You'd better gussy yourself up and get over to The Muny this week for the seven-time Tony Award-winning musical, Annie. This family show has it all - hope, heart, and a heaping helping of humanity, and Peyton Ella shines in the title role like the superstar she is.... (more...)
Insight Theatre is an equity theatre in its 11th season, and Artistic Director Maggie Ryan says she has wanted to produce The Importance of Being Earnest for years. 'I delight in the language of this play,' she says of the classic farce. It's a 'trivial comedy for serious people,' which showcases pl... (more...)
Released on June 1, 2018 on the aptly named Timeless Grooves Records label, Rebecca Angel's WHAT WE HAD is a delightful series of tuneful excursions. In fact, the album's eponymous track written by Dennis Angel (her Father, who's also a trumpeter), Rebecca, and guitarist Jonah Prendergast, has alrea... (more...)
What a night it was at The Muny for Jersey Boys, the 2006 Tony Award winner for Best Musical. And when I say what a night, I mean Oh. What. A. Night. of doo-wop megahits galore! The Muny's opening night audience of over 8,400 showed up ready to be rocked, swayed, grooved, and shook, and all of that ... (more...)
The Union Avenue Opera opens its 24th season with a splendid production of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, and it brims with glorious music, wonderful voices, and bright, delightful, timeless comedy.... (more...)
Now that the weather has finally cleared up in St. Louis, you'll want to go celebrate The Muny in its 100th year at Singin' in the Rain. Celebrated as one of the most iconic musicals of all time-and perhaps as relatable today in some ways as ever, while we move through the digital revolution-Singin'... (more...)
What do you get when you mix a few displaced New Yorkers, a couple of hungry foosas, a fanciful lemur leader, and an enormous dancing steak? A crackalackin' romp of a good time, that's what!... (more...)
In a beautifully polished performance, Corinne Melancon as Agnes and Steve Isom as Michael (or Kari Ely as Agnes and David Schmittou as Michael on an alternating performance schedule) open Stages St Louis' 2018 season with I Do! I Do! which is a two-character musical version of the Tony-award-winnin... (more...)
Stages St. Louis is one of the great success stories in American theater. Jack Lane and Michael Hamilton started a little group in 1987 and it soon grew into a dynamite company producing season after season of superbly professional musical theater.... (more...)
Orpheus could charm the very stones with his lyre and his singing. Just such magic can be seen on the stage of Opera Theatre St. Louis when Jennifer Johnson Cano portrays the mythical superstar in the company's current production. She gives an utterly stunning performance.... (more...)
Opera Theatre St. Louis continues its 43rd season of exceptionally fine opera with another world premiere. An American Soldier is their twenty-seventh such premiere, a record which sets OTSL among the forefront of producers of new opera in America.... (more...)
For certain xenophobic East Coast opera lovers, the words "St.Louis" and "Opera" could seem like an oxymoron. However, this would be an invalid assumption.... (more...)
Opera Theatre St. Louis has produced many wonderful productions, and a handful of simply perfect ones. Their production of 'Regina' is among the latter.... (more...)
Of all the composers in the world Giuseppe Verdi is by far the most popular. Of all the operas in the world his 'La traviata' is by far the most frequently performed. Have you missed out on this mega hit? You can fill in that cultural gap with the splendid production now offered by Opera Theatre of ... (more...)
For several seasons I've searched for a term to describe Gateway Opera. In a city flush with larger companies-Opera Theater St. Louis, Union Avenue Opera, and Winter Opera-which offer truly 'grand opera', what can one call this little company which gives us such delicious bite-sized treats? They're... (more...)
We went out into the chilly spring evening - and it became, for me, one of the most totally pleasing evenings of opera I've ever experienced. Winter Opera of St. Louis presented Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore' in a production that was as near perfection as one could ever ask.... (more...)
The Metro Theater Company produces some of the best children's theater you'll ever see. They've been at it for over four decades. Now they have opened Bud, Not Buddy at the newly reopened Grandel Theater.... (more...)
Sooner or later it had to happen. Somebody had to notice the similarities between pearl divers, who must free-dive as deep as one hundred feet, and opera singers, who must make one breath last to the very end of that bel canto cadenza. Well, in 1863 Georges Bizet and his librettists saw that link be... (more...)
After ten seasons, Mustard Seed Theatre returns to one of their first productions, and it's an intriguing work called REMNANT by Ron Reed. It's a window into a plague-ravaged future where civilization has been lost, and mistrust runs rampant. But, there are remnants from the past that keep hope aliv... (more...)
The majority of Martin McDonagh's works are challenging in the most unexpected ways. What may seem to be a thriller is often a comedy of pitch-black proportions. His dialog is also quite profane, and often offensive, and yet, we find ourselves laughing when we should probably be shocked. Or, at leas... (more...)
It's always interesting when sequels are written to famous works because, in order to succeed, they must project some of the same style, skill, and taste of the original author. But, Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have crafted a play that carries on some of the same wit and charm that the book i... (more...)
You'll find plenty of humor and drama in playwrights Marni Freedman and Phil Johnson's A JEWISH JOKE, which is now playing at the New Jewish Theatre. Set during the McCarthy 'red scare' hearings during the early 1950's, the play offers up an examination of a Jewish comedy writer named Bernie Lutz w... (more...)
A touring company of Rodgers and Hammerstein's THE KING AND I is currently playing the Fox Theatre, and it's a very engaging revival of the classic musical. It's an elegant and entertaining show that won a Tony for best revival in 2015, and it's easy to see why. With familiar and lovely songs like ... (more...)
There are jukebox musicals that utilize the catalog of a group to hang a story thread onto that may or may not fit particularly well, and there are those that are portraits of the songwriters themselves. I think the latter actually works the best, and that's what you get when you see ON YOUR FEET!, ... (more...)
BWW Review: Darn Tootin'! ANNIE Enchants and Delights at The Muny
BWW Review: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST is Wilde and Wonderful at The Grandel
BWW Music Review: Rebecca Angel's Excellent WHAT WE HAD Brings Samba Grooves to a New Generation
BWW Review: JERSEY BOYS Grooves Like a Jukebox at The Muny
BWW Review: H.M.S. Pinafore is a Bright, Merry Musical Romp!
BWW Review: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is a Splashy Summer Hit
BWW Review: MADAGASCAR Rocks the House at Stages
BWW Review: I DO! I DO! Delights Audiences While Celebrating the Institution of Marriage
BWW Review: ORFEO & EURIDICE at OTSL Dazzles
BWW Review: OTSL Stages a Shocking Story in AN AMERICAN SOLDIER
BWW Review: REGINA at Opera Theater Of St. Louis
BWW Review: Opera Theatre St. Louis Gives Us An Utterly Flawless REGINA
BWW Review: TRAVIATA Triumphs at Opera Theatre of St. Louis
BWW Review: The Bantam of the Opera Strikes Again!
BWW Review: Winter Opera of St. Louis Presents L'ELISIR D'AMORE
BUD, NOT BUDDY Gets Live Jazz Support
BWW Review: Winter Opera Brings Pearls to St. Louis
BWW Review: Mustard Seed Theatre's Dystopian But Hopeful REMNANT
BWW Review: St. Louis Actors' Studio Presents Profane and Peculiar A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE
BWW Review: Repertory Theatre of St. Louis's Thoroughly Charming MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY
BWW Review: Hilarious and Heart-Breaking A JEWISH JOKE at the New Jewish Theatre
BWW Review: Romantic and Fierce THE KING AND I at The Fox Theatre
BWW Review: Winter Opera's 'The Student Prince' is superb!
BWW Review: Lively and Engaging ON YOUR FEET! at The Fox
