Reviews for Different Stages Performances
Review #2 of 2: Man of the People by Different Stages
by Hannah Neuhauser
Published on January 13, 2026
Dolores Diaz’s writing is utterly compelling as she depicts Dr. J.R. Brinkley’s perverse contribution to society, which bordered on the brink of insanity.
What information are you willing to stomach to believe in a future? Different Stages’ production of Dolores Diaz’s Man of the People dramatizes true events. In national radio broadcasts from 1917 to 1937 charlatan "Dr." J.R. Brinkley advertised his fraudulent treatments and medications to hopeful listeners desperate for a cure. This gripping story is rife with comedic bewilderment and tragic comprehension. Through its emotionally charged performances and interspersing of historical archives, Man of the People …
Review #1 of 2: Man of the People by Dolores Diaz, Different Stages, Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 12, 2026
Find joy in the performances of the cast of MAN OF THE PEOPLE. They are, without exception, worthy of your adulation.
Occasionally one witnesses a play onstage so exceptionally good, with superbly written dialogues given by excellent actors fully embodying their characters, that the play transcends the stumbling blocks of production insufficiencies. Such a stage presentation is Man of the People by Dolores Diaz, directed by Mary Alice Carnes and produced by the venerable Different Stages. The actors deliver a multifaceted story that performs open heart surgery on the human condition and walks away leaving it …
Review: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 22, 2025
A faithful adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous novel raises the tension without resorting to comic relief. A large, capable cast raises the question: "Who DID kill Roger Ackroyd?"
Dame Agatha's clever plots and striking characters remain alive and well in our imaginations today, nearly a century after she first put pen to paper. Her first novel, which features the dapper Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, was published in 1920. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) was the third Poirot novel, and she'd already put Hercule into retirement in an English village. This was the first of her novels to be adapted to the stage, …
Review: Miss Lulu Bett by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 28, 2023
This vigorous three-act production of Gale's 1921 Pulitzer-Prize-winning Drama offers sharp, well-delivered dialogue. A former satire of small-town pompousness, it now snaps at the hindquarters of today's patriarchy.
Norman Blumenstaadt’s Different Stages is the only company in Austin where you can be sure of seeing new old plays. Or, to put it differently, to see plays that are new to you though they’re significant in the history of the theatre arts of the United States. Norman has included contemporary works in the company’s seasons, certainly, and he constructs all of the DIffStages seasons with care. No fluff here; he has the keen eye …
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Review: The Art of Martyrdom (a Comedy) by Rita Anderson, presented by Different Stages
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 24, 2023
Playwright Rita Anderson's portrait of the nun Hrosvitha, the first female playwright, muddles an important story by viewing it through 21st-century lens. A talented cast and decisive director mostly save the day.
The Art of Martyrdom (A Comedy) is a play of magical realism, hybridity, social activism, sexual freedom, creativity, and church mockery, but not much so much about conflict and resistance. Playwright Rita Anderson often employs magical realism to shoehorn a wide array of issues into the themes of her plays, but this one gets to the far reaches of magical realism. The frame of the play is the story of Hrosvitha, a cloistered nun in …
Review #2 of 2: Shining City by Different Stages
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 13, 2022
This production of Conor McPherson's Shining City does prove yet again that great actors cannot be held back by poor material.
Certainly, you are familiar with the expression sucked all the air out of the room. We have all felt that moment. Now imagine feeling only that moment for nearly two hours without intermission. Conor McPherson, an Irish playwright and screenwriter from Dublin, began writing in college and went on to find success on both the West End and Broadway beginning in 1999 with his play The Weir. He is considered to be one of the …