Theatre
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The Radical Son a World Premiere
Threshold Repertory Theatre in Charleston
By: - Nov 23rd, 2015Chris Weatherhead directed a memorable and riveting play"A Radical Son" diligently maximizing the use of the intimate black-box stage at Threshold Repertory Theatre in Charleston by using on-screen images to coordinate with the minimalist on-stage props. The play is having its world premiere.
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A Confederacy of Dunces At Huntington
An Adaptation of the Picaresque Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel
By: - Nov 21st, 2015Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Kennedy Toole by Jeffrey Hatcher, A Confederacy of Dunces tells the episodic tale of Ignatius Reilly, a snobslob, of the most eccentric kind. Set in New Orleans in the early 1960s, there are many outstanding performances and fine stagecraft. But the novel seems to overwhelm the theatrical production. Worth seeing for the performances, but it is a work in progress.
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ATCA at Sardi’s
A Traditional Lunch with Broadway Stars
By: - Nov 20th, 2015A feature of the New York conferences of the American Theatre Critics Association is a lunch with Broadway stars at Sardi's. It was my pleasure to introduce Marlee Matlin. Other guests were Tony winner, Michael Cerveris, actress Kathleen Chalfant, creator of legendary musicals (Fiorello!, Fiddler on the Roof, She Love Me) Sheldon Harnick, actor Brian D'Arcy James, Tony winner Judith Light, director Bartlett Sher, four time Emmy winner, Marlo Thomas, Tony winner Doug Wright and playwright Arthur Kopit.
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ATCA in New York
A Busman’s Holiday for Theatre Critics
By: - Nov 19th, 2015New York New York. It's a wonderful town. Critics from all over America gathered for a conference of the American Theatre Critics Association. It was co-chaired by the New York critics Sherry Eaker and Ira Bilowit. There were five insightful panels as well as the traditional Lunch at Sardi's with a dazzling array of special guests.
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Ibsen's Ghosts
Chicago's Mary-Arrchie Theatre
By: - Nov 19th, 2015Greg Allen's clever adaptation of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen is set "in a moribund historic store-front theater on the North Side of Chicago in its final season before it gets turned into bicycle storage for luxury condos." That about sums up the current state of Mary-Arrchie Theatre in its last season after 30 years of staging fine, thought-provoking theater.
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Never the Sinner
Thrill Murder in Chicago at Victory Gardens Theatre
By: - Nov 18th, 2015Never the Sinner is the story of Chicago's 1924 "crime of the century," its prelude, publicity and trial aftermath. It's retold in a tightly woven and acted play at Victory Gardens Theater.
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Chapatti at North Coast Rep
The Lilt of Irish Laughter
By: - Nov 07th, 2015From the pen of Irish playwright Christian O’ Reilly, comes “Chapatti”, a tender, poignant, and charming tale that bubbles with the lilt of Irish laughter, wit and charm for which those silver-tongued Gaelic writer/philosophers are known.
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Sarah Ruhl on Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell
J. Smith-Cameron and John Douglas Thompson Captivate
By: - Nov 06th, 2015The Women's Project Theatre is presenting "Dear Elizabeth", a delightful, insightful and warm correspondence between two of America's great poets, Eiizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. The leads revolve week to week. After seeing completing satisfying performances by J. Cameron-Smith and John Douglas Thompson we yearned to see the play over and over with alternate casts like Cherry Jones and Rinde Eckert.
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First Night Saratoga 2016
Celebrating the New Year
By: - Nov 06th, 2015Every New Years Eve different cities and towns host celebrations of varying caliber, but Saratoga outshines them all. This year marks their 20th anniversary.
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Breaking Through at Pasadena Playhouse
World Premiere Musical
By: - Nov 06th, 2015The world premiere of “Breaking Through”, a musical with a book by Kirsten Guenther and music and lyrics by Cliff Downs and Katie Kahanovitz, is now on stage at The Pasadena Playhouse under the direction of Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps.
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Beckett's The End Staged by Gare St. Lazare Ireland
White Light Festival Presents the Lovetts
By: - Nov 04th, 2015The End is the beginning of Beckett's most productive and distinctive phase and in this wonderful production by Gare St. Lazare, the mysteries of his final period begin to be revealed. Since the state of unknowing and almost non-being is revealed best in monologue, this novella told in the first person lends itself to the stage. Conor Lovett captures every nuance and all the humor as well.
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Happy Hour at CV Rep Theatre
First World Premiere for California Company
By: - Nov 03rd, 2015“Happy Hour” centers around aging widower father Harry Townsend (Gavin Macleod) and his forty-year old son Alan (John Hawkinson) who come to grips with the vexing, but immutable, fact that aging is a human process that comes to most of us. The one longer lives, the tougher it becomes to accept it. A frequently asked question by people of a ‘certain age’ is ‘how did I get so old so quick?’
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Boston Theatre Update
Huntington Theatre Company Sanguine
By: - Nov 02nd, 2015Regarding Boston Theatre it is broke and time to fix it. This fall as one shoe after another dropped the Boston Theatre Community seemed to collapse like a house of cards. In 2004 through a partnership between Druker Development, Boston Center for the Arts and the Huntington Theatre Company the multi-stage Calderwood Pavilion was created in the South End. Is it possible that Huntington can swing a similar development to save, renovate and expand its antiquated facility? That's just a part of dramatic changes for the city.
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A Confederacy of Dunces Slated for World Premiere
Creative Team Dicusses Production for Huntington Theatre Company
By: - Nov 01st, 2015A Confederacy of Dunces was published in 1980 eleven years after John Kennedy Toole's suicide. Recently the creative team- adapter Jeffrey Hatcher, director David Esbjornson, and actor Nick Offerman- met with the media to discuss the production for Boston's Huntington Theatre Company. The comedy will run from November 11 through December 13.
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Duberman's In White America the New Federal Theatre
Woodie King Stages for the New Federal Theatre
By: - Oct 31st, 2015In White America was first produced fifty years ago. Sadly, its insights have yet to be fully absorbed in America. This production, as much as it satisfies dramatically, also stimulates action.
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1984 at Steppenwolf in Chicago
Theatre for a Young Audience
By: - Oct 28th, 2015Andrew White's careful adaptation of 1984, directed by Hallie Gordon, brings the story to life in the person of Winston (Adam Poss), who secretly hates Big Brother and the IngSoc party, misses chocolate and fears rats.
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Miller's All My Sons
California's A Noise Within Theatre
By: - Oct 25th, 2015America went to war in 1941, but not all of America. There were those who had to stay at home and man the war industries of building airplanes, ships and the weapons of war. “All My Sons”, nicely directed by ANW co-founder Geoff Elliott centers around the Keller family of a fictional Ohio city set in 1946.
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Stagestruck City
Chicago's Theater Tradition and the Birth of the Goodman
By: - Oct 24th, 2015Special exhibition explores the origins of the historic Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It's on view at the Newberry Library through December 31.
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Michael Yates Crowley Outrageous at Oberon
Cabaret Theatre Conflates Migraines and Ayn Rand
By: - Oct 16th, 2015The title of the Michael Yates Crowley cabaret play directed and co starring Michael Rau "Song of a Convalescent Ayn Rand Giving Thanks to the Godhead (In the Lydian Mode)" is long winded and overly ambitious. But brace yourself for a gender bending evening of gonzo cabaret at Oberon in Camridge
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Appropriate at Mark Taper Forum
Dark Comedy by Obie Winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
By: - Oct 16th, 2015The Mark Taper Forum is currently presenting “Appropriate”, a dark comedic drama written by Obie Winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Eric Ting. For some audiences watching the play it must feel a little like driving past a roadside traffic fatality. We know we shouldn’t stare at the tragedy, but it’s so damn fascinating and riveting that it’s difficult to take one’s eyes away from the mayhem.
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No Beast So Fierce Adapts Richard III
Chicago's Oracle Productions
By: - Oct 14th, 2015The number of characters played by the cast of eight has by necessity been reduced to 14 from the 35 to 40 in Shakespeare's version. Cramming all of Richard III into 90 minutes means eliminating some nuances and character motivations.
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An Iliad at Shakespeare & Company
Michael F. Toomey Delivers Epic Performance
By: - Oct 11th, 2015The Trojan War was likely to have occurred circa 1,200 B.C. It spawned the epic poem The Iliad which was passed along by troubadours and finally transcribed with the development of Ancient Greek around 800 B.C. In a riveting 90 minute, one man show for Shakespeare & Company, Michael F. Toomey provides excerpts and contemporary commentary on one of the founding works of Western literature.
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Boston Theatre: More Bad News
Emerson College Converting Colonial Theatre into Student Center
By: - Oct 09th, 2015If bad luck comes in threes what's next for the Boston theatre community. Today we have reported on the break up of a 33-year-old relationship between the Huntington Theatre Company and Boston University. Now we report news the Emerson College, the owner of the 115-year-old Colonial Theatre has plans to convert it into a student center. These developments were predicted several years ago by then NEA chair Rocco Landesman. As he suggests, here in the Berkshires, there are too many arts organizations pursuing the same limited potential donors.
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Crisis for Boston Theatre
Huntington Theatre Company and BU to End Relationship
By: - Oct 09th, 2015For the past 33 years the partnership between The Huntington Theatre Company and Boston University has provided superb theatre to audiences of up to 200,000. In addition to the Huntington Avenue venue it created the Calderwood Pavilion in 2004 in Boston’s South End.
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Watson Intelligence by Madeleine George.
At Chicago's Theatre Wit
By: - Oct 07th, 2015"The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence" by Madeleine George is 140 minutes (one intermission) of fast-moving, time-switching scenes with quick costume and set changes. One of the Watsons is Mr. Watson, who occasionally is paged by Alexander Graham Bell, "Come here, Watson. I want to see you."
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