Category Archives: Community

“A [Tuneful] Christmas Story” in Red Bank

Beginning at 8PM on Christmas Eve, you can watch the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” twelve times in a row on TBS-TV, screening on the even hours up to 6PM on the 25th. Sans song and dance. On November 18, … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Regional

A ground-breaking Othello in “Red Velvet” at NJ Shakespeare and “Cheaper By the Dozen” down the shore

Have you ever seen Othello played by a Caucasian actor? I’ve seen Orson Welles’s and Laurence Olivier’s “blacked-up” film versions, and Pavarotti singing the Verdi operatic role at Carnegie Hall years ago, but never a white Moor on stage. (My … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Professional, Regional

“To Kill a Mockingbird” at Holmdel Theatre Company

Published in 1960, Harper Lee’s semi-autobiographical To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most revered American novels of all time, and the 1962 movie is one of the best book-to-films ever made. Christopher Sergel’s redundant stage adaptation premiered at … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Regional

Dick Gregory bio “Turn Me Loose” off-Broadway

As someone who saw Dick Gregory in person years ago (in Philadelphia-area night clubs) and who still admires his commentaries when the social activist, now 83, calls in to the Imus in the Morning radio program (“Hello, my brother,” he … Continue reading

Blog, Community, NY Theater, Off Broadway, Regional

Twelfth Century Alive and Well in Holmdel’s “Becket”

French dramatist Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) claims to have written “Becket” “by chance,” after reading an account of twelfth-Century English history in which some 30 pages were devoted to the story of Thomas Becket. “I had expected to find a saint,” … Continue reading

Blog, Community, Regional

Heil you-know-who: “The Producers” in Deal, NJ

Soon after “The Producers” opened to ecstatic reviews in 2001, a New Yorker magazine cover depicted an audience in fits of laughter with one angry-faced theatergoer among them: Adolph Hitler. I thought of that illustration as I watched “The Producers” … Continue reading

Community, Regional