1,750 stories by "Ghoover"
Prime Stage Theater’s adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a sincere, though sickly-sweet interpretation of the Young Adult Literature phenomenon. To enter the New Hazlett Thea…
The cast of Hercules Didn’t Wade in the Water with Director Wali Jamal I loved Hercules Didn’t Wade in the Water by Michael A. Jones and directed by Wali Jamal. The opening performance…
The cut-away of an Irish cottage that serves as a set for PICT’s production of John B. Keane’s Sive (pronounced sigh-ve), looks a quaint place, if sparse and threadbare, but it will hous…
This week saw the announcement of the nominations for the 71st annual Tony Awards. As is the case with every year, some shows were lavished with nominations across the board—Natasha, Pierr…
It is hard to acknowledge something as profoundly masculine and steeped in caricatures as Arthur Miller’s milestone piece, Death of Salesman could evoke an emotionally unhinged response in…
The board of directors at the Theatre Factory in Trafford has a reputation of not shying away from challenging productions, and this group has the pluckiness, daring, and foresight to bring …
“We ask you now to imagine a grown cat in flight.” This line—as a glowing scarf floated through the air while cast members created the sounds of a cat gurgling and cooing—was just …
A great word for adaptation is “knock-off”. Like ‘cheap’; ‘pegged-down’; an insinuation that’s just a bit crappier. The ill craftsmanship of a poorly made, get-rich-quick i…
The incessant, nagging chirp of crickets. It’s the iPhone noise that never reached the popularity of the classic marimba ringtone. It underscores many a painful, unending awkward silence i…
What’s Missing is a show premised on imperfection, incompletion, dissatisfaction. The disembodied, mellifluous voice we hear as the two somber dancers begin their very calculated, yet very…
“He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.” – Linda Loman, Death of a Salesman Whe…
The playbill for Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Drama’s aggressive and successful challenge of Andre Dumas’ timeless classic The Three Musketeers employs much space dedicated …
The final day of Fringe started, admittedly, with a bit of delirium. Fatigued, processing all the mini-dramaturgical moments from the past two days, I was a bit beleaguered re-entering the A…
It is apropos, perhaps, that when entering the Artist’s Image Resource, I was tantalized by phenomenally raw pieces crafted by artists of varying levels of experience that lined the wall. …
Setting controls a play. It’s its backbone. This is particularly true when the setting contains an entire plot within a singular space. Also, particularly true when the audience feels …
College campuses in America are a hotbed of cultural discourse. As they should be. However, unlike the last hundred years of existing as a space for entire generations to generate a stance o…
How does one continue the timeless story of a boy who never grows up? Steven Spielberg’s Hook notwithstanding, the obvious answer to that question is to explore his past. And that’s just…
Amid the dismally, dreary haze of Friday evening, there was a certain excited hum and rattle that illuminated the day as it settled into dusk. This excitement was the anxious anticipation an…
These days, Jed Allen Harris says it takes a certain kind of script to draw him from the flexible confines of academic theater. He helped lay the foundation of today’s dynamic Pittsburgh…
The evening began with the ridiculous but thoroughly entertaining one man show Laundry Night by Captain Ambivalent. Captain Ambivalent sings with the accompaniment of a gold accordion, t…
Jill Jeffrey was a like many young actors, making the rounds at auditions and giving little thought to children’s theater–until she stepped on stage in Journey Back to Oz at Gemini Theat…
The building my uncle is renovating is a wide open space barren of furniture, the chipped paint dotted with hungry-looking light sockets. I am with him while he works, because my parents nee…
The Duquesne Red Masquers could not have asked for better timing for their production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. A show about a populist President who rides to power by claiming to rep…
Ever have that dream where you’re suddenly in the middle of a play, but it’s in someone’s living room instead of on a stage and the actors are inches away from you? And then you realiz…
If you go to Dreamgirls expecting a biopic musical about The Supremes, you’ll be surprised: The show actually is a fictionalized tale inspired not just by the legendary female trio from th…
