Byron Woods

It’s a danger of a drifting time: Individual acts of conscience or political resistance are too easily dismissed as irrelevant, or even cliché. One brilliant afternoon late last fall, I overheard a pair of would-be ironists quietly call a group of peace protesters “quaint” and “very ’60s,” before moving on in distaste. In a culture […]

Judging by the unfortunate production of Company at Kennedy Theater, Jerome Davis and his Burning Coal Theatre colleagues have now learned how not to stage a Broadway musical. It’s information as useful for a theater group to have as it is expensive to come by, and not all companies survive the experience. Burning Coal’s audiences […]

Here’s news: There’s no shortage of new dance on display at present, and more is foreseen on the horizon. Compare that with years when dance was a summer institution and an inconstant guest for the rest. Significant showcases of new dance works have been running at least once a week through February. A glance at […]

Less than two years ago, I saw the world premiere of Jane Martin’s Anton in Show Business at the Humana Festival in Louisville, Ky. I bring it up only because Humana is, after all, the country’s preeminent new plays festival: What Sundance is to independent film, the Humana Festival is to theater. I also bring […]

How would you choreograph a suicide note in a way that lays bare the impulse that pushes you over the edge? If that challenge does not intrigue you, here’s another one: If you had to question the fundamental dynamics of your identity, your social roles and your body, could you do it using only movement? […]

Raleigh Ensemble Players’ guest artist David Harrell sees it this way: “After everything that happens in the first four minutes of this show, if you’re still thinking about my hand, I’m just not doing my job.” Harrell plays Adam, as in the biblical, absolutely original cast, in Raleigh Ensemble Players’ upcoming production of The Most […]

Home. The subject has an edge to it just now for Spalding Gray, one it didn’t have six months ago. Although the gods of irony could not be consulted by the time we went to press, their handiwork here is unmistakable. Saturday night at N.C. State’s Stewart Theatre, Gray is scheduled to perform his most […]

Modern-dance writers are always looking for something. Call it the case maker. Call it the golden hook. It’s irresistible, irrefutable. Not only does it galvanize the faithful; it gets even the most dance-resistant among us to grudgingly admit, “Now, that just might be interesting.” It’s the quality that makes a “can’t-miss” show can’t-miss. Let’s say […]

When it comes to theater, some shows need only dramatic and literary analysis. Others demand topography. For even though a broad assortment of theater companies calls this region home, most theatrical productions are rarely uniform in their development. Nor do theater-going audiences particularly expect them to be–at least not at the levels beneath the handful […]