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School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play
Or: “Oh my G-d, Gifty! You can’t just ask people if they’re white!” At The Abrei School for Girls in rural Ghana Paulina Sarpong (Ciera...
Ben Kemper
May 8, 20253 min read
La Cage Aux Folles at Ally Rep
Or: What Legend has Told and what Rumor has Promised Enfolded in the glowing lights of the Rivera (courtesy of Chaz Gentry) pumped and...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20254 min read
JoJo Rabbit
Or: How could you Nazi this coming? You know you’re in for a good World War II satire when the opening credits are archival footage rabid...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20254 min read
Doctor Sleep
Or: Devil with the Black Hat on Your hero is only ever as great as their villain. It’s the machinations of evil that fuels the engine of...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
Men On Boats at Homegrown Theater
Or: It Doesn’t Get Any Wetter Than This It was a quintessential American Legend. Ten souls setting into unknown country, on a river of...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
The Tempest at the Boise Bard Players
Or: Let Your Indulgence Set Me Free A wall and words are all you need to put on a show. Boise Bard Players, a gorilla tribe of actors...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Roma
Or: Comes in Waves It’s not every time I sit down in the theater where I’m hooked in a movie from the first minute. But the opening...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Rocketman
Or: A True Fantasy The dual moral of Rocketman, the fabulation based on the life and career of Elton John (Taron Egerton) might be summed...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20251 min read
She Kills Monsters at Homegrown Theater
Or: An Evening of Intimate Roleplay You don’t have to play D&D to be here, but it helps. Homegrown Theater’s foley into the magnificent...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Frozen II
Or: Avatar, the Last Ice Bender A light dusting of spoilers. We last left the Kingdom of Arendelle, Elsa (Idina Manzelle) the...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
Rabbit/Moon
A New Play By Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark Or: The Long Hello. WAH. That is, in barest, measly notation, the sound of...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20254 min read
Million Dollar Quartet at ISF
Or: Whole Lot of Shaking We are caught up in the get go in the wild orbit of Sam Philips (James Ludwig), proprietor of Sun Records. It is...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
The Farewell
Or: Lies of Love There’s an argument to be made in filmmaking, that if you can see the director’s craft, they’ve failed. That artistry...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Downton Abbey, The Movie
Or: Television Royalty It seemed like a golden age. When sentences were crisper, even the most menial of clothes were bright and...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
Once Upon a Time In Hollywood
Or: Helter Skid Fast cars, poppy music, barefoot girls, hugs, drugs, and murder: these were the Halcyon days of Los Angeles, 1969. Along...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse
Or: You Are Not Alone. I hate to write reviews for movies like Into the Spider-Verse almost as much as I love to watch them. There’s no...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Richard III at the Boise Bard Players
Or: One Kingdom, Will Trade For Horse. Dickie gets a bad rap. Sure he murdered two kids (what monarch hasn’t) and maneuvered a whole host...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
Small Mouth Sounds
Or: Depth of Expression A play that lives in silence. In Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds, the words that so often define, control, or...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20252 min read
All’s Well That Ends Well at OSF
Or: Handkerchiefs On the chilly night we set down to see Tracy Young’s All’s Well That Ends Well at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, my...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
Us
Or: Out of the Cage In 1986, on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, a little girl went missing. Adelaide Thomas (Madison Curry) wandered out of the...
Ben Kemper
May 7, 20253 min read
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