THE GIFT OF THE MAGI Through Saturday, Dec. 23 Sonorous Road Theatre, Raleigh www.sonorousroad.com The first question any stage adaptation of The Gift of The Magi must answer is how to make it an evening-length work. It would scarcely take twenty minutes to enact the three brief scenes in O. Henry’s most famous short story, […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inArt
Burning Coal Plumbs the Strange, Partially Formed Humanity of Children in Its Devised Peter Pan & Wendy
PETER PAN & WENDY Through Sunday, Dec. 17 Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh www.burningcoal.org Does the uncanny valleythat anxious relationship between humans and almost-human simulacrarun through Neverland? I’m asking after seeing Burning Coal’s Peter Pan & Wendy, the second notable devised theater work we’ve seen locally in the last month (after Little Green Pig’s Lake […]
Posted inArt
Tim Walter’s Long Effort to Give Downtown Durham a Venue It Needed Pays Off in the Nick of Time
If the photographer and arts patron Tim Walter is breathing a little easier these days, so is a significant portion of Durham’s arts community. The Durham Fruit & Produce Companya 22,000-square-foot warehouse at 305 South Dillard Street that Walter renovated into a gallery, performance, and workshop spaceis finally legal, following a three-and-a-half-year odyssey of construction […]
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You Never Know What Show You’ll Get from Little Green Pig’s Improvised Lake Placid, Set During the 1980 Winter Olympics
LAKE PLACID Through Saturday, Dec. 9 Durham Fruit & Produce Co., Durham www.littlegreenpig.com If you’re searching for Lake Placid, don’t take I-87 north from New York. Instead, look somewhere between the films of Robert Altman and the golden age of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. (Should you reach Wes Anderson, make a U-turn; you’ve gone a bit […]
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Dot, a Bittersweet Holiday Tale, Reminds Us that Some Losses are Reversible
Dot Through Sunday, Dec. 10 PlayMakers, Chapel Hill www.playmakersrep.org At first, the half-empty bottle of Smirnoff seems like a visual non sequitur, alone on the counter of a homey little kitchen. But its presence there at ten a.m. on a workday is the first sign of the life-and-death struggle underway in a sunny West Philadelphia […]
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Christmas Comes Early to Triangle Stages
It’s been true for years: anytime after Halloween is fair game for department stores and shopping malls to put up Christmas decorations. By mid-November, WRAL-FM has replaced evergreens by Aerosmith and Justin Timberlake with a steady stream of holiday classics by Burl Ives and Gene Autry. We’re uncertain if this is a good thing, but […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: It’s an Awkward Time for a Gypsy Revival, but NC Theatre’s Production Doesn’t Let Us or Its Characters Off the Hook
Gypsy★★★★ Through Sunday, Nov. 19 Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh It’s an awkward time for a revival of Gypsy, biggest of the big-time classic Broadway musicals. After the recent death of Hugh Hefner, our culture has been re-reexamining the social politics of the skin trade, including sex work, pornography, and erotic dancing, the famous occupation of […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: One Work Clearly Stands Out in Cary Playwrights Forum’s Annual Romp Through Short Plays Set and Performed in Bars
Bar Plays 3.0★★ Closing Thursday, Nov. 16 Fortnight Brewing, Cary If you think ten-minute plays are the kiddie pool or the junior division of theater, think again. It’s hard enough for a playwright, a director, and actors to introduce and develop vivid characters, place them in a novel situation, support them with a robust backstory, […]
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Beowulf Meets Bro Culture in a High-Spirited but Low-Stakes New Play at N.C. State
BEOWULF, LORD OF THE BROS Through Sunday, Nov. 19 N.C. State’s Titmus Theatre, Raleigh www.theatre.arts.ncsu.edu We’ve encountered man-children in musicals before: the winsome Peter Pan, the urbane Bobby (Company), and the raging Johnny (American Idiot). But it’s just plain weird to find oneactually, twoin a stage adaptation of Beowulf, the eighth-century Old English epic about […]
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Acceptance of Others Starts with the Self in Familial Drama The Mystery of Love and Sex
THE MYSTERY OFLOVE AND SEX Through Sunday, Nov. 12 North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre, Raleigh www.honestpinttheatre.org It’s something you do to get out of the house when you go home for the holidays: a slow drive through an old neighborhood or a stroll across the grounds of the schools you went to. But when […]