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 […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Don’t Let the Period Fool You. Chekhov Update Life Sucks. Is Relentlessly Interrogative.
Life Sucks.★★★★½ Through Nov. 11 Manbites Dog Theater, Durham The period in the name of Manbites Dog Theater’s current show, Life Sucks., is a typographical oddity (and an annoyance for writers and editors) that turns the play’s title a declarative statement. But that’s misleading, because Aaron Posner’s self-aware, contemporary update of Anton Chekhov, who is […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: The “Lavender Scare” Is Brought to Life with Suspense and Nuance in Perfect Arrangement
Perfect Arrangement ★★★★ Through Nov. 12 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh As Perfect Arrangement begins, designer Jeannine Borzello’s smart, sophisticated 1950s living-room set doesn’t look like a bunker. But, under Patrick Torres’s nuanced direction, the walls start closing in on gay couple Bob and Jim and lesbian couple Millie and Norma well before the end of […]
Posted inStyle Issue
How Theatrical Costume Designers and Dressers Beat the Odds to Bring Style to the Stage
Ask a fashion designer to simultaneously whip up an embroidered Shang Dynasty emperor’s robe, the vainglorious get-up of an eighteenth-century Parisian dandy, and a Hashbury hippie chick’s accoutrements circa 1965, and you’re likely to get little more than a blank look. For a theatrical costume designer, though, such requests are just part of the job […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: PlayMakers’ Sense and Sensibility Breathes Vibrant New Life into a Jane Austen Classic
Sense and Sensibility★★★★ Through Nov. 5 PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill I’ve always found celebrations linked to an artist’s death—productions last year, for instance, of Shakespeare and Cervantes—to be in questionable taste. I’ll concede, though, there’s more reason for it with Jane Austen, since her identity as the author of classic British novels including Pride […]
Posted inTheater
Raleigh Room Escapes Slips Through the Keyhole Between Room-Escape Games and Immersive Theater
RALEIGH ROOM ESCAPES 1500 Brookside Drive, Raleigh 919-749-2803, www.raleighroomescapes.com The thing on the floor skittered toward me grotesquely, its walk half-crab, half-spider. I didn’t think it could see; its milky white eyes were nearly the same shade as its sunless skin. But its hearing and sense of smell were clearly sharp as it cocked its […]
Posted inCulture
North Carolina’s Strengthened Indie-Professional Dance Community Puts Its Mark on the NC Dance Festival and Emergence
The NC Dance Festival The Rickhouse, Durham October 12, 2017 Emergence PSI Theatre, Durham Arts Council October 14, 2017 In its first ever self-produced showcase in Durham, the NC Dance Festival took several legitimate steps toward embracing a growing community of independent, professional dance artists from across the state, a population it hasn’t always known […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Looking for a Laser Show? Tom Stoppard’s Pink Floyd-Derived Darkside Is Not That Kind of Trip.
Darkside ★★★Through Sunday, Oct. 29 Burning Coal Theatre Company, Raleigh Let’s get the consumer advisory out of the way. If you’re looking for a rock-and-blues bliss-out after some pre-show doobage, Brit Floyd, the Pink Floyd tribute band, will be in Charlotte next month. (Enjoy the light show.) For all its achievements and difficulties, Burning Coal’s […]
Posted inArt
Carolina Ballet’s Halloween Treats Tweak the Classics into an Actual Dance Macabre
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW Through Sunday, Oct. 29 Fletcher Opera Theater, Raleigh www.carolinaballet.com The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Raven, and The Lady in the White Veil are all tales of protagonists who stray too near the shadowlands, so they make an obvious enough collection for a Halloween run from Carolina Ballet. But among […]
Posted inArt
As the Focal Point of North Carolina Dance Shifts from Campus to Increasingly Professional Independent Artists, Two Statewide Showcases Adapt
NC DANCE FESTIVAL Thursday, Oct. 12, 8 p.m., $15–$22 The Rickhouse, Durham www.danceproject.org EMERGENCE Saturday, Oct. 14, 3 & 8 p.m., $7–$10 PSI Theatre, Durham www.triangledanceproject.org Particularly in the dance world, change does not take place in a vacuum. A development in one area, for good or ill, can send ripples out across the practice. […]