City Paper’s reviewers were dispatched across the city Friday night to take in as many shows as possible. We posted reviews throughout the day as soon as we got them. (We’ll be posting more from Saturday night soon.)
In case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s a handy list of what’s been reviewed and the grades we assigned them with links to the full review.
Piccolo Fringe had a strong opening night. Perennial favorites Banana Monologues and Mary Kay Has a Posse maintained their most favored status, garnering A’s. Visiting shows also garnered positive reviews with the Bitter Poet, One Man Star Wars Trilogy, and The Reckoning getting solid B’s across the board.
T. Ballard Lesemann was blown away by the Tierney Sutton Band at the Cistern last night, while Robert Bondurant was moved by Wycliffe Gordon’s memorable performance. Lindsay Koob found Louise to be funny, heartbreaking, and perfectly executed.
As for theater, our critics were impressed with most of the performances on opening night. Don John, Sheep’s Clothing, and Moments of Joy were all deemed A performances. The biggest disappointment came from Eubie!, mostly because of technical difficulties. Hopefully, those will be ironed out before the next show. Another musical revue, Ring of Fire at Village Playhouse, fared much better, as did the Footlight Players’ La Cage aux Folles; reviewer Greg Hambrick says the show he caught last night was far better than the La Cage production he caught weeks ago. (Greg wasn’t quite as pleased with CofC’s Quills, although he says that Robbie Thomas, who played the Marquis de Sade, was quite a treat.)
Dan Conover was thrilled with the fourth-wall breaking antics of Shon Dale-Jones in Story of a Rabbit, but the couple sitting next to him weren’t as happy with the mind-bending, multimedia one-man show.
Speaking of one-man, er one-woman shows, er, nearly one-woman show, Joy Vandervort-Cobb once again hit it out of the park with her autobiographical musical production, Moments of Joy. Love Best of Charleston? Help the Charleston City Paper keep Best of Charleston going every year with a donation. Or sign up to become a member of the Charleston City Paper club.