Theatre
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Ballroom at CVREP
Lively Revival of 1970s Musical
By: - Feb 12th, 2020Ballroom features the music of Billy Goldenberg, with a libretto by Jerome Kass, and the lyrics by multiple Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, under the direction of Ron Celona. It’s the boldest and most audacious production in CVREP history.
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Manahatta by Mary Kathryn Nagle
At Yale Rep
By: - Feb 11th, 2020Manahatta, now at the Yale Rep through Saturday, Feb. 15, offers a great deal to think about. It is getting its east coast premiere, having had its initial production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2018. Playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle, an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is a lawyer, writer and activist.
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Williamstown Theatre Festival 2020
Audra McDonald in Streetcar Named Desire
By: - Feb 11th, 2020The Williamstown Theatre Festival launches with Streetcar Named Desire starring Audra McDonald on June 30. The season will feature five world premieres.
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Shakespeare & Company 2020 Season
A Mix of Classic and Contemporary in Lenox
By: - Feb 11th, 2020The 2020 season of Shakespere and Company starts on May 21 with Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell. The small stage production features Annette Miller. King Lear opens at the Tina Packer Playhouse on June 28. Berkies Award winner, director Regge Life returns to anchor the season with Harold Pinter's Betrayal on September 18.
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Pipeline at Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C.
A Searing Take on Black Male Anger and Rage
By: - Feb 07th, 2020Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau opened at Lincoln Center Theater in July of 2017. Since it premiered, the play, a multi-faceted look at the 'pipeline' young black men travel from high school to prison, has had more performances across the US than any other play. It is easy to understand why. This powerful presentation of the role of parents, teachers, security guards and administration in this all too familiar path, the play provides rich opportunities for actors.
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Labyrinth by Broken Nose Theatre
By U.K. playwright Beth Steel
By: - Feb 07th, 2020I highly recommend this fast-moving, smart and funny play by U.K. playwright Beth Steel. If you’re not familiar with the early 1980s global economic recession and the Latin American debt crisis, you might want to read up on it before seeing the play.
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Groundhog Day: The Musical
A Co-Production in South Florida
By: - Feb 05th, 2020Groundhog Day is a meaty, moving and humorous story on stage. A shining Slow Burn Theatre Company/Broward Center for the Performing Arts co-production runs through Feb. 16. An ingenious, symbolic set design are among the strong production values. A talented cast shines in this convincing, vivacious production. The stage musical is based on the 1993 film starring Bill Murray as Phil Connors.
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Tiny Beautiful Things
At San Francisco Playhouse
By: - Feb 04th, 2020The structure of Tiny Beautiful Things is comprised of unrelated letters requesting counsel, followed by Sugar’s responses, so the incoming letters lack a narrative arc. However, the themes of human dignity, self-worth, redemption, forgiveness, and especially love, course throughout, resulting in emotional connectedness.
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Queen for Nine Days Reigns at Jordan Hall
Gil Rose Brings Us Arnold Rosner's Lady Jane Grey
By: - Feb 03rd, 2020Jordan Hall in Boston was the setting for a concert version of Arnold Rosner’s The Chronicle of Nine. His only opera for full orchestra is having its world premiere. Gil Rose, recent Grammy winner for best recorded opera, finds treasures in the archives and brings them to our attention. We are fortunate indeed.
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The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith
By Angelo Parra at Center Repertory Company
By: - Feb 02nd, 2020Despite 7,000 attending her funeral, Bessie Smith lay in an unmarked grave for many years, as her ultimately estranged husband pocketed funds donated for her headstone. That was remedied in 1970 with a gift from one Janis Joplin.
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Evita in South Florida
At The Wick Theatre In Boca Raton
By: - Feb 01st, 2020The Wick Theatre presents a powerhouse production of Evita. Triple-threat performers and Behind-the Scenes crew shine. The production runs through Feb. 23 in Boca Raton.
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My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Stout
Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway.
By: - Jan 31st, 2020My Name Is Lucy Barton written by Elizabeth Stout and published to a chorus of Hosannas in 2016, is now a one-woman, 2-character play, running through February 29 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway. Adapted from the book by Rona Munro and directed by Richard Eyre, Lucy Barton stars Laura Linney.
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Verböten by House Theatre
At Chicago's Chopin Theatre
By: - Jan 31st, 2020The old rock trope says that punk music is “three chords and the truth.” That holds true for the fact-based story about a kid punk band from Evanston in the 1980s, which just opened in a world premiere by House Theatre. Verböten is the name of the play and the band.
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Ripcord by David Lindsay-Abaire
Produced By Altarena Playhouse
By: - Jan 30th, 2020Credit Lindsay-Abaire for building a comedy not just around women, but older women whose motivations are not limited to the sole objective of doting on grandkids. He makes his female protagonists full-bore individuals with zesty personalities who are willing to fight tooth-and-nail for what they want.
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Taking Steps by Alan Ayckbourn
At Pear Theatre
By: - Jan 28th, 2020Taking Steps offers its own unique spatial conceit, one with considerable charm but that takes a little getting used to. The action occurs on three floors of the dilapidated Victorian house, but those three floors share the same stage space
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A Doll’s House – Part 2 by Lucas Hnath
Produced By Palo Alto Player
By: - Jan 28th, 2020Playwrights rarely write sequels. That's the twist of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House – Part 2 . This ersatz Ibsen next chapter has been widely produced from Broadway to regional theatre. Here Cordell reviews a California production.
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Object Collection Opera at La Mama
Kara Feely and Travis Just Give Us Space Control
By: - Jan 27th, 2020The Downstairs stage at La Mama is darkened. People bustle around, cleaning equipment, moving it about, casting lights and cameras on it. We the audience are not quite sure whether or not the performance has begun. In fact, the minute we walk into the theater, we are in the drama. It is the intention of Object Collection, the producers and creators, to keep the audience at high alert. Daniel takes a seat on the cosmic throne, a cross between dental chair and space rocket. The quotidian and the other worldly will be liberally mixed in music and action for the next hour.
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Kathryn Hunter As Timon of Athens
At Theatre for a New Audience
By: - Jan 25th, 2020Timon of Athens gets a brilliant characterization by Kathryn Hunter at Theatre for a New Audience. This huge character is played by a diminutive woman who holds us in her thrall every moment she is on stage. In the first part of the play, Timon enjoys her wealth, mindlessly giving her ‘friends’ whatever they want. Her Steward tries to tell her that if she keeps gifting at this pace, she will soon be penniless. Distinctive characters move across the stage, intriguing us.
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Sheepdog By Kevin Artigue
By Shattered Globe Theatre
By: - Jan 25th, 2020Sheepdog, by Kevin Artigue, Shattered Globe Theatre’s new production, crisply directed by Wardell Julius Clark, will have you holding your breath as details of the incident spool out over 90 minutes.
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How to Transcend a Happy Marriage by Sarah Ruhl
Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco
By: - Jan 23rd, 2020Although the playwright’s intent and narrative often lack clarity, the dialog is clever and the situations amusing. In the hands of a fine ensemble of actors, Custom Made Theatre offers a very funny and provocative production of How to Transcend a Happy Marriage.
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Julian Wachner's Rev 23 at Prototype
Biblical Opera is Fun
By: - Jan 21st, 2020We are immediately struck by the lime color of the Rev 23 set: the walls, lights, desks in a school room in hell where God’s lessons are being taught, or unlearned. Clever James Darrah captures both the weight of Rev 23 and its surprising hopefulness in his production. Responding to an exuberant score by Julian Wachner, the Furies dance together across the classroom, lofting comments, instructions and denigrating the ideas of Lucifer. This is his world.
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The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly
Chicago's About Face Theatre
By: - Jan 21st, 2020Kendra and Betty are southern women, together for six years, but their relationship is fraying, if not unraveling. As it turns dark, they’re stuck in a boat that won’t move. The Gulf by Audrey Cefaly is About Face Theatre’s latest production, directed by Megan Carney, now on stage at Theater Wit. The gulf, of course, is both literal and symbolic.
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London Assurance by Dion Boucicault
At Irish Rep Off Broadway
By: - Jan 21st, 2020First produced in Convent Garden in 1841, when Boucicault was 21, London Assurance, is a farcical comedy of manners, this time directed by Charlotte Moore. It is the cleverest and most enjoyable play to open this year.
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Ordinary Americans
World Premiere Co-Production Of Dramedy in South Florida
By: - Jan 20th, 2020Ordinary Americans is a timely and relatable play about an early television sitcom which aired during the McCarthy era. Joseph McDonough's piece is world premiering in a strong co-production by GableStage and Palm Beach Dramaworks. The comedy-drama continues through Feb. 16 at GableStage, following a run at Dramaworks.
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Bloomsday by Steven Dietz
At North Coast Repertory Theatre
By: - Jan 19th, 2020Steven Dietz was among the five most produced playwrights in America during 2019. And now his latest play “Bloomsday,” is on stage at North Coast Repertory Theatre (NCRT), making its Southern California debut.
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