If you weren't able to get tickets for the Green Room's weekend presentations of Assassins, I'm guessing you weren't alone, as all three performances wound up selling out. But over the next two weekends, I urge you to try again - there are scenes in director Derek Bertelsen's production that are so good they'll give you the chills. And the scenes that don't? They're pretty amazing, too.
Genesius Guild's season-ender opens with a visual gag so wonderfully surprising that I wouldn't dream of describing it, and closes with a slapstick chase so wonderfully goofy that I couldn't describe it if I wanted to.
Mel Brooks' musical The Producers - currently being produced at the Timber Lake Playhouse - received 12 Tony Awards in 2001, more than any Broadway musical before or since. And so I say this with all the deference and reverence that Brooks' historic achievement deserves: When Timber Lake's Justin Banta was throwing himself around the stage as a mincing Adolph Hitler in the show-within-a-show Springtime for Hitler, I was laughing so hard I almost freakin' wet myself.
All things considered, Friday night's presentation of Chicago at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre was pretty darned impressive.
THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR
Even considering the show's cast and director, if you had told me a week ago that the musical comedy Are We There Yet? would wind up being my favorite Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse presentation over the past two years, I wouldn't have believed you.
STEP BROTHERS
Describing the Countryside Community Theatre's Children of Eden as a first-rate Sunday-school pageant may sound like a backhanded compliment, if not an actual insult. But that's exactly what this presentation of the Stephen Schwartz and John Caird musical feels like, and the description isn't meant to be the least bit insulting.
I didn't think there was much wrong with Sunday night's presentation of Genesius Guild's Romeo & Juliet, aside from the fact that I didn't feel much of anything at it. But in terms of this particular Shakespeare play, isn't that a pretty sizable issue?
If you diagrammed the experience of the Riverbend Theatre Collective's As Bees in Honey Drown, it would look something like a roller coaster: There'd be an extended incline followed by a precipitous drop, several more inclines each followed by lesser drops, a few twists, and an eventual return to your point of origin. And as with a roller coaster, you might find yourself having a terrific time during Bees' ride, even if your enjoyment wears off quickly, and a few of its shakier moments give you a headache.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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