The Winter Solstice comes this Saturday evening, so while we are relatively ice and snow free, check out some of Knoxville’s secular seasonal entertainments in their final performances. As of this writing, tickets are still available for all of these,…
Review: Flying Anvil Theatre’s Outrageous Comedy ‘Hand To God’ – A Sock Puppet and the Nature of Evil
By Alan Sherrod Just when you thought that Flying Anvil Theatre and director Jayne Morgan had exhausted the supply of plays involving dysfunctional southern families, they have unearthed another gem—this one with more than a little comic bite. There…
Review: Life Goes On in ‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ at Flying Anvil Theatre
By Alan Sherrod What could be simpler—five men and women take a six-week acting class at a community center somewhere in Vermont, engaging in exercises designed to help them explore the projection of their feelings. For the audience of…
Review: Nora – And An Intriguing Debate – Returns in ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’
By Alan Sherrod As the lights come up on Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2, looming ominously upstage center is the infamous front door of Torvald Helmer’s house, the door through which Nora Helmer passed on her way…
Review: Performance Treasures Mark Flying Anvil Theatre’s ‘Dog Act’
By Alan Sherrod It is tempting to describe Liz Duffy Adams’ comedy, Dog Act, in terms of other familiar post-apocalyptic scenarios—like “Mad Max goes on Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and performs Vaudeville.” However, the fact is that Dog Act,…
Review: A Search for Identities in Flying Anvil Theatre’s ‘Hir’
By Alan Sherrod As the lights come up on Taylor Mac’s Hir, which opened last Friday at Flying Anvil Theatre, the audience may believe for an instant that it has stumbled onto a contemporary update of the typical dysfunctional…
Review: Hammer Ensemble’s ‘Lockdown’ – Gun Violence as a Symptom of Cultural Division
By Alan Sherrod At the beginning of the Hammer Ensemble’s Lockdown at the Flying Anvil Theatre, the ensemble of seven actors don metaphorical animal skins and masks suggesting early human beings, then depict a struggle for intercultural power in…
Review: Comic Irony Comes Into Sharp Focus in Flying Anvil Theatre’s ‘8 x 10’
By Alan Sherrod With apologies to Henry David Thoreau — do people lead lives of quiet comic desperation? That seems to be the vastly entertaining and charming statement of Flying Anvil Theatre’s current production, 8 x 10, a collection of…
Review: ‘Mary’s Wedding’ – A Dream of Romance and War
A dream forms the structure of Stephen Massicotte’s play, Mary’s Wedding, which opened last weekend at Flying Anvil Theatre—and it is very much the poet’s dream. However, Massicotte has not penned a purely romantic story, but has also made a…
The Hammer Ensemble Launches With ‘The Pall: In the Shadows of Human Trafficking’
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” —Attributed to Bertolt Brecht That concept forms the basis for the Hammer Ensemble, Flying Anvil Theatre’s performance wing dedicated to social justice issues.…