AVENUE Q Through June 25 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh After a production in 2012, we wondered if Avenue Q, 2003’s Tony-winning Sesame Street knockoff, risked becoming a period piece. At the end of the first Obama administration, our culture seemed to have made so much progress on the issues facing the human and puppet cast […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inArt
Lynda Clark Takes a Stunning Solo Turn as Fashion Icon Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop
Full Gallop Through June 24 Kennedy-McIlwee Studio theatre, Raleigh TheaterFEST As Lynda Clark stalked across the stage in a slinky black top and trousers made by director and costume designer John McIlwee, her stunning solo performance as controversial fashion editor Diana Vreeland seemed half concert, half acting master class. There was more than a note […]
Posted inMusic
Concert Review: Decades After New Wave, Joe Jackson Keeps Looking Forward
Joe Jackson Carolina Theatre, Durham June 5, 2017 Since most of Joe Jackson’s compatriots in the British new wave have long since hit the Stop button—either that or they tour in perpetual Rewind—it’s a notable act of chutzpah that he named his latest album and current tour Fast Forward. Then again, the Staffordshire singer’s career […]
Posted inArt
The INDY Picks the Must-See Shows of ADF’s Fortieth Durham Season
What to See at ADF 1. Controversial, political dance theater from the Middle East figures into four ADF shows this year. Hillel Kogan’s We Love Arabs (The Cary Theater, June 13–14) is a satirical slam on ethnic stereotyping and didactic social commentary in which an Israeli and an Arab dancer try to bridge their cultural […]
Posted inArt
In a Theater Scene Awash in Actors and Directors, McQueen & Company Wants to Fill In the Back End
MCQUEEN & COMPANY: FOOL FOR LOVE June 8–25, 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat./3 p.m. Sun., $10–$20 Research Triangle High School Theatre, Durham www.mcqueenandcompany.com Many theater companies in our region arrange themselves along similar lines. Sometimes a lone auteur, like Ellen Hemphill of Archipelago Theatre or Wendy Ward of Ward Theatre Company, pursues an individual vision. Sometimes a […]
Posted inArt
Renay Aumiller Dances with Danger in the Form of Four Large Metal Pendulums in boneGlow
RENAY AUMILLER DANCES: BONEGLOW Friday, June 2–Sunday, June 4 8 p.m. Fri. & Sat./4 p.m. Sun., $10–$15 Living Arts Collective, Durham www.livingartscollective.com Last fall, the Durham-based choreographer Renay Aumiller found herself contemplating seismic shifts, both culturally and close to home. Though the prospect of political change has always provoked anxiety in our country, Trump seemed […]
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An Uneven Score, Cast, and Staging Make Ghost the Musical an Oddly Dispiriting Experience
Ghost the Musical Through Sunday, June 11 North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre, Raleigh www.nract.org NRACT offers performing arts classes, but its current production is more of a cautionary lesson about staging a musical. Bruce Joel Rubin wrote the screenplay for the 1990 blockbuster film starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, so his soapy script […]
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The First Staged Reading of Downrange: Voices From the Homefront Was a Full-Blown Theatrical Fiasco
Downrange: Voices From the Homefront Friday, May 26 & Saturday, May 27 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh www.raleighlittletheatre.org On Friday night, the cast of Downrange looked crestfallen and director Deb Royals said she was “flabbergasted” as a theatrical fiasco unfolded, following the region’s first staged reading of Mike Wiley’s drama based on the untold stories of […]
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Matilda the Musical Is Sweetly Subversive and Secretly Heady
Matilda the Musical★★★★ Through Sunday, May 28 Raleigh Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh We not only have the power to tell our stories and those the wide world hands us; we can edit and rewrite them as well. Count those among the heady takeaways from Matilda the Musical, the sweetly subversive musical whose kinetic, touring Royal Shakespeare […]
Posted inArt
Bartlett Theater’s Unorthodox The Seagull Flies Higher Than Any We’ve Seen
THE SEAGULL Through Monday, May 29 5612 Cabe Ford Road, Durham Anya Reiss’s sparkling 2012 adaptation of Chekhov’s breakthrough play begins as a veritable bonfire of the artistic vanities as it chronicles the onstage, backstage, and offstage disaffections among a group of artists and the unfortunates who happen to be related to (or, even worse, […]