KENTUCKY THEATER REVIEWS

It is not often that Louisville is treated to a World Premiere orchestral piece, but, lucky for us, we have a young talent of renown who serves as our orchestra's Music Director: Teddy Abrams....

Mayhem, murder, and music go hand in hand to create a delightful evening seeing A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder....

The words 'carefully taught', drawn from a song in Rogers & Hammerstein's South Pacific, promise artistic green vegetables, an edifying moral lesson about the origins of racial prejudice in American society. Cheryl L. Davis's play contains exactly such a lesson, but it is wrapped in an equally edify...

I have watched some plays that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize and wondered, 'was this REALLY the best American play of the year?' Watching this production of Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park that thought never entered my mind. This is a play for which the word 'great' is fully justified, a reading of t...

Kentucky Opera brings their premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking to Louisville audiences this week. And composer Heggie was also in town to celebrate this production, one of more than 60 mounted of this work around the world since its 2000 premiere....

Most of us have grown up with the story of Peter Pan; the story of a young boy who can fly, who never grows up and lives in Neverland, which can be found at the second star to the right. We heard it as a bedtime story, or enjoyed seeing Walt Disney bring the story to animated life, or even, if we we...

Not Peter Pan, but HOW Peter Pan came to be the cherished story it is today....

In a far off land there exists a world of magical witches and angry bears, a world where girls roam the country to find themselves and grow into women. Theater 502 's current staging of The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls blends fairy tale archetypes with Russian customs and modern chic to create ...

Arthur Miller's The Crucible, written as a parable for a specific time, seems to strike such a deep and resonant chord that its themes are universal and always relevant. The historical setting is Salem, Massachusetts and the infamous 18th-century witch trials, but Miller had the 1947 House Un-Americ...

Mitch Albom's book Tuesday's With Morrie told of the renewal of a friendship with one of his college professors in the months before the old man dies from ALS. It was a bestseller and popular television movie, and it remains an appealing inspirational story. The stage adaptation, by Albom and Jeffre...

As the house lights dimmed the familiar rata-tat-tat on the snare drum signaled the beginning of our nation's anthem, the 'Star Spangled Banner' as the audience rose to their collective feet and sang along. Thus, this long-held tradition began the Louisville Orchestra's 80th Classics Season....

We Wear the MaskTrayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner - just to name of few from recent, ongoing history. In the social discourse and overt protest surrounding the growing list of Black lives lost to police violence, the connection between these e...

Addiction To LifeWith every ending, a new beginning is sure to follow. This common idea of change in literature and art manifests itself through themes of death and birth. Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika at Actors Theater picks up where Millennium Approaches leaves off at a rigorous pace. Em...

After a two-year stint in California, J Barrett Cooper's directorial touch has returned to Louisville stages. The founder of Savage Rose Classical Theatre here turns his attention to material that is world away from the period pieces that dominated his work in the last ten years. Coyote Ugly is a br...

What is there to be said about Angels in America that hasn't already been said? Some would argue that it has passed into the literary canon and is no longer relevant; due to the Reagan-era time frame and a story tied to a health crisis now long forgotten. And yet, the LGBT rights, AIDS epidemic, and...

The dysfunctional family drama has long been a staple in American theatre, only the particulars of the dysfunction change to reflect the times. In Taylor Mac's Hir, Isaac Connor (Neil Brewer) is a Marine discharged from active duty collecting dead bodies from a war zone, returns to his California ho...

This modern American classic opens and makes a heavenly impression as the first show of Actors 2017 - 18 season....

Derby Dinner Playhouse brings back a solid chestnut musical with promising results....

Lady in the StormThis week sees the closing of Kentucky Shakespeare's 57th season of free, continuous, outdoor Shakespeare productions, making it the oldest company of its kind in the country. To mark the second and final Community Partner Week, they are teaming up with the Louisville Ballet, one of...

I am not the biggest fan of Adam Sandler, or at least the movies he manufactures for himself and his buddies, but I have always liked The Wedding Singer, one of his first, most endearing films. The story of Robbie Hart (Remy Sisk), a cheesy but sincere front man for a wedding band in the late 1980's...

Thanks to the comedic timing and moving performances of three actors, the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!,now playing at Kentucky Center, features enough to keep audiences entertained, whether they are into ABBA, or not....

In most of her work, Josefina Lopez explores the hearts and minds of Hispanic women with vivid and bracing language that feels authentic; an honesty filtered through poetry. In her 1997 play Confesiones..., she draws compelling portraits of eight female characters who together might be said to chart...

This Royal Throne of KingsNeill Robertson is having a very good year. After a triumphant turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch just one month ago, he here presents us with a Richard II that is nothing less than a lesson for us all....

Fur, fuzz, and four letter words make Mind's Eye's Avenue Q a delightfully raunchy romp at the theatre....

After a long wait, Louisville is finally ready to GET KINKY!...