I’d arrived at the Sunset Playhouse a bit early. The show wasn’t set to start for another half hour, so I nestled into the lobby and waited with an MGD Lite from the concessons stand. The wall between both entrances to the Sunset’s Furlan Auditorium, usually filled with photos of cast and crew members, was largely blank. Their latest show is a production of the Bernard Slade romantic comedy ...

After a weekend with five openings comes . . . a week with four more openings. Starting tonight there are another quartet of shows that will be opening their doors this week. Here’s a quick glance at what’s ahead for the weekend in theatre . . . SECRETS OF A SOCCER MOM—The Boulevard Theatre continues its season with a production of a contemporary comedy about three mothers at a kids’ socce...

In 1970, British playwright Michael Frayn was watching a production of a farce he had written about a dinner party in which two actors played all the roles. He was watching from the wings. Realizing that the comedy was funnier from this perspective, Frayn decided to write a farce set entirely backstage. Thus was born the 1982 classic Noises Off...

In high school, I found myself acting in More Than Meets The Eye--  a dreary, dated stage comedy by the inexplicably prolific Vermont-based playwright Fred Carmichael. As I and several other high school students clattered through rehearsals of what we knew to be a pretty bad playin the spring of 1995, our director had mentioned being in a production of Noises Off, (I believe at Appleton’s At...

The journey out to Elm Grove was not entirely pleasant. The Number 10 bus was prompt in getting me within walking distance of the Sunset Playhouse, but with sub-zero temperatures, a walk from the bus stop that was often enjoyable was slightly agonizing. The parking lot was packed for opening night of the new musical. A woman named Lucky, the Sunset’s Slightly Crunchy box office greeted me with t...

The first eight or nine pages of Pat Cook's script are written as casual conversation held by three elderly women in a domestic environment. All three women are talking at the same time- no one's listening. It's a comically surreal way to begin the season in Elm Grove as the Sunset Playhouse opens its production of Those Crazy Ladies in the House on the Corner . . .

Though the show remains highly popular, it’s been more than a decade since the last major revival of Ross, Adler, Abbott and Wallop’s Damn Yankees. And, in an interesting twist, the mid-’90s Broadway revival may have cost the Sunset Playhouse’s Mark Salentine a spot in the Blue Man Group...

Sunset Playhouse tackles a tough challenge with its latest production, The Boys Next Door. Written in 1985, the play attempts to raise awareness of issues faced by the cognitively disabled. Often, this type of “message” play is long on exposition and short on entertainment. The Sunset production, however, manages to balance both elements quite well. Credit goes to director Mark Salentine for keeping the show on task throughout its two-and-a-half-hour running time.

The Sunset Playhouse’s latest production mines humor from one of the most unlikely, sensitive sources: people with developmental disabilities. Tom Griffin’s comic drama The Boys Next Door deftly walks the line people complexity and accessibility by treating its characters as three-dimensional human beings instead of resorting . . .

Tom Griffin’s comic drama The Boys Next Door brilliantly showcases a poignant, humorous story about people with developmental disabilities. The play deftly walks the line between complexity and accessibility by treating the characters as three-dimensional human beings instead of resorting to juvenile . . .