Godspell cast Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre opens its season with a production of the 1971 musical Godspell that has all the charm of a committee meeting in search of agenda. The show poses this ontological question: Why did God endow human beings with a mind if we’re not supposed to use it? The show, by […]
Larry Laneer
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Full ‘Glass’
In Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Amanda Wingfield laments, “Things have a way of turning out so badly.” While that might be true for the Wingfields, things are turning out wonderfully for audiences at Lyric’s excellent production of this classic drama. Director Michael Baron stages with academic faithfulness to the script, and that’s meant as […]
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Welcome pest
By: Emily Etherton Some strong acting highlights an uneven production of Tracy Letts’ drama Bug, a collaboration between OKC Theatre Company and Ghostlight Theatre Club. It takes a while to get going, but the show hits a thrill bump in the last scene, which is played under the eerie glow of real bug zappers. Directed […]
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Enchanted anniversary
With Lyric Theatre celebrating its golden anniversary this year, it marks the occasion by looking back with the musical revue Some Enchanted Evening, a compilation of more than 50 songs from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II musicals. The Rodgers and Hammerstein link bears historical significance: Lyric’s first show, in 1963, was Oklahoma! When Some […]
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Full of ‘Heart’
The Tempest 1. The theatrical event of the year was hardly a play and barely was produced. Nevertheless, Dustin Lance Black’s 8 boasted wonderful acting and able staging (by Stephen Hilton) at the Freede Little Theatre under the auspices of the Oklahoma Theatre Guild, a loosely formed coalition of state theater companies and individuals. The […]
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Stripped down
Deborah Draheim fans (count me among them) have been eager to see her in the consummate musical-theater role for the mature woman, Mama Rose in Gypsy. The buzz was she’d be good in the role, and it proved true, as seen in the modest production now at the Civic Center Music Hall’s Freede Little Theatre. […]
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Clowning around
The aliens in Aliens with Extraordinary Skills aren’t extraterrestrials; they’re two illegal immigrants from the former USSR constituents of Moldova and Russia trying to make it in the good ol’ U.S. of A. And that’s about the most interesting thing in this play by Saviana Stanescu, directed by Rhonda Clark. Professional clowns Nadia (Gwendolyn Evans) […]
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Inns and outs
Almost every show in Oklahoma City Theatre Company’s season is an American play written between 1957 and 1982. Why the company has selected plays from such a limited place and period is a mystery, but its current offering is Bernard Slade’s 1975 romantic comedy, “Same Time, Next Year,” directed by Cristela Carrizales. In this Neil […]
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‘Xana’-boo
One can see how it might have been a good idea: Adapt the notoriously bad Olivia Newton-John 1980 movie musical, “Xanadu,” for the stage. Embrace the movie’s badness by doing much of the show on roller skates, and you could have a high-camp frolic. But Lyric’s tepid production, directed by Alan Muraoka, is less than […]
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‘Rain’ on me
Two fine actors giving terrific performances and a director who knows when to let well enough alone results in “A Steady Rain,” a highly satisfying evening of theater. Concerning a pair of Chicago patrolmen, the play by Keith Huff isn’t so much a police procedural as it is a study of what happens when miscreant […]