Posts Tagged ‘theatre’
Pantagleize’s Home for Sad Songs
The Fort Worth company inaugurates its new space with an original production.JIMMY FOWLER
When Richard Blake joined Pantagleize Theatre as managing director last fall, he told co-founder and artistic director Violet O’Valle that he intended to find the tiny company a permanent home. Pantagleize had been staging it...
Is He Blue?
Blues in the Night marks the departure of Jubilee Theatre artistic director Ed Smith.JIMMY FOWLER
Back in 1992, Jubilee Theatre artistic director Ed Smith saw a Los Angeles production of Sheldon Epps’s jazz and blues revue Blues in the Night. Although it starred his friend, the soul singer Freda Payne, he wasn’t much im...
Leading Ladies Lights Up
The cast of Theatre Arlington’s current production buoys shopworn material, and Ballet Concerto prevails.JIMMY FOWLER
In the angsty, ironic world of contemporary American theater, there is perhaps no gutsier statement for a playwright to make than “My plays are successful if they give people joy, if they uplift them and change them in some p...
Great American Trailer Park Packs a Punch
Circle Theatre’s latest production is raunchy but not gratuitous.JIMMY FOWLER
Throughout the first act of Circle Theatre’s production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical, I had the nagging sensation that this raucous, perfectly detailed staging reminded me of another artist’s work that I could...
Spelling Bee Scores
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is given an uproarious reading by Theatre Arlington.JIMMY FOWLER
The word “cartoonish” is typically used as an insult, but it describes all the best qualities of Theatre Arlington’s tearfully funny staging of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee — brightly colored, sharply draw...
Isn’t This Better?
Big TicketComposer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb were introduced to each other in 1962, and their collaboration for the musical stage lasted even beyond Ebb’s death in 2004: A musical based on the Scottsboro Boys case opened Off Br...
Feet Fight
Big TicketIn a scheduling snafu, Texas Ballet Theater and Texas Dance Theater both open shows Friday. TBT revives its opulent, full-length Romeo and Juliet, created in 1987 for the Houston Ballet, with a four-performance run in Bass Perf...
The Decade Onstage
JIMMY FOWLERThis list of 10 great shows doesn’t pretend to be anything like a comprehensive critical overview of Fort Worth theater in the ’00s. I’ve missed too much — and likely forgotten too much — to attemp...
Christmas Presence
JIMMY FOWLERThe December holidays draw ticketbuyers who would never dream of darkening a theater door the rest of the year. They seek traditional, familiar shows, and theaters naturally oblige. Stage critics, who fastidiously observe the f...
Xmas-Rated Theater
Big TicketWe always welcome any theater troupe that can bring us fresh stuff for Christmas, and this week several of the local ensembles are coming through.