Author: Jim Farmer

Well, surprise surprise! Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita isn’t the most expected choice for a makeover of sorts but the current touring version, compact and smartly cast, is a dandy production, as likely to satisfy those diehards (like me) with their “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” ringtones as well as newbies who don’t know Eva Perón…

It all depends on the lottery. Literally. That’s the premise of the Atlanta Fringe Festival, where artists submit their work, bite their nails and wait to see whether their number gets pulled out of a hat for a green light.  Now in its third season, the 2014 Atlanta Fringe Festival — running June 5–8 —…

More so than most musicals, Godspell is a production that is dependent on a director behind the scenes not only able to guide its ensemble through the paces of its familiar folk score, but also one able to center the piece and find its own universe. In his just-opened take of the 1971 Stephen Schwartz…

The Alliance Theatre touted its upcoming 2014–2015 schedule with its “Taste of the Season” event on Tuesday evening, top-heavy with talent from the new season, including playwright Robert Harling of Steel Magnolias fame.  It’s an ambitious schedule with its share of world premieres and remounts, as well as a returning favorite. The big fall premiere…

First made popular in Roald Dahl’s 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then (most notably) in the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the character of Willy Wonka has remained a cultural icon. Even Tim Burton and Johnny Depp tried their luck with him in a 2005 feature. The rarely produced…

Ann Kirschner always wondered about it. Her mother, Sala Garncarz Kirschner, had a secret past before coming to America; for most of her life it was a period of time she didn’t feel comfortable discussing. “You could not ask about her life before entering the United States,” Kirschner says. “She would shut down any conversation….

When Broadway star Shuler Hensley was in high school at the Westminster Schools, he vividly remembers evenings going to football practice and then high-tailing it to be able to make theater practice as well. That was almost unheard of back then — someone placing a musical on the same level as football — but these…

As students at Kennesaw State University, Phillip Justman and Marium Khalid realized they shared not only a passion for theater but the kind of work that interested them. Soon after they graduated, they formed a few unions of their own — not only did the pair get married but they also started their own theater…