Cybele Pomeroy graduated from Loyola College, before it had grown up and become Loyola University, where she studied writing, literature, education and drama. She never studied costuming, improv or physical comedy but does them anyway. Cybele has been writing theater reviews since 2013, but still hasn't seen Cats, Les Mis, Our Town or Death Of A Salesman. She loves Hamlet and Harvey equally, for different reasons. Her first name rhymes with "seashell," not "quibble."
A CHORUS LINE at Toby’s in Columbia through March 10th, 2024- Staff are warm and helpful, the atmosphere is welcoming and the production is wonderful. If you’re a fan of musical theater, A CHORUS LINE will resonate. It’s a visual and auditory delight, with complex dance numbers and Marvin Hamlisch’s memorable melodies.
RENT is an assemblage of romantic tragedy interspersed with moments that touch your heart, rattle your nerves or tickle your funny bone, set in the gritty underbelly of New York at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The show is a tribute to the spirit of people undaunted by poverty, addiction and illness in the face of a very bleak reality.
Toby’s Dinner And Show in Columbia, MD, presents Meredith Wilson’s Miracle On 34th Street, the Musical through January 7th, 2024, and it’s a fun holiday outing that gives the feel of New York City in December. Dress up for the occasion if you wish, and step into a traditional holiday favorite, live and in full color.
Under Kaitlyn Fowler’s direction, the March family becomes real. A real family has commitment, but also strife and arguments. Most renditions of the Marches are tidy, sanitized, prettified. Fowler’s March family is messy, complicated and sincerely relatable. A terrific performance for your family's festive holiday outing.
Here is wonderful dark magic at work. The wizarding workshop is Do Or Die Productions, its owner/ director/ writer, CJ Crowe, the magician, and her brainchild, POE'S LAST STANZA the spell. The magic of live theater, collective imagination, and audience-driven improvisation are the ingredients in Crowe’s bewitching brew.
Chesapeake Shakespeare Company ensemble performers are quick on their feet, perfect in their enunciation, energetic and expressive as they deliver Shakespearean favorite plot elements of upper class people in forests, merriment, witty banter, love triangles, and everyone getting married. The action is fast-paced, the set stunning and immersive.
THINK PINK is new material presented in the form of short plays, snippets of humanity, gently delivered, with a twist on a topic you might take for granted. The ensemble performers work also as stage crew, literally putting together each set from modular pieces. The final sequence makes a strong statement about community and what makes one.
SISTER ACT at Toby's in Columbia is a delightfully energetic show that is woman-driven and relationship-positive. Songwriter Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater (of Disney fame) create numbers specifically for theatrical production of the movie-inspired script. Ear-pleasing harmonies abound in an extravaganza of song, dance and sisterhood.
Ten playwrights offer ten-minute plays performed by an ensemble of ten actors in the Fells Point Corner Theatre's annual 10x10x10 competition. Strong writing dominates the production, and each piece is different enough from its fellows that determining the “best” show is challenging, as the plays vary widely in format, pacing, tone and subject.
Cockpit In Court at CCBC presents THE DINNER PARTY, by Neil Simon. With 30+ Neil Simon plays to consider, THE DINNER PARTY is an unconventional choice. It’s not funny-funny, as one who is only passingly familiar with Neil Simon’s work, might expect, so it’s less often produced; consider it an opportunity to see something one hasn’t seen before.
ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE at Toby's in Columbia wearing flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt. Each familiar Jimmy Buffett number is performed with signature Toby’s exuberance, as guests join in singing. A sea of audience-chosen tropical prints boosts atmosphere, and the live miniature orchestra is terrific. It's a three hour airport-free island vacation!
R/J Fresh Alt Take On Shakespeare At Strand: a poignant contemporary version of Romeo and Juliet blows apart the Sharks and the Jets. Gen Z is much more than man-woman, boy-girl, literally dying, often legislated to death, and this story must be told. Writers Aladrian C. Wetzel & Elizabeth Ung update both story and characters to great effect.
The mixed-use Gateway Building is the location of the BBox Theater. It is this year's home of the VARIATIONS ten-minute theater festival, which, for 2023, is VARIATIONS ON THE END, under the capable wing of Rapid Lemon Productions. Jalice Ortiz-Corral directs all eleven of these brand-new playlets by local playwrights.
During Pride month, it's appropriate to support theatre devoted to the inclusion of those who have been 'othered' by society in general, and even in the theatrical community. Take pride in your local alternative community theater and see Stand Up For.... Theatre's latest production, THE WIZARD OF OZ, at DoodleHatch in Columbia through June 18th, 2023.
The year is 1858. Charlotte Cushman, renowned performer in the US and abroad, plays male roles onstage as often as female roles, and prefers them. Strand Theater Company produces Barbara Kahn's script, which is built for humor, and spotlights an underappreciated American heroine. This female-centric production is triumphant queer comic theater.
GREASE, a perennial favorite for theaters and theater-goers, is quite the crowd-pleaser at Toby's Dinner Theater in Columbia, Maryland. It's full of fun songs you already know, excellent dancing and a tiny bit of plot. The cast is excellent and the staging is lively. It has many elements in common with the movie, but a PG rating isn't one of them.
Brava, Bravo! For HUBBA HUBBA At Theatre Project: Don't miss the World Premiere! This new show by Alex & Olmsted, internationally acclaimed winners of multiple Jim Henson Award grants, is a pastiche of comedic scenes starring humans, puppets and an invisible fruit fly. Each carries a unique message spotlighting different facets of romantic love.
CRISIS MODE: LIVING PILIPINO IN AMERICA is a revelation as well as a personal and cultural history. Speaking for, and to, people 'other-ed' for cultural reasons, or with dualism of identities, it also resonates with anyone who has basic compassion. Heartbreaking, interactive and funny, the performance immerses one in memoir as it's being written.
Race downtown to join a raucous romp through THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, where the comedy is comic, the tragedy is comic, the history is comic and the comics are comic. You'll applaud, laugh, and may even become part of the action in this goofy rendition of the Bard's oeuvre.
Designed for fans of musicals, SOMETHING ROTTEN! is a Queen's farthingdale full of fun. It’s lighthearted, full of color and movement, funny, packed with references to amuse Broadway lovers and Shakespeare scholars, with familiar four-second musical riffs scattered through the show. Toby’s Dinner Theater delivers again with SOMETHING ROTTEN!
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