Reviews

Review: The Menaechmi Twins at CCBC Academic Theatres

Reviews March 17, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Countymen! The day of coming together for brutal group stabbings has most recently passed! But the day of coming together for group giggling, or more aptly, group laughter-induced-explosions is upon us! A heavier task could not have been imposed than I to speak my praise unspeakable— for there be so much of it, I risk stealing the thunder right out from Prologa herself when she starts the same indescribable task of priming the audience for the uproariously delightful screamingly scandalous good time they are about to have when they attend the limited-engagement production of The Menaechmi Twins now appearing in the colosseum— well,

Review: Venus in Fur at Fells Point Corner Theatre

Reviews March 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

We are all easily explicable, what we are not is easily extricable…perhaps in your case it is not easily extricable from your job? Or from your couch when your favorite program has graced the television screen? Whatever you find your inextricability to be, make no explanations for having missed the finest show that Fells Point Corner Theatre has offered up this far this season. Making its Baltimore area community theatre debut, David Ives’ Venus in Fur will keep you perched at the edge of your seat until the rather astonishing conclusion as Thomas and Vanda have at each other over the course of 90 minutes’ stage traffic.

Review: Red, White, & Voters’ Blues at Hexagon

Reviews March 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of the *super* choices in this year’s upcoming presidential election? Will 2016 be the year that America finally brings an apocalypse down upon its own head with what has made it to the near-final rounds of voting time? Are you ready to feel the Bern? Or Trump the competition with ludicrous violence? Which Hillary will you be voting for? Are you ready to make America great again? If you are,

Review: The Pillowman at Forum Theatre

Reviews March 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

We are not animals. We are watching. But what if we are animals and are not to be trusted? Forum Theatre brings to the stage in a fully immersive and unapologetically evocative experience Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. Directed by Yury Urnov, this deceptively dark drama and majestically macabre tale unfolds in a surreal reality that is simultaneously in the audience’s periphery and just outside of their vision. Remarkably experiential, as the audience is quite literally the on-looking totalitarian dictatorship masses,

The cast of Seussical! The Musical at Charm City Players

Review: Seussical! The Musical at Charm City Players

Reviews March 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Dearest Reader, an adventure awaits you— both bold and daring!

But with effort abound, tons of creativity and caring

A spectacular spectacle, and you must doubt those naysayers,

Comes Seussical! The Musical at Charm City Players!

It’s all been done before, it’s been done too many times

Why that musical about Seuss with all of its rhymes!

But I’m telling you this,

Review: The Importance of Being Earnest at Annapolis Shakespeare Company

Reviews March 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

You must be serious about something if you wish to have any fun in life at all, and the thing to be serious about this spring is procuring a ticket to the exceptionally well-performed production of Oscar Wilde’s The Important of Being Earnest. The house is intimate and tickets are likely to be snatched up once word is out at just how resplendent and amusing the current Annapolis Shakespeare Company production is,

Review: Hamlet at Cohesion Theatre Company

Reviews March 10, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

The mayhem never stops over at Cohesion Theatre Company and their latest mount to the stage is truly wondrous strange. Taking William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to task, Director Alice Stanely refocuses the driving forces of the plot’s actions and tunes them into the highly potent pathos of grief. Coping with loss is never easy, and the ways in which human beings express these feelings are nothing short of evocative, stirring, and daringly dramatic as witnessed in this production.

Review: An Act of the Imagination at Bowie Community Theatre

Reviews March 10, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

When one spends the greater part of their life in a fantasy world, there’s a great chance of slipping over completely and never finding one’s way back to reality. If the character’s that you’ve constructed inside that reality are entertaining enough to keep you there, that is. Bowie Community Theatre brings their 2015/2016 season to a close with Bernard Slade’s An Act of the Imagination. Directed by Patrick Gorirossi, this plot-twisted darkened stage thriller has a great deal of potential to entice an audience with Slade’s wicked good writing and the cameo characters that fill in the space between the pages.

The Insects- (from top left, clockwise) Gwen Lowell as Spider, Jared Alston Davis as Grasshopper, Jacqueline Hicks as Centipede, Anderson Gray as Ladybug, and Jocelyn Castillo as Earthworm

Review: James and the Giant Peach at Children’s Playhouse of Maryland

Reviews March 8, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Come with me to see something strange unfold and hear the weirdest tale that’s ever been told. But children, be wary if you’re faint of heart, for what’s happening on stage is more than just art! The Children’s Playhouse of Maryland is undertaking a marvelous masterpiece, an enormously fruity and fantastical story— James and the Giant Peach! What a musical! Directed by Liz Boyer Hunnicutt with Musical Direction by R. Christopher Rose,

Review: Something Like Jazz Music at Single Carrot Theatre

Reviews March 7, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Nothing is our own, not even knowledge and life is far too short to sit at home and fold fitted sheets. Toss down the washing, pick up a tot of gin on your way in, and hotfoot it on over to Single Carrot Theatre for their annual devised ensemble-based work. Written by Genevieve De Mahy, Conceived by Single Carrot Theatre, and Directed by Alix Fenhagen and Steven Krigel, this expressive and movement-based work explores lost stories of the 1920’s locale as filtered through the objects that captured their memories.

Review: Bad Jews at Greenbelt Arts Center

Reviews March 7, 2016 Rachel Zirkin Duda

2016 Templeton Prize Winner Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said, “If Jewish survival is problematic, it is because Jewish identity itself is problematic.” What does it mean to be Jewish? How much should a person’s cultural identity define them? Has Judaism gotten so watered down that is becoming obsolete? These are some of the themes that course through Bad Jews, the Greenbelt Arts Center’s latest production, Directed by Bob Kleinberg. This is not to say that Bad Jews is a gripping and searing moral drama.

Review: Noises Off at Silhouette Stages

Reviews March 4, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Boxes. Bags. Doors. Sardines! How the bloody hell can anyone keep it all straight over at Otstar Productions Ltd. with their current production of Nothing On? How about a spot of rehearsal? That’s exactly what you’ll get and then some when you come to the real show— Noises Off— with Silhouette Stages this March. Well, all that and a bag of chips, barrel of laughs, and a hysterically zany three-act evening of epic entertainment.

Review: Avenue Q at Phoenix Festival Theatre

Reviews March 4, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

There is life outside your apartment, I know it’s hard to conceive. But there is life outside your apartment! And you’re only gonna see it if you leave! There is cool shit to do, but it can’t come to you, and who knows, dude, you might even score— tickets to Phoenix Festival Theater Company’s production of Avenue Q if you’re lucky! For a limited two-weekend engagement, the zany Off-Broadway musical sensation is eking out a home on Thomas Run Road and is providing barrels full of laughter for everyone in attendance.

Review: Horatio Dark’s Between the Lines February Broadcast at The Yellow Sign Theatre

Reviews March 3, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Good evening, Charm City. It’s 9:00 o’clock, not quite the witching hour but certainly the hour to be bewitched by your favorite radio program host— the master of the macabre! The antiquarian of the insane! The navigator of the netherworld! Why, it’s time to grace your ears with the haunting styles of Horatio Dark and his monthly broadcast of Between the Lines. Presented in live and living color from the radio-broadcast station of WYST (taking up residence in the old Yellow Sign Theatre up on North Charles Street in Station North),

Review: Hick: A Love Story- The Romance of Lorena Hickok & Eleanor Roosevelt at Theatre Project

Reviews March 1, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

A real lady only gets her name in the paper three times: when she’s born, when she gets married, and when she dies. But what if you’re the wife of the president of the United States? What if you’re the most historically influential First Lady to grace the White House? What if you’re having a secret conflagration of Sapphic passion with a member of the Associated Press? Surely your name will hit the paper a good deal more.

Review: The 39 Steps at Dundalk Community Theatre

Reviews February 27, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Everything’s tickety-boo at the Dundalk Community Theatre this February as they bring a thrilling production of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps to the stage. This thrilling farcical adaptation (thusly adapted by Patrick Barlow) arrives by rail on the mainstage of the John E. Ravekes Theatre in Building K at the College of Baltimore County Dundalk just in time to shake off the winter blues. Directed by Todd Starkey, this racy Hitchcock Masterpiece will have your side-splitting with laughter and the only mystery you’ll need to solve is how to see it again before it’s curtains on the production!

Review: Road Show at Signature Theatre

Reviews February 25, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

The journey is the destination in the Max Theatre as Road Show gets underway for the backend of the 2015/2016 season at Signature Theatre. With all of the style, flare, and spark of an old-world adventure tale, this lesser recognized Sondheim treasure hits the open stage with Director Gary Griffin and Musical Director Jon Kalbfleisch at the wheel. Being the third collaborative effort of Music and Lyricist Stephen Sondheim and Book Writer John Weidman,

Review: Boeing Boeing at Colonial Players

Reviews February 24, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Now boarding flight 1963, international Boeing Boeing departing from gate Colonial Players of Annapolis with layovers in love and humor, and a terminal destination of Parisian happy endings. Your flight’s pilot, Captain Scott Nichols, will bring this zany farce down the runaway for approximately two hours and fifteen minutes with one brief delay midflight to attend to all of your mile-high traveling needs. A fantastically romantic romp through the bumpiest of uproarious turbulences is guaranteed and if you aren’t completely satisfied with your hilarious flight for the afternoon or evening,

Review: The Wizard of Oz at Suburban Players

Reviews February 22, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Somewhere over the beltway, way out east— there’s a church called St. Demetrios, serving up a big Greek feast. Somewhere over in Carny, The Suburban Players know, they are producing a stage dream for the 41st season show. With Director Mark Briner, and Musical Director Patricia DeLisle, go beyond the rainbow for a true community theatre experience with The Wizard of Oz. Classic and charming, this delightful performance lives up to the standards that The Suburban Players have set over the last four decades of performing quality theatre as a community effort.

Review: God, The One-Man Show at Greenbelt Arts Center

Reviews February 21, 2016 Rachel Zirkin Duda

What if God was one of us? Or at least close enough to talk to us and tell us what it’s like to be Him? What existed before The Beginning? God supposedly created the universe, but who created God? These are concepts former Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown Rich Potter explores in the Greenbelt Arts Center production of God, The One-Man Show.

In this fast-paced,

Review: Stupid Fucking Bird at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews February 18, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Do you know what passes for theatre these days? Honestly? How many of you get out of your comfortable living rooms— with your live-streaming Broadway channels on Netflix or the “new musical of the month” live on NBC— and go to the theatre, sit through two to three hours of live performance, and actually take in what you’ve just seen? The Maryland Ensemble Theatre seems to know what’s passing for live theatre and has challenged the standard,

Review: James and The Giant Peach at Maryland Ensemble Theatre

Reviews February 18, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Marvelous things! Amazing, incredible, flabbergasting, marvelous things await theatergoers of all ages on the Maryland Ensemble Theatre’s Stage2 Performance Space as their Fun Company proudly presents James and The Giant Peach. Adapted to the stage by David Wood from the imaginative novel by Roald Dahl, this twisty and highly chimerical tale spins a story of a young lad called James and the marvelous things that await him once he encounters the giant peach.

Review: Horatio Dark’s Between the Sheets at Yellow Sign Theatre

Reviews February 15, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Love is in the air, all around you, and most definitely between the sheets if you’re doing it right! (Or maybe bedsheets aren’t your thing so you’re doing it in an anti-gravity suspension chamber with strap-on tentacles— whatever floats your boat.) All that delicious erotic loving— remember the antiquarian of the insane and his die-hard followers need love too— was all wrapped up in one gooey, tentacle-covered package for a Valentine’s Day at The Yellow Sign Theatre.

Review: Southern Baptist Sissies at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews February 13, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Everybody has their truth. Yours may be different from mine, but there’s only one way to the promised land…of theatre…and for the moment that way is through the gates of Spotlighters Theatre as they warm up the winter with their production of Southern Baptist Sissies. Written by Del Shores and Directed by Fuzz Roark, this evocative, heartbreaking tale of reconciling religious truth with reality tugs the heartstrings hard and doesn’t let go until the show’s stirring conclusion.

Review: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Stillpointe Theatre

Reviews February 12, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Unbelievable— adj. “so great or extreme as to be difficult to believe; extraordinary.” Stillpointe Theatre’s current production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is insanely engaging, incredibly entertaining, and wildly wonderful; simply put it’s unbelievable. U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E. Directed by Amanda J. Rife, this brilliantly inviting musical takes a Stillpointe twist as the company unpacks this show— with Music & Lyrics by William Finn and Book by Rachel Sheinkin— into their brand new home on Charles Street in the Station North Arts District of Baltimore.

Review: The Mystery Krewe at Do or Die Mysteries

Reviews February 12, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Laissez les bon temps roulet! Mardi Gras is in full swing down in the happening French Quarter of N’Orleans. But don’t you worry, child, if you can’t make the trip down to Louisiana Do or Die Mysteries are bringing a bit of the bayou up to you with their scandalously savory production of The Mystery Krewe for Shrove Tuesday! Featuring an original script written by the company’s Artistic and Managing Director Ceej Crowe,

Review: The Laramie Project at Kensington Arts Theatre

Reviews February 6, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Hate is not a Laramie value. And either the word is sufficient or it is not. It is a strong word, a word of intolerance, a word that cannot be ignored when addressing the heinous crimes that put Laramie, Wyoming on the map. On November 14, 1998 members of the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to the small town and conducted interviews with the people of Laramie, the result of which became a tragically beautiful play known as The Laramie Project.

Review: South Pacific at Toby’s Dinner Theatre

Reviews January 29, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Dites-moi pourquoi la vie est belle. Dites-moi pourquoi la vie est gai. Life is beautiful and life is gay because the Rogers and Hammerstein classic South Pacific has set a course for Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia and finally landed this 2016. Directed and Choreographed by Mark Minnick, with Musical Direction by Reenie Codelka, this heartwarming, feel-good musical is just the remedy to chase away the winter blues. With stunning talent, beautiful aesthetics,

Review: Under the Skin at Everyman Theatre

Reviews January 28, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Blood is thicker than water, but it isn’t bondage— an unyielding tie to our relations— it’s more like a bond— a tie that connects us to one another in an unbreakable and inexplicable manner. Under the skin, we’re all family, tracing our roots back to the most basic of human origins, and playwright Michael Hollinger articulates that in his touching familial drama Under the Skin. Directed by Vincent M. Lancisi, this poignant and evocative drama performs explorative theatrical surgery on the construct of human relationships when it comes to the boundaries of the body and the limits of love.

Review: Flatland at Annex Theatre

Reviews January 19, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Stop trying to recognize. Start learning to dream. For irregularity is more beautiful than symmetry could ever be. Lost in the dimensional reality of the above statement? Hold onto your depth perception, kids, the ride over at Annex Theater is about to warp into hyperspace beyond the capacity of mere mortal minds. Transcending the borders of the dimensional continuum from dimensions D to 10thD, The Annex Theater of Baltimore is going to blow your mind,