author: Lilou Von Kokoro
I honestly haven’t ventured into the city in many years. But on the last day of summer, I spent the evening at Spotlighters Theatre, located in Baltimore City on St. Paul Street, seeing A Raisin In The Sun, written by Lorainne Hansberry, as directed by Rain Pryor.
Spotlighters definitely has an intimate feeling especially with its theater in the round staging. The crowd that night was small but you could feel the anticipation.
Prescribed plans for wellness do not allow for love at first sight. But haven’t we all been there? Or at least seen our friends and family be there? Jumping into something when they shouldn’t based on nothing more than a glance across the Supercenter shopping aisle? Or not jumping out of something when they should have because there just wasn’t an easy way out? If you’re looking for a good evening of dark, laugh-out-loud comedy,
author: Jamie Gerhardt
Fag Gods is a mythic camp comedy making its worldwide performance debut at Spotlighters in their 61st season in Baltimore, and it truly couldn’t have had a better opening. Written by John Bavoso and presented at the Baltimore Playwright’s Festival last year, it was the highest-rated selection of that season, and Spotlighters (very thankfully!) decided to give this wonderful little show its debut. The show is highly representative of the LGBTQIA+ community— as you might be able to discern from its title— and as someone who came out as transgender myself within the past year,
Madness does not run through the theatre family; it gallops. With sardines. And while you’re certainly not going to get a gargantuan house on the postage stamp stage at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre, you can definitely get a hilariously good time with their current production of Charles Morey’s Laughing Stock. Mild to moderate insanity with a dash of ‘WTF’ all balled neatly into the nonsense that is the lifestyle we choose when we jump into the world of theatre.
Of all the blithe sounds you’ll hear this holiday season, tis none merrier than that of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, performed in near-entirety by Phil Gallagher as a one-man endeavor at Spotlighters Theatre. For its third year running, this solo-performer adaptation of the iconic Christmas classic holds its own against the 400 other productions of the Dickensian money-maker this time of year. Adapted for the stage by Sherrionne Brown and Phil Gallagher,
“…to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave…”
Christmas starts in October for everyone else, so why not use a lesser-recognized Dickens’ quote to welcome in the latest show of Season 61 at Spotlighters? (And if you need more Dickens in your life, beyond this hook-quote, be sure to book your tickets for the cherished annual performance of Phil Gallagher’s one-man A Christmas Carol coming this December) But this particular quote feels apropos for Outward Bound,
It is the trial of the century! Every juicy piece of gossip you could imagine is wrapped up neatly, just waiting to be unraveled. There are men, women, and a strange woman. There are cops, judges, bailiffs, and animals. What? Animals? Yes, animals! In fact, some can even talk to them. Curious? Then you must see Doctor Dolittle being presented by The Salem Players.
Director Jen Sizer takes the ball to direct her first musical and delivers a touchdown.
Growing up as an only child, I often imagined what it would be like to have siblings and to be able to grow older with them. After seeing Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Spotlighters Theatre I no longer need to imagine what that type of life might look like. Written by Christopher Durang and Directed by Erin Klarner, this play encapsulates the ups and downs of sibling dynamics and proves that even as adults’ siblings will always have a unique and indescribable bond.
![[title of show] at Spotlighters Theatre. ????Matthew Peterson](https://www.theatrebloom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/DSC_3671.jpg)
Fierce! Original! Hysterical! All adjectives that one could use to describe [title of show] at Spotlighters Theatre. Written by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell with Music & Lyrics by Jeff Bowen, and the Book by Hunter Bell, this show creates a world in which a theater patron can see the time, blood, sweat, and tears that it takes for an original musical to make it all the way to the Great White Way.
As the Christmas season runs rampant, many, many weeks before it’s really even Christmas season, a particular song from Irving Berlin’s White Christmas comes to mind. And yes, while White Christmas is no doubt on a theatre somewhere this early November weekend, it’s not at The Salem Players, and I promise, I’m making a point. It’s a ditty that the soldiers sing, “…we’ll follow the old man wherever he wants to go…” and it swells the heart a little because it showcases the loyalty (albeit humorously at first) of men in service to their leader.
Ay, me! What’s in a name? Would a show by any other name still be so tragic? Probably. The Bard’s Wagon Players have surfaced for their annual summertime “Shakespeare in the Park” production! And this year— the sizzling summer of 2022— it’s none other than the infamous tragedy, Romeo & Juliet. Directed by Nathan Rosen, Produced by Bob Frank, and Stage Managed by Liana Olear, this outdoor offering has two different locations— Hannah More Park in Reisterstown and Catonsville Community Park in Catonsville— over the course of two different weekends,
Friday night, October 22, 2021, was a very big night for a small but important theatre, one of a select few that are the very soul of Baltimore theatre history. After nineteen months of darkness thrust upon them due to Covid-19 lockdowns and mandates, The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre, that diminutive little workhorse in the step down basement on St. Paul Street, opened again with a light fanfare and a comfortable crowd of faithful patrons to kick off their 59th Season.
Do you ever feel like what makes you a person is what keeps
you from being a person? Poignant question from Wendy Wasserstein’s s The Heidi
Chronicles, which just so happens to be on the stage of The Salem Players
this fall under the direction of Kate Leisner. What if what makes you who you
are is what keeps you from being who you are? The show itself, while a Pulitzer
Prize-winning piece of theatrical drama from the late 80’s,
Ed Higgins, as Alan Turing says in one scene, “It’s about right and wrong.” How Do You Like Me Now Productions (HDYLMNP) understands this and gets it right again with Hugh Whitemore’s Breaking the Code. If there is one thing that we have learned about HDYLMNP throughout the years, it’s that they will take an issue, put it in your face, and make you aware of something that you needed to be made aware.