Friday, May 4-Sunday, May 20 Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh 7:30 p.m. Tue.–Sun./2 p.m. Sat. & Sun., $30+, www.nctheatre.com Generally, North Carolina Theatre favors the one-and-done: single-week productions of hit Broadway musicals that vanish after their allotted time. But in this change-up, a coproduction with Connecticut’s Ivoryton Playhouse, audiences have three whole weeks to see New […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Shakespeare Speaks to Every Age but Sometimes Mumbles When He’s Drunk
ShakesBEER II: The Bard Strikes Back★★★ Through Thursday, May 3 Various venues, Triangle-wide Shakespeare speaks to every age. Sometimes, though, he mumbles when he’s drunk. That’s one takeaway from Bare Theatre’s ShakesBEER II, a new comic collection of Shakespearean souses that’s making the rounds at local bars through this Thursday. (We saw it at Mystery […]
Posted inCulture
Durham Independent Dance Artists Branches Out Into Indian Classical Dance with Ramya Kapadia
Sunday, April 29 Ramya Kapadia:Mataram Walltown Children’s Theatre, Durham 4:30-7:30 p.m., $10-$20, www.didaseason.com The names of Indian dance can seem intimidating, but they’re clearer when you break them down. Take the female dance form Bharatanatyam, for example: it’s a long string of letters, but that’s because its syllables describe all four of the classical form’s […]
Posted inTheater
Star Pocket Theatre’s Debut Production, The Member of the Wedding, Shows Predictable Growing Pains and a Promising Future
The Member of the Wedding Through Sunday, April 29 Visual Art Exchange, Raleigh It should not be easy to watch a child slowly starve in front of you. It is not easy in Star Pocket Theatre’s production of The Member of the Wedding. The child is Frankie Addams, a tomboy nearing age thirteen at the […]
Posted inTheater
Hand to God, an Irreverent-to-Blasphemous Broadway Farce, Casts a Possibly Demonic Sock Puppet in an Unlikely Morality Play
HAND TO GOD Through Sunday, May 6 Theatre in the Park, Raleigh www.theatreinthepark.com It’s an achievement in physical acting when a performer can persuade an audience that he’s locked in mortal combat with a sock puppeteven more so when the puppet is clearly winning. Full credit, then, goes to Ira David Wood IV, who plays […]
Posted inCulture
Hamilton and Star Wars Parodies Are on Tap in ShakesBEER II: The Bard Strikes Back
Sunday, April 22-Thursday, May 3 Various venues, Triangle-wide 8 p.m., donations accepted, www.baretheatre.org “We’ve upped the ante on everything,” director Dustin Britt says about Bare Theatre’s all-new collection of comic Shakespearean sots, which embarks on a springtime tour of Triangle bars this week. Once again, adaptor Charles Keith scripts a mash-up of the Bard’s most […]
Posted inArt
Though British Royalty Is Surging in Pop Culture, Provocative “Future History Play” King Charles III Reminds Us We May Be Living in Its Twilight
KING CHARLES III Through Sunday, April 29 Murphey School Auditorium, Raleigh www.burningcoal.org I can’t be the only American to have cast a longing eye across the pond toward a form of governance (or at least a figurehead) more adult than Donald Trump. Queen Elizabeth II’s popularity has only grown among her long-ago subjects in recent […]
Posted inTheater
Kristin Clotfelter’s Pensive Dance with Cardboard Boxes and Other Highlights of Tobacco Road’s Annual Showcase
TOBACCO ROAD DANCE PRODUCTIONS: IN CONCERT Friday, April 13 PSI Theatre, Durham www.tobaccoroaddance.org After four years and four iterations of Tobacco Road Dance Productions’ unique eight-month mentorship program, which brings together emerging choreographers and established dance makers, founders Stephanie Woodbeck and William Commander’s last showcase before handing over the reins was a good moment to […]
Posted inCulture
Though It Perplexed New York, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Appalachian Musical Bright Star Should Fare Well Here
Tuesday, April 17-Sunday April 22 Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh 7:30 p.m. nightly/2 p.m. Sat. & Sun., $21–$45 www.dukeenergycenterraleigh.com Don’t let the supposed simplicity of old-time music fool you; its composers only get there after they’ve carefully whittled away absolutely everything inessential to the story or the song. What remains is spare, direct, distilled, its emotional impact […]
Posted inTheater
In Leaving Eden, an Early-Twentieth-Century Cotton Mill and a Modern Pork Plant Are the Axles of Racially Violent Cycles
LEAVING EDEN Through Sunday, April 22 PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill www.playmakersrep.org It’s not wise to travel on a river when the water’s deeply troubled by a storm and the night is far from over. But as the enigmatic, soulful griot Selah informed the audience on opening night of the new music-theater work Leaving Eden, […]