Reviews by Rochelle Arnold, Jeff Ashcraft, Patricia Baugh-Riechers, Audra Beals, Pamela Briggs, Dee Canfield, Madeline Dudziak, Kim Eastland, Emily Heninger, Heather Herkelman, Kitty (née Israel) Hooker, Mischa Hooker, Paula Jolly, Victoria Navarro, Roger Pavey Jr., Alexander Richardson, Mark Ruebling, Mike Schulz, Joy Thompson, Oz Torres, Brent Tubbs, Jill Pearson Walsh, and Thom White.

An unexpected detour can become a story of extraordinary kindness.

Self-referential meta-theatre ploys wage stealth attacks on the audience like mosquitoes. By the time you notice the tiny, piercing strike, it’s gone.

Background characters essayed by day players. Casts of thousands. Movies are crawlin’ with ’em. Nobody much cared about the usually unnamed souls who were rarely part of the plot, and they still don’t. But Puffs, a boy-wizard spoof subtitled Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic, shines a spotlight on them (without casting “lumos,” because that’s a proprietary spell).