David MacDowell Blue

Certainly the destruction of PanAm 103 certainly counts as a tragedy. But this play transforms it into a Tragedy (note the capital T), one of the most powerful I've ever seen. Its focus remains squarely not upon the event, which after all lies in the past, but in the aftermath--and by extension such for all the evils, all the pain in the world. Here, during an anniversary event in the Scottish lowlands village where so many died, a New Jersey housewife gives way to her grief. Her husband trie... full review

The High Captain feels not unlike a blend of Waiting for Godot and Gilligan's Island. And maybe a fairly political version of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe. Actually there's also more than a dash of Monty Python as well. The survivors of a tanker ship crashing onto a desert island somewhere in the Caribbean try to live out their lives. Not easy under the best of circumstances it is all made better and worse by the fact enough barrels of gas that send people high as a kite survived the crash to.... full review

This show has a simple but delicious conceit--adapting the hit action movie not only into a musical but a Christmas musical, taking music from a variety of holiday specials and movies. This alone works. Add to that a tiny mountain of pop references, easter eggs, wonderful theatrical flourishes worthy of farce and the recipe then waits only for a good production. Wisely, TU keeps changing up the cast each year, which helps keep in fresh--especially in terms of the villain Hans Gruber, as juicy ... full review

For those of you don't know (I did not at first) the title The Woman is Perfected comes from the very last poem by Sylvia Plath. That alone might well give you a notion at its feel. A young woman spends the length of this one person show talking pretty much non stop to her visiting mother. Although quite pretty, she remains obsessed about her looks, having just undergone a series of botox injections to "take away all the wrinkles." She notes she doesn't mind the pain. It fills and distracts ... full review

I loved the heart of this show. I loved the redemptive, healing and personal courage tale of personal acceptance through trials and tribulations. More than once I felt strongly during the show. But Snap, Honey! despite all its heart remains something of a technical mess. The blocking was terrible, the lights erratic, the set looked amateurish and honestly the script needed some major work. This even extended to the lead actor, who kept gesturing by putting her hands in front of her face (!) ... full review

Imagine if you will a nihilistic, time travel comedy that also qualifies (barely) as a rom-com. This describes pretty well what Moose and Darlene's Cosmic Do-Over tries to accomplish. Does it succeed? Well, not quite. The show has some real charm to it, poses an interesting situation and resolution, seeks to find humor in some truly dark situations (like committing multiple murders in hopes of saving the world by changing the timeline). All well and good! I loved The Hitchhikers' Guide to t... full review

Oscar Wilde's life in its own proved epic, enough to inspire many a retelling, which if you added up together might prove longer than Game of Thrones yet still leave so much unexplored! This one act play focuses squarely on the last weeks or months of Wilde's life, and yeah leaves us wanting more. Most good plays do. Like a haiku, it seeks to evoke more than anything else a sense of "might have been." Wilde did not deserve what happened to him, yet in his world, his society, many thought he g... full review

features four characters (two of them playing multiple roles) is the simple but profound tale of a man and woman who fall in love, staying that way. It might seem nostalgic but is not, not really. Neither is it sentimental. Genuine pain they experience does not make it sad, nor do the often funny/silly antics at the heart of this love story make it a comedy. Just a simple but profound story. It explores why maybe we've put so much investment in the idea of romantic love. Because when it doe... full review

Look at the poster image for this play, Still and you get a real sense of how this story as we experience it feels. Not the stillness of waiting, nor the stillness of rest. No, this three-person drama makes us feel the stillness between moments--between life changing words and decision, between realizations. Even between the question asked and the answer given. On top of that we have the subject matter--sexual assault, which still remains a matter to avoid rather than confront, to seek excuse... full review

Wounded makes for a harrowing 80 minutes. Harrowing and strangely beautiful as three deeply hurt human beings struggle with and for each other and themselves. A woman and wife must care for her deeply disabled husband who came back from combat a shadow of his former self--shrapnel in his brain rendering him almost (but not quite) a child. Into her life comes another veteran, a man with whom she falls in love but turns out to be carrying his own wounds, in his case in the way his entire nervous... full review