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Theatre

  • The Doctor at Park Avenue Armory

    Is it Possible to Function in Fully Human Mode

    By: Viktor Raykin - Jun 16th, 2023

    Arthur `Schnitzler's play "Professor Bernhardi" has been completely rewritten by director Robert Icke, who takes the action from 1900 Vienna to present-day Britain. Now called "The Doctor", it was a smash hit in London and is running until August 19th at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. 

  • Love All at the La Jolla Playhouse

    Billie Jean King Wins This Match

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Jun 15th, 2023

    Love All, a new play by Anna Deavere Smith and directed by Marc Bruni, is running at the La Jolla Playhouse through July 2.  'Love all' is the score of a tennis match before it starts.  It is a word used often during the course of a game. It means zero.  And that is what athletes were making when Billie Jean Moffit (later King) started playing tennis. She also loved men and women.

  • San Francisco Opera 100th Anniversary Concert

    America's Third Oldest Opera Company Celebrates Its First Century

    By: Victor Cordell - Jun 18th, 2023

    San Francisco Opera celebrated its centenary at War Memorial Opera House with a grand concert of 21 operatic pieces, performed by 15 principals and the company’s orchestra and chorus.  Artistic Director Eun Sun Kim, past Artistic Director Donald Runnicles, and past Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers shared the baton.  Matthew Shilvock, only the seventh General Director of the company, hosted the glorious event.

  • Experiments in Opera Presents Anthony Braxton

    Feisty Opera Company Improvises at The Brick

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 18th, 2023

    In 1999, Anthony Braxton caught the performance of an Improv group at Wesleyan College where he has taught for twenty-three years. Among its members was Lin Manuel Miranda. He picked a trooper and asked him to do an improvisation with him. The duo, collaborating on compositions 279 to 283, was the inspiration for this funny, hip and moving improv designed by Experiments in Opera (EiO).

  • A Sex-Positive Xerxes

    Komische Oper's Ecstatic Production

    By: Patrick Lynch - Jun 19th, 2023

    Handel’s Xerxes is a sex-positive party in this ecstatic production presented by Komische Oper. The theater itself is a beautiful little jewel box seating about 1200 people, an intimate setting appropriate to a production that would highlight intimacy.

  • Cabaret Soars at Barrington Stage Company

    Awesome Debut for Artistic Director Alan Paul

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 20th, 2023

    With his first production, Cabaret, Alan Paul, the artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, has set a new benchmark for musical theatre in the Berkshires. Given the unchecked rise of fascism in America the musical which focuses on the beginnings of Nazi Germany could not be more powerful and relevant. This is a scorching production which will blow you away. Barrington's version of the iconic musical clicks on all cylinders,

  • Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks

    An ArtBuzz Theatrics Production in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Jun 20th, 2023

    "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" is a touching comedy about an odd couple who share at least one thing in common: their humanity. An impressive production is running through July 3 in the tiny Empire Stage in Ft. Lauderdale. Stage veterans Larry Buzzeo and Lory Reyes co-star.

  • Photo 51 by Anna Ziegler

    Unwinding the Double Helix at Berkshire Theatre Group

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 21st, 2023

    The taut, austere, information crammed, one act play “Photo 51” rights a wrong. It dramatizes the true life story of the unaccredited role played by Rosalind Franklin (Rebecca Brooksher) in the discovery of the double helix pattern in DNA.

  • The Contention (Henry VI, Part II)

    Rarely Seen Play at Shakespeare & Company

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 25th, 2023

    In Tina Packer's The Contention (Henry VI, Part II) we have the best possible cast and production of the rarely seen early play. It's described as the best of a trilogy. The first act focuses on why Henry is not fit to be king. A notion with which he would likely agree. Through a lot of exposition it sets up the eventual War of the Roses between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. As heads roll the second act lurches into hilarious farce.

  • Million Dollar Quartet in Pittsfield

    Blows Roof off of Colonial Theatre

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 30th, 2023

    During raucous encores Million Dollar Quartet blasted the audience up out of their seats at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. By popular demand Berkshire Theater Group revises its prior production at the smaller Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge.

  • To Kill a Mockingbird

    At Bushnell

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jun 30th, 2023

    No matter whether you read it in school or more recently or even never read the novel, you owe it to yourself to see the absolutely fabulous new stage adaptation now at the Bushnell through Sunday, July 2.

  • tiny father by Mike Lew

    Chautauqua Theater Company and Barrington Stage Company

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 01st, 2023

    In a co production with Chautauqua Theater Company, Barrington Stage Company is presenting a world premiere tiny father by Mike Lew and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel. There is another production scheduled for Geffen Hall in Los Angeles.

  • The Dignity Circle

    The Grift Is On

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 05th, 2023

    Opening with the alluring pitch “How would you like to receive $40,000 with no strings attached?” Angela lures her prey into her seductive scheme.  But one of the devices of the Circle is wearing masks, which suggests that there is indeed something hidden beneath the surface.

  • On Stage This Summer

    From Connecticut to the Berkshires

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 05th, 2023

    Straw hat is old hat. Summer once meant shows performed in actual barns by talented and young kids. Or tours led by well-known movie and TV stars whose popularity had diminished. Not anymore.

  • A Chorus Line

    Character Laid Bare in the Pursuit of Dreams.

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 06th, 2023

    On Broadway and in Hollywood, the backstage genre endures and endears like few others. In the history of American entertainment, no backstage montage has proven more heart wrenching and more diverse in its themes explored and its characters examined than “A Chorus Line.”

  • Connecticut Critics Circle Awards

    Best of the Best

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 08th, 2023

    A powerful production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Yale Repertory Theatre and an exuberant production of “42nd Street” at Goodspeed Musicals took top honors at the 31st annual Connecticut Critics Circle Awards (ctcritics.org).

  • Les Misérables

    A Powerful Indictment of Justice in an Unjust Society

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 08th, 2023

    Jean Valjean spends his adult life paying for having stolen a morsel of bread for his sister.  Even after a long prison sentence, he finds himself needing to hide and lie to avoid the relentless Inspector Javert, who obsesses over making Valjean pay endlessly for his petty crime.

  • The Rape of Lucretia

    The Act That Gave Rise to the Republic of Rome

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 14th, 2023

    Roman officers, including Prince Tarquinius, who are in a military camp wager whether their wives have remained constant.  Investigations prove that the wives of all of the men in the discussion have had indiscretions, with one exception.  Lucretia has remained faithful.  Tarquinius is determined to corrupt her morals.  Returning to Rome, his amorous advances toward Lucretia are repelled, and he forces himself on her.  Although not dealt with in the opera, this incident was the crowning blow to the king’s reign, and his overthrow led to the period of the Republic of Rome.

  • Little Montgomery

    New City Players in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Jul 18th, 2023

    "Little Montgomery" is a touching comic-drama with relevant themes. New City Players' production runs through this Sunday. Performances take place at Island City Stage near Ft. Lauderdale.

  • Barrington Stage Company's Black Voices Matter

    3rd Annual Celebration of Black Voices

    By: Barrington - Jul 19th, 2023

    Barrington Stage Company, as part of its Black Voices Matter initiative, is sponsoring the 3rd annual “Celebration of Black Voices” community festival.  For 2023, “Celebration of Black Voices” will take place over 4 days - from Thursday, August 10 through Sunday, August 13 on Pittsfield’s West Side.  The festival will feature six free events celebrating the local Black community through artistic engagement.

  • Marina Carr at the Abbey Theatre

    Dublin Looks at Girl on the Altar

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 23rd, 2023

    Marina Carr has joined Lady Augusta Gregory in the pantheon of playwrights pictured on the walls of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.  Her new play "Girl on the Altar" is playing now.

  • The Coronation of Poppea

    West Edge Opera Right Sizes a Classic

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 24th, 2023

    The narrative is historical only in the broadest sense.  While the plot points actually occurred from AD 58 to AD 65, not only are they condensed into one day, but their order is shifted!  Further, the librettist fancifully changes the character of characters, making some good who were actually bad and vice versa.  Who would have thought of the barbaric and narcissistic Nero as also having room for love and magnanimity?  So, for those who lambaste Hollywood for being fast and loose with the facts, let it be known that it had models to draw on

  • Cruzar la Cara de la Luna: A Mariachi Opera

    Mariachi Music Makes it to the Opera House

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 25th, 2023

    The story is about Laurentino, a man in New York who immigrated from Mexico half a century before.  On his deathbed, he reveals an undisclosed past to his family.  He had a first wife in Mexico who died in the crossing and a son who returned to his native land. A poignant metaphor of the butterfly recurs in the music and conversation.   When the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and moves on from its life as a caterpillar, it never returns to the same location, reenacting life’s transformation in a new land.  It is only the descendants that circle back to the homeland of earlier generations.

  • Berkshire Opera Festival Brings in Boheme

    Epic Love and Loss of Innocence Central to the Drama

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 28th, 2023

    Berkshire Opera Festival continues its 2023 summer season with a mainstage production of La Bohème on August 26, August 29, and September 1 at The Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, MA. One of the most beloved operatic love stories of all time, La Bohème is based on Henri Murger's 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de Bohème, which follows the lives of young people living in the Latin Quarter of Paris

  • Katrin Hilbe at Berlin Opera Academy

    Acting Skills Now Fundamental

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 28th, 2023

    he advent of Freudianism somehow severed the mind from the body, but over the past decades, there has been a return to the wisdom of late 19th century philosopher William James who saw the body and mind as deeply interrelated.  

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