Lydia R. Diamond Archives - TheaterScene.net

Lydia R. Diamond

The Tap Dance Kid

February 4, 2022

Let’s start with the best: The great Joshua Henry’s 11 o’clock number, “William’s Song,” a gut-wrenching revelatory song sung by the title character’s emotionally distant father. Henry endows the number with the emotional punch of “And I Am Telling You” from "Dreamgirls." Since Henry Krieger wrote the music to both songs the striking similarity is understandable. Of course, Tom Eyen wrote the "Dreamgirls"’ vivid lyrics and librettro; Robert Lorick wrote the words for the pleasant, plot-moving score of "The Tap Dance Kid." "The Tap Dance Kid"—book by Charles Blackwell, based on the novel "Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change" by Louise Fitzhugh—is a simple domestic tale now reset in the 1950’s, gussied up with the brilliant tap choreography of Jared Grimes and the keen, vivifying direction of Kenny Leon. But, even under Leon’s artful hand and Grimes’ beautifully performed numbers, "The Tap Dance Kid" remains a defiantly unimaginative story. [more]

Toni Stone

June 30, 2019

Lydia R. Diamond’s "Toni Stone" is a tour de force for one actress and Obie Award winner April Matthis gives a bravura performance as the first woman to play professional baseball as part of the Negro League. Although she is backed by eight men who from time to time make up the teams she was on, this is basically a one-woman show. In fact, this might have been a better play if Toni was the only character we had to follow on stage. However, director Pam MacKinnon excellently defines each character as we meet them in various combination; we just don’t know who they are most of the time. [more]

Smart People

February 24, 2016

The satire begins early: it turns out that although the department likes having Brian doing his research proving that whites are genetically racist, they are not happy with his conclusions. Although Jackson may be the smartest doctor in the room, he has trouble working with others and bending to authority on the job. Although Valerie has a Harvard degree, she cleans houses to pay her rent which ticks off her upper middle-class mother. However, she is not pleased when she attends an audition for “Mary, the social worker” and is asked instead to read for the part of “Shlonda” from the ‘hood. Ginny finds that her therapy clients perceive her as white, but she knows that in the talk of race in America, she is invisible as race is defined as between blacks and whites in modern discourse. [more]