Brett Cullum - Page 9

This year, STAGES reinvents OZ for a sardonic look at what 2016 means for America, all the while offering a fun, frothy musical on the surface. It's an odd mix of jabs at the federal government combined with a jingoistic love of all things Texas. It works though, and gosh darn it if it isn't fun!

SONG ABOUT HIMSELF is a linguistic fantasia set inside of the chatroom of a post-apocalyptic social network. This is intellectual sci-fi drama played on a sparse set and focused on how we connect as humans and machines. There are ghosts here on both sides of humanity's line, and language suffers the most as a result.

What the cast and director are doing here is offering a solid, slick, and oh so faithful rendition of ROCKY HORROR. Director Mitchell Greco relies on the strength of the fortysomething year-old material, and lets his vision grow gorgeous images and sumptuous arrangements.

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS, THE MUSICAL! Is as much of a self-explanatory title as any theater-goer could ever want or pine for. It's definitely a musical about musicals that has musical number after musical number, and its own sardonic take on the form over the past fifty or so years.

A widower, a divorcee, and a 'permanently single' political figure all end up going for younger guys in this hilarious look at what pop culture lovingly calls 'cougars'. It feels familiar, but it also brings something touching and new to the table.

They have cast the show without regard to race, perceived sexual orientation or physical types, and in the process expanded the vision of what could be a narrow exercise into a universal one. Never has the play felt so broad and borderless, and the staging reveals interesting struggles inside both American culture and methods of acting.

The 10x10 is Scriptwriters/Houston's biggest event of the year. It's ten brand new plays by ten of our talented writers. Or, for the theatrically challenged... it's a cheap and easy way to say you've at least seen ten plays this year. Get all your culture done in one night!

The author claims it is 'mostly a comedy', and it is certainly not a musical about a barricade with people singing the songs of angry men. No, this one is the words of enraged women as they struggle to be recognized as the vehicles of liberation.

You can feel the standing ovation building the second they start working their way through 30 hit songs that the audience sings along with gleefully. I saw the production the second weekend, and already audience members were proclaiming to others 'This is my THIRD time!'

If you're wrestling with the current election, or wondering how we have gotten to this point in America's history, this is a powerful, informed piece. It incorporates the civil rights movement at the time when Martin Luther King was taken from his mission and asks hard questions about what all of that meant back in 1968.

Stages Repertory Theatre's creation of this SHEAR MADNESS is buoyed by an outstanding cast that handles comedy and improvisation with ease. The six actors onstage are quick on their feet, and so funny they can break each other up in many instances as the story unfolds.

This is so much fun, and something you don't want to miss this season. It's a time when we could all use a good laugh, and Tamarie is going for broke as she does every summer with her sardonic take aimed at elections.

One of Houston's most engaging theatre companies Mildred's Umbrella and Wordsmyth Theatre is opening their MUSEUM OF DYSFUNCTION VIII this week for a two weekend run. This is a short play festival which will actually have two different programs running the first weekend from the second.

Right now the world needs a good chuckle at the pious and prissy, and this production answers that divine calling with ease. If you're a devout Catholic or easily offended, maybe this one isn't for you. But if you can appreciate gender bending joined with slapstick camp you've found your salvation.

From the bodily fluid throwing Miggs to the naked and tucked Buffalo Bill, expect to see everything you witnessed in the movie recreated live onstage by a company who at times don Lambchop hand puppets to narrate the action. It's fast, furious, and like being blasted by hits of nitrous oxide constantly without the pain of dental work.

This is a production that should be sought out by theatre patrons wanting something a little more powerful than a simple musical or another romantic comedy. LIDLESS is a play that looks at the darkest and lightest parts of our culture and our souls.

This is theater by design rather than organic moments of human emotion. The director has taken her background in dance and created a show that is colorful and choreographed as any ballet or opera would be.

Conversations can be hard to follow, and we're never quite sure what is happening with our couple or our hermit. We're just observing them as they try to fill in the gaps in their lives with items and words.

A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER plays out as if you took SWEENEY TODD, let Gilbert & Sullivan rewrite the score, and staged it on a revolutionary picture book set that utilized digital scenery. It's a show that will have you smiling from start to final curtain, and it's got an amazing amount of energy to share with an audience.

Anchoring SINS OF THE MOTHER is a uniformly great cast who flesh out these roles with passion and sincerity. Key to the whole piece are sisters played by Shundranieka Ross and Sonya Gooden who do a duet of dizzying acting expertise.