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Woman and Scarecrow at the Irish Repertory Theater
Marina Carr, an Important Irish Playwright
By: - Jun 14th, 2018It is now in the Midlands of Ireland. A bitter middle aged woman drifts in and out of the multi-layered consciousnesses. She is dying. Ireland's emerging premier female playwright Marina Carr invites us into attend her last moments.
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The Royal Family of Broadway at Barrington Stage
Is This All Star Production Headed for Broadway
By: - Jun 14th, 2018Barrington Stage Company has assembled a dream team for the world premiere of The Royal Family of Broadway. It is a musical makeover of the 1927 play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. When word gets out about the first smash hit of the Berkshire season tickets may be hard to come by between now and July 7. This production was home grown by Barrington's Musical Theatre Lab.
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Secret Life of Humans at 59E59 Theaters
David Byrne is Entertaining and Provocative
By: - Jun 13th, 2018Secret Life of Humans at 59E59 Theaters is a thoroughly engaging, funny and thoughtful evening of theater. David Byrne and Kate Stanley have asked in a fresh style: Can we humans survive?
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Mt. Greylock’s Bascom Lodge
I Could See for Miles and Miles and Miles
By: - Jun 13th, 2018It was a picture perfect Sunday afternoon when we took a long and winding drive to the 3,491 foot summit of Mt. Greylock. It's rustic Bascom Lodge was constructed as a WPA project in the 1930s. It fell into neglect but was renovated and the road repaired in 2009. There are dorm and private rooms for hikers. In season three meals a day are served and dinner on weekends is generally sold out. There are free events on the porch and we attended a mashup organized by Berkshire Playwrights Lab. At 7 PM we joined the family style dinner. For spectacuar views and a sense of adventure it's a summe treat that's hard to beat.
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Director Laurie Norton Moffatt of Rockwell Museum
What His Legacy Means to the Berkshires
By: - Jun 12th, 2018The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge has just launched “Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition.” During a recent press preview we enjoyed an unencumbered view of the scholarly and superbly installed exhibition. Founding director, Laurie Norton Moffatt, discussed what the Rockwell legacy means in light of the controversy of the sale of two of his works by the Berkshire Museum. One of those works "Shuffleton's Barber Shop" was acquired by George Lucas who is loaning it to the Norman Rockwell Museum for the next 18 months.
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Into the Woods in South Florida
Classic Musical by Lightning Bolt Productions
By: - Jun 11th, 2018New Southern Florida theater company's production of Into The Woods is mostly a success. The director's approach suggests the innocence our youth has lost in the aftermath of tragedies. Mostly, this production leaves Into the Woods intact.
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Peace for Mary Frances by Lily Thorne
The New Group Tackles Hospice
By: - Jun 11th, 2018Peace for Mary Frances by Lily Thorne is produced by The New Group. It is in many ways a tough play, a domestic drama set during the final weeks of hospice at home. The cast featuring Lois Smith and J. Smith-Cameron is terrific.
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Highlights of Connecticut Theatre Season
Overview of Seventy Plus Productions
By: - Jun 11th, 2018I didn’t think there were really any outstanding musical productions this season. By that I mean productions where the work itself and all elements of the production hit the mark. Most had flaws of some kind.
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The Father by Florian Zeller
West Coast Premiere at North Coast Repertory Theatre
By: - Jun 10th, 2018Florian Zeller’s latest play, a tragic/comedy with a translation from multi-award winning Tony and Oscar playwright/translator Christopher Hampton, practically guarantee’s one an evening of stimulating quality theatre. Hampton does all the translations for French/Iranian playwright Yasmina Reza of “Art” and “God of Carnage” fame, as well as Zeller’s plays.
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A Lesson from Aloes by Athol Fugard
Presented by Weathervane Productions
By: - Jun 10th, 2018Betrayal through informing is at the core of Athol Fugard’s masterful A Lesson from Aloes, one of several penetrating plays that earns the South African playwright a position in the pantheon of modern authors. First produced in 1980, the play is set in 1963, a full three decades before the end of apartheid. Weathervane Productions renders this classic with exceptional skill.
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El Credito at Repertorio Espanol
Both a Borrower and a Lender Be
By: - Jun 09th, 2018In their current repertory season, Repertorio Espagnol is presenting the two hander, El Credito by Jordi Galeran. We meet a loan officer who can’t say yes and a clever borrower with no assets. No one has heard Polonius’ advice: neither a borrower or a lender be. The setup is classic.
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City Theatre's Summer Shorts
Popular Play Festival in Miami
By: - Jun 09th, 2018City Theatre's Summer Shorts is in its 23rd year of entertaining southeast Florida audiences This year's line-up is diverse. A pleasantly surprisingly, unseasonal "Short" opens this year's festival
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Recalling Sighting John Updike
The A&P of the Mind
By: - Jun 09th, 2018Summering in Annisquam Martin Mugar, like the Ipswich based author, John Updike, became aware of distinct difference of class and culture. Thre were the easy, self confident debutantes who shopped at the A&P in their bathing suits. And the townies, like Sam, who unnoticed lusted for them. Recently, Mugar was reminded and inspired by watching the author crossing a street ages ago. Here he spins the yarn of old.
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The Rose Elf by David Hertzberg
Unison Media and Greenwood Cemetery Present Opera
By: - Jun 07th, 2018David Hertzberg's opera, The Rose Elf, opened The Angel Space series, a collaboration between Unison Media and Green-Wood Cemetery. After whiskey amidst gravestones, the audience took a walk through the glorious grounds, where ancient trees are thick, tall and promising. The production in the Catacombs was thrilling.
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Tilson Thomas Conducts the MET Orchestra
Ruggles, Mozart and Mahler
By: - Jun 07th, 2018Carnegie Hall ended its 2017-18 season Tuesday night with the last of three concerts featuring the MET Orchestra. This year, the pit band at the Metropolitan Opera has been playing under a succession of different conductors. This one was conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.
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Boston Expressionists Rehung at the MFA
A Major Exhibition of Hyman Bloom is Scheduled
By: - Jun 06th, 2018Until recently the Museum of Fine Arts has neglected artists of Jewish heritage known as The Boston Expressionists. There were a handful of works that were burried in storage. Major works by Hyman Bloom and Karl Zerbe were included in a gift from Saundra B. Lane and William H. Lane. The museum is planning a major exhibition and catalogue for Bloom. It is likely that there will be other projects and publications. There are no current plans for showing or collecting works by Zerbe and Jack Levine.
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Mies Julie by Yaël Farber
Adaptation of Strindberg at Victory Gardens Theater
By: - Jun 05th, 2018In Mies Julie at Victory Gardens Theater, playwright Yaël Farber translates the relationship between a privileged young woman and a servant from Midsummers Eve in Sweden to the Karoo, South Africa, on Freedom Day in 2012, the day commemorating the end of apartheid.
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An American Soldier at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang are Dynamite
By: - Jun 04th, 2018Huang Ruo in music and David Henry Hwang in words ask: What will you do to become American? What will you endure? In a seamless wrought tale of a first generation Chinese American from Chinatown, we watch the world rect to a young man's wish. It is a horrifying story whose conseuqences we have only begun to grapple with. Huang Ruo and Hwang make great opera out of the story.
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Kansas Symphony at Helzberg Hall
Everything's Up to Date
By: - Jun 04th, 2018The Kansas City Symphony is a superb group pf superb artists, who make their home in one the of the performance treasures of America Like Dallas and other smaller cities across the country, Kansas City community leaders decided to spiff up its arts’ presence, A decade ago they dtermined to build a new home for its Symphony Orchestra and somewhat larger hall for events on tour.
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Christopher Janney's Exploring the Hidden Music
At Boston University Dance Theater
By: - Jun 04th, 2018There is an upcoming concert by Christopher Janney, who will present with fellow dancer and musicians works that will again push boundaries. The event will occur on June 8 at the Boston University Dance Theater.
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Real Eyes on Adams
Former Furniture Store Now a Gallery
By: - Jun 03rd, 2018Until a few years ago the vast Simmons Furniture Store anchored the Park Street business area of downtown Adams. The town has improved curbside cosmetics. Now that business has been revitalized as Real Eyes Gallery with two large spaces. One featuers an arts and crafts store while the other displays works by former Met Opera scene painter, Bill Riley. He and his wife Francine Anne Riley are now gallerists as well as continuing as arts activists and community catalysts.
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Mark Brownell’s Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman
Feminine Mystique at Chicago's Trap Door Theatre
By: - Jun 03rd, 2018Trap Door Theatre’s production of Mark Brownell’s Monsieur d’Eon Is a Woman, directed by Nicole Wiesner, is a striking example of the company’s highly stylized, choreographed, madcap productions. Eleven performers are in constant motion.
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Morning After Grace by Carey Crim
Senior Moments at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Jun 02nd, 2018Seniors are now living longer, healthier and better lives. Add to that little blue pills and it's not just kids who are hooking up. Morning After Grace by Carey Crim explores what happens when the old lady you wake up is just that.
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Freaky Friday the Musical
Book by Bridget Carpenter, Music by Tom Kitt, Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
By: - Jun 02nd, 2018Based on Mary Rogers’ 1972 novel of the same name, Freaky Friday’s popularity is validated by the three film versions that have appeared, with each variant tweeking the storyline. This is the first stage musical effort, and award winning playwright Bridget Carpenter’s adaptation is well suited to the theater with integrated subplots and laugh lines throughout. Tom Kitt’s music is tuneful and bouncy in keeping with the musical theater pop idiom, while Brian Yorkey’s lyrics consistently drive the plot and are full of insight and humor.
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Oscar Winner Sebastain Lelio Directs Disobedience
Jewish Life in England
By: - Jun 02nd, 2018“Disobedience” is a mesmerizing, interior, fascinating, and affecting screenplay that carefully structures the movie to squeeze maximum emotional impact from its two stars, which it does in spades. It’s a bold and daring film even by today’s standards.
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