Author: By Tobias Wray

War Horse avoids the tedium to which so many war plays before it have succumbed.We follow their journey like we do any good love story, grasping at the possibility that life could yield something beautiful as reward for the struggle of living it.

This long stretch of a one-act focused on disenchanted youth punking their way toward ever-greater forms of dissolution. Unfortunately, the show would be a trial for anyone who expects a theatrical experience to transcend the mundane rather than wallow in it.

Next to Normal is one of the best of its breed, in a class with only a few gritty peers.

Roundabout Theatre’s production of Anything Goes, showing throughout this week at the Walton Arts Center, is simply fun, a quality that I dare say should never be underappreciated.

Thanks to the touring cast of Hair, I witnessed an auditorium filled with theatergoers letting the sun shine in. And it was pretty groovy.

Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet is a funny play about suffering that pulls no punches.

Catch Me If You Can, the latest Broadway series musical for the Walton Arts Center, has all the exuberant cast and flashy design of any one of its counterparts this season, but was a little light in the surprise department, something of an essential for a play whose plot is centered on a crime-spree.

Truly, there was no presence on stage that did not emanate grace. I confess I am in awe of this art, its contradictions, the tender strength of it. Whatever your predilections, we all crave the possibilities of beauty, the outer limits of it. Certainly, ballet takes its share of beauty to the extreme.

“A gorgeous production with at least a little Christmas cheer, ‘Period of Adjustment’ is a welcome change of pace from the usual seasonal fare.”

Some shows give you a little hope and some shows make hope wear ballet shoes. Under it all is not only the familiar lesson that art can save us, but the truth behind every such aphorism, that it is only true because we are capable of saving ourselves.

Come delight in Shrek: The Musical, showing at the Walton Art Center through November 4th. Tickets can be purchased at waltonartscenter.org.

For many, “Pride & Prejudice” is one of the greatest love stories of all time and Friday’s performance showed how a truly great story really only needs to be told.

What’s more fitting for the end of October than aliens and zombies? But, the ALT premiere of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” is not simply frighteningly well-timed.