David MacDowell Blue

Oscar Wilde's life in its own proved epic, enough to inspire many a retelling, which if you added up together might prove longer than Game of Thrones yet still leave so much unexplored! This one act play focuses squarely on the last weeks or months of Wilde's life, and yeah leaves us wanting more. Most good plays do. Like a haiku, it seeks to evoke more than anything else a sense of "might have been." Wilde did not deserve what happened to him, yet in his world, his society, many thought he g... full review

features four characters (two of them playing multiple roles) is the simple but profound tale of a man and woman who fall in love, staying that way. It might seem nostalgic but is not, not really. Neither is it sentimental. Genuine pain they experience does not make it sad, nor do the often funny/silly antics at the heart of this love story make it a comedy. Just a simple but profound story. It explores why maybe we've put so much investment in the idea of romantic love. Because when it doe... full review

Look at the poster image for this play, Still and you get a real sense of how this story as we experience it feels. Not the stillness of waiting, nor the stillness of rest. No, this three-person drama makes us feel the stillness between moments--between life changing words and decision, between realizations. Even between the question asked and the answer given. On top of that we have the subject matter--sexual assault, which still remains a matter to avoid rather than confront, to seek excuse... full review

Wounded makes for a harrowing 80 minutes. Harrowing and strangely beautiful as three deeply hurt human beings struggle with and for each other and themselves. A woman and wife must care for her deeply disabled husband who came back from combat a shadow of his former self--shrapnel in his brain rendering him almost (but not quite) a child. Into her life comes another veteran, a man with whom she falls in love but turns out to be carrying his own wounds, in his case in the way his entire nervous... full review

It sounds so simple, so fun and entertaining and not much else. Not that we should object to such, not at all! But Vixen de Ville Revealed proves a lot more. An anthem for those timid about their own ambitions? Yes. A laughing shriek of defiance at those to seek to limit or define us? Oh, yes indeed! A multi-talented performer giving a spectacularly personal show? Again, very much yes! I highly recommend this self-portrait in performance, complete with magic tricks and burlesque, fire-ea... full review

A bittersweet tale of a life not yet complete--a musical artist looking back in equal parts at her dreams, loves, losses and disappointments. Sam Shaber does a find job of touching our hearts, and showing us how music can both celebrate joy and help heal our wounds.... full review

In the space of a simple theatre stage, people turn around and in a kind of kaleidoscope speak to someone in their lives--thanking them. They pretend for the moment we are their 'other' and so we have a mystery to solve. But then so do all the characters, who are not characters. They are themselves, the real actors who among other things recognize they are also characters.... full review

Fundamentally this lets individuals tell important life stories in a kind of rotating reader's theatre. At its best the result are flashes of healing, insight and melancholy truths. ... full review

In the moment when all other things are stripped away, we face ourselves--what we do, what we feel, how we react. THIS is the substance of this marvelous two person play taking place after the end of the world. What happened? We don't know. It doesn't matter what happened to the world. This world is now a man and woman who are supposed to love each other. ... full review

I am a huge sucker for mythology of all kind, and delving deeper into the ideas of same. So this is just candy for my imagination! I do think it needs some work, though. I wanted a longer piece--not that much longer but some. ... full review