Recent Reviews
Review: Dora's Gently Used Dreams Store by The Vortex
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 24, 2025
Dora's imaginary, imaginative tent has folded and left the Vortex, but her pitch, emotion, and shared dreams leave memories behind.
CTXLT publishes its criteria: our focus is live narrative theatre. You might be able to argue that Morgan McKenzie Kauffman's Dora's Gently Used Dreams Store, presented in the intimate space of the Vortex's "pony shed," didn't strictly meet that definition. It was equal parts solo description and experience. Katie Green's Twin Alchemy group presented similar short, intense, participatory experiences in Austin from 2014 to 2019. In this performance form, the playwright/producer imagines a place and …
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: A Charlie Brown Christmas by Zach Theatre
by Vanessa Hoang Hughes
Published on November 20, 2025
Welcome (or welcome back) to the world of Charlie Brown, everyone who's young at heart!
A Charlie Brown Christmas follows Charles Schulz's beloved cartoon character Charlie Brown as he struggles to find the true meaning of the holidays. Charlie’s then appointed to direct the annual Christmas play put on by the classic Peanuts crew. The audience discovers the value of Christmas and importance of friendship along with Charlie Brown as he strives to put on the perfect festive play. The show, directed by Betty Marie Muessig, is staged in the …
Review: Caesar & Antony & Cleopatra by Walking Shadow Shakespeare
by Hannah Neuhauser
Published on November 16, 2025
Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project's two-fer becomes a brilliantly designed post-apocalyptic survival fantasy—one cool adaptation!
We are, but countrymen - a silent audience, witnessing the faults and plights of those who are in power, wielding our lives like grains of sand underneath someone’s foot. In Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project’s latest production Caesar + Antony + Cleopatra, director Stephanie Crugnola merges Shakespeare’s political tragedies Julius Caesar (1599) and Antony and Cleopatra (1607) into a post-apocalyptic survival fantasy. Marc Antony (Laura D’Eramo), warrior of Rome, must choose his allegiance – his lover …
Review: Much Ado About Nothing by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 14, 2025
MMNT's MUCH ADO is full of tears, laughter, dancing, singing, flirting, scheming, and acceptance. It's not overly reverential and makes the classic story its own.
“I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.” The distance between mirth and matter sometimes seems like a marathon worth of miles and sometimes seems like mere meters. Much Ado About Nothing is mostly mirth but it’s matter still… well matters. The plot of the play is atypical Shakespeare on a meta level. It contains all the most well-known Shakespearean elements: double entendres, puns, mistaken identity, forbidden love, shotgun weddings, inept authority figures, …
Review: House of Frankenstein by Silent House Theatre (SH.), Waco
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2025
Silent House's HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN by company member Jamie Coblentz is audacious in concept and SH's production was thoroughly astonishing. It merits this rave review.
Silent House's House of Frankenstein, which ran for the five evenings culminating on Halloween, astonished. For the intellectual but gripping treatment of its subject matter, for language which flawlessly evoked early nineteenth-century Britain, for the uniformly expert and convincing performances of its fourteen-member cast, for direction, lighting, special effects and music, and the evocative venue of the historic McCulloch mansion in Waco. Okay, do you hear me raving? Let's face it, the end of the …