Author: Aaron Krause

OSTF’s gimmick free, updated ‘All’s Well’ a delight that resonatesOBERLIN — William Shakespeare meets “Downton Abbey” in the Oberlin Summer Theatre Festival’s impressive production...

HURON — Ahhhhhh … Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple.”
Where have I heard that title before?
It’s been so long since I’ve seen slob Oscar Madison and neatnik Felix Ungar.
And so, seeing one of beloved playwright Neil Simon’s most popular and well-known plays on Tuesday at the Huron Playhouse was a little like seeing a friend you haven’t seen in ages. You’ve seen him countless times and you’re as familiar with his peculiar idiosyncrasies as you are with your own habits. Yet you expect that due to the time that’s elapsed, you’ll encounter an all-new, fresh face.

’m not sure you’ll find “Doylesque” in any dictionary, but it’s an apt adjective for the vibrant, creative production of “Camelot” Mercury Theatre Company is staging for its second production this summer.
In the above, I’m referring to director John Doyle, who’s known for his “actor-musicianship” approach to productions he’s directed.
Simply, the actors play their own instruments.
Doyle has said his concept began out of economic necessity and evolved into a storytelling approach.

MILAN —The imagination of recent Edison High School graduate Zane Fannin has given Lady Macbeth even more urgency to ensure her husband becomes king of Scotland.
Fannin has penned a backstory to the lady, a woman of steely determination, one who strives to keep her ambitious husband from becoming too passive in his quest for the throne.
Fannin’s play, “Bloodstained Hands,” was given a staged reading at the Ohio Educational Theatre Association’s state thespian conference at Bexley High School.

HURON — In The Huron Playhouse’s tender, tough and heartbreakingly timely production of the timeless “West Side Story,” there are moments onto which we want to grasp so hard that, if the instances were hands, they’d crunch and go limp.
Those moments include scenes during which the delicate, dreamy young couple Tony and Maria touch each other so gently, you’d think they’re as breakable as the “Glass Menagerie” of animals in the Tennessee Williams play of that title. As embodied by Benjamin Frankart and Jennifer Barnaba, the couple sing to each other quietly and lovingly under soft lighting and a pink, dream-like backdrop.