RHODE ISLAND THEATER REVIEWS

Head Trick Theatre continues to perform thought-provoking, timely productions with their latest piece, Lillian Hellman's 1941 play, WATCH ON THE RHINE....

BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE, playing at Westerly's Granite Theatre through October 28th, is the perfect choice of a play for this month, when thoughts of Halloween and all things spooky and mystical are in the air....

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE has been adapted over and over (once with zombies!) because it's a classic tale of manners, social mores, love and determination.  The version currently playing at Trinity Rep was adapted by Kate Hamill who is known for her contemporary adaptations of classic works. Unfortunatel...

MISS SAIGON, the tragic love story of a Vietnamese woman who falls in love with an American GI during the Vietnam War, is certainly not short on drama. Based on Puccini's Madame Butterfly, this retelling focuses both on the love affair between the two main characters, but also the horror of war and...

To open their ninety-eighth season, the Community Players is offering SOCIAL SECURITY by Andrew Bergman at Jenks Auditorium in Pawtucket. The play has an excellent pedigree. After twenty-six previews, the Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, opened on April 17, 1986 and ran for 388 perform...

A Murder is Announced... and a good time is had by all....

It may seem a bit odd to base a play on a movie, but when one considers that SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE was co-written by Tom Stoppard and won him an Academy Award, it becomes a no-brainer.  Under the capable direction of Jeff Church this witty and heart-warming story comes alive in a new way that will ma...

The Merry Murderesses of Cook County have set up in South County Rhode Island to close out Theatre By the Sea's 85th season with a bang.  This production is stacked with talent, as well as the outstanding songs and dance numbers one can rely on. Even as the days are (finally) getting a bit cooler, ...

Out of almost nothing, Head Trick has made something out of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at Roger Williams National Park....

Moreso than many other shows, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT is a musical that is rife for reinvention, and the current production at Theatre By the Sea, directed and choreographed by Richard Sabellico, has also been given its own unique spin....

Playwright Nick Payne is someone who asks a lot of his audience.  On its surface, CONSTELLATIONS is the story of the relationship between Marianne and Roland, in execution though, the play examines every possible iteration of that relationship a bit like if the movie Sliding Doors had 50 Gwyneths i...

Laugh the night away at A Comedy of Tenors at Westerly's Granite Theater....

If you go see the Contemporary Theater Company's current production of Peter and the Starcatcher, prepare to be enchanted. This production - at times poignant, at times delightfully silly - casts a spell over the viewer with the imaginative ways it tells the backstory of Peter Pan. The play, adap...

If you take a second to think about it, MAMMA MIA is a very strange musical.  Based on the musical catalog of Swedish superstars ABBA, it takes place on a Greek island where nearly everyone is American.  Classic ABBA hits (with minor lyrical changes) are shoehorned into a skimpy plot, but somehow,...

ESCAPE, the second installment of OUT LOUD Theatre's sixth season, is a thoroughly original, thoroughly engrossing movement piece that brings the audience along on the varied journey of emotions surrounding the loss of a loved one. Have Kleenex at the ready....

Theatre By the Sea's 85th season starts off with a bang with the 1978 musical revue AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'. Using the songs of famed African-American jazz pianist and composer Thomas "Fats" Waller, every aspect of Theatre By the Sea's rollicking production comes together to create as close to the experi...

If you take a step back and really think about it, musical theatre is pretty absurd.  Actors stop talking and burst into elaborate song and dance numbers, which are often great to watch, but you feel like if aliens landed on Broadway and went to a show, they would have a very strange idea of what h...

"Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him." Although taken from the Arthur Miller script, a terrible thing is also happening to the Willy Loman in Daydrea...

It probably takes a certain level of masochism to spend part of a weekend at a play called LIFE SUCKS, but it's (probably) been proven that watching the struggles of other people makes us feel better about our own circumstances. In the case of this play, viewers can feel doubly smug because it's bas...

Providence Ballet Theatre closed out their eighth season May 5th and 6th with their own version of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS at the Greenwich Odeum. As explained by artistic director and choreographer of the show, Eva Marie Pacheco, on-stage before the performance, almost everything about this...

Fear not, theatre-goers: David Auburn's Proof, presented by the Renaissance City Theatre, Inc. at Westerly's plush Granite Theatre weekends through May 12th, may contain talk of mathematicians and theorems, but to consider this merely a "play about math" would be disingenuous....

Trinity Repertory Company (TRC) punctuates the conclusion of its 2017-18 performance calendar with a definite exclamation mark. RAGTIME, now playing at TRC's upstairs Chace Theatre, is a season's best production both for the company and for the arts community statewide....

Music is such an essential element of a movie watching experience, but like the involuntary act of breathing, it often gets taken for granted.  This fantastic concert series pairs the much-beloved first Harry Potter film with the Rhode Island Symphony Orchestra in a live experience that is truly ma...

THE LITTLE MERMAID elegantly concludes Festival Ballet Providence's ruby anniversary season. This production is certain to enchant younger audiences with its fairy-tale backdrop and its colorful characters, and discerning dance enthusiasts will unreservedly applaud the ballet's sophisticated choreo...

ISABELLA, written and directed by David J. Valentin, holds its world-premiere this weekend at AS220's Black Box Theatre. The play is both timely - given the nation's current opioid epidemic - and timeless, as addictions and the lengths to which people will go to protect their desired vision of life,...