial in life. The Princess, F...

The Depression Era brings to mind vivid images of poverty, bread lines, and tent cities. However, one couple decided that they would turn this time of nothing into a time of plenty. Enter the dastardly villains of BONNIE AND CLYDE....

And they're off! The 2014 IndyFringe Festival favorite is back in a full-length format. The Great Bike Race tells the store of the second running of the Tour de France in the most hilarious way possible. It was vicious, with cyclist cheating their way to the finish line, willing to sabotage anyone w...

Kinky Boots is the story of Charlie, a young man who inherits his father's failing shoe factory in England. In a last ditch effort to keep the business going, he joins forces with a drag queen named Lola to create a line of high-heeled boots. The story, based on real events, is fun but it also carri...

It's thriller season at the Indiana Repertory Theatre this month. Dial 'M' for Murder is currently on the mainstage and suspense is the name of the game....

From the swish of the golden dresses to the silver zoot suits to the huge smiles of the Dreamettes, DREAMGIRLS at Footlite Musicals sure brought it last Friday night. DREAMGIRLS is a musical documenting the blood, sweat, and tears of a struggling girls group rise to the top of the charts and the pos...

It has been 20 years since Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre last produced My Fair Lady. The classic musical is back and on stage now until May 14th. It's the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young woman with little money and less class. She becomes the student of a phonetician who is convinced he can turn he...

Miranda is a CIA operative working in Yemen in the current upperstage production at the Indiana Repertory Theatre. Written by IRT's playwright-in-residence James Still, the show is the third play in a trilogy he created. The first play, The House that Jack Built premiered at the IRT in 2012. The sec...

Imagine an era full of raw energy, vivid passion, and a thirst, drive, and talent that is unparalleled in American musical history. This vibrant scene is revived in MOTOWN THE MUSICAL, an embodiment of a people's voice that speaks to the soul of America. It evokes its dreams and its drive, and the a...

If you have a fondness for frivolity, a love of all things irreverent, a strong like or dislike for Shakespeare, and a ready and willing laugh, you belong at the Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre's production of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED)....