THE CALM LEAF

by Benoit Teves - February 01, 2026

In a production that marries 16th-century gravitas with 21st-century urgency, Director Monica Long Tamborello finds a delicate balance between Act I’s playful hope and Act II’s harrowing descent, reminding us that while the feud is ancient, the loss of innocence remains a devastatingly contemporary ...

by Albert Gutierrez - January 29, 2026

The reason the play works at all is because of the sheer strength of its production values and the commitment of its cast. When you look at all the design elements – sets, lighting, illusions, choreography – and combine it with performers who move through that space with the same ease as one breathe...

by Benoit Teves - January 19, 2026

Part bar, part group hang, and part chaotic theatrical experience, The Renaissance Theatre Company’s production of MEAN GIRLS blurs the lines between a traditional show and an immersive club experience. While the scrappy staging and mid-show cocktail deliveries lean heavily into the troupe’s immersi...

by Albert Gutierrez - January 18, 2026

While much of the dramatic weight of Angels in America undeniably stems from the specter of AIDS, it would do the play a huge disservice to reduce it to a story about disease alone. What Theater West End makes clear is that Kushner’s work is as much about identity, loss, and the human struggle to re...

by Benoit Teves - January 17, 2026

Titusville Playhouse’s HAIRSPRAY delivers a high-energy 'Baltimore fairytale' that stays true to the show's tradition of camp and exuberance. Featuring several standout performances, the production deftly balances infectious musical numbers with a technicolor parade of 1960s fashion. While celebrati...

by Albert Gutierrez - January 07, 2026

If “& Juliet” works at all, it’s because it commits to the premise without apology: a Shakespearean remix told through the lens of pop music, meta-theatre, and a general belief that stories never really die, they just get re-written. This touring production of the still-running Broadway musical lean...

by Albert Gutierrez - December 17, 2025

One of the most effective things the musical gains by moving from page to screen to stage is permission to reframe the story without betraying it. By leaning harder into the Curtis brothers as the emotional spine, the musical clarifies a distinction that’s always been present in the text but rarely ...

by Albert Gutierrez - November 29, 2025

This new approach to the storytelling of Hadestown helped make me appreciate some of the compromises on the tour. And to further appreciate what they still maintained from the first tour and Broadway production. The set’s slightly modified (Hades’ door is more centered, for one), but we get to keep ...

by Albert Gutierrez - November 05, 2025

The 2024 production earned seven Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, which I feel is an earned acknowledgment that speaks more to the craftsmanship, the ambition, and the emotional journey present in the show. The stage production’s direction, choreography, puppetry design, and ensemble ...

by Drew Eberhard - October 27, 2025

In 1991, American Novelist Bret Easton Ellis published the highly controversial novel American Psycho. Through the story, we dive headfirst into a greed, lust, and ego-filled world told through the eyes of Patrick Bateman. A man so narcissistic, so label-driven, money hungry, and at the root of it a...