Powerful Performances Make Miracle Worker a Must-See Powerful performances in a gripping true story make The Miracle Worker a play you must see.  Now on stage at St. Jacobs Country Playhouse, it’s an old play but as compelling as ever.  The Miracle Worker opened on Broadway in 1959 and took several Tony awards in 1960 including […]

Thank You for the Music, For Giving It to Me    Mamma Mia! is the hit show that makes everyone feel good, with all the warmth of sunshine on a Greek island.  Now on stage at the Grand Theatre in London, Mamma Mia! is the quintessential jukebox musical, featuring ABBA’s hits, spanning the years from […]

Come Hear the Music Play Go downstairs to the McManus stage at London’s Grand Theatre and it looks very much like a seedy bar in 1931 Berlin.  But listen to some of the words and they sound like Twitter today.  In this excellent production of Cabaret, director Dennis Garnhum has immersed his audience in the […]

A Second Look at Nora’s Story     Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was written and first performed in 1879.  At the time, theatregoers were shocked at Nora.  How could a wife with a husband and three children, living in a perfect little doll house, possibly be unhappy?  Her husband, Torvald, would be called a “mansplainer” […]

The Sins of the Fathers     The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons.  In Fences, the character Rose alludes to this Bible verse, and indeed, it is the message of this heart-wrenching play.  Now on stage at London’s Grand Theatre, Fences is the story of a dysfunctional black family, struggling with […]

A Drag Race Across the Outback  Take a cult movie, spin it into a jukebox musical, add fabulous costumes and a bus for a set, and you get Priscilla Queen of the Desert.  Based on an Australian-made film, it’s the story of two drag queens and a transgender woman who travel across the Australian desert […]

Another Examination of the Donnelly Massacre    The Donnelly story has been told so many times that one might wonder what could possibly be new in Vigilante, currently on stage at The Grand Theatre in London.  So you might be forgiven if you thought you could skip this show.  But don’t miss it.  It’s a […]

Sting Brings his Last Ship to the Stage    The British seem to love turning their stories about hard-luck small towns caught in economic downturns into musicals.  Billy Elliott is a musical of a boy from a coal mining town, when Margaret Thatcher shuts down all the mines – but Billy perseveres and becomes a […]

Great Drama from Secret Peace Talks    In early 1992-93, a series of secret meetings was hidden away in a castle near Oslo.  Orchestrated by Norwegian academic Terje Rod-Larsen, the peace talks were designed to prove his theory that he could bring enemies together to chat.  Without the huge baggage brought by high level leaders, […]