The “story” of West Side Story is a timeless one.  In fact, the story is so timeless that Shakespeare told it a good few centuries before Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music), and Stephen Sondheim (music) did when the show premiered in 1957.

I knew from my first glimpse of the set of The Wolves, the Pulitzer Prize finalist of a play by Sarah Delappe playing through the end of this weekend at Zoetic Stage, that I was in for something a little different. Instead of your typical raised stage, I found myself looking down on a huge curved platform covered in Astroturf!

I never harbored a particular fear of clowns, but after spending a theatrical Evening With John Wayne Gacy Jr., my predilections just might have changed. The show was produced by Infinite Abyss and staged at the Wilton Theater Factory, and Ronnie Larsen both wrote the play and stars as Gacy.

Before I say anything about Maplewood Playhouse’s production of The Glass Menagerie, which opened last night at the small Delray Beach theatre usually occupied by Improv U, I suppose it’s my duty to preface this review with the fact that

1. I got approximately 2 hours of sleep last night and
2. I am categorically incapable of being at all objective, given that The Glass Menagerie is the play I usually name as my favorite of all time.

When we go to the theatre, we’re used to seeing plays in their final, perfected form, so it’s somewhat easy to forget all the hard work and revisions a play goes through while it’s making its way towards that hallowed state.

Like the Alice who inspired my blog’s name, I can sometimes get very, very, curious, which is why I recently ventured quite a ways off my beaten path to Wilton Manors, a city that has been officially named the “second gayest city in America,” to see a play called “Grindr Mom” by acclaimed gay playwright Ronnie Larsen.

I’d certainly been looking forward to Falling after attending many of the New City Players’ lead-up events, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The fast-paced 75-minute show never dragged or faltered, and, as promised, it offered us a rare window into the seldom represented day-to-day life of a family dealing with a severely autistic child. Timothy Mark Davis nailed the pivotal role of Josh, the 18-year old boy with severe autism around whom the play (and the characters’ lives) revolved. The endearingly childlike enthusiasm of his portrayal gave life and soul to a type of person many consider less than human.

My last post was about, among other things, the connection between theatre and the community, and another way that theatre can transform a community is by encouraging and educating its young performers. Thus, I decided to support Sol’s Children’s Theatre by bopping over to its first production of the season, Little Shop of Horrors.