Theatre
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Timon of Athens at Stratford Festival
Yet Another Superb Production
By: - Jul 27th, 2017Stratford has a special history with this Shakespeare play, dating from Michael Langham’s extraordinary 1963 production with incidental music commissioned from Duke Ellington. Updating the setting, Langham offered an opulent melodrama with some textual additions, guest musicians and dancers.
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The Nance at Pride Arts Center
Evoking an Era of Burlesque
By: - Jul 28th, 2017The burlesque acts at the Irving Place Theatre make up almost half of The Nance, which is riproaringly directed by John Nasca. You’ll see a feathery fan dance by Joan (Britt-Marie Sivertsen) and other songs, dances and modest strip routines by Sylvie and Carmen (Steph Vondell). The women’s costumes are colorful and sparkly—and designed by Nasca, doing double duty as costume designer.
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Katrin Hilbe Directs Dear Jane
Joan Beber Play Mounted at the Clurman
By: - Jul 28th, 2017Joan Beber has tackled an intimate part of her own life, the death of a twin sister, in her new play, Dear Jane. Formed as a letter to her deceased sibling, Beber creates many memorable characters. Katrin Hilbe directs flawlessly.
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Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage
American Dreams in 1905
By: - Jul 29th, 2017Inspired by her great grandmother's life, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, presents Esther, a fine seamstress in 1905's New York City. Through this lens, we meet others of various races and sexes, from places around the world, all struggling to achieve their dreams. How they fare becomes our concern.
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Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow
Feiffer Deconstructs Chekhov in Williamstown
By: - Jul 30th, 2017Over 62 years of Williamstown Theatre Festival there have been 18 productions of the four best known plays by Anton Chekov; The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, the Seagull and Three Sisters. There have been five prior versions of Three Sisters and this season we have yet another. Well, not exactly.
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Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
Making Family Insanity Hilarious in Stockbridge
By: - Jul 31st, 2017This is a classic comedy that still entertains with a spectacular cast and great timing! Arsenic and Old Lace ran for three years on Broadway starting in 1941 and still holds up. There is a lively production on Stage at Bekshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge.
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Bad Jews in Miami Lakes
Main Street Players Stages Joshua Harmon Dramedy
By: - Jul 31st, 2017Bad Jews is a biting comedy/drama at South Florida theater. Joshua Harmon play marks Main Street Players' third professional production. Company excels in an intense, funny production.
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Dimitrij by Dvorak at Bard's SummerScape
Leon Botstein Conduts an Underdog Opera
By: - Jul 31st, 2017Leon Botstein, a great American educator and music polymath, makes the case for underexposed compositions by known and unknown composers. This year, he presents Anton Dvo?ák's Dimitrij as a feature of the Bard SummerScape Festival.
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Footloose the Musical in Fremont. California
Starstruck Youth Performing Arts
By: - Aug 01st, 2017"Footloose the Musical" is based on a film that was part of a strong cluster of movies that in some ways was a gentle echo of the youthful rebellion of the '60s. Hollywood struck a rich vein of teen and young adult musical films in the decade starting 1978. Some were based on earlier stage musicals, and others would later become live theater pieces. Starstruck Youth Performing Arts has selected a perfect vehicle for a large teen cast.
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Berkshire Theatre Group's Fall Programming
Pulitzer and Tony Winner David Auburn's Lost Lake at the Unicorn
By: - Aug 04th, 2017Berkshire Theatre Group announces additions to the fall and winter seasons, as well as casting for the Fall production of David Auburn’s Lost Lake at The Unicorn Theatre. Therde wlll also be a number of unique musical events at its Colonial Theatre in downtiown Pittsfield.
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Berkshire Museum Releases Auction List
Two Rockwells and 38 Other Works
By: - Jul 24th, 2017Initially the Berkshire Museum disclosed plans to sell two paintings by Norman Rockwell but declined to reveal the other works. Under intensive media scrutiny and concerns from the community the museum has posted responses to frequently asked questions on the website and has released the full list of deaccessioned works. The lot has a pre auction estmate of $50 million toward a goal to "reboot" with $20 milion in renovation and $40 million for endowment. The remaining $10 millions will be raised apart from the sale of works of art.
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Taking Steps by Alan Aykbourn
Farce Rocks Barrington Stage
By: - Jul 24th, 2017Leaving our thinking caps at home there was no heavy lifting in the delicious British farce, Taking Steps, by the redoubtable Alan Ayckbourn. At last count he has written 77 plays. After the knockout job that director, Sam Buntrock, and a truly gifted cast did with this one, one hopes that over time Barrington will produce the other 76.
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Conflating Early with Late Edward Albee
Interesting Mismatch at Berkshire Theatre Group
By: - Jul 23rd, 2017In 1958 the one act play Zoo Story launched the career of playwright Edward Albee. In 2004 he added a first act. That version , retitled At Home at the Zoo (Zoo Story), is being produced by Berkshire Theatre Group on its intimate Unicorn stage in Stockbridge.
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Another Palm Canyon Theatre Hit
Tony Winner Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights
By: - Jul 15th, 2017“In the Heights” by Lin Manuel Miranda chronicles the daily struggles of the neighborhood in its day to day existence of raising families, paying the rent and trying to keep one’s business from going bankrupt, along with the age-old frustration of the younger residents in not being able to make their own choices in their searches for love, romance, and marriage.
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Tender Napalm by Philip Ridley
Anton's Well Theater Company in Oakland
By: - Jul 16th, 2017Several recurring themes frame the arc to provide color to the story telling. Detailed sexual activity with graphic anatomical references as well as analogies such as bullets and exploding grenades are often described. Unfortunately, the tsunami of f-bombs reduce their effectiveness and seem like a child's learning a nasty word and mindlessly repeating it until it becomes meaningless.
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Where Storms are Born in Williamstown
World Premiere by Harrison David Rivers
By: - Jul 17th, 2017In its smaller Nikos Stage the Williamstown Theatre Festival features another, homegrown, world premiere. Last summer playwright Harrison David Rivers was a fellow at the renowned festival. The play that he was developing Where Storms Are Born is being produced this season. Again there is a focus on diversity and plot points hinged on gay characters, There is risk taking in this strategy wih bold and progressive but unresolved results.
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East of Edinburgh New Plays at 59E59th
Two Matters of Life and Death
By: - Jul 15th, 201759 East 59th Street Theaters is presenting New York’s annual Edinburgh Festival Preview. The acting in the plays is terrific. While these are works in process, the directors give us engaging productions on provocative themes.
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1984 On Stage in Pompano Beach
Adaptation of Orwell Novel in South Florida
By: - Jul 18th, 2017Outre's production depicts a future-- and even a present -- in which surveillance is becoming more prevalent. Actors fare better after intermission in Outre Theatre Company's 1984. Interrogation scene not as graphic as what audiences are reportedly witnessing on Broadway.
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Speech & Debate at Barrington Stage
Coming of Age Comedy by Stephen Karam
By: - Jul 19th, 2017Speech and Debate is a 2007 play by Tony winner Stephen Karam (The Humans). Since then there have been more than a hundred productions. It is being refreshed at Barrington Stage. It focuses on the bonding of three high school misfits. The awkward and insecure Howie (Austin Davidson) came out when he was nine. The uptight, preppy Solomon (Ben Getz) is a closeted wannabe investigative reporter. Diwata (Betsy Hogg) is a plain Jane, nerdy teen, passed over by the drama club, who wants to be a star. This makeover of a popular play slogs along until coming alive when the amazing Hogg takes the bit in her mouth and races hell for leather to a remarkable finish. Fasten your seat belts.
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Syrian Drama at Lincoln Center Festival
Into the Heart of Damascus
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Syrians are spreading across the world as civil war rages on in their country. We who greet, house and share our countries with them are curious about the country from which they have come and what it feel like to live there during this period of torture and destruction. The theater of Syria helps us understand what prompts exodus.
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Lela & Co. by Cordelia Lynn
At Chicago's Steep Theatre
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Cordelia Steep’s U.S. premiere of Lela and Co. is set in some unnamed wartorn region of the world—perhaps central Europe. It’s Lela’s story, beginning with her birth, when she learns that a woman’s role is “to sing the songs, the early songs and the late songs, the songs of sleeping and the songs of mourning.
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Taylor Mac’s Hir
At Steppenwolf in Chicago
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Hir is a family story, a chaotic kitchen-sink story. Playwright Taylor Mac describes it as absurd realism, with a simple plot: The prodigal son returns home from the war and finds nothing is as it was when he left. Isaac (Tyler Olwin) has been away for three years, working on a mortuary crew in Afghanistan.
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The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga
By Min Kahng in Palo Alto
By: - Jul 20th, 2017The bouncy, Vaudeville-influenced opening number "The Four Immigrants" theme sets the early tone of the hope for success in the new land. The men struggle, as most immigrants will, but then the first major setback occurs, San Francisco's 1906 earthquake.
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At the Old Place by Rachel Bonds
At the La Jolla Playhouse
By: - Jul 21st, 2017In “At the Old Place”, the story, set in rural Richmond, Virginia, centers around Angie (Heidi Armbruster) who is trying to come to grips with any guilt and closure that occurs following the death of her mother and the unrequited issues that linger and eventually fall to her for resolution. One unfinished piece of business that takes her back is the sale of her mother’s house.
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Finding Mona Lisa in Coral Gables
World Premiere Play at Actors Playhouse
By: - Jul 21st, 2017Finding Mona Lisa is a fun-filled, quick-paced play with colorful characters. Six actors skillfully portray multiple roles in new Michael McKeever historically-based drama. The new play about the world's most famous painting produces plenty of laughs.
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