MAINE THEATER REVIEWS

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's names have become synonymous with musical theatre. Even if you've never seen a musical on stage or don't care for the art form it's almost a definite that you have at least heard of their works: Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera. JOSEPH AND...

There's something very special about a story that can instantly make people of any age feel like a child again. Sometimes in the hustle bustle of today's world with so many 'adult' problems, adults forget what it's like to have been a child. MARY POPPINS has been just that kind of story for childr...

On August 16, 1977 we lost an American music and cultural icon: Elvis Presley. But, he has never truly left us. His memory endures with the vast amounts of music he recorded, the movies he made, and his likeness being used all over the planet. You would be hard pressed to find someone in this wor...

On Sunday, August 4, 2013, in Freeport, Maine, the Freeport Players delivered a lively, riotously funny and highly inventive performance of the suspense comedy, The 39 Steps, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the John Buchan novel and Alfred Hitchcock film. Using four actors in multiple roles, a minima...

Shows featuring a solitary performer onstage are a hell of a thing. Playwrights/authors put their thoughts and ideas into a piece that is often biographical, and just as often fictional. The sole performer then must bear their soul onstage, working one on one with a director to inhabit the persona...

When Thornton Wilder premiered his new play OUR TOWN in 1938, I would wager that more than one person left the theatre asking why anyone would want to watch the lives of "ordinary" people on stage. Fast forward to present day where millions of people the world over tune in to reality tv shows, foll...

'Sing out, Louise!!'. This phrase has been part of theatre lexicon for more than 50 years. Almost having become an inside joke, and used by directors, choreographers and actors to coax performers into giving it their all. Throughout GYPSY's storied history, it has been produced numerous times acr...

There are many challenges that face a theatre who chooses to mount such a difficult production. First and foremost are how to bring these iconic characters to life as realistically as possible, while still showcasing the actors underneath. Second is how to present the various locations presented i...

It's hard to imagine the existence of the modern musical comedy without the likes of Mel Brooks. In 2001, his first major foray into the art form premiered on Broadway: The Producers. It went on to win a record 12 Tony Awards, and solidified his role as someone to be reckoned with in the genre. ...

Disguises, mistaken identity, lies that beget other lies; these are the calling cards of modern television sitcoms, and farce on stage. But these conventions have been around long before the likes of Ken Ludwig's brand of farce or the inception of the moving picture. Shakespeare's comedies have lo...

The Fourth of July weekend continued at the Bowdoin International Music Festival with an exciting showcase of the festival's young talent: a four-hour lineup of back to back concerts in the Artists of Tomorrow series. The purpose of these recitals is to create a platform where the festival's student...

"Three hundred miles north of everywhere," the small but bustling college town of Brunswick, Maine, attracts some of the world's most prestigious musicians to its summer festival. The Bowdoin International Music Festival, now in its forty-ninth year, is a performance and practice program where 250 c...

Whether it be live theatre or cinema, most theatergoers are looking for entertainment and often an escape. We buy our tickets, step through the lobby and enter a dimly lit space waiting with expectations of entertainment; comedy, drama, musical, horror, what have you. Every once in a while, the si...

"They'll love you a lot more if you hang. You know why? Because they'll sell more papers". When Bob Fosse, John Kander and Fred Ebb presented their jazz-aged masterpiece for the first time in 1975, I doubt they could foresee millions of people tuning in for highlights on the George Zimmerman tria...

Brusnwick, Maine is home to galleries, restaurants, Bowdoin College, and Maine State Music Theatre. Theatre packages make Brunswick a great weekend getaway during the theatre season....

Les Mis. A French title, and a show so popular it has its own nickname. When the show premiered in London in 1985, some people wondered how on earth Victor Hugo's masterpiece of a novel could be turned into a musical. Those people have long since been silenced. Les Miserables has become one of t...

The annals of music theatre are dotted with plenty of amazing and award winning shows. Shows that have become classics, and part of the 'Golden Age' of music theatre. Thoroughly Modern Millie may be a recent Broadway hit, but this masterpiece deserves it's place alongside the classics of American ...

Similar shows exist elsewhere in our current theatre landscape, in both plays and musical theatre. I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; Are We There Yet?; Forever Plaid (and pretty much ANY other show conceived by Roger Bean) are examples in musical theatre. Having performed in each one of thes...

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. An instantly recognizable song to 99% of the English speaking world. The female group that made the song famous, even more recognizable and beloved: The Andrews Sisters. Champions of the USO, and perhaps the most famous singing group of all time, The Andrews Sisters sold mor...

The brutality and barbarism of Shakespeare's early 'revenge' play, Titus Andronicus, make it difficult fare for modern audiences. And yet, as director Stacey Koloski says about her staging at South Portland's Mad Horse Theatre Company: 'Titus Andronicus shows the human cost to the cycle of war and v...

I am here to tell you that not only can Shakespeare's work be truly life changing, but it IS accessible, and topical in our present world climate. And a production like the Mad Horse Theatre's stellar presentation of Titus Andronicus proves that to a tee....

You know those dreams you have when you wake up suddenly, and all you want to do is fall back asleep and continue the dream? If you are lucky enough to see Dreamgirls at Maine State, you will leave the Pickard Theatre feeling the same way....

In his in vino veritas speech near the end of Ken Ludwig's comedy, Moon Over Buffalo, George Hay voices a nostalgic paean to the "wicked life upon the stage." Like several of Ludwig's other plays, Moon Over Buffalo is a predictable, but gently amusing look at a troupe of actors treading the boards ...

Veteran television comedienne Sally Struthers is working overtime to bring much needed laughs to an otherwise hit or miss production of Dolly Parton's '9 to 5: The Musical' at Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine...

Maine State Music Theater closes their 54th season with a perfect montage of talent, tech and Broadway-like production values that brought a sell-out audience to their tapping feet on opening night. ...