Theatre
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POTUS: Or Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive
A President's Improprieties Trigger a Zany Cavalcade of Events
By: - Sep 22nd, 2023The subtitle of the play suggests where it’s going. But if you think that it may simply be misandristic, that wouldn’t be correct. Given the crazy antics of these females who are close to the president, you could just as easily add the word dumbass in front of the word women. In any case, the result is “POTUS,” a farce that had Berkeley Rep’s opening night audience laughing with glee from start to finish. But it's not for everyone.
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The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd
Theatre Lab in Boca Raton
By: - Sep 21st, 2023The Many Wondrous Realities of Jasmine Starr-Kidd is about a 12-year-old computer genius who convinces her uncle to travel back in time to repair her parents' relationship. A strong Florida Premiere production is running through Oct. 8 at Theatre Lab on Florida Atlantic University's campus in Boca Raton. The play won the 2022 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwrighting Competition at Alliance Theatre, where the world premiere production took place.
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Il Trovatore
One of Verdi's Most Challenging and Emotional Operas
By: - Sep 19th, 2023The title character is Manrico, a troubadour and leader of a Roma troupe. Unbeknownst to anyone but his adoptive mother, he is of noble blood and the brother of his arch enemy, Count di Luna. They contest not only in the communal and political world but for the love of a woman, Leonora.
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Bald Sisters
A Clash of Cultural and Family Values.
By: - Sep 19th, 2023One Cambodian-American sister has married a Christian pastor and has remained in Dallas, where the mother had resettled the family. The younger sister had moved to New York City, rejecting some of the family's values, but reconnecting with Buddhism. When their mother dies, the sisters face conflicts that extend well beyond dealing with death rites.
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Lunar Eclipse By Donald Marguiles
World Premiere at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Sep 18th, 2023Lunar Eclipse, by Pulitzer prize winner, Donald Marguiles is having its world premiere at Shakespeare & Company. Directed by James Warwick it stars Karen Allen and Reed Birney. The playwright digs deep into the long marriage of the farmer and his wife. The drama of loss, legacy and end of life play out in the phases of an eclipse. The taut one act play is emotionally invasive.
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The Addams Family
A Fun Look At The Ghoulish Family
By: - Sep 16th, 2023Horrors! Guess who's coming to dinner. Gomez and Morticia's daughter Wednesday has fallen in love and wants to marry a "normal" young man. She has even invited him and his family over for a meal. What can be done to stop such a fearsome turn of events?
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The Happiest Man on Earth by Mark St. Germain Returns
Back by Popular Demand at Barrington Stage Company
By: - Sep 16th, 2023By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.
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Crowns
An Uplifting Celebration of African-American Women and Hats They Wear To Church
By: - Sep 14th, 2023Hats are an integral part of the African-American woman's church attendance. Playwright Regina Taylor celebrates not only hats but the women that wear them - their fortitude, their triumphs, and their tragedies. Animated vignettes and a gospel dominated song book provide for a rousing entertainment.
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Five Guys Named Moe
MNM Theatre Company in South Florida
By: - Sep 12th, 2023MNM Theatre Company in West Palm Beach is presenting a vibrant production of the acclaimed musical revue, "Five Guys Named Moe." The production runs through Sept. 24 at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. In the show, through music, the titular characters hope to change the life of a drunken man whose wife has left him.
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Romeo and Juliet - Gounod's Opera
Fine Voices and Acting of Young Opera San Jose Cast Carry Opera
By: - Sep 11th, 2023"Romeo and Juliet" reigns as the touchstone of love stories centuries after its creation. But the play offers depth of meaning and cautions in many other social realms which contribute to its greatness. Adapted in many genres, Gounod's opera remains perhaps the most compelling and enduring realization. Its lush music and tight adherence to the Bard's work yield a timeless masterpiece.
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New Federal Theatre Opens Fall Season
Gala and Micki Grant Premiere Directed by Woodie King Jr.
By: - Sep 09th, 2023For over five decades, the New Federal Theatre has presented undiscovered talent like Denzel Washington, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, S. Epatha Merkerson, Issa Rae, La Tanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, and Morgan Freeman in their first stage appearances. They premiered For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide. Led. by Woodie King Jr. and now Elizabeth Van Dyke, the New Federal Theatre is a national treasure.
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Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical
Dominique Morisseau's Second Musical About Black Song In The Late 20th Century at San Francisco's ACT
By: - Sep 08th, 2023After her Broadway success with "Ain't Too Proud," which also premiered in the Bay Area, Morisseau pays homage to "Soul Train," the syndicated TV show that became the Black community's "American Bandstand." The playwright also successfully integrates a warts-and-all biography of creator and longtime host, Don Cornelius.
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Boca Stage Moves
Relocates to Larger Space
By: - Aug 30th, 2023The Delray Beach Playhouse is the new home for Boca Stage in Southeast Florida. Up until recently, Boca Stage mounted its productions in Boca Raton's intimate Sol Theatre. In its new space, Boca Stage will be able to seat more than 140 patrons, compared to 70 at the Sol.
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Beauty and the Beast
A Big Show Presented Small
By: - Aug 26th, 2023The desire to produce shows that are well-known is understandable, but it is also important for theaters to focus on what they do best.
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A New Brain a Smash at Barrington Stage
Revival of Bill Finn and James Lapine Musical
By: - Aug 25th, 2023Absorbing, insightful, fun and hilarious are dumbfounding but accurate terms to describe the William Finn and James Lapine musical A New Brain being revised at Barrington Stage Company. It's a musical about neurosurgery.
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Here Lies Love on Broadway
Concept, Music, and Lyrics by David Byrne
By: - Aug 22nd, 2023Once the show actually began, I was engaged. While it is just making its Broadway debut, Here Lies Love, with concept, music, and lyrics by David Byrne, music by Fatboy Slim, and additional music by Tom Gandey and Jose Luis Pardo, began as a concept album in 2010. From there, it ran at off-Broadway’s Public Theater (2013, 2014-15) and London (2014-15), both times garnering multiple awards.
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On Cedar Street at Berkshire Theatre Group
World Premiere Musical
By: - Aug 20th, 2023On Cedar Street is an intimate, compact musical compressed into one long act on a busy, cluttered set. On Cedar Street which entails the late life romance of widow and widower in rural Colorado is having its world premiere at the Unicorn Theatre of Berkshire Theatre Group.
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Here You Come Again
Goodspeed’s Terris Theater in Chester
By: - Aug 19th, 2023Entering Goodspeed’s Terris Theater in Chester to see Here You Come Again, you view a cluttered living space with decorations for multiple holidays, a disco ball, things hanging from the ceiling, etc. Is this a hoarding situation?
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Mahabharata
A Highly Abbreviated Version of the Longest Poem Ever Written
By: - Aug 14th, 2023The Mahabharata is regarded by many to be the fifth veda, or sacred Hindu religious text. Appropriately, the storyteller in this production, J Jha, is transgender, as the stories are told from both male and female perspectives, and sexual ambiguity plays an appreciable role. Jha gives an inspired solo performance in delivering a narrative that centers on a war between competing bands of cousins fighting for control of BCE Bharat, which would become India.
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Summer Stock by Cheri Steinkellner
World Premiere at Goodspeed
By: - Aug 10th, 2023Summer Stock is a new old-fashioned musical bringing joy to audiences at Goodspeed. It is unabashedly old-fashioned.
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Barrington Stage All Stars
Julianne Boyd Directs Brian Friel’s Faith Healer
By: - Aug 08th, 2023Julianne Boyd, the founding artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, retired last year. Unburdened by administrative responsibilities, she has been lured back to direct a dark, moody masterpiece, Faith Healer by Brian Friel (1929-2015) the greatest Irish playwright of his Generation. For this triumphant return she cherry picked a dream team trio of Christopher Innvar (Frank), the faith healer, Gretchen Eglof his long abused wife Grace, and Mark Dold as the whimsical roadie Teddy.
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The Nightingale & Erwartung - A Double Bill
West Edge Opera Offers a Dynamic Duo of Short, Atonal Operas
By: - Aug 08th, 2023Stravinsky's "The NIghtingale" sets a simple but thoughtful Hans Christian Anderson tale to music. Production values sizzle. With Schoenberg's "Erwartung," the setting of the psychologically-driven soliloquy is switched from forest to hospital. The use of dancers as mute characters adds depth and diversity to the narrative.
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Rusalka
Fine Performances Benefit This Appealing Opera
By: - Aug 06th, 2023“Rusalka” ranks as Dvorák’s most popular opera and with good reason. Applying Wagnerian principles with leitmotifs and in sung-through fashion, it also draws from Czech folk music. The thoroughly romantic, luxuriant music possesses extractable set pieces of compelling melody and emotion. The fairy tale story draws on several sources, mixing light and dark, with a resulting dramatic outcome.
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Blues for an Alabama Sky By Pearl Cleage
At Barrington Stage Company
By: - Aug 06th, 2023In his first season as artistic director Alan Paul has selected the 1995 play by Pearl Cleage. Set during the Harlem Renaissance its a good but not great play given a flawed production directed by Candis C. Jones for Barrington Stage Company.
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Pelléas et Mélisande
Santa Fe Opera's Take on a Brooding Tale from Debussy and Maeterlinck
By: - Aug 05th, 2023Claude Debussy sought a prospective opera libretto in which characters seemed out of place, out of time, and only half disclosed. For “Pelléas et Mélisande,” he found his soulmate in future Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck, whose opaqueness suited Debussy so well that he adapted the playwright’s work almost verbatim. The result was a turn-of-the-century landmark - Debussy’s only completed opera.
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