Conceived with a book by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley, I LOVE A PIANO is a valentine to Irving Berlin music through the ages
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Author: Neal Zoren for NealsPaper
Neal of the Nealspaper is a fan of all forms of live entertainment, movies, and television. He is also a constant reader and a frequent traveler. He writes for NealsPaper.com, a place for people to come to read one authoritative voice in the dialogue, and find out what might be worthwhile — or not — as you plan your entertainment outings.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS (Quintessence): Swordplay and horseplay combine in a breezy adaptation
As always with an Alexander Burns production, imagery is rife, props are creative, and jokes come as much from sight gags as from dialogue.
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BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE (DTC): A child and her dog steal a charming musical
It’s an old show biz maxim, and true, that an adult cannot expect full attention if he or she is working on stage with a dog or a child.
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GROUCHO: A LIFE IN REVUE (ActorsNET): There’s no such thing as a sanity clause
Off stage, David Newhouse looks nothing like Groucho Marx. In makeup, Newhouse’s transformation is astounding.
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THE THREEPENNY OPERA (Villanova): Brecht played louder than the music
Republished by kind permission from Neals Paper. Kurt Weill’s insistent tingel-tangel score for THE THREEPENNY OPERA pervades the Vasey Hall stage, with horns and drum pumping…
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UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL (Hedgerow): Following a shaggy dog to the library
One of the funniest and most entertaining of all shaggy dog stories.
View More UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL (Hedgerow): Following a shaggy dog to the library
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (Temple Theater): Parties and excess
The young talent the school is grooming stands out in the Temple Theater production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG.
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BASKERVILLE (McCarter): An entertaining trip to Dartmoor
Ken Ludwig taps literature’s most iconic detective with BASKERVILLE, a funny, inventive, entertaining take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
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GHOST (Media Theatre): Animating a corpse
Director Jesse Cline doesn’t let GHOST’s musical or lyrical deficiencies stand in his way of making involving theater.
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ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (Curtis Opera Theatre/Opera Philadelphia): Clowns and opera collide
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS predates Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” and David Hirson’s “La Bête” by decades, but the situation its plot depicts brings both of those later 20th century works to mind.
View More ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (Curtis Opera Theatre/Opera Philadelphia): Clowns and opera collide
OSCAR (Opera Philadelphia): High notes and low in the life of Oscar Wilde
We see the tragedy of Oscar Wilde’s life played out creatively and movingly in OSCAR, a thoughtfully crafted opera by Theodore Morrison and John Cox,
View More OSCAR (Opera Philadelphia): High notes and low in the life of Oscar Wilde
ALWAYS… PATSY CLINE (Bristol Riverside): Sweet dreams of a country superstar
Cline is a natural subject for the theater. Although the sad facts of Patsy’s marriage and difficult personal life are alluded to, ALWAYS… PATSY CLINE is more about a relationship a star was able to form with a fan than a full biography of the singer.
View More ALWAYS… PATSY CLINE (Bristol Riverside): Sweet dreams of a country superstar
THE GUN SHOW (Passage): Let me tell you some stories about guns
EM Lewis accomplishes two simultaneous intentions—to tell a story theatrically and to spur perspective on guns.
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SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD (McCarter): Being a man in apartheid
SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD is genuine work of theater and an authentic, authoritative look at a shameful period of South African history.
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INTO THE WOODS (dir, Rob Marshall): Movie review
“Into the Woods” goes beyond fairy tale into exploring a basic human dilemma, how to fight a destructive common enemy.
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BIG EYES (dir. Tim Burton): Movie review
Republished by kind permission from NealsPaper.com. Though Tim Burton plays it straight in this movie about a monomaniac who uses his wife’s talent to feed…
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WILD (dir. Jean-Marc Vallée): Movie review
This is a movie about one woman gaining personal survival skills that will give her confidence to face the vicissitudes of everyday life when she returns to it.
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THE IMITATION GAME (dir. Morten Tyldum): Movie review
Morten Tyldum does a fine job of blending two stories: Alan Turing’s role in deciphering Nazi Germany’s Enigma Code, and his arrest and conviction for gross indecency.
View More THE IMITATION GAME (dir. Morten Tyldum): Movie review
BIRDMAN (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu): Movie review
The spirit of Samuel Taylor Coleridge has to be invoked practically every minute Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman” digitally projects on the screen.
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FOXCATCHER (dir. Bennett Miller): Movie review
Republished by kind permission from NealsPaper.com. The characters in “Foxcatcher” are laconic in general and, when they do talk, speak in short, clipped phrases that…
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