Reviewed by Laurie Lynn Lindemeier,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

What do you think of when you hear "soccer mom"? Aggressive, overprotective, unappreciated, supportive, sunburned, long-ago athletic, organized, or just plain tired. Whatever your choice of adjectives, women are likely to relate to one of three characters in SECRETS OF A SOCCER MOM by Kathleen Clark, and men will get a glimpse into the female psyche.

This 90-minute play opens Circle Theatre's thirty-first season. Even if you aren't female or a mother, there's a good chance that you've observed one struggling to get her children to a soccer game on a Saturday morning, either in the grocery store buying halftime snacks, or perhaps screaming in the driveway across the street, "What do you mean you don't know where your soccer shoes are?"

Director Robin Armstrong coached the female acting troupe to create an ...

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Reviewed by David Hanna,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

The trailer promoting Echo Theatre's newest show has a simple tagline: "Who is Conrad Eppler?" It's a take on "man-on-the-street" interviews as person after person explains that they've never heard of this person. It's also ironically indicative of Isabella Russell-Ides' new play. "The Early Education of Conrad Eppler" is a confusing, bizarre, and ultimately unsatisfying play about heaven, earth, and somewhere in between. Despite some strong performances and flashy effects, the show sinks under the weight of its incomprehensible plot and complete lack of believability.

Explaining the plot of "Conrad Eppler" requires the space of this entire review, and even then it's not certain that one can fully articulate the constant sharp turns playwright Isabella Russell-Ides takes in this play. The titular character, Conrad Eppler, is only ...

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Reviewed by Richard Blake,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

PFAMILY ARTS presents a heartwarming, wonderfully produced production of The Boys Next Door, and you, your family and friends will enjoy and talk about an evening of extraordinary theatre together!

The Boys Next Door was written in the early 1980's by Tom Griffin. Originally titled Damaged Hearts, Broken Flowers, the play was renamed and revised for a 1987 production at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. An Off-Broadway success, the play is filled with humor and also marked by the compassion and understanding with which it peers into the half-lit world of its handicapped protagonists. This very funny yet very touching play focuses on the lives of four mentally challenged men who live in a communal residence under the watchful eye of a sincere but increasingly despairing social worker, Jack.

Norman, ...

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Reviewed by Sten-Erik Armitage,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Laura Numeroff has written a number of children's books that are quickly becoming classics in the eyes of her young audience and their parents. Her works include If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, and If You Give a Pig a Party. Dallas Children's Theater has been given the unique privilege of being able to adapt these books for the stage. In 2005 DCT first introduced the stage adaptation of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, and it was an instant hit. In fact it was DCT's highest selling show ever!

With that accolade, there were high expectations for this reprisal of the show. Director Nancy Schaeffer was not content to simply use a cookie-cutter approach this time around. ...

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Reviewed by Charlie Bowles,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

In 1824 the new President of Ohio University enrolled a young Freedman, a slave freed by his masters, to begin university studies. He was to become the first black man to graduate from a university in the Northwest Territory, and the fourth in the United States. It was not a popular move but Robert G. Wilson, a pastor educator, fought resistance in the "free" state of Ohio and enrolled John Newton Templeton.

For Templeton, already educated more than most slaves because of a benevolent master, this was a chance to prove black children could learn. For Robert Wilson, Templeton was an answer to a dream of solving the "slave problem" by repatriating blacks to Africa. For Jane Wilson, Robert's wife, young Templeton reminded her that women had fewer ...

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Reviewed by John Garcia,
Senior Chief Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Cheerleading. A subject I have no knowledge of nor experience in. I've seen cheerleading college competitions on ESPN though. Now, as for the 2000 film Bring It On starring Kristen Dunst, I have seen that film several times. But I had no interest in viewing the four sequels that followed (all of them went directly to video release).

Thus, walking into the Music Hall I expected to see an adaptation of the 2000 film version. I was dead wrong. The creators actually use the plot from one of the sequels as its source. So be prepared, as you won't be watching the film that has a cheerleader captain named Torrance trying to win nationals even though she has bitchy teammates, and a Goth/rocker chick who ...

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Reviewed by Danny Macchietto,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Pluck the Day. It means seize the day. I will admit that the title of Second Thought Theatre's original production by Steven Walters, also marking their return to the Dallas theatre arena, didn't prepare me for the harsh, yet charming frankness of its characters. It is clear thirty minutes in to it that the term "pluck" shares a double meaning with another choice word that rhymes with pluck, but as the producers of the recent Broadway bomb, The Motherf**ker With the Hat, can tell you, play's with "f**k" in the title don't sell tickets so easily.

The play opens on two mismatched pals Duck and Bill sitting on a porch on a Sunday afternoon in a desolate part of West Texas drinking Milwaukee's Best. The opening scene is ...

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Reviewed by Mary L. Clark,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

It was 1911 Germany and playwright Caro Sternheim certainly had some easy pickings with which to satirize - Europe was teetering on the edge of the world's biggest war, class distinction was rearing its ugly head and women, though still ensconced in full length, restrictive attire, were budding the blossoms of feminism which would serve them well only a few short years later. Ten years into the Edwardian Age, Sternheim mirrored his fellowman's societal foibles with his satirical play Die Hose. Almost 100 years later, fellow satirist Steve Martin adapted the play "not. . . . as historical artifact" but to emphasize relatable themes audiences would still find funny today.

Farce is defined as "a style of comic drama in which authority, order and morality are at risk, and ordinary ...

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Reviewed by Eric A. Maskell,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Greater Lewisville Community Theatre's rendition of Room Service by John Murray & Allen Boretz was truly a joy to watch. It was such a good performance I left the theatre wanting to go watch the 1938 movie version starring The Marx Brothers to see if it was performed as well. The play takes place in 1937 New York and follows the adventures of Gordon Miller, played by Nelson Wilson, a down on his luck Broadway producer trying to find a backer for his newest play "Godspeed". Miller and his group are about to be locked out of the hotel they have been staying in if they can't find the means to cover the hotel bill within the next couple of hours.

The tension increases when the regional hotel director, ...

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Reviewed by Jeremy William Osborne,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

The Secret Life of Girls at the Dallas Children's Theater is a well-performed, wonderfully directed, multimedia presentation. Its youthful cast shows skills and talents beyond their years. Director Nancy Schaeffer guides the cast through an emotionally trying script with great care. The use of projections adds great visual references as well as a connection to the online world of cyber-bullying.
The transitions between scenes are flawless and quick.

Nancy Schaeffer makes excellent use of the entire stage area. Often times a girl walks to another area of the stage as the lights transition and a new scene begins. Also, with no set changes to be made, the show moves along at a great pace, packing a lot of action into only sixty minutes.

The script demands a lot from actresses who seem too young ...

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Reviewed by Laurie Lynn Lindemeier,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

"Daddy. He burped."
"Yes, son."
"He burped!"
"It's okay. He excused himself."

Next to me at Casa Manana Theatre, this darling exchange occurred between a father and son as Charlotte's Web played before us. The little fellow looked to be about four years old. His bright eyes were transfixed on the stage as he sat upon his papa's lap. At that moment the object of his concern was Templeton the rat played marvelously by Christopher Deaton. The Templeton puppet, with quirky whiskers and beady red eyes, was cleverly designed by Winston Ragle. He told of his delicious digestion of the county fair droppings, and then belched beautifully. A large groan of laughter and delight emanated from the audience as the rodent lost his meal and then, well...ate it again. Children shrieked "ooh" and "yucky," but ...

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Reviewed by Laurie Lynn Lindemeier,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Is David Mamet's play, Oleanna, about political correctness, sexual harassment, power, lost utopia, male-female miscommunication, or something else? How many charged topics can there be in one show? Well, the audience seemed willing to debate about many of them at intermission and after the show at Arts Fifth Avenue on Saturday evening.

Everyone, including the ladies selling drinks behind the counter, had an opinion about David Mamet's provocative two-person drama. Although the company producing the show, L.I.P. Service and Big Nose Productions is new to the DFW theater scene, they have created a seasoned and spicy performance of Mamet's challenging play. I applaud director Ben Hall for his rendering of this drama that dripped with fanaticism. Oleanna churns your insides and sets an egg beater to scrambling your thoughts about sexual harassment ...

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Reviewed by Charlie Bowles,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Charlayne Woodard is a storyteller. Her stories are about childhood but they also fulfill a need, forgotten in a time of immediate media coverage, that storytelling has met throughout human history. Stories entertain but also convey our shared history and create discussion about larger meanings and morals in society. Pretty Fire is Charlayne's story.

Jubilee Theatre brings Woodard's Pretty Fire to Fort Worth under the direction of Tre Garrett, Artistic Director, and creates an environment for listening that makes it easy to focus on meanings while enjoying the story.

The story begins with Charlayne's birth as a preemie in Albany, New York and carries her through childhood there, with occasional trips to Dixie where her grandparents live in Savannah, Georgia. Throughout her childhood she is faced with ridicule, ...

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Reviewed by Chris Jackson,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

David: "How do we keep from collapsing?"

Hannah: "Maybe we don't. Maybe we just figure out how to fall together."

A Mississippi river bridge collapses while you're on it. You somehow survive the collapse, but then how do you survive what happens afterward? And what about the people around you? How do they survive the collapse? And what about all the other things in your life that seem to be collapsing ? your marriage, your job, the secrets you keep? Great stuff for a sitcom, right? Well, yes, that's the way it seems at the beginning of the new play by Allison Moore, currently running at Kitchen Dog Theater.

Based on an actual 2007 event in Minneapolis, the play explores the aftermath of a traumatic ...

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Reviewed by Ashlea Palladino,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

Talking an eight-year old who has never seen the show into watching Fiddler on the Roof is like persuading a grown man to watch an episode of iCarly - neither are easy tasks. My Junior Associate Theater Critic complained about our review assignment all the way to Cleburne's Plaza Theatre, and she continued to bemoan the injustice of her situation through the pre-curtain blackout. But then the music started and "Tradition" began. She stared wide-eyed at the massive ensemble of villagers and then turned to me and said, "Mama, I think I'm gonna like it after all".

In a previous review I admitted disappointment with one of Plaza's earlier productions and likened the show in question to Snookie's cheese fries: pretty darned good, but not up to par with ...

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Reviewed by Richard Blake,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

It's hard to surprise me with a production I've seen so many times, but Artisan Center Theater does just that by executing a difficult production that is entertaining, with a confident cast and exciting technical aspects in Big River!

Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a musical based on Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with music and lyrics by Roger Miller and book by William Hauptman. In keeping with the setting of the novel, Big River features music in bluegrass and country styles.

The original Broadway production opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on April 25, 1985. It ran for 1005 performances and was nominated for ten Tony Awards. It won seven, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score. ...

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Reviewed by Charlie Bowles,
Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

It was a hot August in 1966. It was hot for many reasons. America was watching an extraordinary history unfold. JFK had been assassinated. The war in Vietnam created a backlash in America, with war riots across the nation. Race riots were also occurring and hippies challenged America's culture in the streets. NASA was putting men into space and heading towards the moon.

Other changes were occurring as well. I took my first airline flights that summer. The first was on a DC-3 WWII-era plane that stopped 5 times and took over two hours. My return two days later was on a Boeing 707 which arrived in less than an hour. FM radio was replacing AM and TV was entering most living rooms. People were learning that news about riots and war ...

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