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Hamilton
I love a good at-home viewing party as much as the next person; screens and sweatpants are a match made in heaven. But Disney’s pro-shot live-stage recording of the multiple Tony award-winning Hamilton doesn’t come close to the real thing. True spectacle needs space – especially when that spectacle rocked the musical world and ushered in a new era of what can make a Broadway show. Experience Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rapping revolutionaries “in the room where it happens.” Here’s hoping you escape without King George’s songs on loop for the rest of your life (if so, you’ve got me beat). – Cat McCarreyThrough April 6
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Arts
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Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical!
Beep beep! Make way for this vehicular bird, who springs from author Mo Willem’s Pigeon picture books onto the Zach stage for this family-friendly musical. Originally commissioned by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the production is suitable for kids 3 years old and up – so a perfect pick if you’ve got antsy toddlers yearning to dance and sing during stageplays. Plotwise, this isn’t a challenging piece: When a bus driver disembarks from their seat, a mischievous fowl takes the wheel to expectedly chaotic results. Feathers will fly, I’m told. – James ScottThrough May 18 -
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MotherTree
Looking to branch out in your live performance viewing? Leaf it to the Vortex Theatre – purveyors of “urgent, unashamed art to create action in a shifting age” – to provide a production unlike any other. Planted by producing Artistic Director Bonnie Cullum with music direction by Anderson Dear, stagecraft meets climate science in this exploration of the human connection to trees. In keeping with the theatre’s goal to promote active praxis through performance, themes of beauty, magic, and grief are woven together by ensemble members Gabriel Maldonado, Caili Crow, Nicole Boyd, Alaithia Velez, Benjamin Cervantes, Blaise Ricin, Sigh, Pablo Munoz-Evers, Katrina Saporsantos, Tyaga Welch, Laura D’Eramo, and Logan Lasiter. It’s not going out on a limb to say the current climate crisis affects us all, so join the Vortex as “we travel through the mycorrhizal network to learn from the Trees.” – James ScottThrough April 20 -
Arts
Theatre
Steel Magnolias
Do you need to drive all the way to Cottonwood Shores for a good cry? If you’re a fan of Steel Magnolias – either Robert Harling’s original stage play or Herbert Ross’ 1989 film with Sally Field and Julia Roberts – then the answer is heck yeah. The crying part doesn’t really come on till the end; first you get to laugh, a lot, at this big-personality buncha Southern ladies supporting one of their own with a debilitating illness. (My fave of the bunch is definitely Ouiser, and Shirley MacLaine’s version is my icon, in style – gardening overalls – and comportment – sour-faced – both.) But I’m not gonna sugarcoat it: There will be weeping, so best bring Kleenex. Opening night is Friday, March 28. – Kimberley JonesThrough April 13Hill Country Community Theatre, 4003 W. Ranch to Market Rd. 2147, Cottonwood Shores, -
Arts
Theatre
Walden (remix)
Is anyone truly alone anymore? We’ve got the entire world in our pockets: a steady stream of information and connections at our fingertips. What would happen if we were just… left to ourselves? Playwright KJ Sanchez tackles that and other questions of social justice and conservation in Walden (remix). Instead of strictly retelling Henry David Thoreau’s isolated-ish years in a cabin by Walden Pond, Sanchez adds a spacey twist. Astronaut “H” lives alone on the moon, harvesting matter for Earth’s energy crisis. Ties to friends and family start to fade. Her AI companion starts to evolve. Questions arise about the corporation she works for. Sanchez explores potential next steps for our existence, grounding us further in Thoreau’s root concerns. “Things do not change; we change.” – Cat McCarreyApril 3-13