by Gail M. Burns Back in the early 1980’s a couple of musician friends dressed up in mechanics overalls, billed themselves as the Pump Boys, and performed songs they’d written for their characters. This promptly got them fired from their gig playing country tunes in a New York City cowboy…
by Gail M. Burns The original London production of The Mousetrap, which opened in 1952, is STILL running; and there are endless amateur stagings every year all around the world. But if you’ve managed never to see it, this production at The Theater Barn is your opportunity to enjoy a…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, September 2006 On Golden Pond takes place from May-September of the 44th summer Norman (John Noble) and Ethel (Marci Bing) Thayer spend at their cabin on the titular lake in Maine. Norman turns 80 in July, and this milestone prompts a visit home from the Thayers’…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2006 One of the really annoying things about being a theatre critic is that you have to think so hard about everything. There are some shows, and The Spitfire Grill is definitely one of them, that should not be thought hard about. It should just be…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 Songs for a New World is basically a semi-staged concert of songs by Jason Robert Brown, an up-and-coming young composer and lyricist. In the decade since its brief 28 performance premiere at the WPA theatre in New York, the show has had over 300…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 The Theater Barn is billing this evening of mysteries as containing only two plays, which, technically it does, but a total of four separate pieces are presented in the course of a brief ninety minutes (I’ve sat through many first acts that run…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 I really don’t understand why this is such a dismal production of Swingtime Canteen. This is the kind of small, funny revue that the Theater Barn usually does very well. Director Peggy Ayn Maas has a long history with this show – she is…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2005 We have all heard the old saying “Old age is not for sissies.” Well, it would be hard to tell that old age is a time of change and challenge based on the four senior citizens depicted in Joe DiPietro’s comedy Over the River…
