Bob Abelman covers theater and cultural arts for the Cleveland Jewish News. Follow Bob at Facebook.com/BobAbelman.3
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Seeing the name Lynn Nottage on the playbill for Ensemble Theatre’s “Intimate Apparel” should be enough to tell you that the simple story slowly unfolding on stage is more than it appears to be.
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Cultural anthropology has never been more probing or poetic than Dominique Morisseau’s aptly titled “Skeleton Crew,” a case study of the working-class conscience teetering on the brink of extinction. It is a relevant, riveting and important piece of work.
The question is not whether the national tour of “Jersey Boys,” currently on stage at Playhouse Square, is good.
French playwright Gérald Sibleyras’ “Le Vent Des Peupliers,” which has been translated into English by British playwright Tom Stoppard and retitled “Heroes,” is a modest work affectionately referred to as a “boulevard comedy.” Like a boulevard, it is broad in terms of its humor, well-manicur…
“I moved to France to flee Israel,” twentysomething Yoav (Tom Mercier) tells his downstairs neighbor Emile (Quentin Dolemaire) in French, because his homeland is “nasty, obscene, ignorant, idiotic, sordid, fetid, crude, abominable, odious, lamentable, repugnant, detestable, mean-spirited, me…
The Mentalist. The Trickster. The Daredevil. The Elusive. The Manipulator. The Showman. The Transformationalists.
One may not recognize Deb Filler when she takes the Mandel Jewish Community Center’s Stonehill Auditorium stage in Beachwood on Jan. 15 at 7 p.m. with her show, “I Did It My Way in Yiddish (In English).”
One of the darkest moments in the Cleveland arts scene was when the Cleveland Ballet, which was founded in 1972 by Dennis Nahat and Ian Horvath, established a co-venture in San Jose, Calif., in 1986 and then relocated there in 2000.
The casting call for the role of Tiny Tim in this year’s London and Broadway revivals of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” read: “Applicants without a disability will not be considered.”
Every year, local professional theater companies devote themselves to putting on the best shows possible. Although some companies have deeper pockets, more Actors’ Equity contracts or a grander facility than others, talent makes itself known and creativity always rises to the surface no matt…
“Constellations” is a typical one-act boy-meets-girl play by British dramatist Nick Payne that debuted in London in 2012 and ran on Broadway in 2015. But here, the boy meets the girl again and again and again in 65 scenes across 68 minutes.
Some modern musicals stab at your heart (“Come From Away”), punch you in the gut (“Next to Normal”) or stimulate your brain (“Hamilton”). “Mean Girls” activates the gag reflex at the back of your throat. But in a good way.