Off-pitch kitsch and four Joses don’t add up to whole night’s fun
Just when you thought you’d forgotten all about the Macarena, that unholy marriage of song and dance that spread like a virus through American sporting events and office parties in the mid-’90s, along comes O’Connell and Company to dig up old cultural skeletons. (Updated: 10/12/09 10:25 AM )
‘Junie B.’ is long, but appealing
“Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business” Theatre of Youth’s new production (a reprise from 2005-2006), has some appealing qualities. It also has some challenges, some of which may matter to its target audience, 4-to 10-year-olds and their families. (Updated: 10/11/09 7:19 AM )
Illstyle’s program builds to a dazzling finale
The title of Philadelphiabased Illstyle & Peace Production’s program Friday night at UB’s Center for the Arts referred to the production’s theme of a multistyled celebration of dance. (Updated: 10/10/09 7:09 AM )
Landers portrayal starts with the hair
NEW YORK — How do you turn a twangy Texas blonde into a stylish, Midwestern media superstar? (Updated: 10/10/09 7:09 AM )
‘Phantom’ sequel to debut in ’10
LONDON — The Phantom of the Opera is coming back — but this time, he will haunt the amusement park at New York’s Coney Island. (Updated: 10/09/09 6:55 AM )
Theater / Capsule reviews
Theater capsule reviews, by The News critics, are based on a four-star rating system, and are as follows:★★★★ Excellent / ★★★ Good / ★★ Fair / ★ Poor (Updated: 10/04/09 7:13 AM )
Traces of the past
When the ArcelorMittal steel company ended production at its Lackawanna plant in May, one of the last functioning remnants of Western New York’s once-thriving steel industry ground to a halt. (Updated: 10/08/09 2:46 PM )
Uneven Ujima production offers a surreal take on homelessness
Ujima Company opened its season Friday night with a production of Megan Terry’s 1990 play, “Do You See What I’m Saying?” (Updated: 10/04/09 7:12 AM )
Letts keeps it personal with latest play
NEW YORK — Tracy Letts takes a comic turn in his new play, “Superior Donuts.” (Updated: 10/02/09 6:43 AM )
Born and bred to dance: The Lipizzaners are coming
They were bred for battle centuries ago, but now the stunning white Lipizzaner stallions perform in an equine ballet. "People know them as the flying white stallions," says Gary Lashinsky, owners of White Stallion Productions, the Florida company that raises and trains the horses and produces their touring shows. (Updated: 09/29/09 11:27 AM )
Spotlight: Theater
ALLEYWAY THEATRE. “The Careful Glover.” Through Saturday. 7:30 p. m. Thursday and Friday; 4 and 8 p. m. Saturday. 1 Curtain Up Alley. 852-2600, Ext. 0. www.alleyway.com. $13-$25.★★★(Ted Hadley) (Updated: 09/27/09 6:33 AM )
A clear case of injustice ends in victory for free speech
Advocates of free speech, artistic expression and the First Amendment breathed a collective sigh of relief last spring, when the four-year ordeal of artist and University at Buffalo professor Steven Kurtz finally came to an end. (Updated: 09/27/09 10:38 AM )
Thin performance keeps play from becoming a ‘Thing’ of beauty
In the pantheon of gay coming-of-age tales — one that seems to grow larger by the minute—none is more beloved than Jonathan Harvey’s “Beautiful Thing.” (Updated: 09/27/09 10:51 AM )
Windows from bygone church find safe haven
A Buffalo museum founded last year to preserve art and artifacts from area religious groups has made its biggest acquisition to date. More than 30 stained-glass windows from the former Queen of Peace Catholic Church on Genesee Street are now part of the growing collection of the Buffalo Religious Arts Center, which is housed in another former Catholic church on East Street near Amherst Street in Black Rock. (Updated: 09/26/09 3:50 PM )
'Chicago' delivers a satisfying dose of subversive medicine
Some things never change. From the Roaring ’20s in Chicago to Buffalo at the turn of the 21st century, America’s appetite for stories of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery has remained insatiable. (Updated: 09/23/09 9:32 AM )
Theater / Capsule reviews
Theater capsule reviews, by The News critics, are based on a four-star rating system, and are as follows: (Updated: 09/20/09 6:50 AM )
‘More than meets the eye’
To get a stark and troubling picture of Buffalo’s ongoing struggle against blight, all it takes is a short walk along a single block on the city’s northeastern edge. (Updated: 09/20/09 11:55 AM )
BUA gets serious with heartfelt tribute
This is a very unusual week for Javier Bustillos and his Buffalo United Artists theater company. (Updated: 09/16/09 7:26 AM )
‘Hamlet’ is an entertaining production
The most dominant thing about Kaleidoscope Theatre’s production of Paul Rudnick’s 1991 comedy “I Hate Hamlet,” is the actor Thomas LaChiusa. (Updated: 09/16/09 7:26 AM )
$250,000 first prize offered in art contest
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—A school of glimmering, silvery-white fish wriggle high above a downtown river. A few blocks away on a Michigan sidewalk, four stark red piranhas have taken large bites out of a running man’s briefcase and rear end. A purple, 10-foot-tall jelly bean stands outside a nearby castle. (Updated: 09/16/09 7:26 AM )
At the Robeson, a hip-hop ‘Hamlet’
“Revenge of a King” is a modern day hip-hop adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet.” (Updated: 09/15/09 7:30 AM )
Take the plunge into the world of ‘Freud’
If a rich coq au vin is catnip to a foodie, then “Freud and the Sandman,” the first play of New Phoenix Theatre on the Park’s new season, is perfectly apt to a Freudie. While not essential to one’s enjoyment of the phantasmagoric one-act, some knowledge of the theories of Dr. Sigmund Freud would be most favorable, not unlike thumbing through a dusty old history tome before settling into one of Tom Stoppard’s headier efforts. (Updated: 09/15/09 7:30 AM )
Award-winning ‘Grenadine’ deserves its hype
Never before has an unproduced play by an unknown playwright stirred so much interest and excitement on Buffalo’s theater scene. (Updated: 09/15/09 7:31 AM )
Theater / Capsule reviews
Theater capsule reviews, by The News critics, are based on a four-star rating system, and are as follows: ★★★★ Excellent / ★★★ Good / ★★ Fair / ★ Poor (Updated: 09/13/09 7:11 AM )
From L. A. to Buffalo: Playing out issues of race
On the cavernous third floor of a former automobile factory in North Buffalo, an unassuming little shoebox of a theater sits tucked away behind a plastered-over garage door. (Updated: 09/13/09 2:08 PM )
Superlative performances elevate otherwise mediocre ‘Brothers’
It’s amazing what a superlative cast can do for a passable show. (Updated: 09/13/09 7:10 AM )
Kavinoky Theatre makes good use of another thoughtful Sorkin play
The Kavinoky Theatre is continuing its new-found love affair with playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin with its first offering of the stage season, his stirring, thought-provoking “A Few Good Men.” (Updated: 09/13/09 7:10 AM )
'AREA': Second time around, Torn Space production is much improved
Just as the acrid smoke wafting into the audience from a pan of bacon onstage starts to burn your eyes, the realization settles in. (Updated: 09/12/09 1:56 PM )
'The Careful Glover': At Alleyway, unraveling Shakespeare’s last day
William Shakespeare died at age 52 on April 23, 1616, at home in England’s Stratford-on-Avon, apparently surrounded by family and friends — fellow playwright, poet and pal, Ben Jonson, among them. His death was attributed to alternate chill and fever, general ague, a final, typical analysis of the time. (Updated: 09/12/09 1:57 PM )
‘Twilight’ is a groundbreaking and powerful look at 1992 race riots
In the spring of 1992, Los Angeles became the epicenter of a social upheaval. (Updated: 09/09/09 6:42 AM )
