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Theater

A knee-slapping Lend Me a Tenor at PC

Hilarious high notes
As hilarious as the race for the Republican presidential nomination is, even that is no competition for Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 01, 2012

2nd Story’s Take Me Out

A dramatic grand slam
Ironic, isn't it? To your ordinary man in the street or workplace, masculinity usually isn't an issue. Yet macho scale rankings readily come up in professional sports, where prowess should be enough evidence of testosterone levels.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 25, 2012

The Gamm’s Festen is a fractured family tale

Secrets and lies
A certain lugubrious prince had a difficult time in another Danish household, but that was all tea and sympathy compared to the turbulent family in Festen .

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 24, 2012

SALT showcases Lindsay-Abaire and Broccoli

Small pleasures
Intending to enhance the flavor of local theater, SALT (Stage Actors Live Theater) is presenting its second production at Artists' Exchange in Cranston through January 29.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 25, 2012

Lyn Ford will tell her stories at Funda Fest 14

The power of sharing
I have always considered the art of storytelling one of the purest forms of theater: it runs the gamut of emotions, presents a wealth of diverse characters, and can almost literally hold you spellbound.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | January 11, 2012

Wilbury’s darkly humorous Exit the King

The reign man
Playwright Eugene Ionesco, a progenitor of Theater of the Absurd along with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, put a lot of himself into Exit the King instead of keeping his usual ironic or satiric distance.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 11, 2012

Shrek the Musical charms at PPAC

'Toon time
Talk about your franchises.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 04, 2012

Raise the curtain

From classic to contemporary
There's plenty of theater to keep us warm in Rhode Island through the winter. From the professional companies to the colleges, there are shows for every taste and mood.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 28, 2011

A decidedly dramatic year (with a bit of comic relief)

Seriously!
This has been a good year for theater around here, from the reprise of a "Were you there when . . .?" rendition of a Shakespeare classic to a sprinkling of notable original productions.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 21, 2011

Cirque Dreams gets seasonal at PPAC

An acrobatic Holidaze
There is plenty of color and spectacle for the little ones and dexterous skill for the big kids (aka adults), as Cirque Dreams Holidaze dazzles at the Providence Performing Arts Center through December 18.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 14, 2011

Trinity Rep’s It’s a Wonderful Life

More comfort and joy
For theatergoers not sufficiently uplifted this holiday season by Trinity Repertory Company's production of A Christmas Carol , the troupe is presenting a second annual feel-good offering, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play , in the downstairs theater through December 31.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 14, 2011

Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium’s Parade

An unfortunate man
Parade might be the best musical, as well as the most unlikely one, that you've never seen. Its one-line plot description isn't exactly alluring.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 07, 2011

URI stages Chekhov’s head-spinning Seagull

Writing what he knows
A loves B but marries C because B loves D, who loves E but eventually returns to B. Meanwhile, K, L, and M . . . . It's that sort of plot.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 07, 2011

2nd Story serves a pair of frisky farces

French ticklers
How generous. With its latest production, 2nd Story Theatre is giving us a hilarious double feature.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 30, 2011

Trinity’s compelling Christmas Carol

Comfort and joy
The more things stay the same, the more they change. At least that's the way they've been having it with Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol at Trinity Repertory Company for 35 years.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 30, 2011

Come You Back at Roger Williams University

Bloody lessons
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. And those who can do both do so with enthusiasm, as professor of theater Peter Wright is proving with the well-acted Come You Back , which he wrote and directed. It's at Roger Williams University Theatre through December 3.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 21, 2011

2nd Story’s inspiring Little Women

Timeless acts of kindness
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is so beloved a morsel of American literary optimism that it would be hard to do badly with an adaptation of the 1868 novel. And there have been numerous ones, from films to an opera and a musical.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 21, 2011

Mixed Magic’s muddled Life’s a Dream

A sword, but no sorcery
'Tis a lumbering theatrical beast to try to chain, but billing the old Spanish war horse Life Is a Dream as Life's a Dream is not enough to tame it for modern theatergoers. Mixed Magic Theatre is staging the 1635 classic by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, directed by Jonathan Jacobs (through November 27).

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 15, 2011

The Gamm’s entrancing Hamlet

The stuff of greatness
For many years, Tony Estrella is perhaps the strongest off-Trinity actor around here. One performance in particular — his 1997 Hamlet title role for Alias Stage — has had devoted theatergoers talking about it ever since.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 08, 2011

A feisty Lady Windermere’s Fan at Brown

Social insecurity
Late 19th-century England may have imprisoned, ostracized, and fatally broke the health of Oscar Wilde, but not before he took up his pen and successfully dueled with British hypocrisy in several successful social satires.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 08, 2011