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Theatre

  •  Barrington Stage Company Gala 2023

    Taylor Mac Hosts Night at the Kit Kat Club

    By: BSC - May 25th, 2023

     Hosted by MacArthur Genius-Award-winning playwright, director, and performance artist Taylor Mac, BSC’s Gala will transport attendees to the pre-war Berlin Kit Kat Club for an evening of pleasure featuring a cabaret lineup that will include burlesque artist Gypsy Layne Cabaret & Co.

  • Gypsy at Goodspeed

    Solid But Not Outstanding Production

    By: Karen Isaacs - May 26th, 2023

    This classic musical was originally written specifically for Ethel Merman, a huge Broadway star, by Jule Styne (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Arthur Laurents (book). It was loosely based on the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, the stripper/actress/writer.

  • Let The Right One In

    Intelligent Vampire Story With Interesting Twists But Inconsistent Tone.

    By: Victor Cordell - May 26th, 2023

    Rather than a simple blood-sucking horror, the play focuses largely on the relationship between Oskar, a bullied teenage boy from a broken home with a drunken mother and a largely neglectful father, and Eli, a new neighbor - who possesses an androgynous look; acts mostly like a girl; but insists that she’s not a girl, with no further explanation.

  • Tracy Jones

    National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere

    By: Aaron Krause - May 27th, 2023

    The new comedy "Tracy Jones" is running at the Ft. Lauderdale-area's Island City Stage as the last leg of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. "Tracy Jones," by Stephen Kaplan, is about a lonely woman who throws a party for every other woman in her state also named Tracy Jones. The play highlights loneliness and the human need for connection. .

  • Der fliegende Holländer

    Robert Balonek's Vocal Power As The Dutchman Astounds.

    By: Victor Cordell - May 28th, 2023

    Blessed with soaring romance-style music and a dramatic source from Heinrich Heine’s take on Celtic mythology (influenced in turn by stories of the Wandering Jew), Wagner produced his first operatic masterpiece.  However, he shifted the venue to a Nordic locale more compatible with his desired social iconography.  The composer was particularly empathetic toward the title character as he identified with the isolation and persecution suffered, creating a highly engaging opera centered on this desolate soul.

  • The Happiest Man on Earth by Mark St. Germain

    Back by Popular Demand at Barrington Stage Company

    By: Charles Giuliano - May 29th, 2023

    By 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.

  • Playwright Mark St Germain

    Anthony Hopkins to Star in Freud's Last Session

    By: Charles Giuliano - May 29th, 2023

    Many of Mark St Germain's plays have premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. One of his most successful was Freud's Last Session with some 200 global productions. Recently he discussed how the play is being filmed in Ireland starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. He also spoke about his new play The Happiest Man on Earth which is having its world premiere at BSC.

  • Topdog/Underdog

    Pulitzer Prize-winning Play at Palm Beach Dramaworks

    By: Aaron Krause - May 30th, 2023

    Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the failure of the Amrerican Dream. A top-notch production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play runs through June 11 at South Florida's Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. .

  • Flying Dutchman Transports at the Met Opera

    Francois Girard in Top Form as Producer

    By: Susan Hall - May 31st, 2023

    The new Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan Opera transports.  Grounded shortly after its debut as the pandemic erupted in March of 2020, the cast has changed. Like many of the Met's new productions, singing is excellent across the board and gives great pleasure.

  • The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman

    At ACT-CT in Ridgefield

    By: Karen Isaacs - May 31st, 2023

    The show is based on the novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which was turned into a fine film in 1993 and a more recent film in 2020. The young adult book, as it would now be described, was written in 1911.

  • The Shining - an Opera

    Horror is Added to the Traditional Operatic Themes of Love, Conflict, and Death

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 03rd, 2023

    Jack Torrance, an unstable recovering alcoholic and unsuccessful writer, hires on as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies during its off-season. He hopes that the seclusion will not only give him undistracted time for writing but also allow him to rebuild his relationships with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny. What the parents don’t realize is that Danny possesses “the shining,” which is the psychic ability of clairvoyance. This attribute will allow the boy to see the hotel’s sordid past and set the stage for the horrors to come.

  • Curtis Stewart Erupts at Merkin Hall

    Kaufman Music Center Produces Ecstatic Music

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 04th, 2023

    Curtis Stewart is a man for all seasons.  He took over Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center this week. When you hear him, you know that Nietzsche was right: without music, life would be a mistake.

  • A Soldier's Play

    Murder, Mystery, and Racism on the Home Front During World War II

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 05th, 2023

    In 1944, African-American military units were always commanded by white officers, with black non-coms, and enlisted men, reflecting the plantation structure that preceded it by a century and more.  This organization represents the natural order to Captain Charles Taylor, a West Point grad, who happily manages and cajoles a platoon comprised of talented black baseball players who will get to play the Yankees if they continue to win all of their games.  To this day, a common condition persists, that racists like Taylor often carve out exceptions to allow minority peoples to reflect glory on their white overlords.

  • Master of Puppets

    World Premiere at Legacy Theater

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 06th, 2023

    Master of Puppets suffers from problems that afflict many new works. It doesn’t know what it wants to be or what it wants to say.  Is it a comedy? Satire? A thriller? It tries to be all of these, which results in uneven shifts in tone.

  • Soul Doctor

    One day only nationwide screening upcoming

    By: Aaron Krause - Jun 06th, 2023

    "Soul Doctor," a film about the unlikely relationship between an Orthodox rabbi and a musical/Civil Rights icon, will be shown at movie theaters nationwide on Tuesday, June 13. Nina Simone introduced Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach to Soul and Gospel music, which influenced the kind of Jewish music that he composed. Taping of the film took place in Israel five years after the original Broadway production of Soul Doctor opened in New York in 2008.

  • Parade Returns to Broadway

    Rave Reviews and Sell Out Crowds

    By: Edward Rubin - Jun 07th, 2023

    Alfred Uhry’s musical Parade, co-conceived by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is now playing to sell-out crowds and rave reviews, and back on Broadway after 25 years (for a limited run through Sunday, August 6) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City.

  • Madame Butterfly

    At War Memorial Opera House San Francisco

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 08th, 2023

    “Madame Butterfly” integrates the best of the earlier "La Boheme" and "Tosca" and overlays pentatonic scale Japanese folk melodies to add a whole new dimension to the score. The popularity of this beautiful and exotic wonder should be no surprise. San Francisco Opera’s wonderous creative and visually striking production is led by four powerful singers - Karah Son, Michael Fabiano, Hyona Kim, and Lucas Meachem.

  • Lucia di Lammermoor at Deutsch Opera

    One of Three Choices

    By: Patrick Lynch - Jun 08th, 2023

     A charming throwback, or, The High School Musical version,  of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Deutsch Oper, Berlin

  • On Golden Pond

    Ivoryton Playhouse

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 09th, 2023

    You may recall the 1981 movie that starred Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn with Jane Fonda playing the daughter. The 1979 play by Ernest Thompson (he also wrote the screenplay) can be sentimental and predictable. But with Naughton and Dillon in the leads, you will be willing to suspend your critical judgment about the play.

  • The Wizard of Oz

    A Fanciful Stage Adaptation of an American Movie Classic

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 09th, 2023

    L. Frank Baum’s beloved “The Wizard of Oz” has become an American touchstone and introduced a bevy of memes and tropes that define our narrative.  While it is easy to sit back and enjoy it as an entertaining pastime, in its richness, it is also a fable of the American spirit.  Dorothy, despite being young and female, represents the prototypical hero on an odyssey, a quest to find her way home after defeating the odds, aided by trusty sidekicks she has met along the way.  Together, using brains and hearts and courage, they conquer fears and earn their way to becoming what they had aspired to be.

  • Webster’s Bitch by Jacqueline Bircher

    At Playhouse on Park

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 10th, 2023

    The world premiere play by Jacqueline Bircher attempts to deal with arbitrariness as well as the continual change in language and meaning, the politicization of language, and what is called “cancel culture.” It is a lot to ask one play to handle.

  • Die Frau ohne Schatten

    Richard Strauss's Lush Music, Captivating Fairy Tale Story, and Pop Art Scenery.

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 12th, 2023

    The Empress faces Sophie’s choice.  Either decision - to accept or reject the shadow - could leave blood on her hands.  High drama occurs with real or perceived betrayals and threats of killing, but since nobody dies, some would characterize “Die Frau” as a comedy!

  • Tennessee Williams: Science Fiction and Fantasy

    18th Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

    By: Festival - Jun 14th, 2023

    The 18th Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival announces its September program titled Tennessee Williams: Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Over four days, in venues throughout the town, the Festival will share Williams’ lifelong fascination with science fiction and fantasy by presenting performances of plays, short stories and unfinished works by Williams.  2023 will feature the return of the Festival’s popular “Hotel Plays” where audiences, moving from one hotel room to the next, are treated to several short works by Williams.  

  • El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego

    Two Modern Artists Fictionalized in an Opera with an Orpheus-like Story.

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 15th, 2023

    Composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s special compassion for Frida Kahlo may derive from their shared experience. Cuban-born, Pulitzer Prize winning (“Anna in the Tropics”) playwright Nilo Cruz provides the literate libretto.  Wishing to integrate aspects of Mexican culture into the story in a magical realism fashion, he builds the narrative around the culturally significant Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and Aztec mythology.

  • Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress

    Closing the Hartford Stage Season

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 16th, 2023

    Trouble in Mind, at Hartford Stage, was written in the mid-50s. It was the first full-length play by Alice Childress whose career encompassed acting and writing both plays and novels. The play deals with topics that are major points of discussion today both in our society and the theatrical world: representation, authenticity, sexism, and workplace bullying

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