Oklahoma City University’s Opera and Music Theater Company kicks off its 60th-anniversary season Friday with the rock musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, the classic tells the story of the final days of Jesus’ life from Judas Iscariot’s point of view. Forty years after it made its Broadway debut, […]
Performing Arts
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Pioneer woman
Surely, you saw the musical history lesson “Quilters” sometime late in the last century. Originally produced in Colorado, the show was popular in the 1980s. In case you didn’t or even if you did, Oklahoma City Theatre Company is presenting a passable production at the Freede Little Theatre. I’m glad they are, because running down […]
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Time to make the ‘Donuts’
Carpenter Square Theatre has come within one block of full circle. Its new, storefront theater on W. Main Street is one block south of the old Carpenter Paper Company warehouse, CST’s first home in 1985. But let’s not wax nostalgic. CST opens its season with Tracy Letts’ “Superior Donuts.” This play was highly anticipated when […]
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Mean girl
Warning: Lisa Lampanelli said her stand-up comedy act is like anal sex: “At first, it’s a little uncomfortable, but with enough liquor and lube, it’s a surefire hit.” See for yourself how it hurts so good when the “Queen of Mean” brings her barbs to FireLake Grand Casino on Friday. An audience favorite of Comedy […]
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Itsy bitsy ‘Bikini’
Nostalgia rules the day in the Oklahoma City debut of “The Bikinis,” a new musical by Ray Roderick and James Hindman. The show is set in 1999 at the 30-year reunion of The Bikinis, a New Jersey-based girl group that failed to break into the national scene after recording one hit single. Inspired by true […]
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Down the ‘Rabbit Hole’
In the 2006 drama “Rabbit Hole,” playwright David Lindsay-Abaire examines a family’s grief after the accidental death of a young boy. But he doesn’t provide any more insight than have the philosophers, theologians and pop psychologists who’ve come before him. That’s because Lindsay-Abaire takes on the great unanswerable question: Why do bad things happen to […]
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In it for ‘Life’
Alexander Dinelaris’ 2009 drama, “Still Life,” is set in New York City among characters that not too long ago were known as “yuppies.” So how goes it with this socioeconomic group once so full of themselves? According to Dinelaris, they are dissatisfied, unfulfilled and suddenly have realized that time rolls on inexorably. As the Grim […]
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Bam!
With a knack for voice impressions, acting chops and remarkable character inventions, comedian Maria Bamford easily could fill her time with television and film work. Instead, she keeps herself locked into the vicious, less lucrative world of stand-up comedy. It has its own rewards, however. “It’s immediate gratification,” Bamford said. “It only involves me showing […]
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Streetcar system
For those of us who love theater, nothing — well, almost nothing — beats watching an accomplished actor playing a great role, and that excellent combination is what you have with Alissa Millar as Blanche DuBois (pictured) in Oklahoma City Theatre Company’s production of Tennessee Williams’ 1947 classic “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Millar modulates perfectly […]
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Flock to it
Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park presents a case study of a dysfunctional family from a time before anyone knew the term for it, in Anton Chekhov’s 1896 drama, “The Seagull.” Now at the Myriad Gardens Water Stage, the production is directed by D. Lance Marsh and performed in handsome period costumes by Robert Pittenridge. It […]