Roanoke Theater Reviews

June 19-21 and 26-28, Community High School Theater, 7:00 pm (Sunday at 2), nearly 3 hours run time, one intermission. This production surprised me -- good surprises, mostly!  I love Bear Theatre (officially called Exit, Pursued by a Bear, a name drawn from a different Shakespeare play).  I love them for two reasons: 1, they are downtown (so I can walk, bike, or take a bus to get there, unlike many other theaters in our area), and 2, they are unabashedly a community theater.  This production featured several actors I'd never seen before, and only a handful of old favorites. Director Les Epstein created a big tent in this production - a wide range of actors, a wide range of ages and backgrounds. Such a setup is exciting and invites surprises - of which there were many. Good surprises included:  1. Celebrity Cameos. Such a fun idea, and a great way to invite new audiences to engage with theater. I went tonight (6/19) and saw Kimberly McBroom from WDBJ7 in the party s...

Showtimers Community Theater May 7-17, Thursday through Saturday 7:30 pm, Sunday Matinee 2pm What a perfectly lovely experience. I literally both laughed and cried. If you are wondering whether you should go see this play, I will give you the TL;DR: yes. Yes you should. I was not familiar with this script, written by Sean Grennan in 2014. It traces the story of a woman (Joy) who's received a heart transplant; the family of the donor (Jack) who are grieving the loss of their son; and how their lives eventually intertwine. The script itself is very good. It is very funny and very touching. It touches on issues from depression to grief to survivor guilt to the meaning of life itself. It gives us reasons for living without being saccharine or explicitly spiritual. And did I mention it's funny? It's very funny. There are a few loose ends - there's this tree symbolism near the beginning that seems not to really come back; the "vivacious friend" character (Darla) has...

 April 23-May 3, D. Geraldine Lawson Performing Arts Center, Fincastle, 7:30 pm, 90 minute run time, no intermission This is a very worthwhile play, and an able production: you should go see it! (Reasons below). Some notes on the script, written by Cindy Marcus, which was new to me -- This is a deceptively ambitious script, which requires the actors to master at least three things: comedy (some extremely funny lines in there), pathos (can they make us care?), and connection. In brief, the story is this: a writer has beef with the whole world of "fairytales" for having given her a false expectation of a happy ending. We only get a very brief glimpse of the writer's backstory (she was, in fact, lucky in love but then her love got sick... that's all I caught). The writer then undertakes to rewrite, or add "realistic" sequels to, several familiar fairy tales to demonstrate their lack of happy ending. There is a good deal of breaking the fourth wall and audience ...

  April 16-18, 7:30 pm, Crystal Lynn Van Hise Stage in Olin Hall, Roanoke College.      It’s hard to make Shakespeare fresh, but these intrepid students and their extremely talented director pulled it off beautifully.      Everyone knows the story, but director Nelson Barre draws us in by starting not with the famous prologue (“Two households, both alike in dignity…”) but first with the setting of the stage itself. A group of young actors convenes: they chat, they try on costumes, they goof around. Loud music gets them dancing and celebrating together. But they finally calm down, the lights dim… and then comes the much anticipated prologue.      The end shows a similar “undoing” as the actors remove their costumes and chat. By creating this “framing” for the play itself, Barre highlights the fact that it’s a play. Choices were made. We are watching. They are performing. There’s a certain distanc...