Theater/Film Reviews
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Sweat
The Black Rep starts the ‘21-’22 season off with a bang. Lynn Nottage’s Sweat is definitely a play that talks about lots of things we struggle with. Nottage takes on racism, classism, the perfidiousness of corporate management, all in one sweeping evening. Substance abuse is just a sort of garnish to everything else. Alas, she
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The Ville: Avengeance!
Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Much argument about this quote, its exact wording and original source, to be sure, but the message is the same: We need to learn history. St. Louis Shakespeare Festival annual event Shakespeare in the Streets is back after a year’s hiatus, giving us the
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Chicago
The Muny wraps up this short-but-most-welcome season with Chicago. And what a treat it is. Anyone familiar with the show knows about the delightful Kander and Ebb score – think “All That Jazz” – but the Muny brings us more. Lots more, in fact, starting out with the choreography that pretty much opens the show.
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The Glass Menagerie
It is, surely, heresy to compare Tennessee Williams to William Shakespeare. And yet every summer that Carrie Houk’s brainchild, Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, comes to fruition, it’s hard to resist the urge. The range of human experience, American-style, is evoked in lovely and unlovely ways, the conflict between aspirational dreams and everyday necessity drawn
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‘ART’
Nobody has to explain outdoor theatre to St. Louisans, one would think. Not with our century-long tradition of the Muny, and the now-established popularity of Shakespeare Festival-St. Louis with its increasingly varied venues. But somehow, the side lawn of Tower Grove Abbey feels new and different. Stray Dog Theatre is offering ‘ART’ – while adhering
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The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music: Is it a musical theatre cliché? For those who’ve seen it many times, it surely might be. It verges on teeth-on-edge sweet. It’s not the best of Rogers and Hammerstein’s scores. And having it played over and over via video recordings may have put some folks over the edge. (Not that
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Tiny Beautiful Things
Advice columns are a secret vice for a lot of people who think they’re a little too close to tabloid material. But who among us can resist the occasional chance to overhear, so to speak, stories out of other people’s lives? That’s what the columns give us, whether it’s questions about heartburn or heartache. Cheryl
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Smokey Joe’s Cafe
It’s the Muny. The full-strength Muny. The only thing missing was the pre-show dinners at the Culver Pavilion, a small price to pay for a surprisingly pleasant weather-wise evening of The Real Thing. Yes, they suggest masks. But it was obvious in the way Mike Isaacson, artistic director and executive producer was greeted for his
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Roadrunner:
The movie about Anthony Bourdain opened this weekend. What a fascinating, out of control personality he was. I wrote about it here in Dining on the St. Louis Magazine website: https://www.stlmag.com/dining/roadrunner-anthony-bourdain-movie-opens-st-louis/
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Now Playing Third Base for the St. Louis Cardinals…Bond, James Bond
Didn’t grow up in St. Louis? Don’t speak baseball? Never saw From Russia with Love? Never mind; you’ll probably still enjoy Now Playing Third Base for the St. Louis Cardinals…Bond, James Bond, the current offering from The Midnight Company. Joe Hanrahan, Midnight’s co-founder wrote this out of his own St. Louis youth, and performs the