Live Theater
'Mamma Mia!' returns to Grand Rapids
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 11-27-2024 under OPINION
Early into "Mamma Mia!," you realize that the show will not be resisted. Not that many will try. But if anyone does (arms crossed, one imagines, perhaps a beret tilted at a disapproving angle), the show will twirl, mug and sing into a...
'Cats' comes to Grand Rapids Civic Theatre's stage
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 11-24-2024 under OPINION
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!" - T. S. Eliot...
MJ dramatizes King of Pop's preparations for his 1992 tour
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 07-10-2024 under OPINION
For those too young to remember, it's difficult to imagine how omnipresent Michael Jackson was at the height of his career. Walk into a convenience store, and you'd hear "Billie Jean" playing. "Rock With You" would be...
"Beautiful" dramatizes Carole King's journey from high school to Carnegie Hall
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 06-09-2024 under OPINION
Released in 1971, Carole King's "Tapestry" was the top-selling album for 15 weeks. It went on to sell over 14 million copies, earn four Grammys and lodge itself in the canon as a defining work of its era. How that came to be and...
Tick, Tick...Boom! Explodes Into Song
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 05-24-2024 under OPINION
In high school, faced with yet another rejection slip, I hit upon what seemed to me an irresistible idea: write a poem about rejection on the back of the slip and submit it. The editor to whom I’d sent the first poem rejected that one, too....
To Kill A Mockingbird remains shattering and tragic
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 04-24-2024 under OPINION
When the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) lost a reservation clerk, America gained a masterpiece. Harper Lee, an Alabama native turned New York City transplant, had taken the position at the airline as her day job, but her real dream was...
Grand Rapids Civic Theatre Stages Murder On The Orient Express
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 04-22-2024 under OPINION
Sherlock Holmes was so popular that Arthur Conan Doyle, his creator, having killed the detective (in "The Final Problem," 1893), later ended up resurrecting him, compelled by the demands of the public and barrels filled with money. Nearly...
Clyde's dramatizes the hopes and struggles of post-prison life
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 01-21-2024 under OPINION
You made a mistake. And it's a big mistake – the kind they could throw you in prison for. So that's what they do. You grind your sentence out, keeping your head down, dreaming of freedom. Then, finally, you get that freedom. But here...
Grand Rapids Civic Theatre Stages Disney's Beauty and the Beast
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 11-27-2023 under OPINION
Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, released in 1946, was some kind of miracle. It expanded on the 1757 fairy tale of the same name, telling a story both enchanting and, at times, a little scary. In one typically surreal touch, real arms,...
Sweeney Todd Cuts As Sharply As Ever
by (John Kissane)
Submitted 09-13-2023 under OPINION
At first, you don’t see him. You see others, though: the citizens of long-ago London. Horror-struck, they sing operatically of Sweeney Todd, a man they call “the demon barber of Fleet Street.” Todd shaved his customers, yes, shaved...