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Theatre

  • Calderwood's The Cry of the Reed Premieres

    Contrasts Sufi Humanitarism to Islamic Extremism

    By: Mark Favermann - May 04th, 2008

    Family and tribal disfunctionalism are theatrically portrayed through current news headlines set in Turkey and Iraq. Intensity of emotions and relationships are underscored by journalistic opportunism and militant religious fanaticism. The play even has an aggressively searching agnostic musician boyfriend, a flawed woman prophet and Whirling Dervishes.

  • Spin by Zeitgeist Stage Company

    A Presidential Campaign Comedy

    By: Larry Murray - May 02nd, 2008

    A wisp of a scandal and the Primary campaign is thrown into turmoil in this rollicking comedy at the Boston Center for the Arts.

  • Elections & Erections at the A.R.T.

    Provocative Cabaret: Apartheid & Today's Politics

    By: Mark Favermann - Apr 13th, 2008

    With a few stops in recent history, a highly talented mimic and drag queen tells the outrageous story of contemporary South Africa in biographical narratives, intricate vignettes and amazing characterizations. His matronly alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout, is perhaps the most famous white woman in South Africa. Characters tell it like it is and sometimes as it should be with humor & pathos.

  • Patti LuPone Sizzles in Broadway Revival of Gypsy

    A Standing O for Mama Rose

    By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 02nd, 2008

    Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book for the 1959 production of "Gypsy" at 90 has directed this revival on Broadway. Patti LuPone is earning rave reviews as arguably the all time best Mama Rose.

  • Shining City at Huntington Theatre Company

    Haunting Psychological Mystery and Ghost Story

    By: Mark Favermann - Mar 17th, 2008

    Conor McPherson tells a modern day ghost story while insightfully delving into contemporary Irish life. Illegitimate children, dysfunctional families and homosexuality are parts of this eerie encounter. But, these only affect the ex-priest. This Dublin tale isn't like listening to the Clancy Brothers.

  • Pittsfield Mass: Barrington Stage Company Artistic Director, Julianne Boyd

    Spelling Bee Highlights Berkshire Season

    By: Charles Giuliano - Mar 14th, 2008

    Last year, its most successful to date, the Barrington Stage Company drew an attendance of 45,000. Its artistic director, Julianne Boyd, is committed to bring a diverse program and affordable theatre to the Berkshires.

  • Ghost on Stage

    Hauntings at the Huntington Theatre Company

    By: Mark Favermann - Feb 26th, 2008

    A new show dealing with ghosts is coming to the Huntington--Shining City. PR maven John Michael Kennedy decided to share some scary dramatic history.

  • All Hail, Julius Caesar at The American Repertory Theatre

    A Contemporary Adaptation that Vividly Commands

    By: Mark Favermann - Feb 25th, 2008

    Regime change and political uncertainty are aspects of our own times. This version of William Shakespeare's tragedy is from a distinctive directorial perspective that stimulates our fantasy and imagination. Yet,at the same time, it presents the classic play in a clever, clear and poignant way.

  • Trumbo Launches Season for Barrington Stage Company

    Reliving the Red Scare and Hollywood Black List

    By: Charles Giuliano - Feb 18th, 2008

    During the 1947 hearings of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, Dalton Trumbo, was charged with Contempt of Congress and became one of the black listed Hollywood Ten. The play, Trumbo, written by his son Christopher, is based on his remarkable and poignant letters.

  • Summer in the Berkshires with the Williamstown Theatre Festival Announces 54th Season

    Nicholas Martin Takes Over as Artistic Director for 2008 Season

    By: Charles Giuliano - Feb 16th, 2008

    In June the final production by Nicholas Martin the musical "She Loves Me" will close at the Huntington Theatre Company, where he has been based since 2000, and open on June 28 at the Williamstown Theatre Festival where he is taking over as artistic director.

  • A Magnificent Shakespeare's Actresses in America at the Calderwood Pavilion, Huntington Theatre Company

    An One-Woman Tour-de-Force by Rebekah Maggor

    By: Mark Favermann - Feb 14th, 2008

    During the 19th Century, Shakespeare was mass entertainment in America. It only got to be considered highbrow in the 20th Century. Truly gifted actress Rebekah Maggor has developed an amazing one-woman show that brings to life the various heroines of the Bard through brilliant interpretations of some of the finest actresses that have graced the American stage. Shakespeare lowbrow or highbrow, Rebekah Maggor should take a bow.

  • Compelling Must See Copenhagen At the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge

    Playwright Michael Frayn's Wartime Imagined Emotive Meeting Between Atomic Energy Father Figure Niels Bohr and Nazi Atomic Scientist Werner Heisenberg.

    By: Mark Favermann - Jan 22nd, 2008

    In 1941, the German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg traveled to Copenhagen to meet with his former mentor Niels Bohr, the Danish father of quantum physics. In reality, not much is known about the short visit. Enticingly, Michael Frayn uses this encounter as the nucleus of a philosophical, intellectual and emotional three-way exchange between Heisenberg, Bohr and Bohr's wife Margrethe. The ART has interpreted Frayn's now classic intellectually and morally explosive drama in a totally compelling way.

  • Barrington Stage Company's Season

    25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Returns to Berkshires

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jan 20th, 2008

    The Barrington Stage Company season opens on Valentine's Day and will continue through October 26 with a lively mix of drama and its signature award winning musical "The 25th Annual Puntam County Spelling Bee."

  • Third, the Final Play by Wendy Wasserstein

    A Theatrical Mirror for Our time and Us at The Huntington Theatre Company

    By: Mark Favermann - Jan 17th, 2008

    For Three decades, Pulitzer prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, through a series of compassionate comedic dramas, charted the yearnings, disappointments and joys of modern American women in often autobiographical ways. The Huntington Theatre is currently presenting Third. It is the last play that she completed before her death in 2005. It is provocative and a bit unsettling. Perhaps, this is just as it should be.

  • Shadowlands at London's Wyndham Theatre

    A Reprise of the C.S. Lewis-Joy Gresham Nuanced Love Story

    By: Mark Favermann - Dec 25th, 2007

    A worthwhile evening was spent at this emotionally and artistically compelling and nuanced recently reprised play. It is about the true bittersweet love story found late in life by the very Christian scholar and author of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis with the straight-talking quite American Jewish poet, Joy Davidman-Gresham. Here, intellect versus emotion and pain versus pleasure were set against questions of God, encounters between adults and even lost childhoods.

  • Shakespeare & Company Announces Expanded 2008-2009 Season

    Major Renovations to Lenox Campus

    By: Charles Giuliano - Dec 12th, 2007

    For the past 30 years Tina Packard has brought Shakespeare to the Berkshires. Now Shakespeare & Company is gradually building out the campus it has moved to and is working toward year round programming. Tickets go on sale in January for a season that will be launched on Memorial Day Weekend. Let the games begin.

  • Peter DuBois Named Huntington's New Artistic Director

    Young, Versatile Director taking over The Huntington Theatre Company

    By: Mark Favermann - Dec 12th, 2007

    After a search for nearly a year, the Huntington Theatre Company taps young, energetic artistic director to lead its theatrical growth. Based upon his past performance,much is expected of Peter DuBois .

  • Poignant Streamers at Huntington Theatre Company

    Viet Nam Era Tale Resonates Loudly Today

    By: Mark Favermann - Nov 17th, 2007

    Four young soldiers struggle with their identity, the stress of the unknown and the possibility of death during this sensitively written and staged drama by David Rabe.

  • Donnie Darko Boffo at The American Repertory Theatre

    The Pending End of the World with an Edgy Teenager and his even Edgier Rabbit

    By: Mark Favermann - Nov 01st, 2007

    Halloween Night will never be the same again for our theatre critic. Instead of meeting and greeting trick or treaters, he spent his evening in Cambridge at ART's spectacular production of cult classic Donnie Darko. He will never forget such a shadowy and mysterious play featuring a sensitive but troubled high school teen, a dark six-foot killer bunny and an ancient Grandma Death.

  • Brendan: An Irish-American Personal Expedition

    A new play by Ronan Noone at the Calderwood Pavillion.

    By: Mark Favermann - Oct 29th, 2007

    A contemporay immigrant's odessey to American citizenship can be full of bumps and turns, even blow-outs. We go along for the ride trying to understand the driver while enjoying the scenery.

  • ICA/Boston presents Old Trout Puppet Theater

    Famous Puppet Death Scenes

    By: Erica H. Adams - Oct 20th, 2007

    The Canadian pranksters of Old Trout Puppet Theater condensed their life's work into Famous Puppet Death Scene. ICA/Boston audiences were treated to 22 ways to die, humorous morality tales, for a U.S. culture infamous for its twin addiction to death and denial of death. Death by lack of humor was not among the many vignettes.

  • Barrington Stage Company Launches Fall Season

    The World Goes Round by Kander and Ebb Opens in Pittsfield

    By: Charles Giuliano - Oct 07th, 2007

    Following a successful summer season that doubled the audience and revenue of the previous year Barrington Stage Company has launched a fall season in Pittsfield.

  • The Secret of Sherlock Holmes Revealed in Lenox

    American Premiere at Shakespeare and Company

    By: Larry Murray - Sep 30th, 2007

    The play by Jeremy Paul was staged in London's West End in 1988 and after some delay is having its American premiere in Lenox. There are special events connected with the current production.

  • Bonnie Gable Channels Gertrude Stein in Pittsfield

    Pancho's Restaurant Offers Dinner and Theatre

    By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 23rd, 2007

    After six years battling a range of health problems, the Berkshire based performer,Bonnie Gable,returned to the stage with a warmly moving one woman monologue as Gertrude Stein.

  • Adaptation of Hitchcock's 39 Steps at Huntington Theatre Company

    Broadway Bound Farce Opens Season at Boston University Theatre

    By: Mark Favermann - Sep 20th, 2007

    And Now for Something Completely Different or Running Amuck in a 30's Noir English Mystery Landscape featuring Scottish Moors not British Boors Opening the 2007-2008 Season at the Huntington Theatre Company is a tremendously clever, witty, even brilliant schtick Broadway-bound spoof on Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 breakthrough mystery film, 39 Steps. Mark Favermann laughed, chuckled and even guffawed his way through this send-up of the noir spy/mystery genre.

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