Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, February 2009 Surplus children (the words make me shudder). They have always been a fact of life. In the animal kingdom “surplus” young are produced each year – the ones who will be taken by predators or disease or accident – in order to ensure…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, January 2008 “All the reviews are reactionary and more or less hostile.”– Victor-Marie Hugo, speaking of the critical reaction to his novel Les Misérables For a variety of reasons professional critics generally do not review youth theatre productions, possibly following Hugo’s thinking that critics are basically…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, December 2006 People often ask me: “Is it hard to review the same shows over and over again? What more is there to say about your twenty-third production of The Sound of Music?” The answer is simple: You never see the same show twice. I could…
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, July 2005 Now celebrating its 17th season, Park Playhouse presents one big musical every summer outdoors on a large stage erected at the Lake House in Washington Park in Albany. This year it is a cheerful production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer prize-winning 1949 show South…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2004 I knew that I had reviewed a previous production of The King and I at the Mac-Haydn many years ago, and that I had had some problems with it. Looking back at my review from 1998, I see that it was the first show I…
