Catching Up and Looking Forward

There’s been a scad of theater reviews published out there in the media world over the past week and I’ve only really caught up on them today.

That rarest of local productions – the world premiere – opened last weekend in the form of “The Holidays Stops.” Ms. Haubenstock weighed in early in the week but, curiously, GayRVA has only posted this preview to the production, not putting up a full review yet as far as I can see. If you missed it (I did, unfortunately), you can get at least one impression of the other world premiere in town recently with this review of “Brew” that ran on GayRVA.

The Style that came out this week has a review of “Why Torture is Wrong, etc.” written by Mr. Griset. You can also check out Mr. Porter’s review of this show by clicking on his blog link over there on the right.

“It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” has been reviewed both in GayRVA and in the T-D. Also of interest, theater reviewers Mr. Griset and Mr. Miller take looks at the opera “Hansel and Gretel” in their respective publications.

I also enjoyed Mr. Griset pointing out the cell phone issue in this week’s Style. I would extend his bottom line assertion about the responsibility of the next generation beyond cell phones. We tend to mythologize technology as being somehow inaccessible for people over a certain age and for some reason, the older generation buys into it. This is a generation that had to drive double-clutch manual transmissions and somehow the myth is that they can’t send a text? I don’t buy it and I think we (all of us) would be better served by enabling the older folks in mastering the technology that enhances all of our lives.

As far as the impending holiday goes, there is certainly one very obvious thing to be thankful for this year: the incredible bounty of live theater in Richmond. Not only do we have a bevy of shows open right now but this weekend Barksdale will open a couple of highly anticipated productions. I’m looking forward to a holiday season where any free night can be enlivened by a nifty locally-produced stage show. While fighting off the turkey coma this weekend, take a minute to plan for the month ahead or it’ll pass by and some great shows will have passed you by.