If you’ve been reading these reviews for a while, you’ll notice I love me some context. Especially surrounding William Shakespeare’s plays. One of my favorite things about the existence of Richmond Shakespeare is that they’ve forced me to go back to the English Lit...
Hello reader! The weekend of June 6-8th, Richmond is set to erupt in laughter with the 2nd Best Comedy Fest, featuring a dazzling array of talent from major comedy hubs like LA, Chicago, New York, and beyond. Taking place at the Coalition Theater and The Basement, the festival spans three days packed with improv, sketch, and stand-up comedy....
The French-derived phrase “roman à clef” refers to a story in which characters, places, and events stand in for specific avatars in the real world. Think of Hamlet's play in, well, Hamlet, where the action not so subtly mimics the actions of his traitorous uncle and mother against his doomed King. The reaction is the thing. It’s a device meant to...
I have fully adopted the mantle of theater nerd since I’ve been back in Richmond. I’ve always been one, but companies like Virginia Repertory Theatre and their satellite collaborations have really reignited a passion that started the first time I put on leggings and spoke in verse onstage—I was 12. I take opportunities to talk to the artists who...
I caught Richmond Shakespeare’s, Jase Sullivan-directed, Into the Woods, mid-run at the Cramer Center for the Arts deep in the West End last night. After a long week doing much less enjoyable things, a nice, light musical in a beautiful theater sounded just right. I clearly had forgotten much of what I thought I remembered from catching the 1991...
There are American legends and then there are American Gods. Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis appear in the latter category. Their personas could not be more different, their styles, their paths, their acceptance in their time, and the secrets that have bled out into the light after they’ve gone. This upcoming month, all month, the VA Repertory...
A review by Christian Detres Memories of Overdevelopment explores the role trauma plays in life’s orchestra. The play casts this demon not in First Chair as a participant, but at the Conductor's stand. It waves a wand of calamity at flinching communities of brass and string, stabbing at all members, lingering on the most unfortunate. The music...
This is not Bram Stoker’s Dracula; this is the much anticipated Virginia premiere of Ben Stevenson’s Dracula. For over 25 years, it has been performed around the world and has finally landed in Virginia with the Richmond Ballet for Valentine’s weekend. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaUbBeCi8qs Expect imaginative artistic license and several...
Richmond Shakespeare’s Born With Teeth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9stwktUCxo Richmond Shakespeare took on Liz Duffy Adams’ Born With Teeth and won. Holy shit it’s good. In this two-man show, Avery Michael Johnson and James Murphy (Christopher “Kit” Marlowe and William Shakespeare, respectively) pushed, pulled, tugged, and sawed at the play...
The Virginia Repertory Theatre closes the year with the Matt Conner musical The Silver Belles. This is a contemporary ensemble piece often comparable to TV’s The Golden Girls. The play centers around the passing of Oralene. She was the proverbial glue, and leader, of a group of Southern ladies whose Christmas tradition is staging a performance of...
