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Theatre

  • Exotic Deadly: or The MSG Play

    A Japanese-American Teen Girl Confronts Challenges

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 06th, 2025

    Ami wants to be invisible, but the smelly bento box lunches she must take to school bedevil her. She is also haunted by the fact that her grandfather was a scientist at Ajinomoto where the vilified MSG was commercialized. In a hilarious Japanese anime and pop culture framework, the heroine tries to overcome obstacles.

  • The Thing About Jellyfish

    Berkeley Rep's Outstanding World Premiere

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 07th, 2025

    Sixth grader Suzy loses her best friend Franny to drowning. Since Franny was an accomplished swimmer, Suzy feels that there must have been a more specific cause, which leads her on a deep dive into jellyfish research. Interesting revelations occur in a visually stunning production.

  • August Wilson’s Two Trains Running

    At Hartford Stage

    By: Karen Isaacs - Feb 11th, 2025

    Several characteristics are common in Wilson’s plays: focus on African American men, experiences of being cheated by white men or the government, and a degree of desperation. Each of these is present in this play.

  • Calendar Girls

    Charity Receives a New Twist From Middle Aged Women

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 11th, 2025

    To raise money for a local hospital, members of the Women's Institutes decide on a novel approach. Rather than display staid sites of Yorkshire in their annual calendar, they agree to go cheesecake. This comedy is based on a true story.

  • Waste

    1906 British Play Resonates in Today's Political Environment

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 13th, 2025

    A politician tapped for a cabinet position in a new government impregnates a married woman. The narrative reveals women's rights of the time; men's attitudes toward women; the relationship of church and state; and the effect of scandal on political figures. Contrasts with conditions today are considered.

  • The Heart Sellers

    A Day With Two Young Asian Immigrant Women

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 15th, 2025

    Filipina Luna and Korean Jane's husbands are both resident physicians working on Thanksgiving. The new acquaintances share the day. Luna is manic from beginning to end, while Jane opens up over time. The basis for friendship develops.

  • La Sonnambula

    Bellini's Bel Canto Masterpiece About a Sleepwalker

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 16th, 2025

    Amina's sleepwalking incident creates a scandal when she's seen at the lodgings of a visiting Count. Fiance Elvino cancels his planned nuptials with Amina, but will truth and love win out? Hint: this opera is not a tragedy.

  • Bluebeard's Castle

    Opera San Jose Excels in Production of Bartok's Gem

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 17th, 2025

    Count Bluebeard's new wife, Judith, arrives at his castle to find seven doors that lead from the great room. Opening each door reveals something about Bluebeard's character and history. The findings are not all that she had hoped for.

  • Anne Bogart To Direct Carousel

    Boston Lyric Opera

    By: BLO - Feb 18th, 2025

     Through a contemporary lens, Anne Bogart says the show’s depictions of domestic violence, cycles of poverty and crime, suicide, and toxic masculinity still resonate strongly. “The treatment of these issues in Carousel may seem outdated by modern standards, but its artistic merits – and willingness to tackle complex human actions – make it a thought-provoking work within the classical music theater canon."

  • Jesus Christ Superstar

    A Super Production by Berkeley Playhouse

    By: Victor Cordell - Feb 25th, 2025

    Jesus Christ's betrayal and crucifixion as rendered by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice's stands as one of the long running musicals in history. To many theatergoers, it is simply a beautifully crafted work with fine music and intense drama. Yet to some, it teems with controversy as the character representations don't fit in traditionalists' boxes.

  • WAM 2025

    Women on Stage in the Berkshires

    By: WAM - Feb 26th, 2025

    . The season features expanded offerings in the spring, summer, and fall. With two mainstage productions, three Fresh Takes play readings, and a dynamic community program—including documentary films, thought-provoking panels, and creative exchanges with women-led theatre companies.

  • English by Sanaz Toossi

    The Roundabout Theatre Retains Original Cast of Iranian Actors

    By: Karen Isaacs - Feb 27th, 2025

    The Pulitzer Prize-winning play English by Sanaz Toossi raises fascinating questions about the interconnections of language, culture, and identity. Does learning a new language result in the loss of our sense of self? Does adapting to a new culture mean you are rejecting your heritage?

  • Lazours at American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.)

    The Lazours’ Night Side Songs, Commissioned by A.R.T.

    By: A.R.T. - Feb 27th, 2025

    Night Side Songs is a communal music-theater experience performed for—and with—an intimate audience that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. Inspired by American writer, philosopher, and cultural critic Susan Sontag’s observation that “illness is the night side of life.”

  • All My Sons

    New City Players in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - Feb 27th, 2025

    New City Players in South Florida triumphs with its first production of an Arthur Miller Play "All My Sons" runs through March 9 in Island City Stage's intimate black box space in Wilton Manors, near Ft. Lauderdale. Acting does not get much better than this.

  • Don Giovanni

    Livermore Valley Opera's Fine Rendering of Mozart and da Ponte's Masterpiece

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 03rd, 2025

    In this great serio-comic fantasy, the famed lothario Don Giovanni "courts" three ladies in short order. He also slays the father of one, setting off a man hunt and revenge by the spirit of the deceased.

  • TheaterWorks Hartford Upcoming 40th Season.

    Opens With Prize Winner English

    By: TheatreWorks - Mar 07th, 2025

    The theater’s 40th anniversary season opens with ENGLISH by Sanaz Toossi, the winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. “English Only” is the mantra that rules one classroom in Iran, where four adults are preparing for the TOEFL - the Test of English as a Foreign Language. Together, with their teacher, they leapfrog through a linguistic playground that is a funny, stunning triumph about the universal foibles of language and miscommunication, hoping that one day English will make them whole. TheaterWorks Hartford’s production of English will run October - November of 2025 (exact dates to be announced).  

  • The Pigeon Keeper

    Opera Parallele's World Premiere of a Timely Fable

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 08th, 2025

    During a time of drought and poor fish catch, a fisherman and his daughter save a young boy from the sea, but he is from a different land and does not speak their language. Clashes ensue over how to deal with this involuntary interloper. The touching and well-produced opera benefits from its relevance to our current times and from the large role played by the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

  • Fly by Night

    Hillbarn's Charming Rendition of a Musical About Hope, Love, and Loss

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 11th, 2025

    Daphne leaves South Dakota for New York City along with sister Miriam. Set over a year leading up to the Northeast Blackout of 1965, one sister seeks stardom on Broadway and the other is happy as a diner waitress. Their aspirations, relationships, and random events are the basis for a thoughtful pop musical.

  • Nobody Loves You

    ACT's Sparkling Musical Send-up of Reality Dating Shows

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 14th, 2025

    Jeff is a PhD candidate in philosophy who ridicules reality shows. But chasing after his ex-girlfriend, he finds himself in the studio of such a show. Although he's candid about hating everything about them, the show runner anticipates good audience response if Jeff becomes a contestant. Like oil and water, they don't mix. But comedy ensues.

  • Last Call Sizzles at New World Stages

    Bernstin and Von Karajan Wrestle at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 16th, 2025

    You'd never know that Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan skied together. Their meeting at the Sacher Hotel in Vienna did take place and is compellingly dramatized in a new play, Last Call.

  • Push/Pull

    Central Work's Premiere of an Innovative Piece with Unusual Subject Matter

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 18th, 2025

    Sculpting the human body may not seem like dramatic grist, but this two-hander transcends its topic matter by incorporating universal themes. Nolan and Clark were friends from the sixth grade but went separate ways after school. Nolan seeks a professional certificate in body building. Meanwhile, Clark wants his weightlifting mentorship, believing that muscles will make him more masculine.

  • Mrs. Krishnan's Party

    Celebrating India's Onam Festival Via New Zealand

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 21st, 2025

    In this immersive theatrical event, the title character prepares dal and rice for 100 theater goers, while she and her assistant entertain and engage with the visitors. The script, acting, and improvisation provide a fun-filled experience and a bit of learning about Indian festivities.

  • La Jolla Playhouse Presents the New Hamilton

    3 Summers of Lincoln Soars

    By: Sharon Eubanks - Mar 24th, 2025

    3 Summers of Lincoln is a captivating production blending historical and contemporary dance and music to explore the meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass during the American Civil War. Set across three summers—1862, 1863, and 1864—the play dramatizes Lincoln's leadership struggle and Douglass’ unwavering commitment to abolition.

  • The Inspector at Yale Rep

    Less is More

    By: Karen Isaacs - Mar 26th, 2025

    The primary difficulty with this production is because each “bit” is drawn out to its utmost, the play runs over two and a half hours. A tighter production would have had more effect.

  • Laughs in Spanish at Hartford Stage

    Not So Funny

    By: Karen Isaacs - Mar 27th, 2025

    The play is set in an art gallery in Miami during the Basel Art Festival, a major cultural event. Mariana runs a small gallery and discovers that the paintings from the current exhibition have been stolen; later that day, she is hosting a reception with many affluent collectors attending.

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