By LOU HARRY I laughed a lot during Iceboy, the new musical getting what producers hope is a pre-Broadway run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The new musical concerns a wealthy actress’ acquisition...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In Shakespeare’s Richard II at the beginning of Act II,  there is a famous phrase that is uttered in reference to England. On his deathbed, John...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) When John Kander and Fred Ebb first premiered Chicago, they must have thought they had bad timing. That’s because with Gwen Verson, Chita Rivera...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The first clue I had that this production was going to be something special was when I got to my row and discovered to my shock and delight that...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The first clue I had that this production was going to be something special was when I got to my row and discovered to my shock and delight that...

By GINNY MARIE Monty Python’s Spamalot galloped onto the Saenger Theater stage this week, the final show of the Broadway across New Orleans 2025-26 season. With lyrics and a book by Eric Idle and musi...

By MEGHAN LOVELACE The Book of Mormon is a familiar buddy comedy with satirical flair. The jumpy choreography and dopamine disco lighting had me sitting back in my seat thinking I was going to be watc...

By LOU HARRY I had the honor of representing the U.S. as a delegate to the International Association of Theatre Critics congress in Craiova, Romania in late May. The fringe benefit of that was the cha...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) At the beginning of Bess Wohi’s play Liberation, the character of Lizzie breaks the fourth wall to greet the expectant audience. She makes some ...

By LOU HARRY Thanks to its notorious David Merrick-produced/Patti LuPone-starring died-on-the-road 1976 tryout, the Steven Schwartz/Joseph Stein musical “The Baker’s Wife” landed a reputation as being...

By ROY BERKO The Notebook: The Musical tells the heart warming, and often heartbreaking life-long love story, of Allie and Noah.  It is based on a true tale inspired by author Nicholas Sparks’ wife’s-...

By AARON KRAUSE A social media influencer learns from a DNA test that she is among the 40 percent of individuals who can smell asparagus in their urine. An otherworldly being tells two zoo-goers that ...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When Arthur Miller debuted The Crucible in 1953, the nation was emerging from the dark and sinister times of accusations and recriminations know...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Jamie Wax’s play Call Me Izzy is set in Mansfield, Louisiana, some three to four hours away from where he grew up in Baton Rouge and New Orleans...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It is perhaps most appropriate that for the third jewel in Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane’s studded crown is Carousel, the Rodgers and Hammerste...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Julie Benko turned in a perfect performance as Eliza Doolittle in a concert version of Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady opposite Broadway veteran...

By LOU HARRY After a few days at the Stratford Festival, I stopped in at the Shaw Festival for the first time in a dozen years. Visiting the festival and the charming town made me regret those years I...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) When Company by Stephen Sondheim (and a book by Mark Furth) opened on Broadway in 1970 it was such a breath of fresh air and so unlike anything ...

By LOU HARRY You don’t need to go to an amusement park to have the feeling of riding a roller coaster. In Stratford, Ontario, you can acquire something akin to whiplash at a festival where you can see...

By SCOTTY BENNETT A famous line from the John Ford film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is spoken by the newspaper reporter character, Maxwell Scott, near the end of the film, after hearing the tru...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Rupert Holmes proves he knows how to take a popular hit,  re-set it in an improbable location and adapt and re...

By: SCOTTY BENNETT A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First is a gem of a play written, directed, and performed by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland. This two-hander makes a connecti...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Chicago –the longest running show now on Broadway and the second longest running show in history – made its way to the Saenger Theater in New Or...

˘By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Fats Waller, the very talented American singer and songwriter, lived an unfortunately short but prolific life, dying in 1943 at the age of 39. ...

By LOU HARRY I caught the opening night of Terry Guest’s play Oak at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center, the second of its three rolling world premiere productions. Some thoughts: – Oak concerns a pl...

By LOU HARRY I caught the first performance of The Prom, produced by Summer Stock Stage, a unique company that fuses the talents of established performers with early career actors. It’s now a resident...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the two brothers who conceived Something Rotten! and more recently wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Mrs. ...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable is a brilliant indictment of organized religion and the negativity attached to innuendo and gossip. While it finds root in the Catholic Church of Shanley’s own youth, the damage to reputation and the stain on the lives of the accused could …

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It’s been a full decade since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s idea of a “mixtape” about the Founding Fathers was playing at the Public Theater to sold out ...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When the season announcement was made last year that Jefferson Performing Arts (JPA) would be producing Billy Elliot: The Musical for its final ...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It’s hard to believe, but until three years ago there had never been a revival of Funny Girl on Broadway. The starring vehicle in 1964 that turn...

By SCOTTY BENNETT One of the fascinating things about humans is how easily they mask intense feelings in a cloak of smiles and good humor. Pain, both physical and emotional, can be disguised but not c...

By ELIZABETH SCHABINGER The Bedwetter, based on Sarah Silverman’s memoir of the same name, is an intimate look at Silverman’s year as a 10-year-old. In The Bedwetter,  Sarah is a fifth grader in a new...

By ROY BERKO Parade, which is now on stage at the Palace Theatre as part of the Key Bank Broadway series, is a musical with a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. It is a dr...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) As hard to believe as it may be, Mamma Mia!, the ABBA hit jukebox musical is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It continues to enthral...

By LOU HARRY, Special to Theatrecriticism.com Yes, “Henry IV” is the complete title.  Sans the  “part 1” and “part 2” that traditionally complete the title of William Shakespeare’s historical take, th...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Sam Shepard’s powerful play about the toxic relationship between two brothers – True West – is back at the Jefferson Performing Arts’ Westwego T...

By LOU HARRY, Special to Theatrecriticism.com It’s made clear from the first moments of “The Antiquities” that the human race is history. Jordan Harrison’s play, a co-production of Playwrights Horizon...

By LOU HARRY I’ve only seen Liza Minnelli once live. That was at a concert with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, where her batteries seemed fully charged and she treated the audience like we were ...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Capturing the wit and destructive lifestyle of humorist Oscar Levant is a daunting task for any actor attempting to portray the tortured genius,...

By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The biggest problem Broadway has with so-called “jukebox musicals” is they always seem to get mired down by the exposition of the story regardin...

By ALAN SMASON There are a lot of people capable of taking a beloved film soundtrack and adapting it faithfully into a theatre piece for presentation on the stage. There are also a lot of people capab...

By ALAN SMASON Of all the holiday-themed shows that make their way onto stages in December, Elf: The Broadway Musical may be the one most resistant to the Grinch, Scrooge and other humbugs. Based on “...

By SCOTTY BENNETT Consider, if you will, a blizzardlike night, a cozy inn on the brink of closing forever, suddenly brought back to life by the arrival of two very different groups of travelers who cr...