Theatre
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Nicholas Martin’s Gorgeous Pygmalion at WTF
Stars Robert Sean Leonard and Heather Lind in Shaw’s Masterpiece
By: - Jul 24th, 2013As a strong willed, crafty and independent guttersnipe Eliza Doolittle sold flowers to support herself. As a refined lady, transformed through a wager between the linguists Professor Henry Higgins and his colleague Colonel Pickering, in order to survive in circa 1913 London, she is forced to sell herself. As Shaw wrote his feminist inspired play there was no happy ending. Few if any directors have adhered to his intent which infuriated Shaw. In this stunning Williamstown production director Nicholas Martin provides a new twist,.
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Adams Updates The Salem Witch Trials at CATF
A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World
By: - Jul 24th, 2013With A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World it seems that Liz Duffy Adams has taken on the daunting challenge of a sequel to Arthur Miller's classic The Crucible. The real life adolescent hysterics who sent the innocent to the gallows, Abigail Williams and Mercy Lewis, reconnect with widely divergent views a decade later. The new play is a part of the 23rd annual Contemporary American Theatre Festival.
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Jane Martin’s Riveting H2O at CATF
Intriguing Drama by Mysterious Playwright
By: - Jul 23rd, 2013Of the five plays of the 23rd Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, through July 28, the most buzz and impossible to get ticket, is generated by the elusive Jane Martin’s H2O.
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Sam Shephard's Heartless at CATF
Triage in West Virginia
By: - Jul 23rd, 2013Sam Shephard's play Heartless had its 2012 premiere at Signature Theatre in New York City. It's getting a rewrite in a second production at Contemporary American Theatre Festival in West Virginia. While it has familiar Shepardesque aspects is that enough to breath life back into a surreal and enervating play?
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Modern Terrorism by Jon Kern in West Va.
Contemporary American Theatre Festival to July 28
By: - Jul 22nd, 2013Jon Kern, a writer for The Simpsons, was inspired by the aborted bombing attempt in Time Square to create the comedy Modern Terrorism: Or They Who Want to Kills Us and How We Learn to Love Them. This darkest of comedies attempts to humanize and humorize a suicide bomber avenging American drone strikes and attacks on Islamic citizens.
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Contemporary American Theatre Festival
West Virginina Meeting of American Theatre Critics Association
By: - Jul 22nd, 2013The 23rd annual Contemporary American Theatre Festival opened on July 5 and ends on July 28 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Last week some 75 members and guests of the American Theatre Critics Association met in Shepherdstown to view and discuss five new plays. During a brutal national heat wave there was a busy schedule of performances, meetings, lectures, panel discussions, banquets and visits to surrounding Civil War sites. It was an intense and richly informative experience.
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Big Lake Big City at Lookingglass in Chicago
Theater Noir by Keith Huff Thrills
By: - Jul 21st, 2013At the play’s opening, a spot light focuses on the sculpture of a Modigliani head. Heads in all forms are the focus of Big Lake Big City. Detective Podaris’ head has become unscrewed, Stew’s head screwed with a driver, and head shrink Dr. Susan’s head is stolen. Go figure.
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Blood and Gifts at Chicago's Timeline
J.T. Rogers Compelling Play Produced Brilliantly
By: - Jul 19th, 2013Probing current issues is one of the Timeline Theatre’s missions. Blood and Gifts suits their purposes well. It is a terrific theater piece, full of mystery and high drama. Nick Bowling and the Timeline group offer not just a well-conceived and brilliantly acted version of J.T. Rogers play, but also an intimate one.
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The Jungle Book at the Goodman Theater
At Boston's Huntington Theatre Company. in September
By: - Jul 17th, 2013This curious mix of writer/director Mary Zimmerman and Disney creates an uplifting, visually gorgeous stage on which the dancers choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, prance and entrance.
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The Whipping Man at Vermont's Dorset
Infuses History with Humanity
By: - Jul 15th, 2013The Whipping Man, playing at the Dorset Theatre Festival, is a profound and moving theatrical experience that lingers long after the final curtain.
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Merchant of Venice at Old Globe
Summer Shakespeare Festival in San Diego
By: - Jul 15th, 2013San Diego's Old Globe annual Shakespeare Summer Theatre Festival in the Lowell Davies Outdoor Theatre is in full sway. The second production is the ambivalent and oft misinterpreted story “The Merchant of Veniceâ€, deftly directed by Adrian Noble. Scholars for centuries have debated the true meaning of the Bard’s play.
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Rocco Sisto in Rarely Produced Richard II
Launching a S&Co. Tetraology of Four History Plays
By: - Jul 13th, 2013Over the next four years Shakespeare & Company will present a tetralogy of four history plays. The cycle begins this season with Richard II directed by Timothy Douglas and starring Rocco Sisto. Next year Johnathan Epstein will directed Henry IV.
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When a Play Expands a Theater
The Weston Theatre's Bold Production of Next to Normal
By: - Jul 13th, 2013With more than two dozen scene changes and a huge challenging score, Next to Normal would be a challenging production in any theater, but the Weston takes it on and succeeds. We are all the fortunate beneficiaries of its courage.
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A Typical WTF Press Conference?
Actors are People Too
By: - Jul 13th, 2013The Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) season is in high gear. We attended the first WTF press conference to cover the next two productions of 'Pygmalion' by George Bernard Shaw and Johnny Baseball, the Boston Red Sox story, now a musical. It turned out to be a lively event!
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Kate Burton in Stoppard’s Riveting Hapgood
Quantum Mechanics of the Spy Game
By: - Jul 12th, 2013I think I saw a great production of Tom Stoppard's Hapgood, starring Kate Burton at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. But then there's the Uncertainty Principle. Whether one enjoys this show depends upon whether you view it from a Newtonian or Quantum Mechanics point of view. It may or may not be the best drama of the Berkshire season. In a Stoppardesque sense.
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Batter Up for Johnny Baseball at Williamstown
Controversial ART Musical Steals Second Base
By: - Jul 11th, 2013If shows are not instant hits in regional theaters they rarely get a second chance. It is especially difficult to develop musicals. Johnny Baseball, a musical about the Boston Red Sox and the Curse of the Bambino, opened at American Repertory Theatre in June, 2010. The idea started in 2003 and development, with six new songs and other changes continues. It opens on July 24 at Williamstown Theatre Festival. During a recent press conference we asked about love/ hate relationships which resulted in Globe critic Louise Kennedy losing her job in reaction to her Johnny Baseball review.
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Summer Shakespeare in San Diego
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Old Globe
By: - Jul 10th, 2013It is fitting that “Midsummer…â€, creatively directed by Ian Talbot, be the selection to kick off the 2013 Old Globe’s summer festival season. It’s one of Shakespeare’s most enduring comedies filled with oddball characters and silly liaisons and situations.
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Robert Sean Leonard in WTF's Pygmalion
Talks About Life After Dr. Wilson on House
By: - Jul 10th, 2013Robert Sean Leonard appeared as Dr. Wilson the best friend of the curmudgeon Hugh Laurie's Dr. House from 2004 to 2012. They shot 175 episodes of the TV series House. That left Leonard the financial freedom to pick and choose roles in theatre. From July 17 to 27 he stars at Williamstown Theatre Festival as Professor Henry Higgins in Shaw's Pygmalion directed by Nicholas Martin. The production, with changes, originated at the Old Globe in San Diego.
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Amy Herzog's Belleville at Steppenwolf
Disturbing, Intriguing, Good Theater
By: - Jul 10th, 2013The Belleville section of Paris, in which Belleville by Amy Herzog is set, is known as one of the hotbeds of the Revolution of 1848, as an ethnic melting pot, and also one of the high points of Paris, literally. It competes with Montmartre for the best view of the fabled city. Now it witnesses a couple unravel.
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Foreign Affairs – at Berliner Festspiele
Comments and Thoughts
By: - Jul 09th, 2013The Berliner Festspiele 2013 continue: From June 27 to July 14 with an array of performances etc. under the title: 'Foreign Affairs.' Theatre, music, dance, video, multi- and interdisciplinary works to actively draw in the public have been scheduled. Foreign, as in new and cutting edge - and foreign, as in international companies and artists, are presented.
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Broadway in the Berkshires
Stars Shine in Benefit for Shakespeare & Company
By: - Jul 09th, 2013Broadway in the Berkshires, produced by Deborah Grausman and hosted by John Douglas Thompson, was presented as a benefit for the Education and Training programs of Shakespeare & Company. Singer and actor Grausman, appearing this summer in Master Class, was able to call in favors from her many and diverse Broadway, Off Broadway and S & Co. colleagues. Over 300 tickets were sold and upwards of 75 Shakespeare & Company artists and other special guests were also in attendance. The benefit raised $110, 000.
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Oklahoma at the Colonial in Pittsfield
Like Watching Corn Grow
By: - Jul 07th, 2013The iconic 1943 Oklahoma, with the magnificent music of Rodgers and Hammerstein would seem to be a shoe in hit for the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfeld. While the production has stunning moments, caveat emptor, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. After five decades the jingoism and heart on the sleeve Americana which wowed audiences during World War II is hardly convincing today.
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Weston's New Works
Weston Playhouse Supports the Development of Two New Plays
By: - Jul 06th, 2013As part of its New Works Programs, Vermont's Weston Playhouse is offering its audiences a dynamic new experience—the opportunity to witness and be part of a step in the development of two new plays.
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Kate Burton on Stoppard's Hapgood at WTF
Three Generations of Burton Family Theatre
By: - Jul 05th, 2013While a graduate student at Yale Kate Burton first performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1980 with Frank Langella and Christopher Reeve as leading men. In 1987 she returned with her husband , Michael Ritchie, who later took over as artistic director, with Jenny Gersten as his associate. From July 10 to 21 she stars at WTF in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood. She took time from rehearsals to discuss finding her own way in theatre as the daughter of Richard Burton. Next year Nicholas Martin will direct Kate and her son Morgan Ritchie in Chekhov's The Seagull for Boston's Huntington Theatre.
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American Hero by Bess Wohl at WTF
Taking a Bite Out of Corporate America
By: - Jul 03rd, 2013Bess Wohl returns to Williamstown Theatre Festival for her sixth season and second as a playwright. American Hero a send up of the fast food industry and corporate America is a side splitting hoot. While a hilarious play it also leaves us with food for thought. As Jack Nicholson would say "Give me a BLT but hold the lettuce, hold the bacon and hold the tomato." Or ham on wry.
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