Photo courtesy UpStage Theatre

Sometimes it's a very good thing to be angry

A much loved and admired jury room drama, Twelve Angry Men, is brought to exciting life at UpStage Theatre, as skilled actors find its suspense, its humor and its humanity.

The execution:

Reginald Rose's drama Twelve Angry Men won three television Emmys in 1954, and Sidney Lumet's use of the material in the 1957 movie starring Henry Fonda (and a galaxy of famous actors) created a cinematic icon. Sherman L. Sergel adapted the Reginald Rose teleplay for the stage in 1955, and its popularity and appeal has continued for well over a half century.

Variations exist, where the jurors are all-female, or where they are half male and half female, and UpStage Theatre had the vigor and stamina to mount these as well. Opening weekend is the traditional male cast, with all-female jurors in Week Two (Twelve Angry Women), and with six men and six women in Week Three (Twelve Angry Jurors.)

Photo by Jann Whaley

David Rainey plays one of the few competent architects at the firm

The setup:
You've come a long way, baby (that would be playwright Theresa Rebeck), especially if you want to prove that you, too, can write like David Mamet, scouring the wallpaper off the Alley's Neuhaus Stage with a tsunami of profanity while exposing the gender inequities in the workplace. Rebeck's comedy is all that, but not much more.

The execution:
Originally, Rebeck's play was an intense but short two-character one-acter (1992) that focused on architects Stu and Ben discussing the newest hire, a female architect, in terms that would curl your toes. Over drinks, the misogynists rip her apart yet reveal all their insecurities at having a "lying, deceitful little manipulator" as a colleague. And that's a compliment compared to what they really think of her. It was a sharp dissection of bully-boy tactics, disguised as the typical work environment, that illuminated the battle of the sexes.

The bikini that made young boys into men.

Now through Sunday, May 20, the lady who once famously donned a gold lamé bikini will make her way to the stage of the Hobby Center. Carrie Fisher, in all her self-actualizing, uncompromising glory, will have a six-day stint in Houston for her celebrated live solo show, Wishful Drinking.

Fisher has been in Hollywood for a long time. Her mother is actress Debbie Reynolds and her father is singer Eddie Fisher. Carrie Fisher was born into fame. Being Hollywood royalty did not make for an easy life. Fisher has often been frank about her battles with drugs and her time spent in rehab. Her first novel, Postcards from the Edge, touched upon her addiction issues in a semi-autobiographical way.

Wishful Drinking was first created for the stage in 2006, then was turned into a book, then a documentary and then back to the stage. The show has garnered rave reviews for its funny and honest portrayal of Fisher's life.

Photo by Tristram Kenton

Paulette Ivory and Sahr Ngaujah recreate the life of Fela, composer and civic activist in Nigeria

The British actress who'd done Lion King and been living in Los Angeles went to a meeting and signed on to FELA!, the three-time Tony Award winning project produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith and Shawn "Jay-Z Carter and Stephen and Ruth Hendel.

Now on national tour for more than a year and headed for Houston's Jones Hall in early June, Ivory has gone to city after city where there are people who know about the late Nigerian musician Fela Kuti who also became an activist in his country. And even though it is sent in the 1970s and in an African country, the story line has universal appeal, she says.

Because it's about standing up for what you believe in. One man standing up and fighting. People are always standing up for their own causes in their own lives. He did it even though he was beaten down regularly. Most people would give up," she says.

Photo by Jann Whaley

(L-R) Julia Motyka as Eliza and Nancy Lemenager as Janice in the Alley Theatre's production of What We're Up Against.

"The audience is the last character in the play," he says.

The black comedy by Theresa Rebeck is the second time that Schwartz has directed one of her plays at the Alley. Previously, he directed Mauritius and when he had a chance to meet Rebeck later at a new play conference, "we kind of got to be friends," he says, and they have stayed in touch.

Photo courtesy Stages

Melissa Anderson

So what should we do? Sing about it, of course.

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, nominated for 11 Tony awards and winner of three -- best score, orchestration and leading actress -- the rock musical Next to Normal arrives at Stages Repertory Theatre, telling what its director Melissa Anderson calls "a story about finding your humanness and trying to keep your connection to your family."

Photo courtesy Ensemble Theatre

August Wilson loved putting together the well-constructed play.

He loves the well-constructed play, dropping character hints and scene tidbits along the way that will pay off big time by the end of his dramas. He loves words, bejeweling his plays with stately, emotional outbursts that bespeak poetry and the wonders of American speech. His characters are vividly alive, emotionally direct and, usually, say just what they mean. He fills his plays with religious fervor, a throwback to ancient ancestors' abiding influence, good and bad.

His epic work, the ten-part "Pittsburgh Cycle," which documents a century of black American experience, is a monumental artistic achievement. No other playwright has ever constructed such a self-contained world -- the blighted, ever-hopeful Hill district in Pittsburgh -- that also contains everywhere else. No other playwright illuminates in such fine detail and sheer beauty a people's daydreams, terrors and aspirations that speak so forcefully and heartfelt to everyone else. He illuminates the black experience, but shows all of us the world.

Photo by Jeff Howie

All together now

Scrumptious is not an adjective often applied to the subversive work of playwright Joe Orton, but in Country Playhouse's delicious rendition of his first major hit, Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1964), there's no other way to describe it: appetizing, delectable, toothsome, yummy.

Photo courtesy the Music Box Theater

Rebekah Dahl, Brad Scarborough, Cay Taylor and Luke Wrobel journey across America in Travelsty.

Two couples travel around the country, singing songs about various states (Georgia, Tennessee, California), various cities (Coney Island, San Francisco, Houston) or simply a highway (Route 66), and through the alchemy of talent and showmanship turn this slight material into a totally entertaining two hours of pure pleasure.

The execution:

The setting is cabaret, with tables and chairs if desired (refreshments are available), and the set is a simple raised stage, with the talented four-piece band (G Sharp and the MBT 3) seated unobtrusively at audience right. Band and performers are miked, and the thump of audience toe-tapping begins early and remains, for the driving force of musicians and performers fills the intimate venue with energy and drive.

Danica Dawn Johnston, Tye Blue, Alex Stutler, Rob Flebbe, Doug Threeton, John Gremillion, Paul Hope

Hungarian transplant Sigmund Romberg composed some of Broadway's most luminous melodies during its '20s golden age. His lush, operatic songs are in fine hands with Bayou City Concert Musicals' intimate showcase One Kiss: The Music of Sigmund Romberg, the fifth such cabaret production at Ensemble Theatre's Performance Centre.

The execution:

The lively shows, produced by BCCM's artistic director/founder Paul Hope, an Alley Theatre vet and real Broadway baby whose showbiz knowledge runs deep and true, have an intoxicating taste of Manhattan nightlife. Large round tables, elegantly dressed, are clustered around the small stage in the less-than-intimate space of the Performance Centre, but everybody's pushed close to the stage so we get personal with the performers. Musical director Heather Tipsword sits to the side at her piano. While there's no fancy supper-club menu, dishes of mixed nuts do stand in and there's a bar that pours premium adult beverages, so we're never too far from swank. The tinkling of ice adds to the atmosphere. It's laid-back and informal, as if we're being entertained at home.