Theatre
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Jenny Gersten Part Two
Discussing Her Second Season at WTF
By: - Aug 13th, 2012In the second part of a dialogue with Jenny Gersten we compared and contrasted her uneven first season with the smooth sailing of her second one. While the first season drew mixed reviews and controversy its ambition proved to be a magnet for major artists wanting to work at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The success of this star studded season is a sanguine harbinger of more to come.
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Jenny Gersten Wraps Second Season at WTF
Nurtured on the Mother's Milk of Producing
By: - Aug 12th, 2012During a post mortem of her second season as artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival we discussed producing as inheriting the family business. Her earliest memories go back to two when she saw Two Gentleman of Verona, at the Public Theatre where her father, Bernard, worked until he was fired by Joe Papp in 1978. As a toddler, her Mom brought her on stage while taking a bow at Jacob's Pillow. In the first of this two part report we discuss a portrait of the artist as a young producer.
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Barrington Stage Company Calendar
Events August Thorugh October 13
By: - Aug 11th, 2012While the official high season ends on Labor Day Barrington Stage will remain busy through the fall shoulder season. Highlights include the return of Dr. Ruth and the much anticipated production of Lord of the Flies.
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WHADDAHBLOODCLOT!!! by Katori Hall
World Premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Aug 10th, 2012There are about 60 documented cases of Foreign Language Syndrome. The first occurred in 1941 when a Norwegian woman, during the Nazi occupation, suddenly spoke with a German accent. One may imagine the complications. In Katori Hall's new comedy, as the result of a stroke, a New York society woman wakes up with a Jamaican accent. Oh my.
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Lyric Stage Announces Season
Mikado Opens September 9
By: - Aug 08th, 2012Lyric Stage in Boston announces its season for 2012-2013. The Mikado opens on September 9 with the perennial music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Another musical, On the Town by Leonard Bernstein closes Lyric on June 8. Sandwiched in between is a heady mix of drama and comedy.
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Edith a Premiere by Kelley Masterson in Stockbridge
From First Lady to Madam President
By: - Aug 05th, 2012When Woodrow Wilson was recovering from a stroke by denying access to his bedroom and failing to publicly announce his condition, his wife, Edith, for a crucial period of six weeks was virtually President of the United States. This new play by Kelly Masterson conflates 75% fact and 25% fiction to present a benign, revisionist take on a love story with global implications.
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Rethinking Turgenev’s A Month in the Country at Williamstown
New Concept and Translation Directed by Richard Nelson
By: - Aug 03rd, 2012The mid 1850s play A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev influenced Chekhov, who convinced Stanislavsky to produce it. Literally, lost in translation, the masterpiece of modernism has rarely been produced. Not just for awkward scripts but for a misunderstanding of the main character Natalya. While mostly played by women in their fifties, as Richard Nelson discovered, Turgeney intended her as 29. A radical production with a new translation by Nelson, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is the third and final Main Stage presentation of the summer long Williamstown Theatre Festival.
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Vicky Vodrey's Thank You Notes
Forbidden Mix at Mid-Manhattan International Theater Festival
By: - Jul 31st, 2012Vicky Vodrey is well worth a look in this production. She combines wit and feeling in a raucous take on the effect of the afterlife on the living. This is a romp through letter after letter the now-dead Angela has left behind to direct her funeral. A million dollars is at stake here.
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The North Pool By Rajiv Joseph
East Coast Premiere at Barrington Stage
By: - Jul 30th, 2012Rajiv Joseph is best know for the Broadway production of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. The play, a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize, starred Robin Williams as the Tiger. Barrington Stage is presenting the East Coast premiere of his two person, one act play The North Pool.
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Diva Olympia Dukakis as Prospera in The Tempest
A Clash of the Titans through August 19
By: - Jul 28th, 2012There are two versions of Shakespeare's enigmatic, evocative, surreal last play on stage at Shakespeare & Company through August 19. There is The Tempest as played for laughs by director Tony Simotes and then the imperious, autocratic Tempest as performed by the legendary Olympia Dukakis. It is a raucous highlight of a stunning season of theatre in the Berkshires.
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Bradley Cooper and Patricia Clarkson in Elephant Man
Opens on Broadway October 18
By: - Jul 27th, 2012Elephant Man with Bradley Cooper and Patricia Clarkson sold out its too brief run at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Now, be still dear heart, the intact production transfers to Broadway and the Booth Theatre in October for a limited run of thirteen weeks. Not that long ago Cooper was declared the sexiest man on the planet. Here amazingly he portrays one of the most deformed of his era the renowned John Merrick. This is the WTF review.
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Dr. Ruth Returns September 19 to Barrington Stage
Changes for a New Play by Mark St. Germain
By: - Jul 24th, 2012The premiere of Dr. Ruth, All the Way sold out its 36 performances at Barrington Stage's smaller St. Germain Stage. The theater in the former VFW Hall, now owned by Barrington, was named for the company's resident playwright and author of Dr. Ruth, Mark St. Germain. The one woman show stars Debra Jo Rupp. There will be changes and fine tuning for the run from September 18 through October 7.
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WAM Theatre Premieres The Old Mezzo
October Production Paired with Shout Out Loud
By: - Jul 23rd, 2012WAM Theatre is delighted to announce that the beneficiary for the October World Premiere production of Susan Dworkin’s ‘The Old Mezzo’ will be Berkshire based Shout Out Loud Productions, a non-profit run by Jeanet Ingalls that takes action to address sexual trafficking. In keeping with WAM Theatre’s double philanthropic mission, Shout Out Loud will receive up to 25% of the box office proceeds from ‘The Old Mezzo’.
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All My Sons at Barrington Stage
Old Men Send Young Men to War for Profit
By: - Jul 23rd, 2012All My Sons, 1947, by Arthur MIller is on the short list of Great American plays. Currently Barrington Stage, under artistic director, Julianna Boyd is presenting a compelling, meticulously crafted production with a top notch cast. It is hardly what one would call light summer entertainment.
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Far from Heaven Williamstown Theatre Festival
Gorgeous New Musical Not Far from Off Broadway
By: - Jul 22nd, 2012The world premiere of Far From Heaven, a musical at the Williamstown Theatre Festival through July 29 is truly celestial. It has been adapted with a book by Richard Greenberg, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie based on the 2002 film written and directed by Todd Haynes. The WTF production, directed by Michael Greif featured stunning leading roles by Kelli O'Hara and Brandon Victor Dixon. In 2013 it is headed for New York's Playwrights Horizon. See it now if you can get a ticket.
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Morgenstern and Baxter at Anthony Greaney Gallery
Queer Performance Moves Critic to Tears
By: - Jul 20th, 2012I don’t think I’ve ever cried during a piece of performance art, however. That changed during the July First Friday openings on Thayer Street when recent MFA Museum School grads Hayley Morgenstern and Creighton Baxter performed their graduate thesis piece “It Might Get Better†at the Anthony Greaney Gallery. I hadn’t seen such coruscating queer performance art since I left San Francisco in 2003.
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ArtsEmerson Announces Additional Shows
Third Season of Boston Theatre
By: - Jul 20th, 2012After two critically-acclaimed seasons of programming from all over the world, ArtsEmerson announced eight productions for its third theatre season several months ago, with the promise of more. Today, ArtsEmerson announced four additional productions for the 2012-2013 Season, with a promise of still more to come in the “Stay Tuned†roster over the coming months.
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John Douglas Thompson on Iceman Cometh
Taking Time from Rehearsing Satchmo to Discuss O'Neill
By: - Jul 20th, 2012Currently, John Douglas Thompson is rehearsing the new Terry Teachout play Satchmo at the Waldorf at Shakespeare & Company. He took a break to edit a dialogue about his roles in The Emperor Jones and Iceman Cometh which we saw at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. His views on Eugene O'Neill are a part of a series of dialogues about his roles that started with Othello four years ago at S&Co. This is the first of a two part report.
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Tod Randolph in Cassandra Speaks
A Hit for Shakespeare & Company
By: - Jul 19th, 2012Because of her syndicated newspaper columns and radio broadcasts, in 1939, Dorothy Thompson was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1931 she was the first American to interview Adolph Hitler. By 1934 her Cassandra like dispatches led to her being dispelled from Germany. The one woman play by Norman Plotkin, starring Tod Randolph, conveys her in 1943 on the day of her third marriage.
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Leslie Kritzer at Barrington Stage July 30
Kritzer Sings Jule Styne with Vadim Feichtner
By: - Jul 18th, 2012Barrington Stage Company presents the return of Broadway’s Leslie Kritzer in Hello, Gorgeous! Leslie Kritzer Sings Jule Styne, with music director Vadim Feichtner, on Monday, July 30 at 7pm on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage, 30 Union Street.
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Turgenev's A Month in the Country at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Radical Plans by Director/Translator Richard Nelson
By: - Jul 18th, 2012Visitors to the final Main Stage production of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, A Month in the Country, August 1 to 19, should expect the unexpected. Director Richard Nelson who worked on a translation of the Turgenev play with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is planning a spare, minimalist, radical production that reflects the revolutionary impact of the Russian masterpiece which was written in 1850.
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A Class Act at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn
A Sidebar to Chorus Line at the Colonial Theatre
By: - Jul 16th, 2012In 1976 the team of Marvin Hamlish, music and Edward Kleban, lyrics won the 1976 Tony Award for the score of A Chorus Line. Currently that show is a hit for the Colonial Theatre. On the Unicorn Theatre stage of Berkshire Theatre Group is a vest pocket, thrifty production of the musical A Class Act, assembled posthumously, which focuses on the neurotic life and failed ambitions of Kleban. It fleshes out the history of a gifted and enigmatic theatrical genius. The shows are best seen in tandem.
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Jenny Gersten Discusses Williamstown Theatre Festival
Mid-Semester Report Card of Her Second Season
By: - Jul 14th, 2012This week the Williamstown Theatre Festival opens its second of three plays on the Main Stage. With the second of four now running on the Nikos Stage, artistic director Jenny Gersetn is at the mid point of a seven play season. We asked about her second season as artistic director of WTF? How does she plan a program and manage some 300 individuals on the Williams College campus? She surprised us by saying that it takes "muscles."
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Last of the Red Hot Lovers Sizzles at WTF
Jessica Stone Directs Neil Simon Comedy
By: - Jul 13th, 2012In a brilliant romp, a Williamstown Theatre Festival favorite son, Brooks Ashmanskas, has returned in the first ever WTF production of a Neil Simon comedy, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, from the peak of the sexual revolution in 1969. This is also the 8th season for Jessica Stone at WTF and her second time as a director. She made her directorial debut in 2010 with a smash hit of the Steven Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with the twist of an all male cast.
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Cast for A Month in the Country at WTF
Turgenev Play Runs August 1 to 19
By: - Jul 11th, 2012The cast has been announced for the final main stage production of the Williamstown Theatre Festival season. A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev will be directed by Richard Nelson who also worked on a new translation of the Russian drama. It opens on August 1 and continues through August 19.
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