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Theatre

  • Faure's Penelope at Munich Opera

    Karkacheva and Jovanovich Star

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 01st, 2025

    As part of its 150th anniversary celebration, the Munich Opera Festival presented Pénélope by Gabriel Fauré—a bold and welcome choice. To champion this rarely performed work, the company brought in Andrea Breth, one of Germany’s most accomplished theater directors. The cast clearly responded to her direction with commitment and nuance.

  • Mundruczó's Lohengrin in Munich

    Munich Opera Festival Mounts Wagner's Most Frequentlyly Performed Work

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 31st, 2025

    No opera company today rivals the Munich Opera when it comes to innovative yet deeply respectful productions of the classic repertoire. While it’s tempting—and often rewarding—to look beyond the traditional opera circuit for new creative voices, few choices are as effective as Hungarian filmmaker and theater director Kornél Mundruczó.

  • Annie the Musical

    At Sharon Playhouse

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 30th, 2025

    Annie has a strong connection to Connecticut. It started life at Goodspeed in 1976, before heading to Broadway, where it not only won multiple Tony Awards but played until 1983. While the inspiration was the comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, the musical’s plot by Thomas Meehan, is completely original. Charles Strouse wrote the music with lyrics by Martin Charnin.

  • Das Rheingold in Munich

    Prelude to a Stunning New Ring Cycle by Tobias Kratzger

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 29th, 2025

    The Munich Opera celebrates summer with an annual festival. This year, the prelude to the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, provided novel and thrilling music and drama.

  • Die Walküre

    A Tale of Conflicts and Betrayals

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 28th, 2025

    Brünhilde's empathy for illicit lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde induces her to betray the orders of her father Wotan, the king of gods. His punishment is to reduce her to becoming a mortal. Santa Fe Opera's production excels.

  • Rigoletto

    Verdi's Tragic Masterpiece at Santa Fe Opera

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 27th, 2025

    The jester Rigoletto vows to protect his daughter from lascivious men. Not only does he fail, but he suffers tragic consequences as a result of his attempted revenge after her abduction and abuse.

  • Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap

    World’s Longest Running Play at the Colonial

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 27th, 2025

    Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap opened to mixed reviews in 1952, and other than a hiatus for Covid, is still running. It’s a London tourist trap and as much a site to see as Big Ben and the museums. Berkshire Theatre Group's sizzling production at the Colonial Theatre is a home run. This show is the most fun of the Berkshire season.

  • Singin’ in the Rain

    Playhouse on Park in West Hartford

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 26th, 2025

    The Playhouse on Park version has a new premise. We don’t just dive into the plot. The production begins with an audience assembling for a screening of the classic movie. However, just moments in, a malfunction stops the screening.

  • The Turn of the Screw

    Santa Fe's Excellent Production of the Ghost Story

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 24th, 2025

    In this Gothic ghost tale, a young governess is charged with caring for two orphans under the guardianship of an absentee uncle. Two employees on the estate whom the governess encounters are deceased. Is she dreaming, or is their presence real? And are the children innocents, or are they possessed by the ghosts? Benjamin Britten's eerie music fits the ghost story.

  • All Shook UP

    At Goodspeed

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 23rd, 2025

    The list of things All Shook Up does well is long, from the show itself to the outstanding Goodspeed production and the talented cast.

  • The Rake's Progress

    Glimmerglass Festival's Production of Stravinsky's Opera Sparkles

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 21st, 2025

    Tom Rakewell shuns regular work. His desire to make it on his wits alone plays into the hands of Nick Shadow, alias, The Devil. Willing to leave his betrothed, Anne Trulove, behind, and seduced by the attractions of London, Tom falls deeper and deeper into despair.

  • The House on Mango Street

    Glimmerglass's Compelling World Premiere Opera

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 20th, 2025

    Forty years ago, Sandra Cisneros authored one of the world's best-selling and most influential young adult novels. Together with composer Derek Bermel, they have created an opera based on that work, telling about coming of age in a Mexican-American community in Chicago.

  • Les Blancs

    Oakland Theater Project's Gender Bending Take on Lorraine Hansberry

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 16th, 2025

    Having settled in London, Tshembe visits his African homeland at a time of unrest. Playwright Lorraine Hansberry plumbs conflicts among natives and colonialists with various philosophies. OTP's production casts a wholly black female ensemble to portray men and women, black and white.

  • fuzzy at Barrington Stage Company

    A World Premiere Musical

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 13th, 2025

    The musical fuzzy is a puppet show for adults. This inventive production breaks all the rules. The one act play has been written, it seems, by the main character. The charm of this production is that the audience comes to believe that.

  • Opera Comes to the Williamstown Festival

    Samuel Barber's Vanessa in a New Take by Heartbeat Opera

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 12th, 2025

    Vanessa is the first opera to be performed at the Williamstown Festival, running from July 17 through August 3. It will be produced by Heartbeat Opera, a company known for revitalizing underperformed masterpieces and breathing new life into opera’s  staples.

  • Jurassiq Parq: A Musiqal Parody

    A Fun Time with Raucous Theater at Oasis, San Francisco's LGBTQ Nightclub

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 12th, 2025

    A spoof of the popular movie, this jukebox-musical-plus offers a great catalog of singalong pop and rock hits from the '80s and '90s along with broad and racy humor. The production values are impressive as Dr. Laura Dern and Dr. Jeff Goldblum try to save the world from the re-birth of dinosaurs.

  • Constellations

    Pear Theatre Innovates a Two-Hander About Multiple Realities

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 08th, 2025

    Marianne, an astrophysicist, and Roland, a beekeeper, strike an unlikely relationship. In Nick Payne's original realization, two actors repeat each scene three times, each variation having its own twist and suggesting multiple realities. The Pear uses three separate couples, increasing the dynamics with each couple reflecting different aspects of their character's personality.

  • About Time by Maltby and Shire

    At Goodspeed

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 05th, 2025

    About Time, the new Maltby and Shire revue that recently completed a run at About Time, the new Maltby and Shire seems inevitable, given that the pair previously composed the revues Starting Here, Starting Now (1976) and Closer Than Ever (1989).While Starting Here’s songs dealt with starting out in a big city and finding romance, Closer Than Ever’s songs dealt with subjects related to mid-life.

  • Camelot at Barrington Stage Company

    Utopian Message for Hard Times

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 04th, 2025

    Camelot, a lesser work by Lerner & Loewe with its utopian vision of a medieval kingdom, came to signify the youthful and energetic presidency of John F. Kennedy. It has been revised by Alan Paul and Barrington Stage Company as contrast to the current evil empire and faint hope that a better America has been and will be again.

  • The Last Goat

    Central Works' Premiere About Isolation and Desire

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 03rd, 2025

    On a desolate Greek island in the Bronze Age, only an older woman and her granddaughter remain. An exhausted, disheveled young man appears, claiming to have been shipwrecked. His presence prompts revelations, creates new dynamics, and imposes new decisions to be made.

  • Aztlán

    An Intriguing World Premiere of Luis Alfaro's Latest at Magic Theatre

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 02nd, 2025

    A still young Aztlán has been released from nine years in prison but must deal with a sadistic parole officer who makes it difficult to meet parole requirements and a landlord who tries to take advantage of his vulnerability. Having been diagnosed as violent even as a pre-teen, this environment is hardly conducive to rehabilitation. Against this personal story is overlaid the myth and spirit of the Aztec empire.

  • Shakespeare & Company Gala 2025

    Honoring Annette Miller and John Douglas Thompson

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 30th, 2025

    Gala 25 of Shakespeare & Company honored alumni of its Center for Acting Training, Annette Miller and John Douglas Thompson. Both are distinguished “lifers” who have been with the company for more than 20 years.

  • World Premiere of Long Days

    Legacy Theatre in Branford

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 25th, 2025

    The closing night of a show can be fraught with emotions. Cast and crew members have worked hard for weeks through rehearsals and performances. Friendships and feuds have developed. Add in an emotionally demanding play such as Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and everything is intensified.

  • Annunciation

    Word for Word's Production of Lauen Groff's Fine Short Story

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 24th, 2025

    Upon college graduation, The Woman re-settles in the Golden State in hopes of finding a new happiness. In her scrounging existence, her life becomes entangled with a co-worker and her landlady. The Woman grows as she faces the challenges of life.

  • A Class Act

    Norman Shabel Produces His Own Play in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Jun 24th, 2025

    A South Florida professional production of Norman Shabel's legal drama, "A Class Act" runs through this weekend. "A Class Act" is a call to conscience that we cannot afford to ignore.

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