

The 2024-2025 Hampton Roads Achievement in Community Theater Awards is almost here! If you are planning to attend, here are some reminders and information: If you are a NAMED NOMINEE (i.e., your name individually appears on our nomination announcement here): Finally, if you are part of a nomination for Best Performance of a Song (Ensemble),…

There are two main storylines in “Water by the Spoonful”, playing now at the Little Theatre of Norfolk, and they are cleverly separated by a screen which comes down and blurs the plotline taking place mainly in an online chatroom as the plotline taking place “IRL” plays out. The “IRL” (in real life) action centers…

My high school assigned us Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” for summer reading prior to my senior year, but somehow never got around to the obvious autumn follow-up of Brahm Stoker’s “Dracula.” So I cannot tell you how strictly “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors”, playing now at Peninsula Community Theatre, sticks to the canonical text, but I’m…

“The best food, the best beds, the best pillows, the best feathers inside of the pillows. It is poetry on wheels…” says Constantine Bouc, the man in charge of the Orient Express, as he sets expectations for famous detective Hercule Poirot (and the audience) for what they will see when the curtain opens. An ambitious…

Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/) “Sandwiches are the most democratic of all foods… a whole meal in your hands” says Montrellous, the kind-hearted, philosophical convicted felon who serves as the de facto leader of the all-felon kitchen staff of Clyde’s, a greasy spoon sandwich stop which has become a favorite of truckers passing…

A few of the leaves on the crepe myrtle outside the window of my condo have just begun to change to a reddish-orange color, which can mean only one thing – we have moved on from the summer musical season into the murder-mystery season at our local community theaters. Though maybe not fitting directly into…

Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/) We live out in the Ocean View area of Norfolk, a part of town that grew up on the back of a (no longer standing) trolley company amusement park. So we were intrigued walking into the Little Theatre of Norfolk with a sold out crowd to see a…

I have a complicated relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. From my perspective: “Evita”, currently playing at Peninsula Community Theatre, is my absolute favorite of the group. Being introduced to the Madonna/Antonio Banderas movie version by my uncles a few years ago, the music continues to live rent-free in my head (I’ll often wake up…

Photo courtesy of J. Stubbs Photography (https://jstubbsphotographyvb.com/) Is there a story that Americans like more than one in which a chained-to-his-desk worker chases big dreams by committing a white collar crime, finds friendship (and maybe even love) along the way, and then faces the consequences of his actions? Throw a couple big musical numbers in…