Theatre
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They’re Playing Our Song in Boca Raton
Forty Years After Andrea McArdle Originated Role
By: - Oct 24th, 2016Today, almost 40 years later, you’ll find Andrea McArdle on the Wick Theatre stage, co-starring in a musical, They’re Playing Our Song, that made its Broadway debut just about two years after her Broadway bow.
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Williams' Night of the Iguana
Palm Beach Dramaworks
By: - Oct 24th, 2016In “Night of the Iguana,” largely considered the prolific Tennessee Williams’ last commercial success, the playwright, no stranger to symbolism, once again uses a vivid symbol to represent characters trapped in a prison of loneliness and unfulfilled desires.
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Pirandello’s Henry IV
Remy Bumppo’s Chicago Production
By: - Oct 19th, 2016The absurdist playwright Luigi Pirandello wrote the play in 1922. The current production is based on an adaptation by Tom Stoppard. Nick Sandys’ direction makes the most of the witty dialogue written by the always engaging Stoppard.
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2016 Berkies Announced
First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards
By: - Oct 17th, 2016There has been extensive media coverage of the First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards. The winners of The Berkies have been announced. There will be an awards celebration 5 pm on November 13 at Mr. Finn’s Cabaret in Pittsfield. In this first round of awards Barrington Stage Company and Shakespeare & Company dominated in most categories. The smash hit Pirates of Penzance ran the table. The Larry Murray Award, named for the founder, will be the only suprise of the gathering of critics, media and theater mavens.
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Roundabout Presents The Cherry Orchard
Diane Lane, Joel Grey, John Glover, Chuck Cooper
By: - Oct 16th, 2016The Cherry Orchard was Anton Chevkov’s last play. He drew a picture of an old Russian family at the end of their run, their beloved cherry orchard and the hundreds of acres that it fills will be auctioned in August to pay the debts of Liuboff Andreievna Raneyskaya. Liuboff, the role originally created by Chekhov’s wife, is now enlivened by Diane Lane in her return to the New York stage. Lane’s first Broadway appearance was in The Cherry Orchard decades ago.
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First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards
Berkies Launched by Critic Larry Murray
By: - Oct 14th, 2016For the first annual Berkshire Theatre Awards seven shows received more than five nominations each including 11 for The Pirates of Penzance and eight for Broadway Bounty Hunter, both produced by Barrington Stage Company. Seven nominations were received for Or, and six for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare & Company. Also popular with five nominations each are The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Little Shop of Horrors (Berkshire Theatre Group), and American Son (Barrington Stage).
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Hand to God
GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida
By: - Oct 14th, 2016“Hand to God,” the biting, darkly comic, disturbing, thought-provoking and meaty play is receiving a solid southeastern premiere at GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida through Oct. 30.
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St. Germain’s Camping with Henry and Tom
Barrington's Revival Seems Ripped from the Headlines
By: - Oct 10th, 2016The 1993 Mark St. Germain play, Camping with Henry and Tom, is as fresh as a daisy in a timely revival at Barrington Stage Company. With an update of just five lines Henry Ford, originally inspired by third party candidate Ross Perot, has an uncanny resemblance to the worst aspects of Donald Trump.
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Joe Sutton's Brilliant Orwell in America
At 59E59th Street Theater
By: - Oct 09th, 2016Playwright Joe Sutton creates George Orwell twisting moment to moment. Jamie Horton is magnificent in the wrenching role. Orwell’s discomfort, his loneliness, his humor and passion are all developed before us in language that is very much the author’s. Director Peter Hackett brings off this complicated character in an enormously engaging piece.
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Sunday in the Park Stunning at Huntington
Sondheim and Seurat Bring Out the Best in Each Other
By: - Oct 06th, 2016Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his obssession with “the art of making art.” Certainly, one of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois who did a superb job with last year's A Little Night Music.
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The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
Florida's Outre Theatre Company
By: - Oct 04th, 2016“The Normal Heart” deals with multiple thought-provoking, timely themes and issues that spur discussion, make us look inward and potentially take action: The need to work together toward a common goal, the uselessness of fighting and blaming one another, reconciliation among family members, the agenda of the press and government, the right to be recognized as valued citizens and feel loved as well as to live and die with dignity.
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The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley
Faking Vermeers in WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group's Co-Production
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley in Stockbridge at the Unicorn Theatre is a co-production of WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group. An artist is on trial for selling Vermeers to the Nazis. He has to make a fake to prove his innocence. The play is based on a true story in post war Holland.
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New Victory's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Captain Nemo Makes His Case
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The New Victory uses every imaginable tool to go to the depths of the ocean in a 19th century submarine. Jules Verne tells his story with present references to the throttling of the sea by plastic and a case for democratic leadership.
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Tony and Emmy Winner Hal Linden
Now 85 in Fantasticks at Pasadena Playhouse
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016I think because the writing was solid, not “trendy”, and always very relatable. I recently put together a clip reel for a concert appearance I was doing, and I had to sit down and watch over 100 hours of “Barney Miller” episodes. I was amazed at how substantial they were, and that they still hold up almost forty years later.
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October Sky at Old Globe
Musical is Outasight
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016“October Sky” is an uplifting, feel-good type of musical that boasts 19 songs with such numbers as “Look to the Stars”, “We’re Gonna Build a Rocket”, “Stars Shine Down”, “The Man I Met”, and “The Last Kiss Goodbye”, the latter number being especially poignant as sung by the miners’ wives and girlfriends.
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Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife
From Stratford Festival to Chicago's Timeline
By: - Oct 01st, 2016The Last Wife premiered last year at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and Timeline snagged it for its first US production. The 2.5 hour play is smart and funny and will have you turning on your phone at intermission to look at Katherine Parr’s Wikipedia page.
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Mahabharata as Battlefield via Peter Brook at BAM
A Startling Message from the Distant Past
By: - Sep 30th, 2016Mahabharata is older and many times as long as the Bible. Its message of man's impulsive thrust to war and destruction is as fresh today as it must have been when it was first composed. Brook has tackled the piece before. This short form packs a powerful punch.
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Michael Cristofer’s Man in the Ring
Riveting Premiere at Chicago's Court Theatre
By: - Sep 26th, 2016Michael Cristofer’s Man in the Ring, having its world premiere in Chicago, is a play about boxing with a dark and riveting under card.
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The Cocktail Hour by A. R. Gurney
Launches North Coast Repertory Theatre’s 35th Season
By: - Sep 26th, 2016In ‘The Cocktail Hour’ A.R. Gurney hits the vanishing cultural nail of privilege right on the proverbial head.
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
August Wilson Play at Mark Taper Forum in LA
By: - Sep 25th, 2016‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ now on the boards of the Mark Taper Forum is fabulously acted and brilliantly staged by Tony winner Phylicia Rashad.
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How Walt Disney Lost His Head
Dark Comedy by Lucas Hnath in Ft. Lauderdale
By: - Sep 25th, 2016“A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney,” by playwright Lucas Hnath, turns upside down the positive image of the man popular culture has ingrained in our minds.
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Perennial Favorite The Fantasticks
At Pasadena Playhouse
By: - Sep 24th, 2016The Pasadena Playhouse has produced a lively version of the longest running musical The Fantasticks. Even if you have seen it this is a woderful chance to again be enchanted and "Follow, Follow, Follow."
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Miller's A View from the Bridge
Ivo Van Hove Directs at LA's Ahmanson Theatre
By: - Sep 23rd, 2016The cutting edge, Dutch director Ivo Van Hove has transferred his stark and riveting production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge from Broadway to LA. With cast changes there is the same stark staging that reworks a classic Miller play.
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Berkshire's Fiorello Comes to New York
BTG Production Transfers With a Wallop
By: - Sep 21st, 2016I happened on the Berkshire Theatre Company production on East 13th Street in New York and was entranced. Packed into a small stage and directed to perfection by Bob Moss, the intimate setting works perfectly for this musical portrait of an oversized man.
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Life Sucks by Aaron Posner
Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre
By: - Sep 21st, 2016Life Sucks is Aaron Posner’s sort-of adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, that often-performed masterpiece in which members of the rural bourgeoisie loll about, falling in love with the wrong people and longing to change their miserable lives. What is the play about? Love, longing and loss, as the characters tell us in their prologue. The basic elements of the human condition.
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