Email Author Dennis Brown

2013 Stories by Dennis Brown

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  True Stories: Actors' Studio articulates Alan Bennett's Talking Heads

  published May 23, 2013

  The deft British playwright Alan Bennett has succeeded in transforming sadness into a kind of cottage industry. Originally, his dozen... More >>

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  Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! St. Louis native Marsha Mason headlines Insight Theatre's fundraiser

  published May 16, 2013

  Marsha Mason, actress turned racecar driver turned entrepreneur, concedes to having a poor sense of direction. "Thank God a racetrack comes... More >>

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  Stage Directions: May and June will be big months in local theater. Time to take stock.

  published May 9, 2013

  The onslaught is coming; the deluge is nigh. But before the spring theater season escalates to a fever pitch later this month, during the... More >>

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  COVER STORY

  Catch Him While You Can: Broadway star Norbert Leo Butz returns to St. Louis next week for a good cause

  published May 2, 2013

  For Norbert Leo Butz, Catch Me If You Can sounded like the ideal gig. This musical adaptation of Steven Spielberg's popular movie... More >>

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  Sun of Sam: Million Dollar Quartet deflated by record-mogul fifth wheel

  published May 2, 2013

  Tuesday, December 4, 1956, was a night like any other night — a night of sports and television and music. In a basketball barnburner in... More >>

• No-Brainer: Legally Blonde is more than fair

  published April 25, 2013

  It's so easy to spark a protest these days. Write an anonymous letter. Go online. And so, with ever increasing frequency we read reports of... More >>

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  Godot Strong: Against the dramatic backdrop of recent events, St. Louis Actors' Studio nails Beckett

  published April 25, 2013

  This past Friday, out in the real world, in Boston and across America, anxious citizens waited through the day and into the evening for news of... More >>

• Opus, Poke Us: Two disparate productions get it on

  published April 11, 2013

  On the surface, two of this week's new stage offerings could not be more disparate. One story is mostly set in 15th-century Spain, the other... More >>

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  Droll with the Punches: National Theatre Live presents Alan Bennett's People at the Tivoli

  published April 4, 2013

  If life were a song lyric, then it would be a given that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. But in the cheerfully... More >>

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  Killer Thriller: Double Indemnity, the finale to the Rep season, will slay you

  published March 21, 2013

  As the playbill cover for Double Indemnity makes vibrantly clear, lipstick and bloodstains share the same bold color. But any... More >>

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  Steedy As She Goes: War Horse will amaze — and test your endurance

  published March 21, 2013

  After a brief and unnecessary prologue, the first thing you see on the stage is a foal. His nostrils quiver, his legs tremble, his ears twitch,... More >>

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  Venus in Fur: A dollop of S&M can't hurt at subscription-renewal time, can it?

  published March 14, 2013

  So here's a guy you want to have on your radar screen. The 19th-century author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born and raised in the old... More >>

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  No Bounce: Boeing-Boeing is an outdated French farce that never translated well

  published March 7, 2013

  Robert is not your typical boy next door. He lives the high life in Paris, where his spacious apartment — lots of bedrooms, lots of doors... More >>

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  The Book of Mormon: You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll fumigate your nutsack

  published February 28, 2013

  Only a theater wonk would know if The Book of Mormon, the frisky new musical that is beguiling playgoers (and perhaps offending... More >>

• Women of an Uncertain Age

  published February 7, 2013

  Good news! Some of the most impeccable theater in town is returning -- on a movie screen. Once again the Landmark Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar... More >>

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  Above and Beyond

  published February 21, 2013

  It is the night before the day of reckoning. A traveler does what any ordinary man might do when he returns to his motel room late at night. He... More >>

• Speed-the-Play: New Jewish flogs Mamet's misbegotten Speed-the-Plow

  published February 21, 2013

  How do you like your steak? Rare? Medium-well? Seared? David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, currently being staged by New Jewish... More >>

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  Moving Right Along: The Rep scurries through Sense and Sensibility

  published February 14, 2013

  Must wealth always be mentioned?" eighteen-year-old Marianne Dashwood irritatedly asks her widowed mother, who has just singled out the... More >>

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  Odometer Reading: By far the best thing about 4000 Miles is its venerable star, Rita Gardner

  published January 24, 2013

  You wonder how these things begin. This begins with a woman, old and diminutive, hiding away in shadows from the tyranny of time. It is... More >>

• Most Valuable Play: Historical baseball drama Jackie and Me scores with all ages

  published January 17, 2013

  Some stories, you just can't hear too many times. The Jackie Robinson saga is such a tale. That feel-good account of how, in 1947, visionary... More >>

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  Amateur Hours: Tedious Piano Lesson exposes a Black Rep that's out of tune

  published January 17, 2013

  The plays of August Wilson lend themselves to two kinds of productions. There's rich August Wilson, and then there's long August Wilson. Over... More >>

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  Going Southie: David Lindsay-Abaire digs back to his Boston roots in Good People

  published January 10, 2013

  The versatile playwright-screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire defies easy labeling. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Rabbit Hole, a compelling... More >>

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  Curtain Callers: Dennis and Paul have looked at St. Louis theater from both sides now

  published January 10, 2013

  Two weeks back RFT theater reviewers Dennis Brown and Paul Friswold selected twelve theater highlights from 2012. This week they... More >>