#billy ensley

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Remembering in September – While Building Back Better

Remembering in September – While Building Back Better

Review: The Fantasticks at the Palmer Building + Theatre Charlotte Update By Perry Tannenbaum   You don’t need to try very hard to remember why Theatre Charlotte is beginning its 94th season at the Palmer Building. Built on East 7th Street in the late 1930s as part of FDR’s signature Works Progress Administration (WPA) initiative, the place itself gives you a hint. It was built and landscaped by…

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Matthews Mamma Mia! Mixes Summer Romance and Autumn Regret

Matthews Mamma Mia! Mixes Summer Romance and Autumn Regret

Review: Mamma Mia! is playing this ABBA hit parade By Perry Tannenbaum

There’s typical teenybopper inanity – and melodrama – in the lyrics of ABBA tunes that infiltrated the pop charts during the glam rock supergroup’s heyday, 1974-82. It’s all about desire, baby, followed by intense workouts on the hormonal treadmill of adolescence. Prospecting for ABBA gold, you’re rewarded with the age-old…

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Dancing in the Aisles for 36 Years

Dancing in the Aisles for 36 Years

Interview: Billy Ensley, Call him Mister Versatility By Perry Tannenbaum

Call him Mister Versatility. To find anyone else in the Charlotte theatre scene who has been celebrated for excellence in so many different areas as Billy Ensley, you would have to summon up the memory of Alan Poindexter, the wunderkindwho came out of the UNC Charlotte theatre program and won accolades as an actor,…

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Sometimes Predictable, The Legend of Georgia McBride Is a Raunchy, Rockin’ Delight

Sometimes Predictable, The Legend of Georgia McBride Is a Raunchy, Rockin’ Delight

Review:  The Legend of Georgia McBride By Perry Tannenbaum

While there may be “Good Rockin’ Tonight” when Elvis impersonator Casey steps up to the microphone at Cleo’s Club down in the Florida Panhandle, there isn’t a big hunk o’ love emanating from the audience. On some nights, there isn’t even an audience, except for Eddie, the super low-key club owner. As we begin Matthew Lopez’s The Legend of…

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Confused and Abused Teens – With Unmistakable Talent

Confused and Abused Teens – With Unmistakable Talent

Preview:  Spring Awakening By Perry Tannenbaum

For over a century, playwright Frank Wedekind was best remembered as the creator of Lulu, the libertine protagonist in two of his erotically charged dramas, Earth Spirit (1895) and Pandora’s Box (1904). Alban Berg combined the two works into one Lulu (1937), an opera that stands as one of the sexiest of the 20th century.

Then came 2006.

Wedekind’s…

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