Author Archives: burdreviews

Let me get right to the point. “Mary Poppins,” which is currently on the stage at Quintessence Theatre is a spectacular tour de force and a must see. I don’t usually begin a review like this, but when I went to see the show, I expected a variation of the movie that was full ofContinue reading “Mary Poppins at Quintessence Theatre”

Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was First Lady of the United States for 12 years and redefined that office. She was an intelligent, dynamic, active woman who, because of her relationship with her husband,  helped shaped American politics and history. Act II Playhouse has brought to the stage Mark St. Germain’s one-womanContinue reading “Eleanor at Act II Playhouse”

            After writing plays for eight years, “The Glass Menagerie” was Tennessee Williams first successful play. Opening on Broadway in 1944, it won the New York drama Critics’ Circle Award the next year. Williams would go on to write “A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Night of the Iguana,” and anotherContinue reading “The Glass Menagerie at Arden Theatre Company”

The year is 1917. The place is Zurich, Switzerland. World War I is raging. Henry Carr, a British consular official is thinking about his time there when he encountered the communist revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin, the great modernist author, James Joyce, and Tristan Tzara, a founder and leader of the Dada movement, an anti-establishment artistic styleContinue reading “Travesties at Lantern Theater”

Neil Simon is clearly the most popular American playwright in the last half of the 20th century. With a career that began writing comedy sketches for tv in the ‘50’s, he turned to playwriting and created over 30 plays that ran on Broadway and almost as many screenplays, usually from adaptations from his plays. FullContinue reading “Prisoner of Second Avenue at Act II Playhouse”

Two Broadway legends, Ethel Merman and Mary Martin appeared together on television in 1953 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ford Motor Corporation. Rivals for the great roles, they became friends and traveled and performed together for years. In “Together Off-Broadway:  Merman & Martin, Act II Playhouse has put together a 70 minute showContinue reading “Together Off-Broadway: Merman & Martin at Act II Playhouse”

In 1848, 23-year old Alexandre Dumas fils wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about his love affair with a courtesan who was suffering with tuberculosis, then called consumption. Four years later, he turned “Camille”  into such a successful play opening in Paris.  Giuseppe Verdi put it to music the next year. Thus was born the famed opera,Continue reading “Camille at Quintessence Theater”

This is the story of four African-American women who left the South after the failures of Reconstruction, and headed west. Three sisters and an older friend that they met in the all Black town of Nicodemus, Kansas, are trying to try to find a better life for themselves.  The American West was the hope ofContinue reading “Flyin’ West at Quintessence Theater”

“Fairview,” by Jackie Siblies Drury, currently at the Wilma Theater, is perhaps the most complex play I’ve seen on the stage in years. It begins in what seems to be a very normal African-American household, as they are about to celebrate the birthday of Grandma Suze. Family is coming in from out of town andContinue reading “Fairview at The Wilma Theater”

           Memoirs are a form of autobiography that go beyond just the story telling of what happened in a person’s life. They are filled with the writer’s reflection on the events, and they show us how the memoirist felt about his or her life. The most popular ones are usually about celebrities- show business, the politicalContinue reading “American Jade at Bucks County Playhouse”