Chekhov's "Three Sisters" gets a risqué update in U-M’s "Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow"

Fri, 09/30/2022 - 2:30pm by christopherporter

Playwright Halley Feiffer had the clever idea of taking Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters and kicking it into the 21st century. 

Encore Musical Theatre’s Fats Waller tribute "Ain’t Misbehavin'" struts and swaggers

Fri, 09/16/2022 - 12:30pm by christopherporter

Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller was only 39 years old when he died of pneumonia but in that short life the effervescent showman, composer, singer, master pianist, and amiable comic packed in a lot of life.

The musical "Hands on a Hardbody" explores class empathy, big personalities, and personal connections

Mon, 08/22/2022 - 10:00am by christopherporter

Some narrative setups just prove too irresistible to pass up.

Emilio Rodriguez asks who gets to decide what’s offensive in his play "God Kinda Looks Like Tupac"

Mon, 07/25/2022 - 1:45pm by christopherporter

NOTE: "God Kinda Looks Like Tupac" has been pushed back from its original opening date to August 5 due to illness.

What Price Genius? Theatre Nova’s "Relativity" explores the complicated life of Albert Einstein

Tue, 05/31/2022 - 10:00am by christopherporter

Can a great man also be a good man? What do the words great and good mean?

Wherever You Are: Geoff Sobelle’s experimental theater piece explores what it means to be "Home"

Wed, 04/27/2022 - 9:00am by christopherporter

Among the many, many things that have changed over the last two years is our sense of “home.” 

Encore Theatre premieres a new musical based on the life of silent star Lon Chaney

Fri, 04/22/2022 - 10:30am by christopherporter

In addition to presenting classic American musicals and lively cabaret shows, The Encore Theatre in Dexter is also doing its part to expand the musical theater repertoire with premiere presentations of new musicals.

Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s “Pass Over” is a Black Lives Matter-era translation of Exodus and "Waiting for Godot"

Tue, 04/12/2022 - 9:00am by christopherporter

The time is ripe for Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over, now on stage at Theatre Nova.

Penny Seats Theatre Company's "The Actors" is a comedic and emotional look at processing parental loss

Mon, 04/11/2022 - 2:00pm by christopherporter

Early in Ronnie Larsen’s play The Actors—staged by the Penny Seats Theatre Company at the Stone Chalet Event Center in Ann Arbor—a character says, “Theater’s weird. Families are weird.”

Ronnie, the comedic drama’s main character (who notably shares the playwright’s name, and is affectingly played by Brandy Joe Plambeck), voices this idea while explaining why he’s looking to hire a man and a woman to spend a few hours a week in his apartment, playing the roles of his deceased parents. He's lonely and has decided to use his inheritance money to hire actors that might make him feel cared for and connected again. Ronnie provides a family history and specific, remembered scenes for the actors to play out, inviting them to improvise.

Homeless kids find a voice in U-M's production of "somebody's children"

Sat, 03/26/2022 - 9:00am by christopherporter

Thirteen years ago, the Found Spaces Theater Company in Los Angeles commissioned a play from José Casas about homelessness. “I was really struggling with the play,” he recalls. “It was like a bad afterschool special with two-dimensional characters.”