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Theatre

  • $400,000 Raised At S & Co. Gala

    50,000 School Children and Actors Benefit

    By: Philip S. Kampe & Maria Reveley - Jul 06th, 2018

    For Forty years, Shakespeare & Company have proved to the locals what theater is about. Benefactors, galore, turned out in droves to help the theater company that gives back to the community. An achievement focus about Michael A. Miller was the highlight of the evening that benefited from music from some of the members of the Silkroad Ensemble. A sit-down dinner followed by a local DJ followed.

  • Universal Robots by Mac Rogers

    Based on Karel Cepek's1921 Sci Fi Play

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 07th, 2018

    In 1921, Czech playwright Karel Capek wrote a seminal science fiction work set in contemporary time entitled Rossum’s Universal Robots. It introduced chilling possibilities of an out-of-control future. In it was coined the very word robot (robota in Czech). Mac Rogers’s revision updates that work by a generation to include the rise of Hitler and World War II.

  • Hair at Berkshire Theatre Group

    Celebrating 50th Anniversary

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 08th, 2018

    If you plan to see Hair at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, as well you should, a few tokes of medical marijuana will help to set the mood. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. On opening night we spotted a granny with a crown of woven daisys.

  • Casting, Equity and Where to Go from Here

    Responding to “Boo Yellowface!” Protests During St. Louis Conference

    By: Chad Bauman - Jul 09th, 2018

    A couple of weeks ago, theater leaders from across the country authored a statement asking colleagues to reexamine their casting policies in light of recent incidents in which white actors were cast to portray people of color. Since that time, nearly 800 theater artists have signed and there is a working group actively discussing next steps so that we can end this pervasive practice. Because, as managing director of Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Chad Bauman signed the petition, he withdrew from publishing this commentary in American Theatre Magazine. It is reposted from his blog with Bauman's permission.

  • I Will Speak for Myself

    Evoking Historical Women of Color by Valerie Joyce

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 11th, 2018

    In Professor Valerie Joyce’s visits to schools, she asks students to name African-American women they know of from before 1865. Even among black female students, the responses quickly falter – Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, maybe Sally Hemings. With 250 years of history in the United States before the Civil War, this whole segment of our population is virtually silent, unknown.

  • Macbeth the Scotched Play at S&Co.

    Botched by Misdirection of Melia Bensussen

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 12th, 2018

    It helps if you have read or seen other productions of Macbeth. Without that background the radical deconstruction ot the iconic play directed by Obie winner, Melia Bensussen, won't make sense.

  • Love's Labor's Lost at the Mount

    Enthusiastically Perfomed By a Youthful Cast

    By: Maria Reveley - Jul 13th, 2018

    Shakespeare demonstrates how an earnest effort to self impose structure and separation from the world is counter to our real natures. Fun and folly ensue in this perfect setting as we watch love conquer all. Through August 18 Love's Labor's Lost at the Mount.

  • Artney Jackson by James Anthony Tyler

    African American Theatre in Williamstown

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 15th, 2018

    For the past decade there has been a tradition of at least one Afircan American themed production each season. This time its a benign and charming comedy Artney Jackson by James Anthony Tyler. Arguably there is progress that the well crafted and superbly acted play is a step back from polemical social and political agendas.

  • A Doll’s House Part 2

    Hnath Updates Ibsen at Barrington Stage Company

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 16th, 2018

    Ibsen premiered The Doll's House in 1879. That was two years after Leo Tolstoy published Anna Karenina another tale of a society woman who abandoned her marriage and children. We know of Anna's tragic end but the fate of Nora is left uncertain. With A Doll's House Part 2 Lucas Hnath provides entertaining but improbable answers. The award winning Broadway hit is having a run at Barrington Stage Company with Laila Robins in the role which won a Tony for Laurie Metcalf. Christopher Innvar plays Torvald.

  • Kevin Puts' Silent Night at Glimmerglass

    Pulitzer-Winning Opera Wrenching and Gorgeous

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 16th, 2018

    Silent Night by Kevin Puts with libretto by Mark Campbell is being presented at the Glimmerglass Festival. Tomer Zvulen directs this complex tale revealing each subtle turn in the story of a 24 hour truce during the First World War. Nicole Paiement conducts to bring forth all the subtlety and beauty of Puts’ score. Puts is both a fabulously gifted entertainer and a deep musical thinker. The music paints the scenes. The singers capture the tone in gorgeous melodies and often appropriately harsh recitative.

  • The Wedding Singer

    At The Palm Canyon Theatre

    By: Jack Lyons - Jul 17th, 2018

    “The Wedding Singer,” the stage musical is based on the Adam Sandler movie of the same name that debuted in 1988. The current ‘Wedding Singer’ stage musical now on the Palm Canyon Theatre stage has been updated with a total of 20 musical numbers; some of which are new. The PCT show also retained some the original songs written in 2006.

  • On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

    Musical at Irish Rep in NY

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 18th, 2018

    On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, the Alan Jay Lerner/Burton Lane musical, is getting a delightful production at the Irish Rep under the skilled hand of director (and adaptor) Charlotte Moore.

  • A Flea in Her Ear by Georges Feydou

    Farce at Westport Country Playhouse

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 19th, 2018

    As in typical French farce fashion there are misunderstandings, sexual innuendo, doors which lead to near collisions and misidentifications. The play is set in the late 1800s during what is called “La Belle Epoque.” It involves upper middle class people; infidelity or the appearance of it plays a major role.

  • Queens by Martyna Majok

    At La Jolla Playhouse

    By: Jack Lyons - Jul 19th, 2018

    With the current production “Queens”, the La Jolla Playhouse mounts a powerful drama about the plight of both legal and illegal immigrants, and their desperate drive to remain in the United States, in order to make a better life for themselves and their separated families, some of whom remain back in the countries they fled.

  • Spring Green Wisconsin

    Conference for American Theatre Critics Association

    By: Nancy Bishop - Jul 19th, 2018

    Spring Green is an arts center in nearby south central Wisconsin that’s easily accessible to Chicagoans interested in theater and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. In a long weekend, you can see classic theater at the American Players Theatre (APT) on a hilltop in Spring Green and tour Taliesin, the home, studio and school built, rebuilt and rebuilt again by Frank Lloyd Wright, his apprentices and family.

  • American Players Theatre

    ATCA Conference at Spring Green, Wisconsin

    By: The Cordells - Jul 19th, 2018

    American Players Theatre (APT), a highly respected outdoor repertory company, hosted the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) to several top-flight theatrical performances and well-organized extracurricular activities during ATCA’s annual conference at Spring Green, Wisconsin, in July, 2018.

  • On A Clear Day at Irish Repertory Theatre

    Charlotte Moore Keeps Lerner Alive!

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 19th, 2018

    On a Clear Day You Can See is running at the Irish Repertory Theater. Charlotte Moore adapts and directs this musical in an intimate production. The story has been pared down and shaped to display the lush score of Burton Lane. The cast has been reduced to 11 and the chamber orchestra four instrumentalists multi-tasking on cello, harp, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, violin and viola. The result is delightful theater.

  • American Players Theatre 2018

    Productions in Spring Green, Wisconsin

    By: The Cordells - Jul 20th, 2018

    Performances of American Players Theatre (APT). More coverage of the ATCA conference in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

  • Ivo van Hove's The Damned

    Hatred as Source of All Evil at Park Avenue Armory

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 21st, 2018

    The Damned by Ivo van Hove, based on the screenplay of Luchino Visconti, tears through the Park Avenue Armory. The stage is in four parts, if you don’t include a scene which goes out onto the Park Avenue where a shocked dog walker sees the mad Sophie von Essenbeck running wildly in search of her son.

  • Annual ATCA Conference in Wisconsin

    Critics gather at American Players Theatre

    By: Aaron Krause - Jul 21st, 2018

    American Players Theatre is nestled amid the beauty of southwest Wisconsin's countryside. The American Theatre Critics Association gathers in hills of rural Wisconsin for theatergoing and discussion. This year's APT line-up features strong acting, design work. American Players Theatre focuses on the classics.

  • Ninagawa's Macbeth at Mostly Mozart

    Lincoln Center Farewell to Japanese Classic

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 22nd, 2018

    Ninagawa’s Macbeth packs a wallop at the Koch Theater. Presented as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival, Shakespeare in Japanese sits well in the highly dramatic Gabriel Fauré Requiem, and other music of the classical West.

  • Creditors by August Strindberg

    Mid-summer Dark Comedy at S&Co.

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 23rd, 2018

    The Swedish realist/ naturalist playwright, August Strindberg (1849-1912) published Creditors in 1889. Some 129 years later it is the first play by the Swedish modernist to be produced by Shakespere & Company. Since it is a must see play of the Berkshire season you wonder what took them so long?

  • Five Women Wearing The Same Dress

    Comic Drama near Miami

    By: Aaron Krause - Jul 23rd, 2018

    Five Women Wearing the Same Dress speaks to today's male-dominated society, while also producing laughs.The Alan Ball comic drama runs through Aug. 12 at Miami Lakes' Main Street Players venue. Despite some flaws, the company turns in a solid production of a play that unites a group of women.

  • Pericles Is Rarely Performed

    At Marin Shakespeare Company

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 24th, 2018

    The storyline of Pericles is the odyssey of the title character. It shares devices with other Shakespeare comedies, such as Twelfth Night’s shipwreck separation of characters then thought dead. But in the clever opening challenge, opera lovers will find what may have been the inspiration that ultimately led to Puccini’s Turandot.

  • White by James Ijames

    By Berkeley's Shotgun Players

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 24th, 2018

    Based on a real life incident, the informal push for diversity or inclusion in the arts motivates James Ijames’s (pronounced I’ms) complex, provocative, and entertaining play White.

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