Past Reviews

December 4, 2009
Triad Stage’s Beautiful Star Tells an Appalachian Nativity Story
Theatre Review by Lynn Jessup
Classical Voice of North Carolina

For many years, the little country church I grew up in had a Christmas Eve play, and it was the highlight of the year. I can look back and mark my growth through the parts I played, and watching Triad Stage’s Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity was like revisiting those years.
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November 25, 2009
Triad Stage’s SantaLand Diaries Offers Holiday Satire at Its Finest
Theatre Review by Keith Barber
YES! Weekly

Charles M. Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts comic strip, railed against the commercialization of Christmas in the TV animated holiday classic, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Schulz’s method of delivering his message came in the form of a sweet, heartwarming story about Charlie Brown’s search for the true meaning of Christmas. David Sedaris took a slightly different approach with his 1992 NPR radio essay, SantaLand Diaries. If A Charlie Brown Christmas is the G-rated version of holiday satire, SantaLand Diaries definitely merits an R.
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October 28, 2009
Triad Stage’s Oleanna Does Justice to Mamet's Vision
Theatre Review by Keith Barber
YES! Weekly

The tile-covered walls deep inside Triad Stage reverberated with the voices of men who had been unnerved by what they had just witnessed. Opening night of David Mamet’s Oleanna sparked a vigorous postmortem in the men’s room. “That’s why you always have a third person in the room!” one gentleman exclaimed. Nearly everyone inside the lavatory either nodded or voiced their agreement.
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October 25, 2009
Triad Stage’s Oleanna Is an Eyebrow-Raising He Said, She Said
Theatre Review by Lynn Jessup
Classical Voice of North Carolina

A theater, like a symphony, needs to take on intellectually challenging projects, as much for its audiences as itself, if it exists truly for the edification of the community. Triad Stage’s latest production, Oleanna, written by David Mamet, is one of those productions.
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September 11, 2009
Triad Stage Kicks off New Season with Picnic
Theatre Review by Christine McCarthy
The Community Arts Café

Triad Stage has opened their “Season Together” with a winner! Their production of William Inge’s “Picnic” was energetic and moving, comedic and heartbreaking, much like the human condition.
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September 11, 2009
Triad Stage’s Picnic Is a Superb Rendition of a Theater Classic
Theatre Review by Lynn Jessup
Classical Voice of North Carolina

Staging a period production is always a challenge: modernizing it inflicts change, and audiences don’t always like change; keeping the integrity of the era in which it was written runs the risk of seeming old-fashioned and stilted. Triad Stage’s Picnic manages to overcome both challenges: while keeping the feel and face of the 1950s, when William Inge wrote the play, Triad Stage artistic director Preston Lane has made the show as fresh and titillating as a work wet off the press.
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June 14, 2009
Triad Stage’s Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite Is a Riotous Blast from the Past
Theatre Review by Lynn Jessup
Classical Voice of North Carolina

Any way you translate it, Triad Stage’s Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite is a riotous blast from the past. Who’d have thought a 300-year-old play, a French one at that, could feel so fresh and sharp?
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May 12, 2009
Trailer trash in The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead
Theatre Review by Perry Tannenbaum
Creative Loafing

Up in Greensboro, you also have just a few more days to catch the regional premiere of Robert Hewitt's The Blonde, the Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead at Triad Stage. It's a one-woman show starring Kate Goehring -- and a curious assortment of wigs and hats as she portrays five women, a man and a boy.
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May 3, 2009
The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead at Triad Stage Takes Wing in the Second Act
Theatre Review by Lynn Jessup
Classical Voice of North Carolina

The title The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead, aptly describes the three main characters in Triad Stage’s current production of Australian playwright Robert Hewett’s 2004 one-woman show.
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November 26, 2008
A dispatch from Santaland on stage
Theatre Review by Keith Barber
YES! Weekly

Who among us hasn’t felt at some point in our lives just a little bit cynical about the holiday season? Even Charlie Brown railed against the commercialism of Christmas in Charles Schulz’s animated masterwork, A Charlie Brown Christmas.
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October 31, 2008
Review of Triad Stage’s newest play, 'Bell, Book and Candle'
Theatre Review by Joe Scott
Greensboro News & Record

In his note for Triad Stage’s newest play, “Bell, Book and Candle,” director John Feltch points out that this story about a community of witches and warlocks hiding in plain sight is an apt metaphor for the gay community circa 1950.
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September 13, 2008
Actors, setting excel in "Iguana"
Theatre Review by Joe Scott
Greensboro News & Record

With "The Night of the Iguana," director Preston Lane and his team at Triad Stage put me in a rare predicament. They put me in the position of having to ask myself which part is better about their play, the acting or the show's production values.
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June 16, 2008
“Blackbeard” unleashes terror at Triad Stage
Theatre Review by Brian Rose
Burlington Times-News

Triad Stage is calling “Bloody Blackbeard” one of its biggest productions ever, and after seeing the play, it’s hard to argue with that assessment.
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June 14, 2008
Ahoy: “Blackbeard” Serves Up Pageantry
Theatre review by Mary Martin-Niepold
Winston-Salem Journal

He terrifies those around him and loves drawing blood as much as stealing treasure and conquering women. He is Blackbeard, the stuff of pirate legend, and the star of Triad Stage’s most recent production, Bloody Blackbeard, which opened Thursday night in Greensboro.
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