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BWW Reviews: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Is a Long But Moving Evening at Portland Center Stage
One of the most famous quotes regarding Fiddler on the Roof came from the producer of the first Japanese production, who said to the writers, 'Do they understand this show in America? It's so Japanese!' Well, you don't have to be Japanese, or Jewish, or anything else to understand Fiddler....
BWW Reviews: Clackamas Rep's THE 39 STEPS Will Surprise You All the Way Through
This is The 39 Steps as filtered through Monty Python or Carol Burnett. If you're old enough to remember Carol's Saturday night movie parodies, with the wigs that never quite fit and the accents that were hammier than Easter dinner, you'll have a sense of what this show is trying to do....
BWW Reviews: LUCKY STIFF Will Make You Glad You're Alive
Lucky Stiff is an early project by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist/librettist Lynn Ahrens, who went on to create Once on This Island, Ragtime, and the underrated A Man of No Importance. It's an odd mating of one of those twee English comedies that always seemed to feature Alec Guinness and a ...
BWW Reviews: THE MOUNTAINTOP Is a Difficult Climb
A high point of the first part of the play is when King asks Camae what she would say to the world if she were in his shoes, and she literally puts on his shoes (and coat) and launches into her own oratory, which is surprising and intelligent, if quite different from King's perspective on the confli...
BWW Reviews: No Reservations - THE BIG MEAL Is Fantastic
The Big Meal is about nothing less than the entire scope of life, played out in a series of meals in a variety of restaurants....
BWW Reviews: A Sloppy KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Opens at Triangle Productions
I salute any theater that tries to push itself into new creative directions. However, if you're going to do those risky shows, especially those with challenging roles, you need to have the right people to lead the way....
BWW Reviews: LICKING BATTERIES is a Terrible Title for a Thoughtful Drama
In Licking Batteries, electricity is both literal (in the use of electroshock therapy to treat mental illness) and metaphoric (in the sparks between people), and it gets used in a multitude of ways to tell an engrossing story....
BWW Reviews: A Big Hug for KISS ME, KATE at Clackamas Rep
Cole Porter's songs are justifiably classic, both the tunes that relate to the backstage story and the numbers for the show within the show, and this company has the voices to put them over sensationally....
BWW Reviews: Broadway Rose Finds All the Charm in MY FAIR LADY
The late Lehman Engel was a conductor for a number of Broadway shows in the 1940s through the 1960s, in addition to writing several masterful books on the creation and construction of musicals, and founding the musical theater workshop that bears his name and has trained many of the top songwriters ...
BWW Reviews: Shakespeare Goes Mod in Portland Shakespeare Project's THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
We enter the world of Padua, which in director Michael Mendelson's vision takes place in the swinging 1960s. The set is a clear reminder of Laugh-In, with its pastel colors and patterned walls with small doors that the actors can peep through. The costumes are witty reminders of that era, particular...
BWW Reviews: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESEPARE (ABRIDGED) is Will-Fully Hilarious
Is there a more reliably funny performance piece than The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield?...
BWW Reviews: Broadway Rose Gives Its All to CATS
Director-choreographer Lyn Cramer put her cast to work right away, sending them on one by one during the overture, crawling, slinking, and rolling onstage. The cast of twenty-four filled the auditorium's huge stage, each one in full cat costume and moving in time to the music. The actors stay in cha...
BWW Reviews: AVENUE Q Is Sweet, Salty, and Very, Very Funny
I attended Avenue Q at a sold-out Saturday night performance on Pride weekend in Portland, and the house was filled with people who clearly knew the show and were ready to have fun. The couple seated next to me, however, came with a group of friends and seemed confused about what they were going to ...
BWW Reviews: SOMEWHERE IN TIME is Enchanting... But A Bit Too Long
The lush music, the period costumes, and Andrew Samonsky's performance kept me involved. There's some trimming to be done, and some rewriting, and maybe it will work for fans of the movie. But there could be so much more....
BWW Reviews: ITHAKA Journies Into Mind and Heart of a Returning Soldier
When soldiers go to war, they find themselves in unbearable, life-threatening situations, and terrible things happen. Then, if they survive, they have to find their way back to the places they lived before, where society expects them to pick up where they left off. But soldiers are changed by what t...
BWW Reviews: CROOKED - A Clear-Eyed Look at Adolescence
Catherine Treischmann's play Crooked, now playing at CoHo Productions, is about a fourteen-year-old girl named Laney who is even more confused and angry than most kids her age....
BWW Reviews: ARI-MARIA, An Operatic Musical at Triangle Productions
Tommy Tune said it (or sang it) best in Seesaw, to the music of Cy Coleman and the lyrics of Dorothy Fields: "It's not where you start, it's where you finish." When a show has a strong finale that sends you out into the night singing, you'll forgive it some bumps along the way....
BWW Reviews: TEN CHIMNEYS at Artsts Repertory Theatre
The play looks and feels like a bright, witty comedy, the kind that used to light up Broadway stages year after year....
BWW Reviews: ALWAYS...PATSY CLINE is Good Fun at Broadway Rose
Two immensely talented actresses working their hearts out to entertain, backed by a solid country-swing band, playing to a packed house…what a way to start my tenure as BroadwayWorld.com's new Portland correspondent....
BWW Reviews: THE HOMECOMING, defunkt Company Delivers Tension and Cold Calculation to Pinter's London Flat
I'd like you to think of this play as a boxing match. However, this is not a fight carried out with physicality, but with words, with implied meaning, and with silence. Words are our weapons here and words - equally - our weapons of defense. This is the nature of THE HOMECOMING....
BWW Reviews SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, at Portland Center Stage: a Bloody Killer of a show!
Portland Center Stage opens up the season with SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, and a powerhouse ensemble makes this musical too impressive to miss. A great shot at show-of-the-year and a high end production that is packing the house. Tune in!...
BWW Reviews: THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS at Broadway Rose, a Well-Casted, 1950s B-Movie Romp
Broadway Rose returns with their well-casted, talent-fueled farce of the 1950s B-Movie in THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. With debuts and returns, the cast delivers a knockout!...
BWW Reviews: Oregon Shakespeare Fest's HENRY V - Propaganda Tale that Still Delivers
HENRY V may be well remembered for its iconic wartime speeches, but is its intention as honest as it seems? The text provides strong evidence for its inception as a propaganda piece, but a strong delivery and production value deliver in classic Shakespearean fashion, with one or two twists along th...
BWW Reviews: Oregon Shakespeare Festival's ROMEO AND JULIET Brings This Classic to Life
BWW journeys down to Ashland to the wildly magnificent Oregon Shakespeare Festival! First stop is ROMEO AND JULIET, set in California during the Mexican-American War. This treatment brings a fresh look and new conversation to the Bard's most famous romance. Part One in the OSF double feature!...
BWW Reviews: THE DROWSY CHAPERONE is an Entertaining (Albeit Superficial) 'Romp'
There's a question that I know we've all been wrestling with for a long time now. A question that was answered in New York in 2006 when THE DROWSY CHAPERONE first premiered on Broadway, and a question that the Broadway Rose Theater Company has finally allowed Portland to answer as well. Can a 1920...
Videos
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Kristina Wong #FoodBankInfluencer Portland Center Stage at The Aromory (5/26-6/07) |
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Arbus & West The Sactuary @ Sandy Plaza (6/04-6/20) |
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Next To Normal Twilight Theater Company (5/21-6/14) |
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Funny Girl Lakewood Theatre Company (4/24-6/07) |
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The SpongeBob Musical Portland Playhouse (4/29-6/07) |
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StoryLogs 21Ten (5/29-6/07) |
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Keller Auditorium (8/02-8/15) |
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Pink Martini Britt Festival Pavilion & Gardens (9/03-9/03) |
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Disney's Descendants the Musical Hillsboro Artists' Regional Theatre (HART) (6/13-6/28) |
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As You Like It Metropolitan Performing Arts (6/27-7/19) |
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