J Ben Wolfe

TexARTS Professional Series presents The Unexpected Guest, October 19 - 28, 2018. Directed by J. Robert Moore, the show is starring: Robby Anderson, Aaron Black, Mary Agen Cox, J. Stewart Jeffers, Tyler Keyes, Brandon Lindsey, Carson Erik Petocz, Sarah Fleming Walker, J. Ben Wolfe and Val Williams.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is a 2014 stage adaptation by Lee Hall of the 1998 Academy Award winning film by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard of the same name. It was first created under the auspices of Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions. The story concerns an imaginary love affair involving Viola de Lesseps (Claire Grasso) and playwright William Shakespeare (Stephen Mercantel) while he was writing Romeo and Juliet. Many of the characters are based on historical figures, and many of the characters, lines, and plot devices allude to Shakespeare's plays. The production, now playing at Austin Playhouse, is one of their biggest productions to date. This script has become one of the most produced plays in America this season, and rightfully so, as it as entertaining as the 1998 film was.

This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in New Jersey, Wichita, Miami, and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include a 'must-see' THE PIANO LESSON in New Jersey, PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE in Wichita, and THE NETHER in Miami, just to name a few.

DISGRACED is the 2013 Pulitzer Prize award-winning play that asks difficult questions about religion, assimilation and individuality. It is now in its Regional Premiere at Austin Playhouse. DISGRACED tells the story of Amir (J. Ben Wolfe), a successful Pakistani-American lawyer, whose life unravels after he lends his name to the cause of an imam accused of terrorism. When he and his artist wife Emily (Molly Karrasch) host an intimate dinner party, the social niceties that can disguise a person's prejudice soon dissolve when the evening escalates into increasingly brutal language exposing all the prejudice simmering underneath the veneer of civility.

It's become a trend, both locally and nationally, for theater companies to reprise a production several years later with the same cast. Of course, if a show gets an encore, it better be deserving of it. In the case of Austin Playhouse's I'm Not Rappaport, the encore is more than well deserved, and its two stars put on a veritable master class in acting.

If an example existed to explain the value of copyright laws, Katie Forgette's SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE JERSEY LILY might well be it. Since the copyright has expired on the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson they are now in the public domain and authors other than the originator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, can use these characters in their own works. In the case of Katie Forgette, she has used them to craft a stake-less, mediocre play with more marketability than merit, while stealing freely from Doyle's stories (notably, "A Scandal in Bohemia"), Wilde and Shakespeare without capturing any of the panache or humor of any of them. Sadly, the best moments in the script are actually from "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "Romeo and Juliet".

In this comic twist on a classic sleuthing caper Oscar Wilde's muse, actress Lillie Langtry presents Holmes with what seems like an open and shut case. But with his superior powers of deductive reasoning, Sherlock wastes no time in exposing a much more sinister conspiracy. In a fast-paced ride full of surprises and disguises, Holmes and Watson must do whatever it takes to help their friends...while facing their greatest foe.

In this comic twist on a classic sleuthing caper Oscar Wilde's muse, actress Lillie Langtry presents Holmes with what seems like an open and shut case. But with his superior powers of deductive reasoning, Sherlock wastes no time in exposing a much more sinister conspiracy. In a fast-paced ride full of surprises and disguises, Holmes and Watson must do whatever it takes to help their friends…while facing their greatest foe.

In this comic twist on a classic sleuthing caper Oscar Wilde's muse, actress Lillie Langtry presents Holmes with what seems like an open and shut case. But with his superior powers of deductive reasoning, Sherlock wastes no time in exposing a much more sinister conspiracy. In a fast-paced ride full of surprises and disguises, Holmes and Watson must do whatever it takes to help their friends...while facing their greatest foe.

After months of thought, debate and conversation, the staff and writers of Austin Entertainment Weekly with much assistance from Broadway World Austin's Editor Jeff Davis, have announced a new award system for the Central Texas Theatre Community.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's not the most fun one. Thank God 16th century playwright Pierre Corneille and modern day playwright David Ives have an affinity for the truth-challenged. Ives's modern take on Corneille's classic French comedy The Liar is an exhilarating and side-splitting mix of the old and new, and Austin Playhouse's production of it reminds us just how exceptional the Austin theater community is.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it. That adage often runs through my head, both in my personal life and in my work as a theater critic. It also runs through my head when viewing productions, especially ones like Blood Wedding. With plays not originally in English, attention must be paid to the translation. Blood Wedding, originally written in Spanish by Frederico Garcia Lorca, offers an additional challenge in Lorca's poetic style. It's not what he says but how he says it that makes Lorca's Blood Wedding an interesting and engaging piece of theatre. While the current production at St. Edwards University manages to visually capture Lorca's poetry, the translation by James Graham Lujan and Richard O'Connell is less successful.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, the award-winning producing arm of the St. Edward's University professional theatre training program, continues its 41st anniversary season with Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca, running tonight, November 14 - 24, 2013.

Mary Moody Northen Theatre, the award-winning producing arm of the St. Edward's University professional theatre training program, continues its 41st anniversary season with Blood Wedding by Federico Garcia Lorca, running November 14 - 24, 2013.

Is there a twelve step program to creating a perfect comedy? I don't know, but if there is, writer Stephen Adly Guirgis and Austin's Capital T Theatre have found it. The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a hysterical, riotous comedy that, despite what the vulgar title may suggest, is just as intelligent and poignant as it is filthy.

Halloween may be over, which means that the truly terrifying holiday is upon us: Thanksgiving. It's that dreaded holiday where we have to break bread and socialize with our family, pretending to like them despite how excruciating we may find them to be. It's fitting then that Capital T Theatre should present THE PAIN AND THE ITCH, a dramatic comedy about a family whose secrets unravel on Thanksgiving night.