by RICK DANLEY // November 29, 2018 Marriage is the fat on which the modern American theater has feasted for years. Tennessee Williams. William Inge. Eugene O’Neill. Neil Simon. Sam Shepard. Sarah Ruhl. Tracy Letts. All playwrights who’ve cheerfully tucked their socks into their swamp boots and taken a flying leap into the nuptial morass … Continue reading Love Among the Lizards
by RICK DANLEY // March 22, 2019 It must be the case that among the many performing arts events staged each year in Iola, nine out of ten are family-friendly. And that’s nice…if, you know, family-friendly is your thing. The Iola Community Theatre, on the other hand — in its expert staging of “Avenue Q,” … Continue reading Avenue Q
Painting tucked away in Iola bank vault could be worth $500K by RICK DANLEY // May 29, 2018 In January of 1922, nearly thirty years after swapping his native Sweden for the rolling plains of central Kansas, the painter Birger Sandzén received his first one-man show in New York City. To this day, that exhibition at … Continue reading Hidden History: Sandzen in Kansas
by RICK DANLEY // May 4, 2017 Every play should have at least one character who describes another character as smelling “like a bucket of hot links” — but only one play does. The Allen Community College theater department delivers another knockout in their production of “Dearly Beloved,” an exuberant wedding comedy set in a gossipy … Continue reading ‘Dearly Beloved’
by RICK DANLEY // April 4, 2019 Perhaps the most immaculately acted theater event you’ll see this year, Iola High School’s musical version of “The Wizard of Oz” runs tonight and tomorrow at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center from 7 to 9 p.m. I’ll spare you the plot. “The Wizard of Oz” rests with such … Continue reading A Whiz of a Wiz if Ever There Was
by RICK DANLEY // February 28, 2019 There are times when a small-town reporter, reviewing a local theatrical event, is obligated, out of kindness, to fudge the truth, to conceal from the reading public the production’s major blemishes and emphasize instead what a good job! everyone did or how great the costumes looked. But then, very occasionally, … Continue reading 5 Shorts Plays to Frighten & Amuse
by RICK DANLEY // September 22, 2016 There’s a certain type of American male for whom the Hollywood Western acts upon his system like a comfort food. It’s consolingly basic, composed of the same ingredients every time, and is — aside from a handful of artful exceptions — relatively easy to digest. Looking across the Atlantic … Continue reading Keaton & the West
by RICK DANLEY // April 21, 2018 Decades of shoe-leather reporting taught the New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell that, as sure as the key to a good movie lies in the casting, the secret to any great story depends on the subject at its center. But great characters don’t fall from the sky. You have to … Continue reading Another Round
by RICK DANLEY // September 27, 2017 To the list of classic movie quotes — “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” (“Gone With the Wind”); “We’ll always have Paris” (“Casablanca”); “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse” (“The Godfather”); “You’re going to need a bigger boat” (“Jaws”) — I’d nominate another. … Continue reading The Bloody Benders
by RICK DANLEY // November 10, 2016 The stage direction for Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play “Our Town” are simple: “No curtain. No scenery.” Wilder believed that the theater of his day had become too obsessed with spectacle. Directors loaded the stage with period furniture and elaborate costumes and realistic set design — what Wilder called the … Continue reading ‘Our Town’
RG danley 