author: Alan Duda
“It’s not Immodest, it’s Art!”
Alfie Byrne loves art. Specifically the works of Oscar Wilde. Which he reads daily to the commuters of the Dublin bus he conducts. And nightly as he conducts Wilde’s plays for his community theater at St. Imelda’s church. And everyone loved their Importance of Being Earnest. But as Wilde himself discovered, not everyone loves the idea of them putting on Salome.
The Woozy and Yoop and Mangaboos – Oh My!
The Patchwork Girl of Oz is L. Frank Baum’s seventh book in the series. Dr. Pipt brings to life Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, but accidentally petrifies Unc Nunkie. So, along with Ojo the Unlucky, Scraps sets off on a component quest to find the remedy and meet and make many friends along the way. Don’t worry if you can’t at first remember the list of items they need to find,
For those unfamiliar with the tale, A Christmas Carol is a sci-fi story of outer worldly spirits and time travel overlaid with a profitable Christmas theme. You know,like in It’s A Wonderful Life. If you find that an interesting way to think of it, Director Bill Leary’s adaptation is just as intriguing in how it updates this classic. The relationships that Ebeneezer Scrooge shuns are heightened by tying every character closer to him through family and business.Old boss Fezziwig is replaced with Scrooge’s father Andrew,
Spring Awakening – Charity, Chastity, Choreography
Every generation thinks they invented sex. Spring Awakening is how they invented it under the Second Reich. Wolf Pack Theatre Company brings you this oft-censored 1890 play which was revamped as a musical in 2006 to win eight Tony Awards.
Co-director William Leary usually chooses dark and heavy adult subject matter, and continues to do so with Spring Awakening – this time with adolescents.
Having recently been introduced to members of Baton Rouge’s Red Hat Society, I… can’t remember who imitates who… but Life and Art are definitely happening in Wolf Pack Theatre Company’s Steel Magnolias. Set in 1980’s Chinquapin Parish, Robert Harling’s play revolves around a year in the life of six women in a gathering place where they can let their hair down.
Director Bill Leary did a marvelous job assembling a cast that is phenomenally strong across the board.
Deathtrap: A play of one set, two acts, five characters.
One Set: A writing den in a converted church. A typewriter. Walls decorated with posters from previous plays and various prop implements of persuasion and destruction.
Two Acts: Running an hour each with a 15-minute intermission.
Five Characters: The established writer. His wife. The new writer. The psychic neighbor. The lawyer.
Pardon my conceit as I continue the review by repeating this again with further variations,
A thoughtful retelling of Dickens’ classic, with music.
This is the fourth year of Wolfpack Theatre Company’s A Christmas Carol. Director William Leary has updated the off-told story with modern settings and sentiment. For example, we learn that Robert Cratchit Sr. and Andrew Scrooge had formed a beneficial business partnership that young Ebenezer destroys by merging with Marley. This deliberately joins all of the characters as an extended family with its attendant tensions.
Content Warning! Midnight Cigarette contains nudity, racist, derogatory and inflammatory terminology, sexual situation, graphic content, coarse language, controversial conversations regarding politics, abortion, incest, rape, domestic violence, and scenes of substance abuse.
So reads the insert in the program of William Leary’s latest play. Set in a coal town with no more coal, Midnight Cigarette revolves around the remains of those still trying to live there. It’s a small town where everyone knows most everything about everyone,
Wolf Pack Theatre Company’s Uncle Nick! introduces you to a family on Christmas Eve. But for those lucky enough to spend the holidays with their extended family, this one feels remarkably homey. The set looks like your Aunt Irene’s over-decorated living room as of All Saint’s Day what with all the Christmas lights and tchotchkes – a remarkable feat considering Uncle Nick’s venue is the sanctuary of a church and so it must come down each week for services.
“Everyone has got a kink, what’s yours?” In kinK, Wolfpack Theatre Company once again invites you to get beyond your immediate gut response to really think about an issue and consider the lives it affects. kinK, an evocative and risqué new work by company founder William Dean Leary, asks what happens when the community’s creed “Safe – Sane – Consensual” encounters the notion of “There are no limits.”
The black box theater of the Greenbelt Arts Center has been transformed into a leather/levi bar.
Wolfpack Theatre Company once again takes on troubling social issues with their World Premiere production of the new play Forsaken Angels, written by the company’s Founding Artistic Director, William Dean Leary. Now playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center for a limited engagement, this is a raw play about child sex-trafficking. There are no heroes. There refuse to be victims. There are only the survivors and the dead. But what does survival even mean if the spirit is dead?
2 Across, by Jerry Mayer of such writing fame as M*A*S*H and All in the Family, is an enjoyable evening of theatre at the Theater Project Beltsville, considering the subject you are watching is two commuters doing a crossword puzzle. Nestled in the corner of a strip mall among five storefront churches, Abiding Presence Lutheran Church offers no pretensions of being a theater.