Stages St. Louis opened their 40th Anniversary season with one of the most adorable and wittiest ensemble theater pieces written in the past 25-years. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is the award winning, silly, and relatable musical comedy about a group of quirky middle schoolers competing to win a trip to a national spelling bee competition. Stages St. Louis frolicsome production of The 25th Annual Spelling Bee is gleefully irreverent carefree fun. Directors RonnGibbs and Gayle Holsman Seay capture the script’s humor and the heart that is carefully tucked behind the comedic playfulness.
Stages St. Louis has announced full casting for their season opening production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The ensemble, comprised entirely of actors who call St. Louis home, includes multiple St. Louis Theater Circle Award winners.
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (The Rep) - the leading regional performing arts theatre in the Midwest - closes out their 2022-2023 Mainstage season with the highly anticipated classic mystery, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. Climb aboard with the masterful Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in this classic whodunnit that will keep audiences on the edge of their seats until its shocking conclusion.
Playwrights Kristen Adele Calhoun and Michael Thomas Walker's new drama, Canfield Drive, received its world premier this month, after being co-commissioned by 651 Arts in partnership with The St. Louis Black Repertory Company and the National Performance Network. Under development for the past four years, this breathtaking new play takes a hard, serious look at incidents and attitudes surrounding the August 14, 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, the Ferguson protests that followed, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Calhoun and Walker, whose work is well-researched and hard-hitting, uses a documentary theatre structure, its many short scenes based on interviews from people around Ferguson and around the nation whose voices might not necessarily have been heard in traditional media coverage.
Mustard Seed Theatre has brought back their popular staging of ALL IS CALM - THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914, which premiered around this time last year, and it's definitely a piece of theatre that demands your time and attention. Somehow I must have missed mentioning this the first time around, but this was originally a broadcast that occurred on Minnesota Public Radio. Artistic director/director Deanna Jent took that raw material and molded it into a moving and compelling stage production that won deserved accolades and awards for its excellence. If you didn't catch it last year, then you need to make sure you do so during its current run, and even if you did see it, I can promise you that it's certainly worth seeing again.
ALL IS CALM: THE CHRISTMAS TRUCE OF 1914 is a smartly conceived acapella musical by Peter Rothstein that chronicles the stunning events that occurred on Christmas Day 1914. It mixes short narrative bursts with 23 songs from the period, and it's never dull or contrived. For me, the hearty vocals produced by the cast are a sheer delight to listen to. Mustard Seed Theatre has put together a wonderful production that's a real treat for the upcoming holidays.
It's only fitting that while we're celebrating Independence Day there's a production of the musical 1776 being staged by a local theatre group. After all, it's not has-been bands at local fairs and fireworks displays that we're supposed to be honoring on this particular occasion, but rather the principles which this country was founded upon. And, 1776 is an entertaining and informative show (book by Peter Stone, and music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards) that attempts to set this historical event to music. Although it's often uneven in tone, it's an engaging ride nonetheless, and Insight Theatre Company's current production is a solid interpretation driven by some fine performances.
I'm a big fan of the works of playwright David Mamet, and with his play, SPEED THE PLOW, he takes aim at the cutthroat world of Hollywood. It's a fascinating look at what sells and what doesn't when you're talking about the big screen. And, it also shows how friendships can be pushed to the brink by perceived betrayals. Marked by solid performances from the cast, the play is funny and telling in equal measure. The current production by The New Jewish Theatre is nicely constructed and executed, as well as providing ample food for thought.
With the divorce rate as startling high as it is, it's not uncommon to find plays that deal with this subject matter. However, playwright Donald Margulies examines not only the plight of the couple going through the breakup, but that of their friends as well. With DINNER WITH FRIENDS, Dramatic License Productions has put together a fine cast under sharp direction in their presentation of this timely and thought-provoking work.
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (The Rep) presents William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. The show will be performed on the Browning Mainstage of the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road (on the campus of Webster University), Webster Groves, through April 8, 2012.
Anyone who reads my reviews regularly knows that I'm a fan of Shakespearean re-imaginings. Sure, I like my Shakespeare played straight as well, but sometimes when one of his plays is tinkered with in just the right fashion it comes to life in new and unexpectedly exciting ways. Such is the case with the Rep's slapstick take on THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, which is given the background of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and given a heavy dose of 1930's period music to liven things up considerably. It's a brilliant take and leaves the Rep with a perfect batting average for the season. It's the reason why we go to Rep in the first place; they consistently provide entertaining shows that are expertly acted and directed, in a theatre that puts you right on top of the action. What more could you ask for?
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (The Rep) presents William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. The show will be performed on the Browning Mainstage of the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road (on the campus of Webster University), Webster Groves, March 14 - April 8, 2012.
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (The Rep) presents William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. The show will be performed on the Browning Mainstage of the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road (on the campus of Webster University), Webster Groves, March 14 - April 8, 2012.
Seventeen different stage productions were honored at the third annual Kevin Kline Awards ceremony. Ten St. Louis area theater companies - double the number of last year's recipients - were recognized with awards. Four of those ten theaters were multiple award winners.
