D. L. Groover - HoustonNewMedia.org

Lady Day at Stages Opens Up the Heartache and Talent of Billie Holiday for All To See

D. L. Groover — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 11:58:00 +0000

When iconic jazz musician Billie Holiday died in 1959 at NYC's Metropolitan Hospital, she had been, only one week before, handcuffed to her bed. Once again, she was under arrest for narcotics possession. When she admitted herself under her friends' ins...

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See White Rabbit, Red Rabbit But Don’t Tell Anyone What You Find Out

D. L. Groover — Sat, 24 Apr 2021 13:24:00 +0000

When young Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour, who had been teaching set design at the University of Tehran, was summoned for compulsory military service, he declared himself a conscientious objector. In Iran under the harsh boot of the mullahs, that was not ...

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The Book of Magdalene Offers a New Take on an Old Saint

D. L. Groover — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 10:00:00 +0000

The biblical, and now sainted, Mary of Magdala has sloughed through quite a journey during the last two thousand years. As a beloved disciple of Christ, she helped bankroll his ministry, saw him crucified, buried, and was the first person to witness hi...

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Houston Christmas Stage Offerings in Virtual Format Courtesy of 2020

D. L. Groover — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 16:19:00 +0000

In the continuing pandemic when all stages are shuttered, the only refuge we have as theatergoers is to watch the computer screen. At best, theaters are attempting to employ their actors and stagehands and provide us with much needed diversion. Unfortu...

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Don Giovanni al fresco at Moores Opera Center

D. L. Groover — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 00:57:00 +0000

Sing Hosanna and Jubilate, there is praise to be given. The first live performance of an opera in Houston since COVID-19 locked down every theater in town, which has cursed us for nine months and counting, is happening at the University of Houston Moor...

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Tales from a Safe Distance at Opera in the Heights: An Unbridled Success

D. L. Groover — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:30:00 +0000

As long as Covid-19 continues to plague us, theater must make do with restrictive safety precautions. While theater streaming has relied mostly on Zoom-style productions with individual panels stitched together, opera has flourished and been a fount of...

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Opera Tweets: Vinkensport with Houston Grand Opera

D. L. Groover — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:00:00 +0000

In this never-ending pandemic with its restrictive social distancing edicts, there is hope. Who would have thought that the most promising spot would be the opera house? I turn your attention and your clicks to Houston Grand Opera's digital production,...

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Joel Sandel Takes Center Stage in Main Street Theater’s Virtual RFK

D. L. Groover — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 16:34:00 +0000

It should be stated often and loudly, Houston is blessed by a host of the finest acting talent anywhere. Naming them would be obscene, for I would surely forget to mention one of them and all hell would break loose. But standing center stage, with penn...

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A Magnetic Performance by Sally Edmundson in A Woman of the World

D. L. Groover — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 09:00:00 +0000

My favorite theater critic has always been Addison DeWitt, that bitchy, manipulative, sharp-clawed writer in All About Eve. Played as if etched with acid by George Sanders, he gets many of Joseph L. Mankiewicz' finest zingers. In one scene, in reaction...

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Sensitive Guys May Be the Wokest Thing You See This Theater Season

D. L. Groover — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 09:30:00 +0000

Watching Stages' slick, well-acted, Zoom-inspired production of MJ Kaufman's Sensitive Guys, I consider myself fortunate to have finished my school days eons ago. That would have been in the dark ages, way before snowflakes, empowerment, toxic masculin...

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Musical Theater Resurrected! For One Performance At Least

D. L. Groover — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 17:59:00 +0000

Hooray! Theater has finally opened in Houston! The venue is the intimate cabaret space, The Music Box Theater. It's the size of a shoe box, long and narrow, but the revues produced within are expansive and roof-raising, the current one being no excepti...

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4th Wall Presents a Glorious Time at the Theater With Between Riverside and Crazy

D. L. Groover — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 12:45:00 +0000

Just like at Spindletop, 4th Wall Theatre Company has struck oil. Hell, forget oil, they've struck gold! With this glistening production of Stephen Adly Guirgis' Between Riverside and Crazy (2014), 4th Wall bursts into the best-of-the-best. What a glor...

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A Critic Doesn’t Look Forward to Weeks Without Houston Theater

D. L. Groover — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000

What are we to do? How much self-quarantine can theatergoers endure without a healthy dose of art to inoculate us against the slings and arrows of everyday life? We will see, I guess. Many theaters in Houston (Alley, Catastrophic, Stages, Miller Outdoo...

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George Orwell’s 1984 Brought Into the Light at Alley Theatre

D. L. Groover — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 12:35:00 +0000

The dystopian world of George Orwell's Oceania in the Alley Theatre's production of 1984 isn't as dystopian as it used to be. It's clean and bright and cubic as if a Philip Johnson interior. It has polished gray metallic-like walls, designer lamps for ...

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Who’s the Bully in From White Plains at MATCH?

D. L. Groover — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 14:07:00 +0000

Thunderclap Productions, who's that? Weeks ago, I received an Evite to review their latest show, From White Plains, at Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston. Latest? Who are they, and what other shows have I missed? I looked them up. Oh, that company...

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New Opera: The Leader May Go the Distance

D. L. Groover — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 13:05:00 +0000

Opera in the Heights' New Works Festival, a two-weekend presentation of world premieres has a winner in The Leader. I believe this one will have a full afterlife. Composer Karim Al-Zand teaches at the Shepherd's School of Music at Rice University, and ...

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A Good Cast Works Hard in Yeltsin in Texas

D. L. Groover — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 13:52:00 +0000

Opera world premieres don't grow on trees. They're expensive, time consuming, and usually a logistic nightmare to prepare. Also they're a big gamble. With yet another production of Boheme at least the design team and the audience know what to expect. W...

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The New Black Magic of Paul Hope & Co. at Ovations

D. L. Groover — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000

What is it that make a Paul Hope Cabaret revue so damn delicious? Its latest revue, That Old Black Magic, the '40s Songs of Harold Arlen is about as tasty as you would want. In the intimate space of Ovations Night Club, you sit snuggled up against othe...

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The Bad Boy of Norway: Ibsen’s Peer Gynt at Classical Theatre

D. L. Groover — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 13:50:00 +0000

Classical Theatre Company has answered a question I've pondered for years, Why is Henrik Ibsen's seminal drama Peer Gynt (1876) such a rarity? The only stage production I've seen has been Ben Stevenson's 1981 version for Houston Ballet, a phantasmagori...

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Music Box Theater Scores With Another Version of Broadway at the Box

D. L. Groover — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 13:58:00 +0000

If you're any fan of the Broadway musical – who isn't, really – then the intimate cabaret revues produced by Music Box Theater are required listening. Its latest version, Broadway at the Box, 2020 is no exception. Actually, it proves the rule. You know...

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