Review: The Dragon Play by Shrewd Productions

by Michael Meigs
Published on April 10, 2012

Amelia Turner as the clever, graceful and finally intensely physical dragon girl deliver an electric, devastating speech about the sexual act -- a physical and sexual climax in itself serving at the same time as the climax that seals the link between the two dragon plays.

The Dragon Play confused me as I sat in the front row of the sparsely populated Blue Theatre on opening weekend.  That was deliberate on the part of playwright Jenny Connell, abetted by Shrewds director Shannon Grounds.     The director has given away enough of the story in a second video interview just released by the company, so I'm dropping no 'spoiler' by telling you the company is presenting two dragon plays, starkly different in style, alternating …

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Review: The Long Now by Shrewd Productions

by Michael Meigs
Published on May 24, 2009

Beth Burns the playwright lays out for us the tangle of memory, emotion and opportunity, while Burns the director manipulates our perceptions and turns inside-out our understanding of the situation.

Beth Burns' The Long Now opens with the charmingly simple concept stressed in its marketing: Tish Reilly has a very special friend – Time. Tish can go back to any place where a good memory remains and enter it, reliving the moments that please her. We meet the winsome Tish, played by Shannon Grounds, at her dead end job of alphabetizing and filing folders beginning with the letter "F." Maybe this is an insurance company; maybe it's another bureaucracy.Her …

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