Theatre
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Dan LeFranc's Bruise Easy
World Premiere at Chicago's American Theatre Company
By: - Jan 15th, 2016Dan LeFranc’s script takes us through this awkward renewal of family connections and the gradual exposure of family history and the actions of both father and mother. Director Joanie Schultz is a Chicago-based freelance director who has directed productions in Washington DC and Kansas City as well as many Chicago shows.
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Barrington Stage 2016
Programming Theatre That Matters
By: - Jan 14th, 2016Barrington Stage is the first to announce its program for the 2016 season. For the winter blues there will be the 10x10 New Play Festival February 11-28. The shoulder season warms up with previews beginning May 10 with the world premiere of a musical "Presto Change-o."
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Bowie's Lazarus: Departing This World with Music
A Final Work by David Bowie and Edna Walsh
By: - Jan 11th, 2016The review of the musical "Lazarus" by David Bowie and Edna Walsh, directed by Ivo van Hove was in the works long before the announcement of Bowie's passing. The author, critic Edward Rubin, has opted to treat this as a note added to the review rather than lead as an obituary. The point is to cover as fresh and current the work of a great genius and unique artist of his generation. Tickets to the off Broadway production sold out almost immediately.
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Rimini Protokoll's Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf
At Berlin's Hebbel Am Ufer from Jan. 7 - 10
By: - Jan 11th, 2016Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' had not been newly published in Germany post WWII. As of December 31, 2015 Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' has been in the public domain and on January 7th, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich published a two volume scholarly edition with approximately 3700 notes on 2000 pages. The first 5000 volumes have been sold out with 1500 pre-orders already booked. Also from January 7th to January 10th Rimini Protokoll presented its first performance of 'Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, Band 1 & 2' at the theatre complex of Hebbel Am Ufer in Berlin to sold out audiences.
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Calderoni Performs MDLSX at La MaMa
Alternative if Awesome
By: - Jan 10th, 2016An Avant-garde multi-media production by Italy's Modus Company was featured at New York's La MaMa. It comprises a solo performance by Silvia Calderoni that combines dance, music and multimedia. It continues through January 17.
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Mother Courage Produced in Germany
Brecht's Epic Timely as Ever
By: - Jan 05th, 2016In this powerful current production of the play at the State Theatre in Pforzheim, Germany, the artists have taken the liberty of adding lines to Brecht’s. It makes the play more of the moment. It also illustrates how Brecht, often called an epic playwright, is also a playwright for all time. The Volkswagen emissions scandal is hurled at us. Mrs. Merkel’s constant assurance that “We can manage,” is suggested at moments when it is clear not no one on stage or in the audience can. When Mother’s Courage’s daughter is raped, she says, “All you have to do to get raped is go to Cologne.” Less than a week ago, a very large group of young male immigrants attacked and raped women in Cologne, Germany.
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2015 in the Arts
Hiphopera, Tap, Berkshires and Beyond
By: - Jan 02nd, 2016In some of the most exciting and insightful productions and performances of the year there was a notable cross pollination and invention as vernacular street cultures and indigenous art forms conflated into high art. Classic works were not just revived but reinvented from the insight out. The best works of 2016 raised the bar through risk taking and challenging audiences. These rare experiences tend to make the majority of what we experience ordinary and enervating. In an era signified by ubiquitous standing ovations what is truly worthy of special recognition?
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The Golden Bride by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Museum of Jewish Heritage Hosts Opera
By: - Dec 27th, 2015Inspired immigrants, excited by their new land and still carrying a touch of the old with them, created works for the Second Avenue Theatre early in the 20th century. The joy of the forms they created lives on today, in the original works and the work they inspired in the Broadway musical theatre.
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Black Ensemble Theater's Dynamite Divas
Soul Music in the Windy City
By: - Dec 26th, 2015Dynamite Divas features appearances (via Mr. Maurice's "Assimilator") by soul singers of the past such as Nina Simone (performing "Mississippi Goddam" and "Young, Gifted and Black"), Dinah Washington ("This Bitter Earth"), and film excerpts of sensational older divas. There's even a cameo by a Beyonce impersonator, asking "Why Not Me?"
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Bridges of Madison County
LA's The Ahmanson Theatre
By: - Dec 25th, 2015The musical Bridges of Madison Country premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It moved to Broadway for a successful run. Now it is being produced by regional companies. Jack Lyons reviews a production at The Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
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Once Upon A Mattress an Off Broadway Gem
NY's Transport Group Theatre Company
By: - Dec 24th, 2015For a small play, on a small stage, in a relatively small theatre of 335 seats, with a ticket price one third that of Broadway, and 20 actors singing and dancing their hearts out, all backed by a 14 piece orchestra, a rarity both On and Off Broadway, Once Upon A Matress, is the best bang for your buck in the city.
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The Christians at Mark Taper Forum
To Hell in a Handbasket
By: - Dec 23rd, 2015“The Christians” revolve around a charismatic and highly successful Pastor Paul (an absolutely mesmerizing Andrew Garman) of a Christian congregation who suddenly announces during his Sunday homily that he has had a change of heart concerning the Bible’s representation of the place known as “Hell”. In fact, he claims there is no such place.
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Straight White Men in Culver City
Kirk Douglas Theatre Premieres Comedy
By: - Dec 14th, 2015The boys always gather at Christmas time to be with their widowed father where all get to ham it up, tease one another and play the games of their youth as a way of diverting the boredom of the three day holiday. California's Kirk Douglas Theatre premieres a play by the New Yorker Young Jean Lee.
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John Douglas Thompson Touring with Satchmo
Spring in New York with Strindberg and Ibsen
By: - Dec 14th, 2015From April 30 to June 12, 2016 at Theatre for a New Audience Arin Arbus will direct John Douglas Thompson in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and August Strindberg’s “The Father.” They will be presented in repertory. Previously he performed as Judge Brack in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the New York Theatre Workshop directed by Ivo von Hove but this will be his first role in a Strindberg play.
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Noel Coward's Fallen Angel
Chicago's Greenhouse Theater Center to January 10
By: - Dec 07th, 2015Noel Coward is known as the playwright of brittle, witty Roaring Twenties drawing room comedies such as Blithe Spirit, Design for Living, Private Lives and Hay Fever, which are part of the regular repertoire for theaters all over the world. Fallen Angels, a 1923 play, is not as well known and reviewers considered it vulgar and risqué when first produced in 1925 in London and in 1927 in New York.
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Another Take on the Hip-Hopera Hamilton
Hottest Ticket on Broadway
By: - Dec 06th, 2015Hamilton the hottest ticket in New York City, boasting $ 27 million advance ticket sales in just the first few weeks since opening. Rumors have it that orchestra tickets are selling on the street in excess of $1300 each for a weekend performance.
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Hamilton’s Leslie Odom plays Burr
Discussing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hip-Hopera
By: - Nov 30th, 2015Between the matinee and evening performances of the smash Broadway musical, Hamilton, we met backstage with Leslie Odom who plays Aaron Burr. The meeting was arranged by Jack Lyons, a California critic and friend of the actor's family. In a cramped dressing room we were joined by Florida based critic William Hirschman. This resulted in a lively, insightful discussion of the show and its unique casting which is causing a paradigm shift for Broadway musicals.
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The Miracle of Long Johns by David Lefkowitz
Theatre Critic Moonlighting in the Far Outhouse
By: - Nov 28th, 2015David Lefkowitz, a member of American Theatre Critics, as is his colleague Ed Rubin, moonlights as a stand up, sit down or whatever. This is a performance not to be taken lightly but those of us who give a shit about theatre.
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Sandy and Gerry on Broadway
Overview of ATCA-NY Conference
By: - Nov 28th, 2015Waving her cane earned Sandy Katz and her husband Gerry some nice perks to Broadway shows. This included an autographed Playbill from ninty-year-old Cicely Tyson starring in The Gin Game. In addition to shows they offer tips on accommodations, tours and dining.
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The Gin Game Is Magnificent
A Triumph for James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson
By: - Nov 27th, 2015Treasures of their generation the 90-year-old Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, now 84, are appearing in a heart warming production of that theatrical old chestnut, D. L. Coburn's "The Gin Game." The energy, wit, charm and humor they convey is inspirational and truly astonishing. This is a play for everyone who appreciates theatre at its very best.
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Charles III Reigns on Broadway
Dysfunctional Royals
By: - Nov 26th, 2015Now 67, Charles Prince of Wales has a death wish. The feisty British import 'Charles III' suggests what happens when the now 89-year-old Queen Elizabeth finally vacates the throne. This speculative but well reasoned dark fantasy posits that the death of his mother is just the beginning of more trouble for the royals.
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Kick Stars JoAnna Rush
One Woman Show Off Broadway
By: - Nov 26th, 2015Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s direction allows JoAnna Rush to be unhindered in her mannerisms and movements. The various topics were heartbreaking; a woman’s struggle with trying to be on par with her male colleagues.
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Dear Elizabeth at Women's Project Theatre
Cherry Jones and David Aaron Baker Share
By: - Nov 24th, 2015Dear Elizabeth, a dramatization of the letters of two pre-eminent American poets, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, is being staged with different couples taking the lead roles as the run passes. Cherry Jones, one of our great American actors, was well-matched with David Aaron Baker.
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Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge
A Stark Minimalist Production by Ivo van Hove
By: - Nov 24th, 2015In the centennial year of the birth of Arthur Miller the Olivier winning production of A View from the Bridge, directed by Ivo van Hove, has transferred from London's West End to Broadway. Evoking a classical Greek tragedy the director has stripped down the play to its bare essentials. In one, two hour act it is a test of physical and emotion endurance for the actors and their audience. The edgy production pushes the envelope for new ways to approach the canon of contemporary theatre.
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Spring Awakening Revived on Broadway
The Sound of Silence
By: - Nov 23rd, 2015Spring Awakening closed its initial Broadway run in 2009. Since then there have been many regional productions of the musical with a great score and compelling story of coming of age during the brutal and repressive zeitgeist of late 19th century Germany. Perversions and lustmord were endemic themes of the Weimar Republic. Nobody excelled at this quite like the banned and convicted Frank Wedekind.
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