Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2009 As I was leaving the Mac-Haydn after seeing their first public performance of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast I observed a child of about seven or eight leaping straight up and down in great glee exclaiming “I just loved that show! It was so exciting!”…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2007 Only recently has there been a trend to convert movie musicals into theatrical vehicles, usually with the view of reproducing, live on stage, the moments we all treasure on celluloid. Frankly, this rarely works well. This summer the Mac-Haydn has presented three movie-to-stage…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2006 This production is all about the Shook sisters – Karla and Kelly – who play Miss Sarah Brown and Miss Adelaide respectively. They are in the prime of their lives and are a joy to watch, alone and together, on the stage. The…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2005 In 1999, Time Magazine looked back over the entire 20th century, a century that saw the American musical take shape, and named Rodgers and Hammerstein’s second collaboration Carousel the Best Musical of the Century! High praise indeed. Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves liked Carousel the best of all…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, May 2005 Let’s get things straight at the outset:1. Nuncrackers is a Nunsense show.2. Theatre critics hate Nunsense shows and I am a theatre critic.3. Nunsense shows are completely “critic-proof.” Critics hate ‘em and audiences love ‘em. Some might argue that item three above proves that critics are woefully out of touch with…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2004 “To thine own self be true.” – William Shakespeare In this day and age too many of us are under the ad-induced delusion that the only self worth being true to is a perfect one. We have no problem letting down the old,…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June 2004 You must excuse me because I know way too much about The Pirates of Penzance. I have known every note of the score since I was eleven years old and appeared in the policeman’s chorus as a pathetically adolescent member of the constabulary. Tarantara.…
