E. L. Doctorow was the author of two respected but not widely read novels when in 1975 he thundered onto the literary scene with Ragtime. Set 1902-17, the novel blends history and fantasy, private characters with oversized historical figures (J.P. Morgan, Booker T. Washington, Henry Ford, et al), all rendered in sharp but refined...
Read more »
For the holiday season, Park Square Theatre has chosen to revive the warmly received show about George Gershwin that premiered there in 1999. The Soul of Gershwin: The Musical Journey of an American Klezmer is a delightful musical offering: a well-researched and interesting story backed by wonderful music – with not one single holiday...
Read more »
St. Paul’s Park Square Theatre has included a Victorian era piece in recent seasons and continues this season with an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist by Neil Barlett. Joel Sass, the Jungle Theater’s associate artistic director was coaxed across the river to design and direct this one. It was a good call for...
Read more »
In Panic (at Park Square Theatre, through July 10), playwright Joseph Goodrich creates a “cozy” mystery: characters are powerful, wealthy, self-assured. They live postcard-perfect lives. Henry Lockwood, famous film-director, prepares to open his latest film (a grand success, of course) and is starting work on his newest (a mystery, naturally). His semi-invalid wife, Emma,...
Read more »
Park Square Theatre is turning plays about classical music into a minor specialty. They recently produced (it opened the night of the Big Blizzard) 2 Pianos 4 Hands, a lively and affecting mediation on failure: what happens when you devote your life to an instrument only to discover that you don’t – quite –...
Read more »
Park Square Theatre has launched a world premiere commission of the most famous of tall tales, The Odyssey. Although Homer’s version is the one we know, it most certainly has had its share of individual embellishments, as told by storytellers for generations. William Randall Beard’s version of Odysseus’ wanderings after the Trojan War sticks...
Read more »
For every Vladimir Horowitz, for every Herbie Hancock – indeed, for every musical master you can name – there are thousand upon thousands of players who dedicate their lives to their instruments, who spend many many lonely hours practicing, only to discover, at the end of this long road, that they don’t quite have...
Read more »
It doesn’t lack for exuberance, this latest in an ever-lengthening line of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Katie Forgette‘s Sherlock Homes And The Case Of The Jersey Lily (at Park Square Theatre through July 3; 20 W. 7th Place; parksquaretheatre.org) begins, as always with these plays, with Holmes and Watson relaxing in their cluttered Baker Street...
Read more »
I’ve always been a fan of Tom Stoppard plays, but I chose not to direct one with my college students once because I thought they’d all need a degree in its subject matter to understand what they were talking about. That’s the challenge with Stoppard. How do you move an audience – most with...
Read more »
