Author Archives: burdreviews

Set in a beauty salon in a small Louisiana town in the 1980’s, “Steel Magnolias” by Robert Harling, revolves around its owner Truvy, her new assistant, Annelle, and four other women, who come regularly to the salon to get their hair done, but more significantly, to talk. One is a wealthy widow, Clairee, who hasContinue reading “Steel Magnolias at Act II Playhouse”

When we think about immigrants trying to come to the U.S., we immediately conjure up images of Latinos at our southern border trying to get into the country. Over the years, immigrants have sought to come to America to escape their difficult lives and start anew. Quotas to keep foreigners out have regularly stopped them.Continue reading “The Last Parade at InterAct Theatre”

Four years ago, 1812 Productions began their season with a comedy revue called “Broads.” It was a compilation of bits curated by their Producing Artistic Director, Jennifer Childs from the careers of women comics, from the 1920’s to the 1960’s.  The multi-talented Childs also added new material to the mix of jokes, routines, and songs.Continue reading “Broads at 1812 Productions”

“Waiting for Lefty” is a short play, consisting of seven scenes that revolve around a taxi driver’s strike that occurred in 1934. . Written a year later, playwright Clifford Odets has put together vignettes of the lives of those at that initial union meeting. Though the play is only an hour long, it is aContinue reading “Waiting For Lefty at Quintessence Theatre”

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”