Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, December 2008 Somewhere along the joyous roller-coaster ride that is the Barrington Stage production of This Wonderful Life I gleaned the following: It’s not about Christmas, its all about money. The “it” in question is Frank Capra’s iconic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life which, although it is habitually…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2008 Looking at Dames at Sea today, you think, “Why, this is just a poor man’s version of 42nd Street” The fact that director/choreographer Tralen Doler mounted a boffo production of the latter at the Cohoes Music Hall just last March really begs the comparison. But it…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2008 “Let’s think of something to do while we’re waitingWhile we’re waiting for something new to do.Let’s try to think up a song while we’re waitingThat’s liberating and will be true to you.Let’s think of something to do while we’re waitingWhile we’re waiting ’til…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2008 As the son of Mary Rodgers Guettel (Once Upon a Mattress) and the grandson of Richard Rodger, famous for his solo creations as well as his musical theatre collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, it would have been extraordinary if Adam…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July, 2008 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are either a Chekhov person, or you are not. There is no shame if you are not, although I feel very sorry for people who don’t get the enjoyment I do out of…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July, 2008 “He’s dying, but he’s not dead yet,” Malcolm King observes about his father William, who is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. Malcolm has just completed a degree in environmental science and economics from UConn and has been accepted to graduate school and met a…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2008 I highly recommend the charming little production of The Mousetrap currently running at The Theater Barn. Director Tony Capone skillfully guides a talented cast through and around Abe Phelps’ evocative set as Agatha Christie’s script fills the stage with more floppin’ fresh Red Herrings than…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, January 2008 “I have never sought to write plays that primarily tell a story…I have been most concerned with dramatizing something of the dynamism I myself find in human motivations and behavior. I regard a play as a composition rather than a story, as a…
