By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.com paul-atreides.com Playwrights need theatres to help develop their works. With the recent announcement that the Yale Drama Series Competition for New Works is ending this year, coupled with the Sundance Theatre Lab closing in 2021 and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for stage plays being moved to the MFA program, it's terrific that Las Vegas Little Theatre (LVLT) does this. While early drafts are sha

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas Like many aspects of life over five hundred years old (dueling to defend your honor, emptying bodily waste into the streets, the Monarchy), there are certain things that can be perceived as problematic in today’s day and age. And even though he is considered to be the greatest writer in Western civilization, some of William Shakespeare’s plays fall into that problem

By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com The play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime , by Simon Stephens, won the 2013 Olivier Best Play Award on the West End and the Tony Award for Best Play in 2015, and is based on Mark Haddon’s 2003 award-winning novel of the same title. It’s funny, it’s heartwarming, and everything in between. Both novel and play follow 15-year-old Christopher Boone as he tries to u

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas RATING: Delicious ★★★★★ A stark landscape. Smoke fills the space. Harsh vertical fluorescent lights. Images projected on the floor and wall. Foreboding music. This is the setting you encounter when you enter Majestic Repertory Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Set in the present day, or as it says in the program, “Right Here - Righ

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas There are many things that are synonymous with Las Vegas: casinos, construction, Elvis, construction, the mob, and construction. Another is the circus act. There are many circus performers in town, and now one of them has taken it upon herself to create a new show. Jail Birds: A Sinful Cabaret was created, produced, directed and choreographed by Melissa James (Un

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas Two countries. Country X and Country Y. Intertwined and yet separate. This is the setting for the wonderful and intriguing play Passage by Christopher Chen, a fantasia inspired by E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India , presented as a joint production from Nevada Conservatory Theatre and A Public Fit Theatre Company on the UNLV campus. We are brought into a world whe

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas Henry V (also known as The Life of Henry the Fifth ) by William Shakespeare is one of the more well-known of his history plays (thanks in part to the brilliant 1989 Kenneth Branagh film). One of the strengths of this play is that the plot is straightforward: King Henry V of England, after being insulted by the French Dauphin, wages war across France to claim the

Flawed Boy Gets (Flawed) Girl By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com Good news! There’s a new theatre company in town! Sin City Players is presenting their second production (I’m not sure how we at EMAV missed Nights at the Algonquin Round Table ). Now playing in the Fischer Black Box at Las Vegas Little Theatre (LVLT), Boy Gets Girl , by Rebecca Gilman, comes off more like a made-for-television movie despite 2001 Oute

By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com I love a good story about the afterlife. So, of course, Orpheus would appeal to me as he travels down to the Underworld to reconnect with and retrieve his bride, Eurydice, who has died on their wedding day. A heck of a plot. Considering it’s all Greek mythology, it’s a classic and has been told in many different ways. But it’s always told from Orpheus’s point of view. Playwright Sa

By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com Sometimes evil comes to your door with smiles and kindness. That's the takeaway from The Guardian by Ernest Hemmings, a three-act, two-hour cautionary play now in performances at Vegas Theatre. It's a joint production of TSTMRKT and Vegas Theatre Company, under the direction of the playwright. Hemmings often directs (and stars in) his own works. There are two schools of thought on

By Erik Engman Author, Clown and Improvisation Teacher, Theatre Critic EatMoreArtVegas.com IG: ErikReviewsVegas Very few films have the notoriety of Showgirls , a 1995 NC-17 movie directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. It’s considered one of the worst films of the 20th Century, filled with extreme overacting, laughable dialogue, gratuitous nudity, and almost no likable characters. And… I love it. It’s the definition of “it’s so bad, it’s good.” So I was

A Can’t Miss – Don’t Miss Show By Paul Atreides Author, Playwright, and Theatre Critic at EatMoreArtVegas.compaul-atreides.com Take the Grimm fairy tales Jack and the Beanstalk , Cinderella , Little Red Riding Hood , and Rapunzel that you read as a child, or saw on film, seamlessly mash them together with steroids, add dashes of humor and beautiful songs like “Children Will Listen,” and you get Into the Woods . With a book by James Lapine and music and lyrics by Stephen