Theatre
The Importance of Being Awkward
IN THE THREE PLUS YEARS that I’ve been in Charleston, I haven’t laughed this hard in the audience of a production. The Importance of Being Awkward is the Charleston Acting Studio’s irreverent Sketch Comedy Troupe, and the performers are all between the ages of 10 and 15. Now, normally I wouldn’t do a theatrical... Read »
Cast Chemistry Shines in “Steel Magnolias”
A BEAUTIFUL, IRREPRESSIBLE, and beloved young woman makes selfish choices that impact her family and community, while uttering lines like, “I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful, than a lifetime of nothing special.” Steel Magnolias, now at The Charleston Acting Studio on Folly Road, is a story about a group of women in... Read »
Stunning, Tense Play at South of Broadway
THERE IS AN EXTRAORDINARY EVENT happening in North Charleston, and if you are even nominally interested in viewing the best of what live theater offers, you owe it to yourself to get to South of Broadway Theatre Company. Located on East Montague in the recently ramped-up blocks just beyond Park Circle, South of Broadway... Read »
Hardworking Cast at What If?
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, now playing at What If? Productions, is a 1982 comedy-horror-rock musical, by composers Menken & Ashman (the pair who later would pen Disney’s The Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast) about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human flesh. The musical is based... Read »
A Smart Southern Comedy at Threshold Rep
IT IS THE MID-1950s, in a small Southern town near New Orleans and we are introduced to widow Veda Love Powell. The introduction is made in tongue-in-cheek old Southern fashion with a wink and a nod to Tom Wingfield. In fact, there is much about The Exact Center of the Universe (now playing at... Read »
Pulitzer Winner “Good People” at PURE
IN THE PHOTOGRAPH that fronts the program cover of PURE Theatre’s latest hit, “Good People”—half of which disappears into darkness—a care-worn but determined-looking woman grips what appears to be a knife, or some such weapon. On closer look, what she is clutching is a magic marker, and what lies pinned under it is a... Read »
Midtown Production of “Orphans” Strikes Deep
ORPHANS, the play directed by J.C. Conway and performing at Midtown Productions this month, was first produced in New York in 1985. The play is disturbing and thought-provoking, and the performances of this three-man cast run the spectrum from OK to terrific. Lyle Kessler’s drama follows a pair of brothers living hand-to-mouth in Philadelphia.... Read »
Hysterical “Satire Diaries” Is Artful Theatre
“THE SATIRE DIARIES,” which just completed a second run at Creative Spark last weekend, is so truthful and funny that you may not immediately realize just how good the script, lyrics, and acting really are. Of course, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Acting and structure should be rendered so transparent that the audience... Read »
ThresholdRep Captures Essence of Chekhov
Pamela Galle and her team at Threshold Repertory Theatre on Society Street has launched a new and exciting production of one of theater’s classic plays, Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Writing about his native Russia during his lifetime, on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Chekhov sought only, in his words, “the art of the... Read »
Tell Me On a Sunday
IT’S A SMALL THEATRE (50 seats), a brief show (75 minutes), and a tiny cast (1 petite actress)—but what Mary Fishburne does makes Tell Me On a Sunday a big triumph. Mary is accompanied in this one-woman Andrew Lloyd Webber musical by Immanuel A. Houston, who lends his own whimsical style… sitting behind a... Read »
