Hiding in the Shadows of Doubt

Sanctuary City

In the years just prior to, and following, the shocking and detestable events of  9/11, two young people attempt to navigate their precarious lives in a country that’s offered them asylum. Newark, New Jersey is a Sanctuary City, a metropolis that has promised to take in families who have fled oppression in their homelands. But survival is tricky, even perilous, for two teenagers who are battling prejudice, poverty and the fear of being sent back to a country they’ve never really known. All they can do is cling to each another, finding security and community in their mutual company. As lifelong friends coming of age and living on the edge, the two teens attempt to navigate their futures together.

The Trickery of Dr. Mesmer

Mesmerized: A Ben Franklin Science & History Mystery

Adapted by Suzanne Miller for the stage from Mara Rockliff’s children’s book, Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery That Baffled All of France. The storybook features colorful illustrations by Lacopo Bruno and, through this intriguing and imaginative story, makes the scientific method seem almost exciting. Ms. Miller’s exciting and dynamic play depicts a little known episode from World History that involved several big names from the past.

Simply the Best

A Taste of Soul

This Autumn, Black Ensemble Theater is serving up a sumptuous Spread of Soul for the discerning audience’s musical dining pleasure. The production, written and directed by talented Daryl D. Brooks, cleverly presents a banquet of bang-on hit songs as an African-African themed cooking show. It copies the format of every much-loved how-to-do-it program on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel. It’s definitely a recipe for success.

The Man in the Chair

The Drowsy Chaperone

The house lights dim leaving the audience waiting in the dark for something to happen. Suddenly a man’s voice breaks the silence. The unnamed man confides that his personal prayer at every musical he attends, while sitting in a theatre before the lights go up, is that the show be short and that the actors stay out of the aisles. This audience laughs knowingly because they’ve undoubtedly been at a play where the fourth wall is broken and theatergoers become asked to clap, sing along or even come up on the stage. The feeling is, “Hey, I paid YOU to entertain ME!” 

Let the Good Times Roll!

Blues For an Alabama Sky

Welcome to the Harlem Renaissance. The bootleg champagne is flowing and the good times are rolling. It’s 1930 and Pearl Cleage’s exuberant and deeply moving play is sometimes funny and peppered with blues and jazzy music. But the play also provides a clear look at the lives of five very different individuals while tackling some serious social issues. Ms. Cleage’s drama celebrates the art, music, dreams and deep friendships forged within the urban African-American community during the Depression. Somewhere offstage are the shadows of luminaries like Langston Hughes, Margaret Sanger, Josephine Baker. But onstage we’re treated to four amiable and attractive New Yorkers whose lives are about to change, thanks to the blues brought on by a newcomer from Alabama.

Deep Cut

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

If you’ve never seen Jim Cartwright’s play, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, you might assume that it’s yet another of those Broadway or Hollywood musical melodramas about a real-life or fictional singing sensation who rises to worldwide fame and then is destroyed by drugs, drink, groupies, self-doubt, the depredations of the music industry, or Fame itself.  We’ve all seen this story before.

A Soul in Torment

A View From the Bridge

Shattered Globe Theatre is known, and relied upon for, their consistently excellent productions. Their current presentation of “A View From the Bridge,” one of Arthur Miller’s finest, most gut-wrenching dramas, is as rewarding an evening in the theater as you’re ever going to find.

Birthdays Are Like Boomerangs

Revolution

Someone once wrote that best friends are like soulmates. They stick by your side, no matter what. And that’s what playwright Bret Neveu celebrates in his world premiere that’s named for the hair salon where two of the three characters are employed. In fact Puff, the newly-appointed manager of Revolution Hair Cuts, has decided to commemorate her 26th birthday in an unusual location: the alley behind the mall where she works. She agrees to share the day with her best friend and co-worker, Jame. The Rain Forest Cafe looms just 300 feet away and serves up some provocative drinks, perfect for a special occasion. But their hard-earned paychecks can go a lot further and provide a greater blowout on the loading dock of Revolution. 

STEP UP TO THE MIKE 

Mic Father, Like Son

Whatever happened to the funny drunk?

Subtext Theater Company’s enjoyable new comedy, Mic Father, Mike Son (not the greatest title, frankly) begins with a retirement party for the number one-rated radio personality in Kansas City, Mike Aldridge, Sr., to which the station’s newscaster, Marty (Andrew Pond) shows up uninvited.  Marty, who claims to be a non-drinker, quaffs a couple of cranberry-and-vodkas, and is almost instantaneously transformed into a bug-eyed, blundering blabbermouth who stumbles about the stage, collapses repeatedly and mugs shamelessly for the audience.  As a performance, it’s hammy, retrograde, tasteless, irresponsible, a relic of the era of Jackie Gleason or W.C. Fields — and absolutely hilarious.  (I never understood why in our socially self-conscious age funny drunks went out of fashion, as they’re always portrayed as fools.) It’s the best thing about this somewhat uneven play, and — as far as the anachronistic stumblebum clowning — that’s easily explained by the fact that the Aldridge family home, as the program states, “has not been redecorated since 1982.” Neither, apparently, has playwright and director Jonathan “Rocky” Hagloch’s approach to comedy, and that’s mostly a good thing.

A Thriller Chiller

The Mousetrap

The model for every theatrical thriller ever written, “The Mousetrap,” Agatha Christie’s famous murder mystery, is still playing 71 years later in London. The play has the distinction of being the longest-running of the modern era. With well over 29,000 performances to its credit, Ms. Christie’s crime drama is an especial favorite with regional and educational theatres. The Guinness Book of World Records calls Dame Agatha Christie the best-selling crime novelist of all time, but in 1930 she began a second career as a successful playwright. From over 20 scripts, which include “Ten Little Indians” (or its original title “And Then There Were None”), and “Witness for the Prosecution,” it’s “The Mousetrap” that still remains Christie’s most popular theatrical work.