Review: The Frog Prince, musical by Scottish Rite Theater

by Michael Meigs
Published on June 15, 2009

how often are you going to get to see a grown-up frog do a rap lesson foretelling the plot? He can't reveal to anyone his real princely identity, and (1) he has to live in the palace, (2) the princess has to tell him a secret, and (3) she has to fall in love with him.

Concerning children's theatre, let me come clean in the first paragraph. By the time I was 18 I had performed as a pasha, a pirate and a king for a children's theatre in north Alabama. I was stage-struck for life. That particular community children's theatre is entering its 49th season. The Scottish Rite Children's Theatre (SRCT) is much younger than that but it is much more richly endowed. Established in 2004 through the efforts of …

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Review: Twelfth Night by Scottish Rite Theater

by Michael Meigs
Published on August 11, 2008

Director (yclept "Master of Play") Beth Burns, just relocatedfrom Los Angeles, achieves a quick-paced, highly entertaining and almost too short evening of entertainment.

Twelfth Night, just opened at the convenient downtown location close to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, is a graceful, sprightly production of Shakespeare's comedy of parted twins, mistaken identities, and the merciless mocking of overweening ambition. This is the one in which the dour Malvolio, steward to Lady Olivia, is duped by two roysters into smiling, making love overtures to his lady, and appearing in yellow stockings, all cross gartered. And Viola, shipwrecked, masquerades …

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