This delightful romp that takes the stage farce form through its madcap paces. The play runs through Saturday, Sept. 24.
Raising the issue: Different Strokes! examines postracial America
Rasheeda Speaking opens Thursday, Sept. 1, at the BeBe Theatre. The play follows Beckman’s character, Jaclyn, who has returned to work following a brief illness. While she was away, a series of changes occurred in the office.
Smart bets: Teatro del Gusto
The Orange Peel hosts the variety show on Thursday, Aug. 25.
Theater Review: Measure For Measure by Montford Park Players
Giving the typical summer outdoor theater experience a twist, director Scott Keel chose to stage the production with the audience on two sides of the cast. The actors played the show mostly on the new lower stage area.
Smart bets: Hot Summer Nights
The party is at Isis Restaurant & Music Hall on Saturday, Aug. 20.
Local playwright stages a satire about the manosphere
The production, a satire about the “manosphere” (or men’s rights movement), takes its name from the The Red Pill online community, hosted on Reddit, “where men go to air their toxic views about women,” according to The Guardian. It was inspired by the events that unfolded around Waking Life Espresso.
Theatre Review: Crimes of the Heart at Asheville Community Theatre
This is the story of three Mississippi sisters who’ve drifted apart, but when Babe shoots her abusive husband, tongues start wagging all over town. This stirs wild, wandering songstress Meg homeward to their grandfather’s house where their faithful sister Lenny has been a caregiver.
Theater Review: All My Sons at HART
Arthur Miller’s first big-hit play, All My Sons from 1947, is an intimate and moving tale of a munitions manufacturer in Ohio following World War II.
Theater Review: How I Became A Pirate by Asheville Creative Arts
The show is lighthearted, fun, silly and filled with laughs for children and their parents. It works well on many levels. The songs are creative and charming.
Theater review: 9 to 5 at Flat Rock Playhouse
The musical version, by Dolly Parton and Patricia Resnick, is now showing on Flat Rock Playhouse’s main stage through Saturday, Aug. 20.
Theater Review: “Grease” at Parkway Playhouse
Parkway Playhouse was forced to replace West Side Story with Grease, having lost the rights to the former when the authors boycotted North Carolina in protest of House Bill 2. Grease may ultimately be the better pick.
Smart bets: How I Became a Pirate
Performances of the musical are at Magnetic 375 on Friday-Sunday, Aug. 5-7, and Thursday-Sunday, Aug. 11-14, at various times.
Theater review: “Tarocco: A Soldier’s Tale” by Fox and Beggar Theater
Tarocco is a quintessentially Asheville production. Part play, part dance and part circus, it uses the fool’s journey of the tarot to tell the story of a wounded World War I soldier, played by Ross Daniel, as he lies dying behind enemy lines.
Smart bets: Barbed Wire Suit
Productions of the socially charged play are at Toy Boat Community Art Space Friday, July 29 through Friday, Aug. 12.
Love and murder: Barbara Bates Smith brings Ron Rash stories to the stage
“It’s [Rash’s] material,” Smith says. “What I take the most credit for is knowing good material when I find it.”
Smart bets: Tarocco
Playwright Nat Allister tweaked Tarocco following its 2015 debut, and now the emboldened work is set for a tour, beginning at Diana Wortham Theatre on Friday-Sunday, July 22-24.
Flat Rock Playhouse stages two new Sandburg-inspired plays
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service (of which the Sandburg Home is part), Flat Rock Playhouse created two new original productions — Spink, Skabootch and Swipes in Rootabaga Country and Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Express.
Theater review: Capital Liar at The Magnetic Theatre
Set in post-McCarthy era Washington, D.C., Capital Liar follows the exploits of tabloid newsman Sly Goodwin. It’s onstage through Saturday, July 30.
Theater Review: Greater Tuna at SART
The show is a tour de force for two actors, who assume the identities of the population of Tuna, Texas. It is a small town with the kind of colorful characters who would feel right at home at a Donald Trump rally.
Montford Park Players perform Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus
Director Michael MacCauley discusses his introduction to Shakespeare’s first tragedy and how its bloody commentary on the senselessness of violence remains timely.
Theater Review: The Music Man at Flat Rock Playhouse
The story, by Meredith Willson and Franklin Lacey, is set in River City, Iowa, during the summer of 1912. When a clever con artist known as Professor Harold Hill, played by Brian Robinson, steps off the train, he means business. This classic musical is performed through Saturday, July 9.