Email Author Bill Raden

2008 Stories by Bill Raden

• Ken Roht's 99 Cent Only Calendar Girl Competition

  published December 11, 2008

  Now in its sixth year, director-choreographer Ken Roht’s 99 Cents Only Theater is beginning to look like a one-trick pony. As in past years,... More >>

• It's a Stevie Wonderful Life

  published December 25, 2008

  Ahh, remember the 1970s? When Stevie Wonder was undisputed champ of the pop and R&B charts? When broadcasts of Frank Capra's copyright-orphaned... More >>

• Ken Roht's 99c Only Calendar Girl Competition

  published December 11, 2008

  Now in its sixth year, director-choreographer Ken Roht’s 99 Cents Only Theater is beginning to look like a one-trick pony. As in past years,... More >>

• O Jerusalem

  published December 4, 2008

  Best known for his mild metatheatrics and wistful meditations on the emotional burden of WASP privilege, A.R. Gurney might seem an incongruous... More >>

• The Kentucky Cycle Part I

  published November 27, 2008

  When the late Manny Farber criticized formally sterile, self-aggrandizing movies with his coinage, “white elephant art,” he might well... More >>

• Eagle Hills, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Landing

  published October 30, 2008

  Eagle Hills, Eagle Ridge, Eagle Landing are much more than mere tracts of real estate that looms sight-unseen over Brett Neveu’s comic... More >>

• Money Shot

  published October 23, 2008

  It’s been all of five Earth years since NASA’s famously overachieving rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, began wandering the Martian terra... More >>

• Hamlet

  published October 9, 2008

  Traditionalists beware! Director Michael Michetti’s lean, mean and stripped-to-the-extreme version of the Bard’s masterwork is out to... More >>

• Be Like Water

  published October 2, 2008

  Veteran performance-art monologist Dan Kwong takes a stab at multicharacter, dramatic narrative with this rather sweet, albeit conventionally... More >>

• Moliere Plays Paris

  published September 11, 2008

  Help me out here. Say you’re an artistic director planning your season. You’ve got the entire history of stage literature to choose... More >>

• Caught in Love's Web

  published September 4, 2008

  Consider this assortment of 11 short selections from the Jacqueline Wright sketchbook a fine introductory primer to the playwright’s... More >>

• The Divine Madness of Isabella

  published August 21, 2008

  One-person shows often deal in household names (i.e., Harry Truman, Samuel Clemens, Eleanor Roosevelt). That way, the audience can meet the... More >>

• The Comical Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch

  published July 24, 2008

  The Rogue Artists Ensemble’s lavishly mounted, highly ambitious adaptation of writer Neil Gaiman and illustrator Dave McKean’s 1995... More >>

• The Comedy of Errors

  published July 17, 2008

  is a reminder that even the father of our modern mother tongue had to learn while he earned. So it is with director Ron West and his Open Fist... More >>

• This Contract Limits Our Liability: Read It!

  published July 10, 2008

  If playwright Joshua Fardon had typed "Finis" instead of "Act 2," his off-kilter comedy about relationship dry rot could have succeeded as... More >>

• In on It

  published July 3, 2008

  Call it inspiration or simple serendipity, but here, the right text, a sympathetic director (Michael Van Duzer) and performers with all the right... More >>

• Trailerville

  published June 26, 2008

  Hannah Logan’s tangled redneck gothic boasts a number of firsts: It is the first production for a first-time playwright; the inaugural work... More >>