950 stories by "Laura Kressly"
The Civil Rights movement in America was a time of turbulence and violence, but both black and white activists retaliated with their passion for equality. The issue divided individual famili…
Nearly twenty years ago, I went to my first Cirque du Soleil show in New York. A young teenager and already obsessed with theatre and performance, I was blown away by the colour and spectacl…
Shakespeare's history plays are some of his best. Epic tales with tragedy and comedy, love and war, politics and history are brought to life on stage, with the storyline of some characters s…
Improbable Theatre's Devoted and Disgruntled (D&D) events bring to mind this poem, Invitation, by American poet Shel Silverstein. They're open to absolutely anyone with an interest in t…
Meggie (Katherine Carlton) and her bookbinder father Mo (Paul McEwan) love books. They also share a fantastical gift that's causing them to be chased all over the world (or Europe, at least)…
Carmen Disruption This Simon Stephens deconstruction bore little resemblance to the opera. Instead, we had a cast of dysfunctional, damaged characters unable to connect with the world …
What makes the story of Red Riding Hood so enduring? Is it the clever heroine? Is it the metaphor for growing up? Is it the violence and gore? Horse & Bamboo choose to focus on the colou…
An invitation to review this different kind of theatrical experience landed in my inbox:
Different Breed Theatre invite you to come down to Gary's Warehouse in Bermondsey and watch an elf…
The WWII image of dejected, scrappy children with brown tags around their necks, clutching their most precious belongings as they are re-homed with strangers in the countryside is a powerful…
Dominic Cavendish thinks this year’s theatre lacks relevance to current affairs. He’s probably been working under a commercial and subsidized theatre-shaped rock (as mainstream c…
Hampstead Theatre does it again with another powerful, thought-provoking transfer after last month's Four Minutes Twelve Seconds. Heather and Carla went to secondary school together about 20…
There's usually good reason why renowned writers have known but unpublished early works. They hone their craft by writing, usually badly at first, and then have a major breakthrough after th…
As it's the run up to Christmas, pantos are saturating our stages. There are the traditional ones and plenty that give themselves another label in the hope of getting attention: boutique, ad…
Schnitzler's La Ronde has been remade dozens of times and might be coming back into fashion again, what with the recent Hope Theatre production of Hello Again. Joe DiPietro's Fucking Men fol…
They are new to the King's Head, but Charles Court Opera aren't new to pantomime. This year's Mirror Mirror: A Snow White Pantomime is their ninth "boutique" panto. Though an opera company, …
Near the end of his two-year imprisonment for gross indecency, Oscar Wilde was a man broken from hard labour, isolation and social disgrace. Until a sympathetic warden at Reading Gaol allowe…
Icon Edith Piaf inspired numerous films and plays, including 1978 play with music, Piaf. The four foot, 8 inches tall chanteuse from a broken home died at just 47, but left a songbook often …
The first generation of immersive theatre fans are growing up. The twenty-somethings who discovered Punchdrunk in their early days are 30-somethings. Now immersed in nappies and temper tantr…
Cold, dark days make me want to see feel-good theatre, especially in the run up to the holidays. Bonus points if it's colourful, has some depth and at least some non-formulaic elements, even…
Will Adamsdale's standup/solo performance creation Chris Jackson is a motivational speaker and life coach, and the audience is at his seminar to learn his life changing methods. Jackson's Wa…
Love is one of the best things in the world, or the worst. It feels like floating, butterflies, warmth and fuzziness, or being trapped in a cage with no way out. Everyone wants to love and b…
It's panto season, and our stages are filled with villains, heroes and dames. Playwright David Bottomley's new work-in-progress has some passing resemblance to the characters in Britain's tr…
Austerity sucks. People all over the country have had their benefits cut, work opportunities reduced and wages frozen. Austerity has badly affected young people at the onset of their careers…
Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet transformed a young generation into Shakespeare fans. Dan Poole and Giles Terera were training at Mountview at the time of the film's release. They pr…
I imagine getting stuck in a lift is pretty high on the list of "Worst Things Ever." Well, it's obviously not as horrible as the death of a loved one, terrorism, cancer and a host of other t…
