I went to my first immersive theatre performance on Friday, a combination of trusting the parameters of something based on The Tempest and supporting a friend. It turns out that immersive theatre, at least this instance of it, is everything I hoped for from LARPs but never quite found there. I loved it. I loved it enough that I went back again, and ( Read more... )

In the last week-or-so, I've seen two stage productions which involved a human in a full-body ape costume. With that strong - if entirely unexpected - commonality, I'm putting them both into one post.

( Cirque du Soleil's Totem )

Sometimes, it all works out better than plannable. Friday was one of those nights. As of Wednesday morning, I could not have told you I would be at the sold-out Much Ado about Nothing at the Wyndham, but someone else's inconvenience was my fortune. (It was very generous of you to have a conflict, ashfae!)

( Dinner at Hawksmoor Seven Dials... )

( Posh, the play )

I spent Saturday afternoon in the park with a picnic, a play, a smidgin of rain, and approixmately eighteen people, almost all of whom were previously strangers to me. We read A Midsummer Night's Dream, with parts of costumes and props and improvised acting, music, and dancing. It was a rather impressive production under the circumstances, ( Read more... )

I'm like the Befana. She arrived twelve days after the Wise Men did, and that's how her day is celebrated every year. For the second year running, I went to the Birmingham Hippodrome panto, following the crabbyoldbats there, one day later. I follow the same star they follow, and C. and I had such a good trip the first year than we went back for another ( Read more... )

A group from the Des Moines area visited London this past week, from the Des Moines Art Center and the Civic Center. They were here to see plays and exhibitions, gallery tours, London tours, and choice theatrical highlights. At the last minute, they had a cancellation, which is how I came to spend my weekend in a whirl of theater-going, seeing God ( Read more... )

You don't need to have read the book or seen the movie to thoroughly enjoy this - I hadn't. The 39 Steps, currently playing at the Criterion Theatre at Piccadilly, is a wacky remake of a Hitchcock thriller, using four actors to play 139 parts. Whoever thought of adapting it in this fashion did so in a moment of inspired genius. And with talented ( Read more... )

The Old Vic has been packing in audiences since the beginning of February when Speed the Plow opened. The line for returns wrapped around the corner of the building when I arrived. A one act, three scene play with a cast of three, it boasts serious star power. Jeff Goldblum plays a newly-promoted head of production at a Hollywood studio. Kevin ( Read more... )

One boy hits another boy, breaking two of his teeth. The next day, the parents of the boy who was hit invite the parents of the hitter around to discuss the situation. Over the next two hours of this one act play, opened this week at the Gielgud Theatre on Shafesbury Ave., the situation deteriorates. The strain in marriages, parenting priorities, ( Read more... )