Vaudeville­! Burlesque! Cabaret!

Contemporary Asheville teems with fringe-y performers, with vaudeville, cabaret and burlesque troupes launching and performing frequently. The last two months have been particularly rich, with big shows by the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, Bombs Away Cabaret, Bootstraps Burlesque, Seduction Sideshow, Runaway Circus & The Loose Cabooses and Asheville Vaudeville, among others. Will the scene explode […]

All aboard!

Sometimes you've just got to seize the means of production. "Vaudeville on Wheels" is one way to describe the increasingly popular LaZoom Comedy Tour, now entering its fourth season. That's not precisely what proprietor/performers Jim and Jennifer Lauzon had in mind when they started Asheville's alternative guided tour in 2006; then again, they didn't know […]

Review of Chipola at 35Below

Waylon Wood’s often lyrical dialogue and his understanding of, and compassion for, his characters compensate for structural deficiencies. It helps, too, that each role is perfectly cast and rendered, and that strong acting makes up for the less-believable touches.

Review of The Boxcar Children

The first volume of The Boxcar Children series—a fairly realistic tale of four children orphaned during the Depression, fending for themselves until reconciled with their rich, paternal grandfather—was published in 1924, but didn’t achieve true popularity until it was reissued in a revised version in 1942.

Review of The Beautiful Johanna

It’s not the Dublin you’d find today, or even the Dublin of The Troubles. In David Brendan Hopes’ The Beautiful Johanna, Dublin is an apocalyptic nightmare, riddled by bomb blasts, machine gun bursts, and — perhaps most frightening of all — fire. Yet the subject of the play is neither horror nor hell. It’s love.

Review of A Christmas Carol

If you have never encountered the original Dickens tale,or have only the vaguest recollection of it, The Montford Park Players offer you an excellent opportunity to make up this deficiency with their authentic adaptation. Watching it, you may feel yourself transported back to the nineteenth century, not only by the story and its setting but by the acting and staging, too.

Review of Asheville Vaudeville

Asheville’s got talent far out of proportion to the size of its population. Our lovely town’s got the market in eccentricity pretty much cornered, too. Asheville’s also got a generous heart, and its audiences are warm and indulgent. Put them all together and you’ve got Asheville Vaudeville, the latest entry in a burgeoning world of live, variety entertainment.