The Remarkable Mister Holmes
Laguna Playhouse Thru March 30
Review by Stacy Holmes
An impressive season continues at Laguna Playhouse with a 2022 musical comedy that describes itself as My Fair Lady meets Funny Thing Happened at the Way to Forum. Dr. Watson has disappeared and someone claiming to be his sister Sheila Watson appears. A jewelry show and a worldwide religious convention are underway in the nearby Hotel Magnificent. Someone keeps murdering the religious leaders. A jewel collection has gone missing. Scotland Yard’s Detective Lestrade calls in Sherlock Holmes to find the murderer and end the chaos at the fancy hotel. Watson insists upon tagging along. Red herrings and real clues abound but the real villain is hiding in plain sight until the last moment. Full Review
Arts
Cirque du Soleil Echo
Review by Stacy Holmes
Cirque du Soleil’s production of Echo is playing at the Laguna Hills Mall through June. Echo is a recent production of the more than 56 Cirque du Soleil shows over the past 40 years. Guy Laiberte and Gilles Ste-Croix founded their dream in Montreal. Their early work, even with its unsteady financial support, caught the attention of the Canadian government that provided some grant funding that launched what has become world wide tours of multiple productions as well as long-running resident productions in Las Vegas and elsewhere. More
August Wilson’s Fences
Laguna Playhouse
Review by Stacy Holmes
Fences draws from Wilson’s own boyhood experiences growing up in Pittsburgh in a Black neighborhood. A couple work tirelessly at exhausting jobs to support their meager home and lifestyle while raising two sons. Differences between father and each son as well as tensions in their marriage carry the story through years of the children’s coming of age and finding lives of their own.
Laguna Playhouse boldly undertakes to stage Wilson’s best known play. With luminaries like James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis starring in two Broadway productions and a movie version, the standards could not be higher. No worries. Corey Jones and Tamarra Graham perform one of American theater’s most powerful scripts brilliantly. All of the ensemble players hear the playwright’s story and bring it to life. Delighted audiences stand in appreciation of Laguna Playhouse’s powerful production. Full Review
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
at Newport Theater Arts Center
Review by Stacy Holmes
Our Town was first performed at McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 22, 1938. It next opened at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, on January 25, 1938. The New York City debut of Our Town was on February 4, 1938, Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Edward Albee once called Our Town “the Greatest American play ever written”. Our Town has been produced countless times at professional, academic and community theaters ever since.
Director Ben Green makes a spectacular debut as a director at Newport Theater Arts foregoing the temptation to make Our Town a period piece or an affectionate memory of a quaint little village. Jonathon Lamer’s Stage Manager is less didactic than customary interpretations of the play’s central role. He is more like the friendly face a chance visitor might be fortunate enough to encounter after arriving in a new place. He shares glimpses of life in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire that let the audience follow everyday characters over 15 years. We get to see ordinary lives in ways that reveal universal truths and how we might better use the precious time in our own lives.
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Rumors at Newport Theater Arts Center Review
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View from the Bridge at Laguna Playhouse Review
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Danial Radcliffe after Harry Potter Review
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Cirque du Soleil Kooza Review
Gifted Hands / Ben Carson Story Review
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Blithe Spirit Newport Theater 2023 Review
Laguna Playhouse 2024-5 Season
Newport Theater Arts 2024-5 Season
Barclay UC Irvine 2024-5 Season