Marriage On the Rocks at The Rep: A Review of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’
By Patsy Isenberg Two couples engage in a late night drinking fest — all the while dangerously dissecting their marriages — in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” now playing at the Flint Repertory Theatre. The play opens on the hosts of the evening’s festivities, George and Martha, who have just returned home from a faculty party given by the president of the university where George teaches history. Already pretty boozed...
‘Into the Side of a Hill’ brings step to The Rep
by Patsy Isenberg Though “Into the Side of a Hill” made its world premier just this February at the FIM Flint Repertory Theatre, playwright James Anthony Tyler had been thinking about writing it since 2016. According to the playbill, Tyler said the idea “stuck with me” for a few years, even as he composed a different play before he set to work on penning this one. “Into the Side of a Hill” is directed and co-choreographed by Ken-Matt...
Review: “Call Them by Their True Names” by Rebecca Solnit
By Robert Thomas Subtitled American Crises (and Essays), Call Them by Their True Names is Rebecca Solnit’s powerful 2018 collection of timely essays. The book’s forward, “Politics and the American Language,” sets the author’s course in sifting the wheat from the chaff that is the contemporary Babel of linguistic chicanery. “Calling things by their true names is the work I have tried to do in the essays...
Flint Repertory Theatre kicks off 2022-23 season with Death of a Salesman
By Patsy Isenberg Arthur Miller’s 1949 Death of a Salesman opened Sept. 23 to a full house of enraptured theatergoers at Flint’s Repertory Theatre (The Rep). For this opening night of the new season, food and drinks were served before the play began and a champagne toast was offered afterward — perhaps to help salve the gloomy effect of the plot. The play runs through Oct. 9 and tickets can be purchased at...
Review: Fantastic adaptation of “The Fantasticks” celebrates a new perspective
By Patsy Isenberg and Tom Travis A festive conclusion of The Rep’s final presentation of the season, The Fantasticks, opened to an appreciative full house Friday, June 3. The iconic musical is the longest-running production in the history of the American stage and one of the most frequently produced musicals in the world. The Rep’s production, while respectful of that history, also offers something different. A pre-show...
Review: Connor Coyne’s URBANTASM Book Four: THE SPRING STORM finishes the gripping allegory with a hammer blow
By Robert Thomas The publication of the fourth and final book of Flint author Connor Coyne’s serial novel, URBANTASM, marks the finale of his epic allegory set in the heart of the American Rust Belt in the fictional city of Akawe, Michigan, somewhere north of Detroit. As befits any gripping serial, The Spring Storm delivers a hammer blow with a rollicking readerly ride through a perfect storm of rusty decay and an abundance of evil. ...
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