Courthouse Center for the Arts

Latest Articles

Review: Happy Days at the Courthouse Center

Yesterday once more
Every period has a Golden Age, whether it's Greeks looking back upon the justice goddess Astraea or Americans looking back upon the glories of rock 'n' roll.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 05, 2011

Review: Mirth and murder in Clue: The Musical

Games people play
The board game Clue has been entertaining families since the end of World War II, when people were especially eager for distractions.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 15, 2011

Winter theatre preview: From the Bard to Becky Shaw

Gionfriddo, Synge, Ibsen, and more
From the latest Pulitzer winner for drama to a musical adaptation of a popular board game, and from the Bard to Becky Shaw, Rhode Island theaters are certainly starting 2011 with varied offerings.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 29, 2010

Review: Center Stage's charming Cinderella

Once upon a time
Shiny and sparkly as it is, the fairy tale Cinderella will always be appealing. Most would say that's because our little girls and boys need hope in a discouraging world; others might suggest that the cruel world needs help teaching girls and boys passivity and wishful thinking, to make them compliant citizens.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 11, 2010

Children of Eden's entertaining Bible stories

Family feuds
The team behind Children of Eden have plenty of creative cred; that's one thing in its favor. And then there's the backhanded compliment that the show isn't likely to turn you into a whooping, fundamentalist Bible-thumper.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 19, 2010

Rave on

Center Stage's hook-filled Buddy Holly Story
Although Don McLean sang of the abrupt death of Charles Hardin Holley as "the day the music died," it's more accurate to describe his soaring career as the days the music began.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | August 11, 2010

Anything but a drag

Center Stage's delightful La Cage aux Folles
Center Stage’s delightfully flamboyant — and unsentimentally moving — production of La Cage Aux Folles is shaking the rafters at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston (through July 25).
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 13, 2010

Ain't that America?

Good ol’ boys and girls in Trailer Park Musical
Armadillo Acres in the Florida of The Great American Trailer Park Musical may not be a place you want to live, what with the thin walls and occasional gunfire, but it could be a fun place to visit. The Center Stage production in West Kingston is giving us plenty of reason to stick around.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | June 16, 2010

Still Wonderful

Center Stage interprets Capra’s Life
It's a risky gamble, creating a stage version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life .
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 16, 2009

Providence Fall Preview Listings 2009

Music, theater, art, festivals and more in the coming months
A page of listings for local music, theater, art, festivals and more this fall.
By PHOENIX STAFF | September 17, 2009

Face off

Doubt explores the quicksand of certainty
If you were an ordinary Catholic boy in parochial school, giving nuns as hard a time as you were getting, you probably ended up with the usual stories of ruler-rapped knuckles. If you grew up to be talented playwright John Patrick Shanley, you ended up writing Doubt: A Parable , a fascinating exploration of the quicksand of certainty.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 15, 2009

Trucking along with the Mobile Art Project

Street Art
When the Hera Gallery left its customary perch on Main Street in Wakefield last fall for a time, artist and curator Viera Levitt started thinking of ways to bring art back to the heart of South County. She struck upon the idea of the Mobile Art Project and this week it's hitting the road with stops in West Kingston, Peace Dale, and Providence.
By GREG COOK | August 12, 2009

Southern Exposure

Fusionworks gets 'Unwrapped'
Since Fusionworks Dance Company has maintained a studio in East Greenwich for almost five years, artistic director Deb Meunier decided it was time to bring dance to South County.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | March 31, 2009

Muddled musical

A mostly rotten Scoundrels
We sure do love our stage rascals.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 24, 2009

Loud and clear

Center Stage Productions is branching out in South County
Things certainly changed dramatically at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston when Russ Maitland signed on last December as executive director.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 29, 2008

The joy of excess

The time-warping camp of The Rocky Horror Show
When Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show came to the British stage in 1973 and the infamous picture show followed two years later, there was proof that more is more.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | October 29, 2008

Bigger! Better!!

The 12th Annual Rhode Island International Film Festival
This year the festival will host 58 world premieres and 41 North American premieres.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 30, 2008

Clothes call

A fully entertaining Monty
The musical version of The Full Monty comes across as bawdy and hilarious as intended in this version by Center Stage Productions.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 16, 2008

The Fab Three?

The Complaints’ new disc; plus, the Neutral Nation film
The Complaints have been one of Providence’s true stalwart bands, and one of the city’s most underappreciated acts.
By BOB GULLA | June 17, 2008

Corleone turns 10

Celebrating a decade of underground excavation
Ten years of doing anything these days has to be considered an unmitigated success.
By BOB GULLA | October 17, 2007

Soaring spirit

Peruko Ccopacatty’s fresh perspective
For travelers along Route 138 in South Kingstown, the monumental public art of Andean artist Peruko Ccopacatty has been visible for the past 20 years.
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | October 09, 2007

Cinemania

The 11th annual Rhode Island International Film Festival
It may be in Little Rhody, but the 11th Annual Rhode Island International Film Festival is the biggest film festival in New England.
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | July 31, 2007

Brass tacts

What Cheer? Brigade makes its point loud and clear
In case you’ve missed it, it’s all the rage.
By BOB GULLA | May 08, 2007

Making a connection

Phil Ayoub follows his Heart
He has a fan club and an MBA, which might not make all that much sense.
By BOB GULLA | March 07, 2007

Two’s company

Dynamic duos: Lightening Bolt, the Body, and more
When Lightning Bolt debuted oh-so-many years ago, it’s pretty likely they had no idea what kind of zany spell they’d cast over the city’s music scene.
By BOB GULLA | February 27, 2007

Singin’ ’n’ swingin’

Erin McKeown embraces lightness and ‘easy-ness’
Since busting out of Providence on the heels of her educational stint at Brown, Erin McKeown has been in earnest pursuit of greatness.
By BOB GULLA | December 05, 2006

Strange magic

Black Forest/Black Sea’s bewitching vibe
The accolades and exotic extrapolations come in from all over the world, much like their sound, which combines worldly sources like Euro-folk music with eerie, electronic, and avant overtones.
By BOB GULLA | October 31, 2006

Dave Howard rolls on

New country disc! New gig with Roomful of Blues!
For as long as we’ve known him, Dave Howard and his band the High Rollers have been exploring the fertile turf linking the blues and R&B, with forays into rock and roll.
By BOB GULLA | September 26, 2006

Thumb’s up

Andy Arch and the Latter Day Saints’ masterful EP
When Tom Thumb, aka Andy Arch, last put a record out, it was a solo acoustic outing, bedroom folk music, one guitar and one voice.
By BOB GULLA | May 02, 2006