I wasn’t sure what I was going to make of Dickie Beau’s one-man show Showmanism: A Concise Histrionic of Performance, directed by Jan-Willem Van Den Bosch at London’s Hampstead Theatre. I knew very little about the show before it started, apart from it being a one-person show (which can sometimes be quite disappointing) and that …
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Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical—18 June 2025
Typically, I’m not a huge fan of musicals, but Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical, direct by Matthew Warchus at London’s Cambridge Theatre was properly enjoyable. I watched the film version of Matilda as a kid, but I’ve never read the book, so I did have some distance from the source materials, while still having a …
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Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore—17 Apr. 2025
Love, Loss, and What I Wore program The Gamble Mill and Sock & Buskin Theatre Company co-sponsored a staged reading of Nora and Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore—adapted from Ilene Beckerman’s novel—as a charity performance to raise money for Out of the Cold Centre County, which is a shelter. The production was …
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Kari Williamson and Nate Schierman’s Slain at the Speakeasy—23 Mar. 2025
Slain at the Speakeasy program Kari Williamson and Nate Schierman’s Slain at the Speakeasy is a full-length play developed out of an original semi-scripted murder mystery party script by Stefanie Austin, so this is definitely an in-house project for Sock & Buskin Theatre Company. Although this version was based on the original, the full-length production—directed …
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Michael Bérubé’s Hoarding—28 Feb. 2025
Poster for Hoarding Michael Bérubé’s new play Hoarding premiered at Tempest Productions, directed by Cynthia Mazzant (who also starred). The performances were and the script is an emotionally powerful journey through a difficult mother-daughter relationship, strained by both physical and emotional distances and by the traumas and tribulations each character has experienced. The play focuses …
Kari Williamson and Stefanie Austin’s Cutthroat Christmas—4 Dec. 2024
The playbill for the Cutthroat Christmas staged reading This performance was a staged reading of Kari Williamson and Stefanie Austin’s play Cutthroat Christmas, as a kind of prelude to the upcoming sequel Cutthroat Christmas: Deadly Deals. This original script had received a full production two years ago, and this read through was basically done so …
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Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street—20 Nov. 2024
Sweeney Todd Playbill On the one hand, I’m not a big fan of musicals as a genre, but on the other, I very much like the story of Sweeney Todd. Penn State Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Zack Steele, was generally a strong performance, though the night …
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Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor is the Villain—16 and 19 Oct. 2024
The playbill for John Proctor is the Villain Going into Penn State Theatre’s production of John Proctor is the Villain the first time, I was concerned that a play born out of the #MeToo movement might become didactic—basically an essay on stage. But I was pleasantly surprised by the complexity and passion with which Kimberly …
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Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot—13 Sept. 2024
State College Community Theatre’s production of Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot, directed by Kerry Clancy-Burns, had some strengths as a production, though overall it was not the best show I’ve ever seen. There were many positive aspects—especially individual performances, most of which were excellent. But there were some technical issues that undercut the show. To …
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Back to the Future: The Musical—27 June 2024
Back to the Future: The Musical Show Poster I’m not really a musicals person, especially in the West End/Broadway style of musical, so Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future: The Musical (with music and lyrics by Allan Silvestri and Glen Ballard) is not normally the kind of show I would seek out. …
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Phillip Zapkin 