Articles Tagged With: The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre

I Hate Hamlet at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews February 12, 2018 Lindsey Litka & Matt Wetzel

To see or not to see… that is the question! Spotlighters’ latest production in their 56th season is none other than Paul Rudnick’s 1991 comedy-drama I Hate Hamlet, directed by Hillary Glass and Ilene Chalmers. The play revolves around the young and successful television actor Andrew Rally who has just relocated to New York after the recent cancellation of his television show. He finds his agent has booked him a gig as the titular character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet,

First Date at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews December 22, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther 3 Comments

How does it start? With a meet-cute little musical number featuring the cast of seven. How does it last? Those same seven sing and dance and talk and laugh and cry for 100 minutes every Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon* so that audiences all over Charm City can have an adorable feel-good alternative to the Christmas season’s traditional musical theatre offerings. Despite an unsuccessful run Off-Broadway, the current cast of the Spotlighters Theatre production of First Date is finding second life,

The Hairy Ape at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews October 30, 2017 Lance Bankerd

“I ain’t on oith and I ain’t in Heaven, get me? I’m in de middel tryin’ to seperate em, takin all de woist punches from bot’ of ’em. Maybe dat’s whay dey call Hell, huh?”

On a weekend packed with frightening diversions the most terrifying of all is surely Eugene O’Neill’s nearly century old expressionist drama, The Hairy Ape running through 19 November at Spotlighters Theatre. I was at opening night on Friday and I have been haunted ever since by the themes,

Spring Awakening at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews July 11, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

11 July and the question is shame. Will you feel shame if you don’t go and see Spring Awakening at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre this summer? The answer is yes. Shame is a product of education, but do not remain ignorant to this impressively evocative and intimate piece of highly charged sensual musical theatre. Directed by Jillian Bauersfeld with Musical Direction by Michael W. Tan, this gripping and moving musical drama traverses the controversial plains of adolescence blossoming into maturity despite the deliberate ignorance engrained from the religious and parental rule that governs the time.

She Kills Monsters at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews June 1, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

The epic quest for epic theatre in Baltimore City has been going for as long as theatergoers have been seeking it out: since the dawn of theatrical time! The holy grail of theatrical mother-loads has landed at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre and it’s slaying— literally! She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen and Directed by Stephanie Miller, is exactly what thespians of Charm City have been seeking! Under-produced and rarely seen productions?

The Wiz at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews April 11, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

Come on and— ease on down, ease on down the road! Pick up your left foot when your right foot’s down, and head to the Mt. Vernon side of Charm City Town. You’ve got to— ease on down, ease on down the road! It’s time to ease on down, ease on down the road! Pick up your tickets— for this show that is— come on down to Spots and see their show of The Wiz!

The Women at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews March 2, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

Pride is a luxury a woman in love cannot afford. And the devilish lengths a woman in love will go to in order to maintain that love is unseemly and unsightly to the modern feminist. But in the world of Clare Booth Luce’s The Women, where the utmost priority for the women of society was maintaining a marriage and quashing scandals before they could rise, it’s quite a different story. Directed by Fuzz Roark,

Three Penny Opera at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews January 19, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

The line forms, on the right, babe— now that Macheath is back in town! The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre is sending scarlet billowing all over the stage, kicking off 2017 with a flash of those pearly white sharks teeth as they bring the iconic Bertolt Brecht adaptation, The Three Penny Opera to the stage. Directed (with new editing, adapting, and translating) by Michael Blum with Musical Direction by Erica Rome, this poor man’s opera is certain to put the tingles up your spine.

Review: The Game’s Afoot at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews November 23, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther 1 Comment

Madhouse doesn’t begin to describe the utter shenanigans happening in William Gillette’s New England mansion on Christmas Eve. Scandal! Mystery! Murder! For god’s sake, there are actors present! What else could be expected from Ken Ludwig’s bitingly humorous and boisterously bloody play The Game’s Afoot? Directed by Fuzz Roark, this scintillating madcap comedy with just a dandy drop of blood for the murder mystery enthusiast in us all is the perfect way to ring in the holiday season.

Review: Das Barbecü at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews October 12, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

There’s a ring of gold in Texas that hitched a tumbleweed coach to Baltimore and is kicking up more dust than a dozen road-runners aiming to outrun a pack of coyotes. Yeehaw, you dun heard right if what you heard was Das Barbecü, the musical that spins Wagner’s Ring Cycle as a witty Texas fable, coming to the stage of The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre! Sure ‘nuff it done been Directed by Greg Bell with that there Musical Direction by Michael Tan and the result is a dead ringer for comedic performance of the year.

Review: Marx in Soho at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews September 2, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Is there anything more outrageous than an honest critic? It might be the way that The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre is kicking off their 55th season with Howard Zinn’s Marx in Soho. Directed by Sherrionne Brown, with Phil Gallagher in the titular role, this evening of socialist banter is an engaging theatrical endeavor that will grip the audience and give them pause to think about whether or not society is going in any direction at all,

Review: Tick Tick BOOM! at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews July 11, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Stop the clock. Take time out. Hear the Tick Tick BOOM! as it explodes on the stage of The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre to close out their 54th season. Jonathan Larson’s pre-Rent musical arrives under the Direction of Jillian Locklear Bauersfeld with Musical Direction by Michael W. Tan and features an intimate cast of three just living the real life of 1990 New York City. Big dreams, big goals,

Vile Villain: An Interview with Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ Nathan Parry

Interviews June 2, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Scandal. Lust. Mind games. Les Liaisons Dangereuses at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre has it all. And so does area actor Nathan Parry. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we take a moment to sit down with Nathan and talk shop about what it’s like to play vile villain Vicomte de Valmont, and find out just what makes it so dangerous.

Thanks for sitting with us! Would you give us the brief introduction and tell us what you’ve done that we might recognize of your work in the area?

Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews May 31, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

Love is something you use, not something you fall into. Though should you choose to use your love of theatre to fall into one of the 68 seats inside The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre between now and the 19th of June you may just fall in love with what’s on the stage. Swordplay— of two distinctive varieties, once of which includes actual rapiers— scandal, sin; all of these delicious morsels are yours for the taking if you dare the three-hour theatrical endeavor that is Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Review: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews March 18, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

It’s astonishing what a little moonlight can do. And it’s a full moon over Mount Vernon in Charm City for the next three weekends as Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill lights up the stage at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre. Featuring solo performer Anya Randall Nebel as the legendary Billie Holiday under the Direction of Jared Shamberger and Musical Direction of LeVar Betts, this truly haunting and powerfully evocative musical tale is not your ordinary jukebox musical.

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: Moonlight & Magnolias at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews January 9, 2016 Amanda N. Gunther

As God is my witness, you shall never be hungry again, at least your comedic appetite will be sated when you turn up to the Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre for their first production of 2016, Moonlight & Magnolias. A madcap malady of hilarious proportions Directed by Michael Zemarel, this play is a zany two hour trek across Hollywood’s most manic melodrama, Gone With the Wind. Only in the most truncated and hysterical fashion possible,

Review: A Tuna Christmas at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews November 23, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Well yeehaw, y’all! It’s a rootin’ tootin’ Christmas time down in ol’ Tuna, Texas, yes it is, why yes it is! And for a limited holiday engagement you too can visit with Aunt Pearl, Didi and RR, Vera Carp, and all the rest of those zany southern characters from the lone star state at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre as they take up residence to celebrate the festive season through December 20th.

Review: Zombie Prom at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews October 20, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Atomic adolescent angst rears its radioactive righteousness in a teenage nuclear zombie! Not a catchy enough hook? Think Grease meets The Walking Dead, but with more dancing and you’ll have the hysterically campy and hell of a good time musical, Zombie Prom now shambling onto the stage of the Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre just in time for the spooktacular season of Halloween. Directed by Kristen Cooley with Musical Direction by Michael Tan,

Sensational! Volume I: An interview with Sensation Novel Player Jim Knost

Interviews September 21, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

To be a sensation novel author is a most fascinating thing indeed. To play a wicked baronet who isn’t all that wicked is also a curious subject. To play both in one show— and not just any show but the American premier of a Gilbert before Sullivan play is a great honor and sensational experience. In an exclusive TheatreBloom Interview series, we’ve sat down with Baltimore area performer Jim Knost to find out just what it’s like to play in and write the sensation novel in the musical performance of A Sensation Novel: A Musical Play in Three Acts,

Review: A Sensation Novel at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews September 14, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Piece together, for a moment if you can imagine, all of the fancy finery that floats to mind when you utter the words Victorian London. Let those images of haughty parlors, high cinched collars, and stodgy outfits with miles of lace drift dreamily through your mind along the delectable operetta-style story telling of W. S. Gilbert. Add the accompaniment of Music by Michael Nash, T. German Reed, and a little hint of Arthur Sullivan.

Review: Jacques Brell is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews May 7, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Bienvenue sur le carnaval! Where the broken sands of time and fairy floss floats o’er the fairgrounds of The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre. You won’t recognize a single song in this flash of 21 vignettes, at least not by their lyrics, but the iconic melodies of Jacque Brell tinkle blissfully under each song inviting the audience into a cantering calliope of romanticism, cynicism, and jingly jaunts of whimsy. Directed by Timoth David Copney with Musical Direction by Michael Tan,

Review: The Beauty Queen of Leenane at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews March 4, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Aye, if ye be in the mood for a poitìn bit o’ good theatre, ‘specially the dark and funny like— now mind you, not the haha out loud sort o’ funny, but the ‘oh…’ sort o’ funny— then The Spotlighters is the place to be goin’. Though bundle up, ye’ll be needin’ th’ heat once ya’ get there. Despite several setbacks, the Martin McDonagh black comedy The Beauty Queen of Leenane carries on upon the stage-in-the-square with a vigorous shake that’ll light a fire in your belly.

Review: The Man Who Came To Dinner at Spotlighters Theatre

Reviews November 23, 2014 Amanda N. Gunther

During this festive season the overwhelming urge to invite friends and family around to the house for dinner creeps up out of nowhere, much like the sharp biting winter chill of the season. The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre reminds people everywhere why dinner guests are an atrocious idea, especially at this time of year with their zany and highly amusing production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s The Man Who Came to Dinner.