670 stories by "Andrea Simakis"
As Ludwig van Beethoven in Moises Kaufman's cerebral musical mystery "33 Variations," Dana Hart captures the single-mindedness and comic rudeness of a great artist obsessed.
Set in today's world of sleek Armani-suited execs furiously tweeting, talking and texting, King Richard, Shakespeare's most popular and chatty villain (in the Bard's canon, only Hamlet has m…
"I went to a boarding school in Massachusetts for high school and I can remember calling him not only from there but also from Brown and also when I was at Juilliard and saying 'I don't…
At first, Rajiv Joseph's oddball tale seems too thematically obvious. But soon, as the characters deepen and their relationships grow more complicated, like the pattern for that mesh sleeve,…
In director Victoria Bussert's hands, "Sweeney Todd" has both a winking, pop-culture sensibility and the dark, discomfiting tinge of true madness. It's not an easy line to walk, bu…
Backstage at the Place Theatre after Tuesday's performance of "Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty," his sensual, sumptuous, deeply moving and unexpectedly witty reimagining of Peter …
When celebrated British choreographer Matthew Bourne decided to tackle "Sleeping Beauty," his third Tchaikovsky ballet, he decided to make the 100-year span that the princess sleep…
Why don't regional theaters produce "She Loves Me" more often? Say, around the winter holidays? After all, the penultimate, frantic, antic number -- staged in Maraczek's Parfumerie, the epic…
Too many musical biographies cash in on an icon's songbook without the hard, messy work of having to examine a life and produce a structured, meaningful story.
One of the best things about '…
Laura Kepley, who took over the reins of the Cleveland Play House as interim artistic director in May, has been named the ninth artistic director of the 98-year-old cultural institution.
Of course there are lighter offerings in Cleveland's 2013-14 theater season. But it's blood-red that rules, from "Sweeney Todd" and "Deathtrap" to a giddily Gothic versio…
Get ready to go Goth, as PlayhouseSquare's KeyBank Broadway Series opens with a Victorian vampire take on "Sleeping Beauty" from British choreographer Matthew Bourne and continues …
The Cleveland Play House unveils an ambitious season that ranges from folk legend Woody Guthrie to tap legend Maurice Hines, and from sentimental favorite "A Christmas Story" to th…
Great Lakes Theater isn't afraid of the dark this season, as properties master Terry Martin prepares his special "blood-delivery system" to pump gallons of the red stuff for Stephe…
The Beck Center for the Arts will open its new season with a show artistic director Scott Spence calls the "all-time perfect musical," "She Loves Me." In the lead role wi…
The sounds of classic rhythm and blues will shake Karamu Theatre for Lee Summers' "From My Hometown," which opens a 2013-14 season that includes a new holiday show and a reprise of…
Cleveland Public Theatre launches a season of decidedly femme-centric fare with an encore run of Holly Holsinger, Chris Seibert and Raymond Bobgan's "Insomnia: The Waking of Herselves,&…
Greater Cleveland's smaller professional troupes still offer up grand, ambitious and provocative productions, from Rajiv Joseph's "Animals Out of Paper" at Ensemble Theatre to Tom …
Thanks to 'The Bards of the Burning River', a trio is establishing itself as a bumper crop of playwrights in Cleveland.
In "Time Stands Still," Pulitzer prize winner Donald Margulies, who teaches playwriting at Yale University, has fashioned a brutally funny, contemporary "Days of Wine and Rose…
The annual "Season on Sale" event at PlayhouseSquare begins at 11 a.m. Friday and is the time to score single seats to hot, upcoming shows, from the best of the Great White Way (th…
Describes following the Baldwin Wallace University Musical Theatre Showcase from rehearsal to New York to the results
The cast of "SPANK!" and friends. Suzanne Sole as E.B. Janet (second from left in leopard top), Graydon Long as Hugh Hanson (center) and Danielle Trzcinski as Tasha Woode (sixth fr…
Mark your calendar for September 6 when Ensemble actors take the stage at CMA's Mix First Friday Happy Hour from 5 p.m. " 9 p.m. to perform scenes from the play by Cleveland Heights native R…
Using the tagline "Great Scripts. Cleveland Artists" as a rallying cry, Ensemble Theatre board president Ian Wolfgang Hinz says audiences in Northeast Ohio will support challenging material …
