Five Course Love

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE New Century Theatre’s musical comedy, Five Course Love, is a light, sometimes naughty, cabaret-style evening of entertainment catering to the Valentine’s Day date-night crowd. The quality of the material is mixed, with some genuinely funny moments. The three performers, who play five characters each, give it everything they’ve got. Ryan McGuire Grimes,…

Born Yesterday

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE Fans of the 1950s classic movie, Born Yesterday, starring Judy Holliday and William Holden, will find much to enjoy in Guthrie Theater’s version, which is based on playwright Garson Kanin’s original Broadway play. Born Yesterday at the Guthrie is an amusing, well-acted romantic comedy and political satire, whose indictment of congressional corruption…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mission Theater promises that its production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a “highly physical, energetic production”, and they aren’t lying. From start to finish, the play is bursting with energy. Characters dance, fight, frolic, and do just about anything but stay still. Australian director Penelope Parsons-Lord cleverly decided to use physicality to help…

Emma Woodhouse Is Not A Bitch

by CHRISTINE SARKES SASSEVILLE For Jane Austen fans and readers of her romantic novel, Emma, the central challenge is to overcome your distaste for Emma’s patronizing, meddling matchmaking in order to understand the onerous class distinctions that characterized everyday interactions between neighbors, family members and friends in the early 1800s. For local playwrights, Savage Umbrella’s  Laura Leffler-McCabe and…