Live Entertainment

Anastasia is a newer musical, opening on Broadway in 2017 and currently on the road for its first U.S. Tour. It’s playing at the Fabulous Fox Theatre December 26, 2018 – January 6, 2019. Based loosely on the Don Bluth-directed animated feature from 1997, the musical adapts the myth of the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, daughter of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II. In gossip that grew into national folklore, young Anastasia somehow survived the brutal massacre of her family at the hands of the Bolshevik Revolution. Don Bluth’s animated version changed some of the more gruesome details for the sake of the children that would comprise much of his audience. The musical does not, and while it doesn’t recreate the last moments of the Russian Royal Family’s terrible demise in gory detail, it could be a little unsettling for small children.

Since 1964, the Rankin/Bass animated film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has been a holiday staple for several generations. Featuring Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman, who regaled the viewers watching at home with his unmistakable voice on classics like “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Silver and Gold,” and of course the title track, the show was an instant classic. In the last few years, the show has been adapted for the theatrical stage by playwright Robert Penola and uses the original lyrics and score by Johnny Marks.  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: the Musical played the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis December 22 – 23, 2018.  

Who doesn’t love the tradition of the holidays? Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, crazy lines at department stores, Charlie Brown, the Grinch, Rudolph and Frosty…and live a cappella music to delight the mind and warm the heart. For as many years as Straight No Chaser has been coming to the Fabulous Fox Theatre to perform around the holidays, I’ve had the privilege to attend and review their show. It’s always a fun evening of new and classic pop songs and holiday favorites.   This year, Straight No Chaser is on tour to promote their seventh full length album, One Shot.

Victor Hugo’s enormous novel about a failed student uprising in post-Revolution France would seem an unlikely source for a much beloved musical theatre production. Nonetheless, Les Misérables has run continuously in London’s famous West End theatre district since it premiered in 1985, and has had tremendous staying power the world over. The Les Misérables National Tour has arrived in St. Louis for a sadly too brief stay at the Fabulous Fox Theatre. Running only from December 11 through December 16, 2018, this production was a bit different from my first experience with the show and largely much better for it.

Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure is a hybrid of the traditional Lewis Carroll tale of a young girl trying to make sense of her crazy world and modern rock concert. It doesn’t try to completely emulate the beloved Disney animated film that so many us remember fondly from our youth. With a modest but effective set design and a bevy of jams to give the old standards a kick in the pants, this Metro Theatre Company production turns the volume and the energy up to 11.

Disney's Aladdin brings the usual splendor and fun you've come to expect from a Disney Broadway production with its limited St. Louis premiere engagement at the fabulous Fox Theatre, running November 7 - 25, 2018. Please note that an early version of Aladdin played the Muny in Forest Park back in 2012, and this show is from the Broadway script, not the earlier production. 

Carol Burnett is a national treasure. Her groundbreaking television variety show "Carol Burnett and Friends" propelled her to super-stardom. Now 84, the legendary performer returned to St. Louis, Mo, where she once graced the stage of The Muny opposite Rock Hudson in "I Do! I Do!" This time she had the Stiefel Theatre stage all to herself for "Carol Burnett, an Evening of Laughter and Reflection."

Magic. Some people can't stand to be fooled. Others thrill at having their expectations toyed with. Having seen The Illusionists Live from Broadway tour last year I thought this time is know what to expect. Perhaps I'd catch their expert slight of hand technique falter and figure out how their trick was done. 

Despite having seen the tour twice now, I'm still flummoxed! I have a theory or two, but there's a reason why these guys are masters of their craft. They're phenomenally good.

It was the last evening of 1879 when Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance debuted to great success. Now, just a few months shy of an even 140 years, New Line Theatre has debuted a "long lost early draft" where Gilbert had a different kind of scurvy-ridden, rotted-toothed, snarling adversary in mind for a Modern Major General and his darling daughters. 

"The Phantom of the Opera" is, unfathomably, they longest running Broadway musical of all time. It's also a disturbing gothic rape fantasy, for which Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a masterful score. When the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, announced that Webber's sequel "Love Never Dies" would open the 2018-2019 Broadway Series, the thought off sitting through another long, sung-through, gothic rape fantasy chased with a double shot of stalker fantasy all set to more Webber orchestration was not one of love. Of course, there was always the possibility that Webber's music paired with Glenn Slater lyrics and Ben Elton's book would raise this continuing tale of unlikable Parisians above its overachieving predecessor. 

Calling the Beatles "influential" to rock and roll is an understatement. They were as essential to music as oxygen is to life. I was seven years old when John Lennon was taken from the world, forever ending any chance of a Fab Four reunion. As time marched on, seeing at least one Beatle perform live had become a "bucket list" item. Thanks to Ringo Starr, that box is finally checked.

At 78 years of age, you might think Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band would be a show that relies on nostalgia over musicianship. Rest assured, Ringo, aka Sir Richard Starkey, is still the infectiously charming performer he's been since the Beatles early days. As a drummer he's been immensely influential and inconceivably still underrated by "experts" in such matters. All of Ringo's many talents were on display as the thirteenth iteration of the All-Starr Band played a lively show at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.

It was my very first convention. I do not do well around crowds, nor am I a people person. Much like James Halliday, I prefer the solitude of a book, video game, movie, or SyFy television show. The convention center seemed to be a fictional reality like the Oasis. I saw all sorts of things that sparked the imagination; my boyhood dreams came to life. What Easter Eggs could I find in a center filled with tens of thousands of eager game enthusiasts? Would I likely find love, like Wade Watts? Absolutely -- in fellow game designers sharing the same passion: creating games for the children.

When Scott Miller announced that New Line Theatre was doing Anything Goes during their 27^th season, the local theatre crowd was abuzz – it seemed too “safe” of a show for the bad boys of musical theatre. Of course they put on a dynamite production. The counterpoint production this season is clearly Yeast Nation, a musical about…yeast. Not the bread kind per se, or any other culinary culture, but the base of the primordial food chain, the single-celled stock of the soup of life. Is it weird? Yes. Is it New Line turned up to eleven, zany and shocking and well-acted with music and songs that are, dare I say it, infectious? Yes, indeed! Yeast Nation is easily the most bizarre musical you’ll see this year and perhaps for many years to come.

WrestlePro makes it's long awaited return to their home at the Rahway Recreation Center in Rahway, NJ on Friday, June 8. Tickets are on sale here!

There are some real big names in the house this month. Tyson Kidd, Demolition, D'Lo Brown, RVD, and Mene Gene Okerland are all here, plus we have Ultimo Dragon, James Ellworth, Flip Gordon, Colt Cobana, and Brandi Rhodes wrestling, along with the always terrific WrestlePro originals.

As usual, WrestlePro has a stacked card, and I am here with your predictions!

When the first National Tour of The Book of Mormon arrived at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis several years ago, I was excited to see it. The hype at that time rivaled what you hear about Hamilton today. The show featured book, music and lyrics written by the creators of Comedy Central’s flagship South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Avenue Q creator Robert Lopez, who also wrote the music for Disney’s animated blockbuster, Frozen. I expected to be in fits of uncontrollable laughter amid moments where my jaw would hang agape at a line that only Archie Bunker or Eric Cartman could get away with. When it was all over, I remember feeling let down. I described it like a boxer pulling their punches when they have their opponent against the ropes. Instead of going in for the crushing blow, they’d stick the jab and then back off.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 and Part 2

Lyric Theatre in New York City

Main Cast

The Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis is host to the national tour of Hamilton, April 3 – 22, 2018. It’s easily the most anticipated show to hit our town’s venerated stage since perhaps the first tour of The Lion King. Over the last few weeks, theatre-minded friends have been talking about the show nonstop. Some have seen it on Broadway. Others have made road trips to catch the tour at stops prior to St. Louis. Many have memorized the cast recording and added hundreds of hits to various YouTube clips. It wasn’t until the night before the performance I was slated to see that I started to get a little apprehensive. The hype for Hamilton has been ridiculously high. How could it possibly live up to the hype?

Hey DJ, gimme a beat…

Hamilton was created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was inspired by Ron Chernow’s book about one of the founders of America.

The national tour of The Color Purple swept into the Fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis on the first day of spring, March 20, 2018. I have never read the book nor seen the movie, so this was to be my first experience with the Pulitzer Prize-winning story by Alice Walker. I had managed to see the opening credits of the film a handful of times, but I had always attempted to start watching it too late at night and wound up sleeping through it every time. That streak finally came to end and I must admit I was rather shocked by what I’d missed all these years.

New Line Theatre describes itself as “the bad boy of musical theatre.” Co-directors Scott Miller and Mike Dowdy-Windsor certainly never shy away from edgy, sometimes uncomfortable material and have had great success with productions that were terrible flops on Broadway.  Why, then, would these two wild and crazy guys put Anything Goes in the middle of New Line’s 27^th season? Isn’t that the polar opposite of a New Line production? Heck, people bring their kids to the free seats at the Muny in Forest Park to see the big splashy tour shows of Anything Goes. Is Scott Miller finally mellowing out after all these years doing shows like Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Celebration, and Jerry Springer – The Opera?