THE WASP • Albion Theatre

Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s thriller was first performed in 2015 at the Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in London, and now it’s receiving a gripping St. Louis premiere courtesy of Albion Theatre.

It begins with a get-together between Carla (Macia Noorman), very pregnant and smoking liberally, and Heather (Ricki Franklin), smartly dressed and amiable. Heather has asked to meet up with Carla after not having seen her in 20 years since they were mates in school. Their friendship turned sour as they got older, and Carla can’t imagine why Heather would want to reunite after all these years, especially considering that Carla’s bullying made Heather’s life a misery back in the day. After a bit of awkward conversation, Heather produces a bag full of cash and an unexpected proposition that will change them both.

These two women have led very dissimilar lives in the intervening years since primary school. Carla is struggling financially with four kids and a fifth on the way, and a husband who gambles away what little money they have. Heather is financially secure, childless, and her husband is neglectful and unfaithful, seeming to flit from one obsession to the next. His current fixation is with the wasp of the title, in this case, the tarantula hawk. This spider wasp preys on tarantulas, paralyzes them with their sting, and lays eggs in the host, ensuring a creeping certainty of death. Predatory nature indeed looms large in the play, along with the cyclical nature and lingering effects of childhood trauma and bullying. There’s also differences in social class, mirrored down to the differences in the characters’ very well executed dialects.

THE TEMPEST • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

Back for its 26th season, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival returned to the Glen Friday night under a cloud-laden sky for what’s considered to be William Shakespeare’s last solo-written play. This production, directed by St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s previous artistic director, Rick Dildine, has been streamlined to 90 or so minutes with no intermission, and atypically begins with a celebratory prelude. Alonso, the King of Naples (Kathryn A. Bentley), toasts their daughter, newly wed to the King of Tunis, allowing us an early glimpse of the royal entourage before their ship is caught in a violent storm on their way back to Naples. Not far away, Prospero (Nancy Bell), a magician and the deposed Duke of Milan, has been living with her daughter Miranda (Sigrid Wise) on an enchanted island after being left to their own devices twelve years earlier. Prospero’s brother, Antonio (Jeff Cummings), wanted to supplant the popular Prospero as Duke, and conspired with Alonso to send her and her then infant daughter off on a boat headed for the Mediterranean. During her years of exile, Prospero has been honing her skills and plotting her revenge, enlisting a fairy spirit, Ariel (Eliza Pagelle), to assist in achieving her ends. Then there’s Caliban (Chauncy Thomas), the son of a long-dead witch who used to rule over the island. The island, by rights, should belong to him, but Prospero uses her magic to bind Caliban to a life of servitude. It’s Prospero and Ariel’s sorcery that raises the tempest, causing Alonso, Antonio and the rest of their party to be washed ashore and scattered on Prospero’s doorstep - right where she wants them.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF • Fly North Theatricals

After learning that there was going to be a production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Greenfinch Theater & Dive I thought, “Fiddler? In an 80-seat black box theatre?” Fly North Theatricals answered with a thunderous, “absolutely!”, offering a nimble, high-octane staging of this much-loved musical theatre classic. Set in the turn-of-the-century shtetl of Anatevka, Fiddler is teeming with equal measures of the joys and sorrows revolving around Tevye, a humble milkman, his wife Golde, and their five daughters, all living in the ominous shadow of Czarist Russia.

In arguably one of the best opening numbers ever written, “Tradition” doesn’t waste any time introducing the characters, their way of life and the show’s central themes. Anatevka starts off as a nearly bare stage, but quickly comes to life with the everyday activities of its residents as set pieces are brought onstage and frameworks of the shtetl’s buildings are rolled into place. The members of this community endure through their traditions, but change always looms just around the corner. When societal shifts happening in the world outside of Anatevka creep their way into town, the ground beneath Tevye’s feet starts to crumble. How far is he willing to adapt and bend long-held conventions for the sake of his daughters - three of whom have dared to find their own love interests without the help of the local matchmaker?

THE END OF THE WORLD CABARET • Upstream Theater

When Earth, more specifically its inhabitants, disturb the cosmic balance, a comet is sent to annihilate those reckless humans and restore harmony to the solar system. That’s the set up for Austrian playwright, poet, journalist and political activist Jura Soyfer’s 1936 satire, Der Weltuntergang (The End of the World). By combining different versions of Soyfer’s surviving texts, Upstream Theater’s artistic director, Philip Boehm, has given Der Weltuntergang a smart, terribly relevant adaptation, continuing the season’s theme of “When Worlds Collide”. Soyfer’s play was performed in the basement cabarets of Vienna during a time of Austro-fascism, economic depression and the growing influence of Nazi Germany. The underground cabarets were one of the few places where Soyfer’s sharp criticisms of Austria’s authoritarian regime could be expressed. Similar to Netflix’s Don't Look Up, The End of the World Cabaret makes its point not in the impending extinction of humanity, but society’s reactions to it. Tyrants, diplomats, the well-heeled and the hard up are equally skewered, displaying a range of responses that pivot around foolish denial and an opportunistic resilience that would be admirable if it weren’t so depraved. Still, the playwright holds redemption for Earth within reach - a mercy that proved unattainable for Soyfer, who was deported to Dachau and later Buchenwald, where he died at only 26 years old, just days before his scheduled release.

THE HALF-LIFE OF MARIE CURIE • St. Louis Actors' Studio

Polish-born Maria Skłodowska-Curie, better known as Marie Curie, was a brilliant physicist and chemist. In 1903 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics for their shared research in “radiation phenomena”, making her the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize. In 1911 she was awarded another Nobel Prize, in Chemistry this time, for the discovery of radium and polonium, earning her the distinction of being the only woman to win twice, and the only person to win in two different scientific disciplines. But that same year, an affair with a married man landed her in scandal. Her husband had died years earlier, but that didn’t matter. Curie’s adoptive home of France maligned her as a wicked, foreign homewrecker. Curie’s good friend, Hertha Ayrton, an electrical engineer and suffragette who was notable in her own right, came to the rescue and sped Curie away to her seaside home in England to escape the constant hounding from the public and press. This is the setting for St. Louis Actors' Studio’s current offering, co-produced with The Orange Girls theatre company, featuring Meghan Baker as Marie Curie and Michelle Hand as Hertha Ayrton.

Marie Curie (Meghan Baker)
and Hertha Ayrton (Michelle Hand).
Photo credit: Patrick Huber

The Orange Girls strove to find artistically challenging work for female actors, directors and designers, and it's fitting that they are co-producing Half-Life, since Baker and Hand (along with Brooke Edwards) were the founders of the company. The real-life chemistry (no pun intended) between these two actors is evident, and greatly elevates a play that keeps its characters confined to rather narrow registers. With both women excelling in the male-dominated arena of science, Curie and Ayrton could relate to one another on levels that few others could, and the slings and arrows that accompanied their successes made their alliance all the more vital. Hand’s sharp wit and outspoken nature plays well off of Baker’s melancholy, and watching them interact with each other is most engaging. But while there’s no question concerning the gender-biases they faced, playwright Lauren Gunderson's intentions are undisguised, reiterating these issues without providing much depth of character, and little exploration of what sparked their lofty scientific pursuits.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

What to do when you’re a pair of minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, waiting in the wings with no idea why you’re there? In Tom Stoppard’s exceptional Tony Award-winner (1966), Hamlet is seen from the lowly perspective of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two unexceptional courtiers situated along the fringes of the play. Here, they're placed front and center in the midst of a plot they don’t understand and adrift in an inevitable progression of events they can’t control. In association with Albion Theatre, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival kicks off its 2026 season with a striking production of Stoppard’s play that plumbs existential depths with an insight that is, remarkably, as comedic as it is profound.

The fate of our hapless duo is spoiled in the title, but the slow realization of their ultimate end is the thing, as snippets of Hamlet play out sporadically in the background. Ros and Guil’s confusion runs so deep that they’re not even sure of their own names, and a game of coin flipping that comes up “heads” repeatedly sets the tone for the play’s absurdist suspension of natural laws.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK • The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned ghost story when the weather just starts to cool. This one ran for 33 years at the Fortune Theatre in London’s West End before taking its final bow in March of 2023. The Woman in Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill’s 1983 novel, has been touring regionally and internationally for decades, and now the tale is being told here in a staging of the original London production, continuing The Rep’s 59th season.

THE MINUTES • Stray Dog Theatre

In the town of Big Cherry, members of the city council are trickling into their chambers (a wonderfully detailed set by director Justin Been) as Stray Dog Theatre’s smart production of The Minutes begins. There’s not much on earth more mind-numbing than the thought of sitting through exhaustive deliberations on parking spots and stolen bicycles. But the play that unfolds is a cunning orchestration from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts, who brought us Killer Joe, Superior Donuts and most notably, August: Osage County. Letts settles you deep into the humor and tedium of small-town minutiae, while the eerie currents that swirl underneath slowly bubble to the surface to erupt in a razor-sharp reproach of how history’s narratives are shaped.

RAISIN • The Black Rep

In a cramped apartment on Chicago’s South Side, the Youngers are about to receive a windfall from an insurance payout, and a couple members of the family have different ideas about how best to spend it. Based on Lorraine Hansberry’s remarkable landmark drama, A Raisin in the Sun, this Tony award-winning musical adaptation preserves all of the emotional beats of the play, with songs that add breadth to the lives of its characters, while only occasionally interrupting the momentum of the plot. But this is a quibble with the musical, and not the production. Under the direction of The Black Rep’s founder, Ron Himes, Raisin soars and dips through the aspirations and hardships of a working-class family living in the 1950s, when a piece of the American Dream glinted just inside the fringes of what seemed possible.

EVITA • The Muny

Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1979 rock opera begins with a death. 33 year-old Evita Perón’s (Katerina McCrimmon), coffin rests high on a mound of flowers above Argentine mourners who revered her as a saint. But the lamentations are interrupted by Che (Omar Lopez-Cepero), who sees Evita as a master manipulator.

Che (Omar Lopez-Cepero) and the cast of Evita
Phot credit: Phillip Hamer

Given the nickname "Evita" as a term of endearment, the conflicting narratives of Eva Perón’s legacy continue to persist because her rise from the slums of Argentina to the country’s first lady remain iconically universal. The events of Eva’s life are primarily told and not shown, with Rice and Lloyd Webber laying out the opposing accounts before us -- the hero of the working classes vs. the social-climbing tart despised by the elite, letting us walk away to come to our own conclusions.

HAMLET • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

When Michael Khalid Karadsheh’s black-suited, grief-stricken Prince delivers his first soliloquy in St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s 25th Anniversary production of Hamlet, everyone else onstage freezes, and you just know things are likely to end badly for this young Danish royal, along with much of the cast for that matter. Whether it’s Robert Eggers’ The Northman or Disney’s The Lion King, the narrative backbone of these tales is similar; the protagonist is driven to vengeance after his father, the King, is murdered by his uncle, who usurps the throne and hastily marries the queen.

The storms that swept through St. Louis a couple of weeks ago caused considerable damage to the Festival's set and lights in Shakespeare Glen, but this excellent staging opened as scheduled thanks to the herculean efforts of the staff and volunteers who came together to repair and rebuild, with impressive results. Scott C. Neale’s distinctive T-shaped set is a bit of a marvel. Its upstage space is like an open, two-tiered hallway with painted murals against the walls, where cast members are poised at the top of the play - a striking tableau. Later, a modular center section draws your eye to a unique view of... well, a pivotal death. You’ll know it when you see it. And a patch of earth that lies at the foot of the thrust serves as a constant reminder of the sudden passing that sets everything into motion.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: THE MUSICAL • Fly North Theatricals

The Hoovers are a hapless, paper-plate-and-KFC kind of family, all walking under a cloud of their own woes. The only exceptions might be Grandpa, (Ken Haller), recently banned from the area's retirement homes for drug use and lewdness, and youngest daughter Olive (Zoe Klevorn), who dreams of becoming the first Miss America from New Mexico. When a contestant from a local kid’s beauty pageant is disqualified, Olive has a shot to get a step closer to her goal by taking on the Little Miss Sunshine competition in California. And of course, a lot can happen on a road trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, California.

Fly North Theatrical’s production is presented “pay-what-you-want” as part of their Theater for All Initiative (TFAI) - aiming to make seeing and learning the performing arts in St. Louis more financially accessible. This is something FNT’s Artistic Director Colin Healy and Managing Director Bradley Rohlf are passionate about, and the performances of the FNT students working alongside professional actors serve as a clear testament to the program. (You can read more about that here.) 

MEET ME AT DAWN • Upstream Theater

In Upstream Theater’s unflinching season closer, a simple platform standing in for a sandbank, clusters of grass, a window fragment and long rolling clouds greet audiences walking into The Marcelle’s black box. But what plays out onstage is a surreal confrontation with a looming heartache that hangs over anyone who’s ever loved.

After washing up on an island after a brutal boating accident, Robyn (Lizi Watt) is primarily concerned with her girlfriend, Helen (Michelle Hand), and if she’s okay. Both of them seem to be in shock. Helen is soaking wet and surging with adrenaline at their survival while Robyn is disoriented and nauseous. How did they get here? Through their attempts to try to figure out exactly where they are and how they’ll find a way home, we get the sense that the island they’re marooned on is not exactly temporal.

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE • Albion Theatre

The hail and strong winds that moved through St. Louis Friday night were no match for the storm brewing on the Kranzberg stage in Albion Theatre’s terrific production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane. In the first of playwright Martin McDonagh’s, “The Leenane Trilogy”, The Beauty Queen’s premise sounds pretty ordinary; 40-year-old Maureen is trapped as primary caregiver to her ailing mother Mag, when chance brings Pato, an old acquaintance of Maureen’s into the fray, posing as a beacon of hope for Maureen and an existential threat to Mag. But McDonagh doesn’t really do ordinary. Maureen, Mag, and much of the town it seems, are mired in the isolation of the rugged countryside village of Leenane in County Galway, Ireland, nursing long-held grudges. Playing out in the Folan family’s claustrophobic kitchen (provided by Chuck Winning’s nicely appointed set and Majorie Williamson’s set painting), the bleak state of affairs that McDonagh’s characters are stuck in unfold with reversals that seem inevitable, but still unsettle and disarm you with gasp-inducing jolts alongside surprising fragments of warmth. Martin McDonagh typically doesn’t waste time on lengthy exposition, so I'll try not to go into too much detail here. The less you know, the better. But all in all, it’s really kind of fucked up, but in the best, most captivating way possible.

CLYDE’S • The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

In playwright Lynn Nottage’s 2021 comedy, the ex-cons aiming for a fresh start working at Clyde’s have found themselves out of the frying pan and into the fire, more like purgatory, of a dingy truck stop sandwich joint. Their boss, who shares a criminal past and the sandwich shop’s name, strikes fear into the hearts of her crew and could perhaps best be described as evil incarnate.