Aaron Wallace

Jagged Little Pill is a show with too many characters, too many concerns, and too tidy a conclusion (complete with a sitcom-ish group laugh at the end). Its heart is in the right place and its message well received, but it relies on an extraordinary confluence of extreme circumstances.

I can’t recall seeing a single show on the national touring circuit with costumes, lighting, and scenic design as sumptuous as those in Moulin Rouge!. Yes, the show is scaled down from its eye-popping, Tony-winning 2019 Broadway production (still running in New York), but as touring productions go, this one’s exceptionally pleasing to the eye...

What did our critic think of ALADDIN at Dr. Phillips Center?While the Ashman-Menken music is undeniable and the underlying story is one of Disney’s finest, the stage translation has always had more problems than Prince Ali has purple peacocks. (I counted.)...

Early on, when Katerina McCrimmon breaks into “I’m the Biggest Star” — one of the beltier Brice numbers — it’s easy to think that lighting has struck thrice. There isn’t a note in the sweeping scale of this score that escapes her rangy, room-rattling voice. But when it comes time for the iconic “Don’t Rain On My Parade'...

Mounting a non-union production of a story about unfair working conditions and class disparity in New Deal-era America takes some gall. Watching such a production on the heels of a record-breaking WGA strike and in the midst of an ongoing SAG-AFTRA one only adds to the irony. But setting aside the ethics of it all, the ANNIE on stage in Orlando transcends any low expectations one might reserve for a non-Equity, not-from-Broadway tour...

If you came for spookish vibes and special effects, then, as the title character says… “It’s showtime!” Beetlejuice is a full-fledged haunted house on stage, and that makes for an undeniably fun night. But if you’re looking for memorable music or clever comedy, I’m afraid this review reads more like an obituary...

Can you kill a mockingbird today without overkilling it? Sixty-three years after Harper Lee's iconic American novel released to instant controversy and enduring acclaim - nary a high schooler gets to cap or gown without an essay on it - this is the challenge confronting playwright Aaron Sorkin. Worry not; this mockingbird has a new song to sing...

WICKED is a wily piece of pop. It turns 20 this year, but you'd never know that sitting in Dr. Phillips Center for the show's third tour stop in Orlando. Its shrewd indictment of society's worst instincts and most seductive assumptions still tear through a room like a twister...

Both the movie and the musical stand out because, while the rock legend ascends from rags to riches by the end, the story is less interested in Turner's journey to stardom than in her liberation from years of violent physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her husband and musical partner, Ike Turner...

The Disney Princesses were only five songs into their set when the iconic Jodi Benson made a surprise appearance on stage. The original voice behind Ariel in 1989's The Little Mermaid, Benson may be best known on screen as a princess, but to a crowd of theatre aficionados and adoring Disney fans, she's a queen...

An evening with 'Weird Al' on stage is always a blend of concert, comedy, and community. The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour feels like an opportunity to give back — letting Al show us everything else he can do while indulging our own inner geeks at the same time. When you think about it, being into something really specific and relatively unpopular is really what nerdom is all about, which makes a parody-free “Weird Al” show surprisingly the “Weird Al”-iest show of all.

What did our critic think of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at Dr. Phillips Center? The show remains fundamentally a relic of the precise moment in time that Short summed up so well, when the convergence of counterculture and rock & roll meant that an irreverent but ultimately thin concept like this one — “the Bible but make it a concert” — seemed utterly avant-garde...

On the cusp of her AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, we talk with Julie Andrews for an update on The Princess Diaries 3, her next installment in her series of memoirs, the potential of her returning to the Broadway stage and the upcoming Minions movie.

But BEAUTIFUL is structured differently than most 'backstage biomusicals.' It's not a rags to riches story, exactly, nor the routine tale of one woman's ascent to superstardom. Mercifully, we are spared the obligatory plot points of that particular formula. King never learns her contract is unconscionable nor fires a manager in dramatic fashion. There is no descent into addiction, fall from grace, dramatic career slump, or climatic comeback...

Director Roberta Emerson has devised an intriguing way to approach the story's outer framework without altering the libretto. The story opens not with an unseen narrator recounting the enchantress's spell on a prideful prince and his servants but instead with a young Black girl (played sweetly by Gabriella Milchman) who opens a storybook in a modern-day bedroom and reads those words aloud from it, soon seeing herself in the story - just in time for the glorious opening notes of 'Belle'...

The biggest draw to an evening with Alan Cumming may be just that: it’s an evening with Alan Cumming, a playful and energetic personality you like right away. His easy wit and effortless charm create an atmosphere that feels distinctly personal and intimate, even a thousand miles south of Club Cumming...

Now I would never wish harm on cats, of course. It's just that they ought not wish it on me either. But as I sat there bored nearly to felicide Tuesday night and praying for a cat-pocalypse on stage, I couldn't help but wonder why there's not a PETA for theatregoers - and if there were whether they'd douse the producers of CATS with cola or whatever liquid might represent the precious gasoline we wasted to reach the theatre.

Frankie Valli introduced his ninth song at Dr. Phillips Center on Sunday night as one of his all-time favorites: a 1964 B-side called 'Silence Is Golden.' He might have taken the title a little too much to heart. It's a golden oldie for sure, and Valli sounded great... impossibly great for an 87-year-old on a live concert stage...

Powerful as that theme may be, DOGFIGHT as written isn't fully the righteous proposition it hopes to be. At its core are some deeply troublesome male figures who engage in truly horrendous behavior, and while theatre is always welcome to put unseemly or complicated characters on the stage, DOGFIGHT never entirely deals with their deeds, which include among other things attempted rape. Playwright Peter Duchan clearly understands his character to be problematic, but their brisk redemption by way of jaunty music and degrees of forgiveness from the women on stage can at times feel like unearned absolution...

An OG, indeed. She is voulez-vous coucher's iconic 'moi,' the phenom who gave us 'New Attitude' but is every bit as famous for her own attitude - the diva who in 2019 famously lamented all of Top 40's 'little heifers who can't sing' and here tonight in Orlando was calling her own high heels 'heifers that got to go.' Ladies and gentlemen, that is rock and roll...