Email Author Dennis Brown

2006 Stories by Dennis Brown

• Too Funny

  published April 26, 2006

  Anyone looking for a good laugh — or two hours of laughs — might want to see David Ives' crowd-pleasing Polish Joke. As... More >>

• His Majesty

  published April 26, 2006

  A playgoer often reaps big dividends by attending the theater with low expectations. Exhibit A: August Wilson's King Hedley II,... More >>

• Encore!

  published April 19, 2006

  A month has passed since the first annual Kevin Kline Awards ceremony, yet the afterglow continues to linger. I haven't attended a play in... More >>

• Bollywood Botch

  published April 12, 2006

  The Fox Theatre has found the ideal tenant. The exotic look of Bombay Dreams is so in sync with the Fox's wraparound Siamese... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published April 5, 2006

  The Ballad of Jesse James Joe Hanrahan's historical collage uses narration, songs, short scenes and monologues to tell the tale of the... More >>

• King Leer

  published April 5, 2006

  Could two plays have less in common? One is a 400-year-old classic written by the world's most sublime dramatist, an overarching tragedy in which... More >>

• Righteous Buzz

  published March 29, 2006

  Go for fewer B's," Felix Humble's former girlfriend Rosie advises, as the hapless young astrophysicist stutters through phrases like "Big Bang."... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published March 22, 2006

  Menopause The Musical This sassy musical review parodies songs of the '60s and '70s, focusing on issues of aging and hormone imbalance (to... More >>

• Freeze Dry

  published March 22, 2006

  Mark Twain liked to quip that it's a terrible death to be talked to death. Apparently the people who run the Eugene O'Neill estate have never read... More >>

• Sleeper

  published March 22, 2006

  The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis is concluding its mainstage season with an exercise in irrelevance. Even as a venue for escapism, Agatha... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published March 15, 2006

  Cabaret Forty years after it stunned Broadway with its seedy harshness, this musical, set in 1930 Berlin at the beginning of Hitler's rise... More >>

• Curtain Raiser

  published March 15, 2006

  So it's finally here. The first annual Kevin Kline Awards will be doled out on Monday, March 20, which means that — for the next few days,... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published March 8, 2006

  Bat Boy: The Musical You've read about him in the Weekly World News; now see the Bat Boy live in this energetic New Line Theatre... More >>

• Napalm Pilot

  published March 8, 2006

  Anyone attending Skin in Flames is advised to wear asbestos clothes. This intense Spanish drama by Guillem Clua, which is receiving... More >>

• Will Power

  published March 1, 2006

  When you're hot, you're hot. William Shakespeare was sizzling in 1599, when it is believed he wrote Much Ado About Nothing, As... More >>

• Think Piece

  published March 1, 2006

  "Something is wrong," the bewildered hero cries out as a stunning headache attacks him early in William Finn's A New Brain. But at... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published February 22, 2006

  As You Like It Shakespeare's popular comedy offers a host of juicy roles: villainous brothers, four sets of lovers, two kinds of clowns.... More >>

• Try Tri Again

  published February 22, 2006

  Arthur Miller might have been writing about himself when, early in his somber Broken Glass, a doctor's wife suggests, "You can't... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published February 15, 2006

  The Long Christmas Ride Home The words take center stage in this mostly readers' theater staging of Paula Vogel's time-skipping memory play... More >>

• Thank the Academy

  published February 8, 2006

  Marvin Hamlisch's shelves are cluttered with Tonys, Emmys, Grammys, Golden Globes. He even has a Pulitzer Prize for A Chorus... More >>

• Transmission Failure

  published February 8, 2006

  At Soundstage Productions the words are front and center. This staged reading of Paula Vogel's The Long Christmas Ride Home... More >>

• Spellbound

  published February 1, 2006

  By the time you read these words, Ipi Zombi? — the South African ghost story currently possessing the A.E. Hotchner Studio... More >>

• Capsule Reviews

  published January 25, 2006

  Caroline, or Change Anita Jackson delivers a volcanic performance as an embittered household maid in this tale of temptation in southern... More >>

• Hue Are You?

  published January 25, 2006

  How black is black? That's the kind of incendiary question only a black writer can ask. The issue of internal racism that prejudices some... More >>

• Get a Grip

  published January 18, 2006

  How is it that a play can seem derivative, even if it was written prior to the sources it seems to be ripping off? That's the paradox that... More >>