Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, January 2008 This is the best production of La Cage Aux Folles in the world. Well, okay, somewhere on this planet there is probably a production with snazzier sets. But there is not a better over-all production anywhere anyhow because only the production at the Cohoes Music…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2007 The tragic story of the oriental woman wronged by an occidental service man is usually told on a grand scale. Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 grand opera Madama Butterfly tops Opera America’s list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America. The genesis of this tale is…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 Even theatre critics have their favorite shows, and it is no secret that Little Shop of Horrors is one of mine. My son Brandon and I make pilgrimages to see it whenever it is presented within reasonable driving distance. We have seen everything from an…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 “To emphasize only the beautiful seems to me to be like a mathematical system that only concerns itself with positive numbers.”– Paul Klee Among local theatre critics the debate has been raging: Is Tina Packer too old, too heavy, or too Celtic to…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2007 The wild, wild west – where men are men and women are men and outlaws dance (badly). Where the Town Tramp wears white while the “good girl” wears black (well, okay, her brother was just killed. Them’s just widder’s weeds.) Where plaintive guitar…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, April 2007 You would never, ever know that this production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was a last-minute effort, but it was. When problems arose with the rights to Chicago, which was supposed to close Cohoes’ 2006-2007 season, …Forum was hastily announced, cast, and…
“Ah, fame, fame, thou glittering bauble…” – Sir James M. Barrie When I last reviewed a production of Chicago at the Theater Barn in 2003, America had Chicago fever. The 1996 Broadway revival was running (it still is!) and the Academy Award-winning film was about to be released on DVD. But the fever has…
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…
