Arts & Culture

Kitchen Theatre Company’s Girlfriend Is Thin on Plot But High on Feeling

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Based on Matthew Sweet’s 1991 alternative-rock album of the same name, Kitchen Theatre’s first production of the 2018-19 season, Girlfriend, has everything you’d expect from a classic summer rom-com — the meet cute, the mutual pining, the awkward yet exhilarating first date, the inevitable challenges and their resolution. What makes Girlfriend different from the start, however, is that instead of boy-meets-girl, it’s boy-meets-boy, in a small, conservative, midwestern town. It’s the summer of 1993 in Alliance, Nebraska, and Will (Jonathan Melo) is still celebrating graduating high school and his new-found freedom when he receives a mixtape out of the blue from a classmate, Mike (Woody White). Unlike Will, a musical theater nerd constantly bullied at school for his sexuality, Mike is the golden boy of the football team with a (rather absent) girlfriend and a full ride to college, and it had seemed unlikely for their paths to ever cross. What they share, however, is a passion for music.

Arts & Culture

Birds of East Africa is Taking Off at Kitchen Theatre

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The Kitchen Theatre’s premiere of Birds of East Africa, a new play written by Wendy Dann and directed by Rachel Lampert, is incredibly quirky and starts out slow but becomes more meaningful as it progresses. The play feels disjointed at times but is saved by strong acting and its realistic portrayal of damaged relationships. As the play begins, two men dressed in colorful clothing meant to look like birds dance around the stage, and an ornithologist named Marion (Lena Kaminsky) appears soon after. The dancers often perform between scenes and sometimes interact with Marion. The birds she has studied have a constant presence in her life, even when she moves in with a college friend Stephen (Daniel Pettrow) and his husband Nick (Gabriel Marin) in Las Vegas, far from any hornbills, her professed favorite species.

Arts & Culture

Peter and the Starcatcher: A Magical Experience

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During the opening night of Peter and the Starcatcher, the Kitchen Theatre Company once again proved its ability to transcend the intimate confines of a performance stage and draw the imagination to the most distant and dazzling settings: faraway lands with vibrant, animate characters. On this particular evening, the audience was invited to imagine 19th-century British sailing ships containing noble statesmen, rugged sailors, sinister pirates and adventurous children, as well as a tropical island complete with its own boisterous inhabitants. Peter and the Starcatcher is based on the novel by Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson, which tells the backstory of Peter Pan and serves as a prequel to Peter and Wendy. Lord Leonard Astor and his daughter, Molly, are starcatchers — a secret group appointed by the queen to protect “starstuff,” a magical, extraterrestrial substance that grants those who touch it their fondest dreams, whether good or evil. Starcatchers must destroy starstuff when it appears on Earth to avoid the havoc that could be created should the magical substance fall into the wrong hands.