Ken Howard Archives - TheaterScene.net

Ken Howard

Mozart’s Don Giovanni: A Rock Opera

July 3, 2025

Ambition, that perilous double-edged sword, can elevate a work of art to soaring heights—or leave it flailing in the rafters, reaching desperately for resonance it cannot quite grasp. Such is the case with "Mozart’s Don Giovanni: A Rock Opera," Adam B. Levowitz’s audacious and heartfelt, if uneven, adaptation of Mozart’s canonical masterpiece. This leaner, louder take on "Don Giovanni," recognizing the latent synergy between operatic grandeur and rock bravado, now playing at The Cutting Room through August 26, replaces the classical orchestra with a ten-piece rock band and pares down the original three-hour-plus opera to a taut two hours and ten minutes. If only its dramatic momentum had received the same rigorous attention as its runtime. [more]

Mr. Toole

March 10, 2020

Vivian Neuwirth’s "Mr. Toole" is a fitting tribute to a charismatic teacher and a brilliant author. However, the play, in the form it currently is in, seems to have been shoehorned into a shape it doesn’t entirely want to take. It is possible that it would be more successful as a screenplay opened up a bit. At any rate, it is a play that will be of interest to students of American fiction and those who know the two novels of John Kennedy Toole. The play may do something in the way of making Toole and his work better known. It will probably make you want to read one or both of his two novels, "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "The Neon Bible." [more]

¡Figaro! (90210)

March 25, 2016

Virtually performed all in English with some Spanish for comic effect," ¡Figaro! (90210)" is true to the art form with recitative and arias, that is sung speech and grand solos rather then integrated dialogue and songs that characterize traditional musical comedy. Supertitles are projected above the stage for anything that may be vocally indecipherable. [more]