Aaron Wallace - Page 4

Thankfully, when ANASTASIA hit Broadway, it dispensed with anyone immortal or winged, replacing fantasy with the real-world politics that led up to the Romanovs' demise. The added historical context grounds this once-wacky story, and frankly, I would have welcomed even more of it...

There's terrific acting in the touring cast, even if the singing voices waver from Platt to flat. We get an incredibly convincing Evan in Ben Levi Ross (an understudy for the same role on Broadway). He interprets the character as nervous, nerdy, and unknowingly funny. It's an excellent performance...

Effective parody isn't that common, it doesn't happen to every iconic TV show, and it IS a big deal!

WILD PARTY is a showcase of everything I love about Theater West End: gorgeous lighting, creative set design, top-notch casting, and a willingness to stage shows that aren't being done somewhere else fifty times a year  - even if this particular musical, about a 1920s love rectangle that implodes during a debaucherous soiree, doesn't quite compel...

Those who know 1984 will anxiously await a big twist, and let me tell you, I couldn't have dreamed of a better execution. It was so startling and dramatic that I physically jumped in my seat, even though I knew what was coming...

This show is essentially what it was on Broadway: a gorgeous staging that marries stunning stagecraft with complex and rewarding material. But with so many of the cast members, the singing isn't where it ought to be...

At Theater West End, you've entered the world of WEST SIDE STORY before even taking your seat. Getting there requires walking across the blue-collar, gang-ridden streets of 1950s New York in the Upper West Side. There's graffiti on the floor beneath you and the walls all around. T-shirts hang out to dry on clotheslines over your head. There's a basketball goal on the cage-wire fence the band sits behind. You might even be seated next to a fire hydrant or a traffic cone. It takes a moment to remember that this same space was home to Madison County's bridges just a couple months ago...

Adam Jacobs and Arielle Jacobs, stars of Disney's ALADDIN on Broadway, surprised a group of Disney Performing Arts students at Walt Disney World this Friday...

Not since Sondheim have we had a musical so complex in lyrics, so layered in rhetoric, so rich in motif, and so conscious of characters' competing perspectives on one another. It is a concert of overlap, interplay, meta-reference, and occasionally even time travel...

A fledgling Elvis impersonator reluctantly takes a secret gig as a drag queen in the Florida panhandle... and hopes to God his wife won't find out. That's the high-concept premise of THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA MCBRIDE...

Certainly, if you're looking for a festive night on the town with your family this holiday week, WHITE CHRISTMAS at Dr. Phillips Center is your ticket. There's something quaint about heading downtown for some simple entertainment to ring in the holiday. And to this production's credit, the set design is (for the most part) vivid, detailed, and impressive. Ditto the costuming, a distinctly 2000s interpretation of the 1940s and '50s. The grand finale is stunning in both respects...

I like him right away. He listens to my questions and gives them some thought before he answers. It's the same thoughtfulness I've noticed in interviews over the years when he talks about music, the songs he likes, or the faith he follows. He's called to talk about his brand-new Christmas album, WINTER IN THE AIR, and its accompanying national tour - David's first time on the road in quite a while...

The grin hits your face early in HELLO, DOLLY! and stays there 'til the bows are done...

Among the topics we tackle beside the waterfall: what it's like to write a modern Christmas song in these politically divisive times, the thing that gets her choked up on stage, and the Broadway shows she's into these days… AMY GRANT'S TENNESSEE CHRISTMAS premieres on The Hallmark Channel December 3, 2018...

If the thing you love about musical theatre is its ability to express a character's emotions and inner struggles in song, BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is the show for you...

As of last fall, JERSEY BOYS has been seen on the stage by more than 25 million people around the world. So, is it really that good? Tough question. My first instinct is to say JERSEY BOYS ain't all that. It's a backstage, jukebox, rise-and-fall musical, a combination that ought to be the broadest, most formulaic thing you've ever seen. Yet, it surprises...

Night after night, three dead-ringers for Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy rush from behind a cemetery gate to the front of the stage, the towering Cinderella Castle lit up in spooky candelabras (impressively projection mapped) behind them. Without fail, the crowd either gasps with surprise or screams in delight, not having been prepared for something quite this true-to-film...

At the outset, it must be said that the Garden Theatre did all it could... It's just that THE BIRDS is a bust, and no one - not even Hitchcock - could save it.

Sometimes the piano is front and center. Other times - often - it's forgotten altogether. The ole ivories are a mere MacGuffin, and not a particularly compelling one at that. The show isn't really here to tell us about a piano, or about the characters who buy and sell it...

But then I heard a big voice belt, 'IT'S SUNDAY!' and snapped to attention like it was time to get up and get to church. It was. With that crack of thunder, three tell-it-like-it-is church ladies led their ensemble to the stage...