670 stories by "Andrea Simakis"
News that United Airlines will close its hub at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport rippled through the Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare Monday. The largest performing arts center outside of …
"The idea that this production is now on the road going across America to me is the most exciting step in the journey so far, because this is really an American masterpiece," Paulu…
Though set behind a Vermont coffee shop called The Green Sheep, "The Aliens" is the antithesis of caffeinated. Its refusal to feed our collective short attention span is part of wh…
Fact is, the thought of a "Yentl" without those campy, Bab-sian trappings sounds as appetizing as a bowl of matzo ball soup without the dumplings. Happily, the dish served up at th…
In "Exact Change," written and performed by poet and critic Christine Howey, her journey from a man named Dick to a woman named Chris informs the best parts of the riveting but ult…
"Chicago," set in the debauched days of the late 1920s, is a stripped-down, minimalist affair and the absence of scenic busy-ness is why all eyes are relentlessly drawn to the bodi…
A sociopathic barber, vampiric fairies and the world's worst boss made the 2013 professional theater season in Cleveland a dark, brutal delight. Large local and visiting companies reimagined…
Before Ann Hampton Callaway brings her "boom shaka-lakas" and more to Cleveland's Nighttown on New Year's Eve, she shared a few trade secrets and dished about how she managed to ge…
On April 1, previews begin for "The Velocity of Autumn" by Cleveland Heights playwright Eric Coble at Broadway's Booth Theatre, with the knockout cast that won raves this fall duri…
"The Big Meal" of the title is the smorgasbord of life; some, like Nicole, want to eat it all up in big, breathless gulps. Others, like Sam, are more careful, finicky eaters.
the star of this sugarplum of a Cleveland Play House production is the set by Robert Mark Morgan, built to approximate the nimbleness of film, the medium that first introduced America to lit…
When "Wicked" opened on Oct. 30, 2003, it starred little-known actresses Idina Menzel, as emerald-skinned outcast Elphaba, and Kristin Chenoweth as the helium-voiced, popular and r…
With his genial affect, slender silhouette and genuine delight at working a crowd, Tommy Tune is bottled joy. (He glows a little too, his skin lightly toasted from the South Beach sun where …
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Bob Clark's 1983 cult holiday hit film, the Play House is telling an entirely new "Story," with a fresh cast, director and, most dramatically, a comple…
Laura Kepley, who has recently taken over as the ninth artistic director in the Play House's nearly 100 year history, is going to make Christmas shopping simple this year for her husband, th…
Tommy Tune will perform his cabaret act "Taps, Tunes and Tall Tales" for two nights only, Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 4 and 5, at Nighttown. (Event organizers say the Dec. 4 show …
The music in "Once" is not canned or piped in; it doesn't come from an unseen orchestra behind the scenes or in a pit " it is urgent and immediate, made by every performer on the stage.
While other Broadway musicals blare, "Once" glows. Minimalism is its trademark. The experience is not unlike being locked in an Irish pub for the night and joining in on a glorious…
Play House artistic director Laura Kepley has chosen actors who can more than handle the demands of the material and are particularly good at the very funny stuff. That's good news for this …
"Frankenstein," part of TheatreCLE, Ensemble's shadow season featuring short-run, experimental works, has a grinning, let's-throw-this-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks sensibility s…
David Ives wrote the screenplay for "Venus in Fur" with Roman Polanski, ensconced in the filmmaker's Swiss chalet in the Alps. Ives fondly recalls a scene in the garden, when Polanski came …
In Mike Bartlett's savage and provocative comedy " the title of which is actually more provocative than we're letting on with "The Cockfight Play" " director Corey Atkins has his lovers stal…
The winning ensemble in Karamu Theatre's "Cut Flowers" delivers a fast, ferociously funny day-in-the life dramedy by playwright Gavin Lawrence that is sophisticated and low, down a…
That Richard Rodgers kept making beautiful music following the loss of not one but two of his creative partners sounds like the plot of a great musical " or at least a winning concert. Bill …
In "Insomnia," Ev, Evelyn and Zelda are aspects of the same woman struggling to re-unite into a healthy whole. But like the fragmented woman at its center, though the play struggle…
