Theater/Film Reviews
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Pretty Woman the Musical
Maybe you had to have been there. The Fox has reopened for the first time since the shutdown last spring. The air on opening night was full of excitement. The Fox is requiring full vaccination or a recent COVID test – the latter can even be done by a nearby testing site, and purchasing tickets
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Jake’s Women
Moonstone Theatre Company begins its onstage life with Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women at the new Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Among the amazingly prolific Simon’s plays – almost half his work was screenplays, which we tend to forget – this is one of the lesser-known. Jake (Jeff Cummings) is a pretty successful writer, complete with a
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IT IS MAGIC
Is IT IS MAGIC too much inside baseball, so to speak, for people who don’t live in the world of live theatre? Well, no, not unless this is your first time ever to go to a play. I admit, having experienced it, it’s difficult to explain to an adolescent whose world of entertainment is entirely
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Blue/Orange
Blue/Orange is the sort of play it’s hard for me to be neutral about. It’s set in a hospital, and some readers may know that for many years I worked as an RN. Nearly all that time was spent in acute-care settings rather than outpatient ones. I’m the sort of person it’s easy to imagine
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The Gradient
Yet another premiere comes to St. Louis with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’s production of The Gradient. It’s a slightly futuristic idea about a company that uses algorithms to treat men who’ve exhibited sexual misconduct. Steph Del Rosso’s play gives us a strong, very controlled Natalia (Christina Acosta Robinson), who’s one of the directors
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The Story of My Life
It was a daring move for New Line Theatre to open this season, of all years, with a play about someone writing a eulogy. Too many of us have had to do that, too many of us have thought we might have to do that, too many of us have thought, Oh, God, please don’t
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Jersey Boys
I wasn’t able to see the new venue, the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, until the opening of Jersey Boys from Stages St. Louis. The theater is an absolute winner. Sight lines are good, acoustics are good, and to my immense delight, there’s room for live musicians. It’s quite a lovely building, with parking in several
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Elsinore
Another premiere of a new play in town? Yes, Elsinore comes to us via Prison Performing Arts. Their alumni group, aided by some professional actors, shows off The Chapel’s improved acoustics with this play from David Nonemaker and Eric Satterfield. It’s the prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, taking us from Hamlet’s adolescence forward. Shakespeare scholars argue
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The Zoo Story/The Dumb Waiter
When it comes to timelessness in playwrights, the gold standard is Shakespeare. So flexible, goodness knows – but then there’s that language, beautiful but clearly dated. Ibsen? The misogyny, so painful to watch, but thankfully from another time. (At least we hope so.) So it was interesting to realize that St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s opening
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Dreaming Zenzile
The Rep reopens – and with a world premiere. Dreaming Zenzile is based on the life story of Miriam Makeba, the singer-songwriter-activist. Probably a couple of generations are saying Who’s she? A Black woman born in the townships of South Africa, she began singing with groups and was participated in Come Back, Africa, a film