Email Author Dennis Brown

2010 Stories by Dennis Brown

• Shrek the Musical is all that and a farting contest

  published September 15, 2010

  During intermission at Shrek the Musical, which is currently transforming the Fox Theatre stage into a bog, a woman in the lobby... More >>

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  The Rep's You Can't Take It With You will make you want to take it with you

  published September 15, 2010

  If you attend the rollicking Repertory Theatre of St. Louis staging of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's genial 1936 comedy You Can't... More >>

• There's more to Jeanine Tesori's Shrek the Musical than meets the ear

  published September 8, 2010

  By the time Jeanine Tesori wrote her first Broadway show, Thoroughly Modern Millie, in 2001, the old established way of making... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published September 8, 2010

  Crumbs from the Table of Joy Set in the early 1950s, a time in America when the rantings of Sen. Joseph McCarthy could be drowned out in a... More >>

• Scrap Mettle: Mustard Seed digs down to the roots of Lynn Nottage's career

  published September 1, 2010

  Anyone who recalls the Black Rep's 2005 staging of Intimate Apparel knows that Lynn Nottage is a playwright of sensitivity and nuance.... More >>

• Playwright and Mark Twain biographer Ron Powers celebrates a confluence of anniversaries in 2010

  published August 25, 2010

  When he was a child in Hannibal, Missouri, living an idyllic Tom Sawyer-like existence, little did Ron Powers know that he would grow up to be... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published August 18, 2010

  Newly Reviewed Man of La Mancha Director Edward Coffield has crafted an exceptionally focused and emotionally powerful... More >>

• Bliss This: The fine art of taking reviewers' quotes out of context

  published August 18, 2010

  I'm always on the lookout for a laugh. Recently I got a good chuckle out of an online ad that Stages St. Louis hastily threw together for its... More >>

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  St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published August 11, 2010

  Newly Reviewed Anton in Show Business Jane Martin's love letter-cum-95-Theses to regional theater posits that theater... More >>

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  That Championship Season's warnings are still prescient

  published August 11, 2010

  Who doesn't enjoy a good reunion? At the outset of Jason Miller's pulsating That Championship Season, all is bright levity. Four members... More >>

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  The Muny's Show Boat is stunning

  published August 11, 2010

  St. Louis theatergoers have enjoyed a continuing affection for Show Boat ever since it first docked in St. Louis during its national... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published August 4, 2010

  Newly Reviewed Footloose Stages St. Louis is having a terrific summer – in absentia. Its 2007 staging of A... More >>

• That Championship Season catapulted Jason Miller to overnight success

  published August 4, 2010

  Between acting gigs in the late 1960s, Jason Miller collected a salary as the doorman for the original New York production of Man of La... More >>

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  Talk Talk: God's Ear is a disorienting maze

  published August 4, 2010

  Have you ever tried to find your way through a maze? From the outside, it looks like challenging good fun. But getting lost in one can be a... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published July 28, 2010

  Also Reviewed Cabaret Cabaret succeeds or fails on the strength of its Sally Bowles, and director Robert A.... More >>

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  Featured Review: The Sound of Music

  published July 28, 2010

  Featured Review: The Sound of Music Critics are expected to heap scorn upon this sentimental 1959 musical from Rodgers and Hammerstein... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published July 21, 2010

  Also Reviewed Cats The fact that Cats continues to exist is proof that cats pay no heed to anything humans do,... More >>

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  Xmas in July: One pleasant surprise, one lump of coal

  published July 21, 2010

  What are the odds that two shows, both set on Christmas Eve in New York City, would open in St. Louis on the same steamy weekend in July? Don't... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published July 14, 2010

  Damn Yankees Reviewed in this issue. My Name Is Rachel Corrie Reviewed in this issue. On the Verge, or The... More >>

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  Bronx Cheer: George Steinbrenner's dead, but Damn Yankees lives on

  published July 14, 2010

  Perhaps we should expect lightning to strike when the Devil is nearby. So it was serendipitous that the sky over Forest Park crackled with... More >>

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  My Name Is Rachel Corrie is a polemic. Got a problem with that?

  published July 14, 2010

  Something rare and eventful is occurring on the intimate black-box stage at Saint Louis University. The one-woman play My Name Is Rachel... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published July 7, 2010

  Wicked We're off to see the Wizard — or at least the wizardry that can transform a Broadway musical into a phenomenon. With... More >>

• My Name is Rachel Corrie has made waves wherever it goes. Now it's St. Louis' turn.

  published July 7, 2010

  It's just possible that the most powerful people in the arts today are not producers or even directors. (Certainly not actors.) The most... More >>

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  Free Shipping: Titanic sails gloriously into the Muny

  published July 7, 2010

  Midway into Act One of Titanic, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 1997 that is receiving its debut Muny staging this week, a... More >>

• St. Louis Stage Capsules

  published June 30, 2010

  Wicked We're off to see the Wizard — or at least the wizardry that can transform a Broadway musical into a phenomenon. With addictive... More >>