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Theatre

  • Opera at the Lyric in Chicago

    Daughter of the Regiment, Perfect. Jenufa, Not So

    By: Susan Hall - Dec 06th, 2023

    In the lobby of the Lyric Opera House in Chicago, you hear griping about management. Yet it is hard to imagine what people are talking about when you watch and hear the fall production of Gaetano Donizetti’s "Daughter of the Regiment. " A perfect production. 

  • The Salvagers by Harrison David Rivers

    Yale Rep

    By: Karen Isaacs - Dec 07th, 2023

    The Salvagers takes place in a Chicago winter, as a father and son (Boseman Salvage Senior and Junior) must break down the barriers between them, explore the secrets that have created these, and start to find peace with each other and romance in their lives.

  • Einstein at Princeton

    Opera Seen Through Domestic Prism

    By: Victor Cordell - Dec 08th, 2023

    In a compact manner, the libretto demonstrates the idealism of Einstein contrasted with the pragmatism of the women around him, while the story line covers political and social commentary; God and existence; the enormity of the creation of the atomic bomb; and more. Light touches and excerpts from other composers brighten the proceedings.

  • Victoria Bond's Illuminations

    Byzantine Chants at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

    By: Susan Hall - Dec 11th, 2023

    Victoria Bond is a composer who has experimented with many styles.  Over the years she has worked with Dr. Paul Barnes, a pianist and Greek Orthodox chanter, developing Illuminations on Byzantine Chant. Barnes had hoped to capture the wide emotional range and spiritual message of Orthodox Christianity,  Bond is captivated by this mystical world.

  • Dreamgirls at Goodspeed

    Musical Inspired by The Supremes

    By: Karen Isaacs - Dec 14th, 2023

    Dreamgirls features a predictable show biz story about the career of a successful entertainer, in this case, a girl singing group, first called the Dreamettes.  It is also the story of a ruthless young man (Curtis) who will control, lie, manipulate, and cheat to achieve his aims. When he hurts or destroys someone, his response “It’s business.”

  • Two for the Holidays

    Favorites Are Back

    By: Karen Isaacs - Dec 15th, 2023

    Not only is A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas back at Hartford Stage, but it is better than ever. It’s been missing due to the pandemic and its aftermath.

  • The English Concert at Carnegie Hall

    Watching a Female Leader Triumph

    By: Susan Hall - Dec 17th, 2023

    The English Concert led by Harry Bickett performs an annual Baroque opera, semi-staged at Carnegie Hall.  These performances are highly anticipated, for good reason.  This year's was no exception.

  • The Messenger

    National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere in Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Dec 16th, 2023

    Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) in South Florida is the first stop for "The Messenger" in the National New Play Netwwork Rolling World Premiere Program. A cast of four excels in PBD's production, which runs through Dec. 24. Ultimately, "The Messenger" is about the need to speak out or take action in the face of hatred and violence.

  • 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival

    Returns to Barrington Stage

    By: Barrington - Dec 18th, 2023

    The 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival is a winter arts festival located in Pittsfield’s Upstreet Cultural District in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, organized by the City of Pittsfield and Barrington Stage Company. Presenting short new plays during the dead of winter.  

  • A Sherlock Carol by Mark Shanahan

    Westport Country Playhouse

    By: Karen Isaacs - Dec 21st, 2023

    Recipe for a delightful evening: Take one part A Christmas Carol and one part Sherlock Holmes. Blend well, then let a talented team of actors serve to it you. A Sherlock Carol by Mark Shanahan does just that and it is a delight. It’s getting a brief run at Westport Country Playhouse through Saturday, Dec. 23. I wish it were longer.

  • The Prisoners

    Plays of Wilton in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Jan 03rd, 2024

    The Prisoners, a riveting play, entertains and shines a necessary light on unhealthy obsessions. While four performances remain, one of them is sold out. The theater is located in the Ft. Lauderdale suburb of Wilton Manors.

  • 2023 Theatre Favorites

    New York and Connecticut

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jan 09th, 2024

    I don’t do a ten-best list; instead, I like to recall some of my favorite shows of the past year.

  • Beth Morrison Champions Contemporary Composers

    Prototype Festival Launched for 11th Season

    By: Susan Hall - Jan 15th, 2024

    Beth Morrison is an important leader in the development of new opera with new alliances and venues. She is a force that the future of classical music depends on. The Prototype Festival she created is now in its 11th season in New York.

  • Legally Blonde - The Musical

    Authenticity Overcomes Pampered Privilege

    By: Victor Cordell - Jan 15th, 2024

    Elle, a shallow but genuine and smart fashionista obsessed with the color pink, is dumped by her status seeking boyfriend who is off to Harvard Law School. Surprisingly (and true, except the law school was Stanford in real life), Elle insinuates an acceptance as well. Her presence provides humorous contrast to the staid environment.

  • Miriam and Esther Go To The Diamond District

    A Mother's Death Brings Two Sisters Together

    By: Victor Cordell - Jan 21st, 2024

    Foraging through the belongings of their recently deceased mother, two middle-aged, somewhat estranged sisters learn more about their birth father and stepfather from a trove of letters and other documents. They also learn more about each other as they clash and bond over historical events that they either did not share or had seen from different perspectives.

  • Barefoot in the Park

    Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Jan 28th, 2024

    Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts mounted a comical and believable production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park." The production ran through Jan. 28. "Barefoot in the Park" takes place in New York City during the 1960s.

  • Kimberly Akimbo

    A Teenage Girl With a Terminal Disease is Adult in the Room

    By: Victor Cordell - Jan 28th, 2024

    Doomed by progeria, a condition that ages the carrier at 4 1/2 times the normal rate, Kimberly turns 16. Her chronological age corresponds to age 72 given this condition, meaning that she probably has little time left in her life. Nonetheless, she attends to daily activities like any other school kid. But her working class parents are loose cannons, and a grifter aunt who insinuates herself into the household develops a get-rich-quick scheme that is anything but normal.

  • Sartre's "Dirty Hands," at Berliner Ensemble

    Opened Jan. 26 in Berlin, Germany

    By: Angelika Jansen - Jan 29th, 2024

    Opening night of Jean-Paul Sartre's "Die Schmutzigen Hände" (Dirty Hands) on January 26th, 2024 at the famed Berliner Ensemble in Berlin, Germany was sold out.

  • Cult of Love at Berkeley Rep

    Awesome Treatment of Leslye Headland's Seventh Deadly Sin - Pride

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 02nd, 2024

    The Dahls raised their children in the "Christian way," and Christmas homecoming celebrated by food and song is a great family tradition. But as adults the four offspring have deviated from the parents' hopes - among them a lesbian, a pathological believer, a recovering addict, and a lost sheep. When singing together, they seem the idyllic family, but when the music stops, the fractures appear. Despite the holiday setting, this is not a Christmas play.

  • My Home on the Moon

    SF Playhouse Dramedy About Soup and Artificial Intelligence

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 06th, 2024

    A Vietnamese soup shop verges on closure when it "wins a grant" from a mysterious company that offers to pay to implement a new marketing strategy to revive the business. A consultant's program includes an unlikely and unseemly advertising campaign, but it works. Or does it?

  • Prayer for the French Republic

    Manhattan Theatre Club

    By: Karen Isaacs - Feb 08th, 2024

    Prayer for the French Republic is thought-provoking, but last season’s  Leopoldstadt, which addresses many of the same themes, is a better work.  

  • Barrington Stage Celebrates Black History Month

    Free Event February 26

    By: Charles Giuliano - Feb 13th, 2024

    Barrington Stage Company’s Black Voices Matter Program is proud to present “Black History: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future” on Monday, February 26 at 6:00pm at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden St.)  

  • Love, Loss and Waffles

    Mona Pirnot’s I Love You So Much I Could Die

    By: Jessica Robinson - Feb 14th, 2024

    Running approximately 65 minutes without intermission, I Love You So Much I Could Die isn’t just theater, it’s an experience. The fact that I found it disturbing is a compliment to the playwright because she made me feel something, even though that something was emotionally unsettling. As Edward Albee said: “if the theater must bring us only what we can comfortably relate to, let us stop going entirely and sit in our rooms and contemplate our paunchy middles.”  

  • Days of Wine and Roses

    Studio 54 through April 28

    By: Karen Isaacs - Feb 16th, 2024

    The musical is based on the teleplay by JP Miller and the Warner Brothers film, all with the same name. The 1958 Playhouse 90 production starred Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie. The 1962 film starred Jack Lemon and Lee Remick.

  • Corpus Evita

    West Bay Opera Performs 2006 Grammy Nominee

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 17th, 2024

    The composer and librettist both grew up in Argentina during Juan Peron's return to power and his third wife Isabel's ascension to the presidency on his death. Employing magical realism, the ghost of Evita, Juan's second wife beloved by the people, looms over Isabel, who fails to capture a similar relationship, despite the machinations of her advisor, Ministro. Lush neo-romantic music and Argentina's dramatic political events in the last half of the 20th century drive this beautifully produced rendition.

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