REVIEW: “Orphan Train” at the New York State Theatre Institute

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…

REVIEW: “Les MisĂ©rables” at the Cohoes Music Hall

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 MisĂ©rables For a variety of reasons professional critics generally do not review youth theatre productions, possibly following Hugo’s thinking that critics are basically…

REVIEW: C-R Productions Presents “The Sound of Music”

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…

REVIEW: “Annie” at the Cohoes Music Hall

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, December 2005 Exactly thirty years ago this month I was stage managing a workshop production of a musical based on Harold Gray’s legendary comic strip, Little Orphan Annie. It was a fun little show, and the author/director taught me a lot about Gray and the strip’s…