Inspired by William Shakespeare's famous play, Romeo & Juliet, West Side Story is set in the Upper West Side neighborhood of New York City in the mid-1950s. The story explores the rivalry between two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The Jets, a white gang, and the Sharks, who ar... (more...)
Based on Disney's 1992 Academy Award-winning animated film musical of the same name as well as the Arabic folktale from the One Thousand and One Nights, Aladdin follows an Arabian street urchin who steals food in order to support himself. Meanwhile, Princess Jasmine is feeling hemmed in by her fathe... (more...)
Plays and musicals are often written about racial incidents that have happened in the distant past, like THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS or the fictional RAGTIME. It's less often that they are written about more contemporary events like the true story of the Jena Six, six black students charged with attempted m... (more...)
This holiday season, three-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Harry Connick, Jr. will be headlining a one-man show celebrating the work of composer/lyricist Cole Porter for a limited run on Broadway. Recently, he played a premiere engagement at the Durham Performing Arts Center this past weekend.... (more...)
When you open a program to find a page recommending ways that people can take action after seeing a musical (like registering to vote and supporting groups like the ACLU), you know that you're going to see something special. Theatre Raleigh's last show of their 2019 Summer Season, THE SCOTTSBORO BOY... (more...)
Raleigh Little Theatre's A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER is the first local production of this musical which won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical in 2014. The hilarious romp has a score that's reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan's work, complete with patter songs an... (more...)
There are some musicals that it's difficult to imagine someone could watch without their heart being touched. Theatre Raleigh's production of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, directed by their Artistic Director Lauren Kennedy Brady, is certainly one of those pieces. Based on the novel of the same name... (more...)
Based on Harold Gray's comic strip titled Little Orphan Annie, this musical tells the story of a little orphan with equal measures of pluck and positivity who charms everyone's hearts, despite a next-to-nothing start in 1930's New York City. She is determined to find her parents who abandoned her ye... (more...)
It seems fitting that the last show I'll cover for Broadway World is CATS. I've seen this show at least a half-a-dozen times, and for me, it's a time capsule of sorts. The first time I saw it was in its original home at the Winter Garden Theater during a high school class trip to New York. A few yea... (more...)
Loosely based on the fictitious life of Pippin the Hunchback, this musical tells the story of the young prince Pippin, Heir to the Frankish throne, who is in search of the secret to true happiness and fulfillment. He seeks it in the glories of the battlefield, the temptations of the flesh, and the i... (more...)
Based on Thornton Wilder's 1954 play titled The Matchmaker, Hello, Dolly! follows famed New York City matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi as receives her toughest challenge yet. She must travel to Yonkers to find a suitable match for the miserly 'well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire' Horace Vandergel... (more...)
Fans of American Bandstand will revel in the nostalgia of it, while baby boomers may be more reflective on the counterculture of the time. Either way, the Theatre Raleigh production of Beehive: The 60's Musical is an entertaining retrospective of the women, the music, and the movements that defined ... (more...)
n the realm of jukebox bio-musicals, BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL is probably better than most. And a lot of that has to do with King's rich repertoire of music, not to mention the fact that her story runs parallel to the story of the songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Their coll... (more...)
I can see where The Lightning Thief musical might be compared to a cross between Harry Potter and Dear Evan Hansen.
Based on Rick Riordan's book of the same name, the musical tells the story of Percy Jackson and friends, a group of half-bloods who straddle the line between being half-God and half... (more...)
There is something wonderful about seeing a classic musical. Perhaps it is the familiarity of the story or the well-known songs that just feels like home. And in terms of that, the national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein's THE KING AND I, based on the Tony Award-winning 2015 Lincoln Center revival,... (more...)
Dear Evan Hansen, today's going to be a good day and here's why... That's how the juggernaut of a little show that could, opens. Nearly 427,000 hashtags later, DEAR EVAN HANSEN is not only a phenomenon but literally part of America's cultural heritage. Artifacts from the show, still running on Broad... (more...)
Boy and girl meet. Boy and girl meet again and fall in love. Boy and girl meet again, fall in love again, and break up. In fact, boy and girl meet, fall in love, fall apart, time and time again, in Nick Payne's two-person play CONSTELLATIONS. The play is part of Bartlett Theater's current season, a ... (more...)
Between January 2018 and August 2018, the federal government attempted to censor, misrepresent, and otherwise silence science over 150 times. That's according to the Silencing Science Tracker (SST) launched by Columbia University's Sabin Center and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. While most ... (more...)
Decadence and dreams, Hollywood nights and hair bands, and Journey and jazz hands, it could be said that ROCK OF AGES is a party almost 40 years in the making.
The Tenth Anniversary Tour of ROCK OF AGES opened at the Durham Performing Arts Center last night, marking the tour's 100th performance. ... (more...)
Based on the songs of ABBA, Mamma Mia! is set on a Greek Island where a young woman named Sophie Sheridan is about to get married, and she wants her birth father to give her away. Yet, she has no idea who it is, so she invites three men who were romantically involved with her mother 20 years ago to ... (more...)
Sometimes a show completely defies expectations. And in the case of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, that's a good thing.
I settled into my seat at the Durham Performing Arts Center Tuesday night and drew forth my pen, my weapon choice, completely prepared to obliterate this production. Then th... (more...)
If the Theatre in the Park production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL can be compared to a Christmas gift for Triangle families, then it might be said that the company's pre-Valentine's Day offering of A LIFE IN THE THEATRE is like a love letter to the sanctuary of storytelling and art otherwise known as the t... (more...)
I was going to begin my review of Honest Pint Theatre Company's production of THE HERD with this sentence. As the mother of a child with special needs, I related to THE HERD. Then, I was going to amend my opening sentence to read, 'As a parent, I related to THE HERD.'
Yes, it's true that Rory Kin... (more...)
How many articles have you read in the last four years about high-profile celebrity suicides wherein family members and friends said, 'I had no idea'? And out of the 47,173 people in the United States who died by suicide in 2017 (according to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention), what, if ... (more...)
BWW Review: North Carolina Theatre's WEST SIDE STORY
BWW Review: ALADDIN National Tour at Durham Performing Arts Center
BWW Review: BLOOD AT THE ROOT, Raleigh Little Theatre
BWW Review: HARRY CONNICK, JR. - A CELEBRATION OF COLE PORTER at Durham Performing Arts Center
BWW Review: Theatre Raleigh's THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS
BWW Review: A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER at Raleigh Little Theatre
BWW Review: Theatre Raleigh's THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
BWW Review: North Carolina Theatre's ANNIE
BWW Review: CATS is a Memory that Lingers On and On and On
BWW Review: Raleigh Little Theatre's PIPPIN
BWW Review: HELLO, DOLLY! National Tour at Durham Performing Arts Center
BWW Review: Some Magic Moments Make Theatre Raleigh's BEEHIVE Worth the Time Traveling Trip
BWW Review: BEAUTIFUL Continues to Delight and Entertain, But Can We Just Get Past the Jukebox Musical, Please?
BWW Review: ANASTASIA National Tour at Durham Performing Arts Center
BWW Review: For Fans Looking for a Redemptive Adaptation After the Disastrous Movie, THE LIGHTNING THIEF Musical Delivers
BWW Review: In the National Touring Revival of THE KING AND I, Women Reign Supreme
BWW Review: DEAR EVAN HANSEN Spins a Telling and Cautionary Tale for a Digital Age
BWW Review: Time is the Real Star of Bartlett Theater's Production of CONSTELLATIONS
BWW Review: PlayMakers' Heavenly Production of LIFE OF GALILEO is One for the Ages
BWW Review: Ten Years Later, ROCK OF AGES Rocks On
BWW Review: North Carolina Theatre's MAMMA MIA!
BWW Review: Oozy, Saccharine Sweet National Tour of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY Just Might Be One Concoction Worth Trying
BWW Review: Theatre in the Park's A LIFE IN THE THEATRE Celebrates a Life Lived in the Theatre
BWW Review: A Mother's Observations of Honest Pint Theatre Company's Production of THE HERD
BWW Review: Exquisite Storytelling Makes the PlayMakers' World Premiere of Charly Simpson's JUMP a Must-See
