JACKSONVILLE THEATER REVIEWS

'There is no place like home'. A quote that has rung true for generations, but for theatre fans even more so. The theater is an escape from the outside world. A place to enjoy the arts, to watch characters each and every person can relate to, and to experience incredible talent. The Wizard of Oz pro...

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is a beautiful show full of so much emotion and talent. The beautiful story, in which Miss Saigon is based on, is intriguing and heartbreaking leaving audience members to reflect on what they hold dear. A story of a young girl who believes in love so much she will...

This past weekend, Phase Eight produced Stephen Adly Guirgis' JESUS HOPPED THE A-TRAIN, a chillingly honest look at the strikingly different lives of Angel and Lucius, two New York City men incarcerated on Riker's Island....

I laughed more than I have in weeks, escaping the reality of my own personal tragedies, and judging by the uncontrollable laughter, clapping, and singing along that surrounded me in the audience, one thing is clear: this revue is exactly what you need right now, Jacksonville. Featuring 39 classi...

"What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?" is the strikingly articulate song that follows the opening number of AVENUE Q, which opened last night at Amelia Community Theatre. I uncomfortably shifted in my seat, as my B.A. is…also in English (insert face-plant emoji). AVENUE Q, winner of three Tony A...

Theatre inspires. Incorporated as a viral hashtag during the 2017 Tony season, complete with a Facebook frame that many in the theatre industry have made their permanent statement, the arts community has touted the power of theatre to inspire everyone, if we allow it. But what does it inspire? Theat...

For 12 years running, the FSCJ Artist series and the Wilson Center for the Arts has produced an Annual High School Summer Musical Theatre Experience. This year brings WEST SIDE STORY, a mammothly essential piece of work to all musical theatre lovers. With book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Be...

BENT doesn't request the audience's permission to turn your heart upside down. It forcefully attacks your places of comfort in exchange for a meaningful conversation, for provoking consideration, for basic human empathy....

ANNIE opened at The Alhambra Dinner Theatre last week to a house full of excited young ladies, local theatre lovers, and even those who aren't as familiar with the Jacksonville theatre scene, as the timelessly successful musical tends to draw large crowds who know every song from childhood. With ico...

Rich in allegorical themes and teeming with tragic irony, Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer winner TOPDOG/UNDERDOG opened at The 5 & Dime Theatre Monday night. Celebrating the removal of the theatre's arch nemesis, a support pole that previously ran straight through the front of the stage, the house was pa...

With wide eyes and big dreams, Millie Dillmount leaves behind her small town of Salina, Kansas to pursue a life of riches and fame in New York City. Like most of us, it takes Millie mere moments in the Big Apple to learn her goals may be a little harder to come by than she had originally thought. TH...

An instant classic upon its publication in 1987, Robert Harling's STEEL MAGNOLIAS is a story that will make you laugh until you cry, and the Alhambra Theatre's current production of this timeless piece is no exception....

Ron Shreve's vision for this show is stunningly complimented by Erin Barnes' musical direction. Intricately staged, every movement is purposeful to the story. The acoustics at The 5 and Dime are swell, and this cast of ten posesses a full, awe-inspiring sound. Rarely a missed note was uttered, and n...

If you are like me and were practically raised in Truvy's Beauty Parlor, when STEEL MAGNOLIAS hits the stage, you're in the front(ish) row, trying to get Shelby to drink her juice. If you're not like me, you might check it out because it has become a classic and you want to know why. Whichever your...

Brilliant costumes and catchy, well-written songs cannot salvage this provoking concept that ultimately misses the mark. This is not my story or your story, and no one in the room is encouraged to see themselves in Todrick's story (unless we are one of the ensemble dancers). Todrick knows that, ackn...

A.R. Gurney's THE DINING ROOM, a play in two acts, presents the audience with a series of vignettes with nearly 60 characters, all played by only 7 actors. Covering decades of family life for North Eastern "WASPS"s (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants), this disappearing upper middle class is poked fun at...

The curtain set sail as the orchestra led an overture riddled with recognizable tunes. Two rows behind me, an adorable little girl clad in turquoise fins and a long red wig bounced up and down in her seat, eager for the show to begin. From behind a brilliantly dressed proscenium, Diana Huey popped o...

A two and a half hour marathon of absurdism, clever dancing around endless prop pieces, Peter and the Starcatcher is the most intriguing theatrical experiment an audience could have ever envisioned from such a colorful flight to Neverland....

Ernest Thompson's 1979 ON GOLDEN POND is an ode to the durability of love and family in the face of aging, loss, and miscommunication. Amelia Community Theatre has just opened a touching production of the Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning play which became a critically-acclaimed film two years later...

It's a thrilling experience for an audience when the curtain opens and there is an explosion of pure energy that grabs you and does not let go until the curtain call. The musical MEMPHIS has exploded on the stage of Players by the Sea Theatre in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, garnering much deserved p...

There is something killer going on in Orlando's theatre scene, and I mean that in the best possible way. Since debuting with a production of CABARET in January, Gen Y Productions has staged thrilling Florida premieres of two of New York's most buzzed-about new works, a risky proposition for a theatr...

There is something exhilarating about sitting in the audience watching a new work that you think could eventually become something special. More so than any other artistic medium, pieces of musical theatre require extensive gestation periods, sometimes with years numbering in the decades. So to see ...