Theatre
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Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss
Produced by Opera San Jose
By: - Sep 17th, 2019The intersection of the world of grand opera and musical confection rarely occurs. An exception to that rule would be Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus. Maestro Michael Morgan maintains brisk pace throughout the musical sections, resulting in a spirited rendering of the score.
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Time Stands Still By Donald Marguiles
Ends Season for Shakespeare & Company
By: - Sep 16th, 2019Instead of a brief essay from the director the Shakespeare & Company playbill uses that space to list journalists killed "on assignment in 2019." Ten years ago Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies earned two Tony nominations. Four fine performances, and superb direction, were squandered on a play that is not aging well. Taking on an important subject, the bravery and sacrifice of journalists covering war zones, the play is contrived and reaches for cheap tricks entailing reversal and deception.
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Amadeus at North Coast Repertory Theatre
Sir Peter Schaffer’s Musical Still Rocks Mozart
By: - Sep 15th, 2019Director Baird’s bold vision required him to strip-down the script to 10 performing characters without sacrificing any of the drama and/or light comedy moments that run throughout Shaffer’s illuminating, potent, tragic story concerning the early death, at 35 years of age, of musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (an astonishing Rafael Goldstein).
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Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater
Interviews by Mark Larson
By: - Sep 14th, 2019Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater is a book you can enjoy in two ways. You can read it from beginning to end, as you would any narrative of fiction or nonfiction. Or you can dip in and out and read Mark Larson’s marvelous interviews with Chicago theater people in any order—and to any stage of completion—that you like.
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Hairspray in Indianapolis
A Beef & Boards Dinner Theater production
By: - Sep 13th, 2019Hairspray is receiving an exuberant production by Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre in Indianapolis.The musical, based on John Waters' film, reminds us that we can each do our part to right wrongs. This production runs through Oct. 6.
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When She Had Wings
Family-Oriented Play In South Florida
By: - Sep 11th, 2019When She Had Wings brings history to life in a fun way. This play about a young girl who wishes to regain her ability to fly should appeal to all ages. Boca Raton-based Theatre Lab is mounting a charming, magical production.
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Howards End at Remy Bumppo Theatre
A Stunning New Production
By: - Sep 10th, 2019Howards End, the stunning new production by Remy Bumppo Theatre, weaves together strands of three families. The wealthy and elite Wilcoxes—father, sons and daughter—the Schlegel sisters, who belong to the intellectual gentry, and poverty-stricken Leonard Bast and his wife. The script by Douglas Post, adapted from E.M. Forster’s 1910 novel, is directed by Nick Sandys.
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Britten's Billy Budd Based on Melville
At San Francisco Opera
By: - Sep 09th, 2019Michael Grandage’s production has been revived several times since its inauguration almost a decade ago, and it’s easy to see why. The staging is sensational, dominated by the depiction of the innards of the man o’ war. Although Billy Budd underwent revisions after its debut in 1951, it is surprising that the American premiere didn’t occur until 1970.
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Kamala Sankaram's New Opera at HERE
Kristin Marting, Opera on Tap and Experiments in Opera Join Forces
By: - Sep 08th, 2019HERE and Opera on Tap are presenting Kamala Sankaram's Looking at You, an opera which takes a provocative approach to the end of privacy. We wittingly and unwittingly allow cyber companies to strip us. Rob Handel's brilliant libretto is in the tradition of Experiments in Opera productions. Its narrative arc and apt language combine with thick orchestration using whatever style brings us face to face with issues in a story.
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Murder for Two
Musical on Stage in Walnut Creek, California
By: - Sep 08th, 2019While this is a well-crafted production of a well-designed and recognized work, it is not for everyone. For theater goers seeking fast-paced, forget-your-troubles entertainment, it will probably fill the bill. For those looking for meaning, social commentary, complexity of character, and the like, it may not fill much of anything.
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Connecticut Theatre
Highliighting the Fall Season
By: - Sep 08th, 2019Karen Isaacs previews what's on tap for fall theater in Connecticut.
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The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Season Announced at Williams College
By: - Sep 05th, 2019The visiting artist CenterSeries brings professional artists to campus for residencies at Williams College that culminate in performances at the ’62 Center. The Series kicks off with the return of Dancers from New York City Ballet on Friday, October 18th. Also returning to Williams is the SITI Company. Founded in 1992 by Anne Bogart and Tadashi Suzuki, SITI will perform a “spellbinding modern update” of The Bacchae by Aaron Poochigian, on Saturday, November 2nd. (Los Angeles Times).
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Clark Will Screen Live at the Met
Opera Featured at Williamstown Museum
By: - Sep 05th, 2019The Clark Art Institute will air the complete 2019–20 season of ten live performances from The Metropolitan Opera, held on select Saturdays beginning in October 12 and concluding in May 2020, in high definition from the Clark’s state-of-the-art auditorium. A special holiday encore presentation of The Magic Flute will be held on Sunday, December 8.
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The Flick by Annie Baker
Shotgun Players in Berkeley, California
By: - Sep 01st, 2019One weakness in the storyline of Annie Baker's The Flick is the playwright’s inability to edit down from a three-hour running time to a length reasonable for the topic matter. Like many contemporary movie directors, she seems unable to abandon story elements that may stand well on their own but dilute the overall effect. One tract that is an unnecessary waste of 10 or 15 minutes is the opening scene. Not only does it bore to tears, but it takes some time for the audience to put that experience behind them and hope that things will get better. Fortunately, they do.
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Little Shop of Horrors at Lyric Stage
Plant Makes Lunch Meat of Actors
By: - Aug 30th, 2019Where can you see the story of a barely-sentient being that promises everyone whatever they want but ends up eating them alive? No! Not on the nightly news- It’s The Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” which is being staged through October 6 at 140 Clarendon Street in Boston’s Back Bay.
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Sea Wall/A Life at Hudson Theater in NYC
Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal
By: - Aug 27th, 2019Sea Wall/A Life, two-one act plays now at the Hudson Theater in New York City through Sept. 29 takes you on an emotional roller coaster. In part, this is due to the spectacular performances by Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal.
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Gershwin Alone By Hershey Felder
A Musical Seance at the Colonial Theatre
By: - Aug 25th, 2019Gershwin Alone by Hershey Felder has been performed on Broadway and toured globally. Too briefly this remarkable musical seance is at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. Felder is actor/ entertainer, musicologist and biographer switching from schtick to instructive. With a "that's not all folks" surprise the ninety minute performance was followed by an eclectic engagement with the audience. That included a couple of sing alongs from The Great American Songbook.
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Ladies Night at Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble
Bond, Musgrave and Viardot Intrigue and Engage
By: - Aug 22nd, 2019Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, always venturesome, presented an evening in which three female composers were featured Franz Liszt had said that in Pauline Viardot the world had finally found a woman composer of genius. Her short opera Cendrillon was performed in full.
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Topdog/Underdog by Susan-Lori Parks
Riveting Pulitzer Prize Drama at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Aug 22nd, 2019Directed by Regge Life Shakespeare & Company is presenting a riveting, superbly acted production of Topdog/Underdog by Susan-Lori Parks In 2002, Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Outer Critics Circle Award for the play. The actors Booth (Deaon Griffin-Pressley), and Lincoln (Bryce Michael-Wood) give astonishing performances. This is on the short list of best dramas of the 2019 Berkshire season.
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The Thirteenth Child at Opera Santa Fe
By Poul Ruders with Libretto by Becky and David Starobin
By: - Aug 21st, 2019In an age of sweeping movement toward gender equity, Danish composer Poul Ruders has surprisingly drawn on a Grimm fairytale as a source for female heroics and female enabling. The result is a fable for adults – a taut and riveting opera, yet one that begs for more. Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere of The Thirteenth Child offers stunning production values that enhance the score and yield an engaging musical drama.
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Romeo and Juliet
At San Diego's Old Gold Theatre
By: - Aug 21st, 2019Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe Theatre’s Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director, is not only a recognized scholar of the Shakespearean canon, He’s also the author of “Thinking Shakespeare” a book that has become the standard text on American Shakespeare Acting in universities and academies across America. Who better, then, than Edelstein to direct the Bard’s famous and tragic story of star crossed lovers, “Romeo and Juliet,.”
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All Quiet on the Western Front in Chicago
At the Red Tape Theatre
By: - Aug 20th, 2019The Erich Maria Remarque novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a literary masterpiece. Perhaps yuu have read it or seen the classic 1930 film. One likely comes to this stunning stage production with many preconceptions. This galvanic production at Red Tape Theatre more than adequately meets out expectations.
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The Pearl Fishers at Santa Fe Opera
Georges Bizet with Libretto by Eugène Carmon and Michel Carré
By: - Aug 20th, 2019Many operas have suffered a rocky road to recognition and appreciation, The Pearl Fishers, among them. Yet when one considers its virtues, it is hard to understand why. Santa Fe Opera presented a rare and much appreciated production.
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Shakepeare's Macbeth
A Production by Ft. Lauderdale's New City Players
By: - Aug 19th, 2019New City Players' dark and creepy Macbeth taps into the zeitgeist. This production in South Florida isn't perfect, but features admirable acting and vivid, foreboding sound effects. Ft. Lauderdale-based company's mounting runs through Sept. 1 in that city's downtown. For the most part, darkness shrouds the extremely intimate playing space, which offers a visceral theatrical experience.
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Jenufa by Leoš Janácek
Produced by Santa Fe Opera
By: - Aug 19th, 2019With the exception of a little light relief in the wedding preparation, Jenufa is tense and emotionally charged from beginning to end. Janácek endows his lead characters with complexity and with demanding vocals. In keeping with the tone of the action, much of the vocalization is harsh, yet particularly in the orchestra, appealing passages emerge. Overall, the score fulfills many demands with great success.
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