Theatre
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National Black Theatre Festival
Biannual Event in Winston-Salem, NC
By: - Aug 09th, 2019Some thirty members of American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) attended the Winston-Salem, NC National Black Theatre Festival. Here is the first report from our Chicago correspondent Nancy Bishop. More coverage will follow.
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Uma Thurman Stars in Ibsen's Ghosts
Wrapping Another Diva Season for Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Aug 09th, 2019Another diva season wraps on the main stage of Williamstown Theatre Festival through August 18. A new translation of Henrick Ibsen’s Ghosts by Paul Walsh features Uma Thurman as Mrs. Helene Alving. In 2018 there were mixed reviews for her Broadway debut in Parisian Woman. It was a Beau Willimon rewrite of an 1888 play by Henri Becque.
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway
Easy on the Eyes but a Mishmash
By: - Aug 10th, 2019While easy on the eyes Moulin Rouge! The Musical a pastiche of some 70 songs slogs along at two and a half hours. It is a mongrel cut and paste of other and better material. If you liked the movie than this one's for you.
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Little Gem at the Irish Repertory Theater
Marsha Mason Stars in Elaine Murphy's Play
By: - Aug 09th, 2019Irish Repertory Theatre Presents the award-winning Little Gem by Elaine Murphy. This piece about three Irish women won the Fishamble New Writing Award in 2008 and the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award in 2009. The density of her language and the poignant humor of her vision captivates.
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Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
August Wilson Play Produced by Multi Ethnic Theater
By: - Aug 10th, 2019Set in 1927 Chicago, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the only play in August Wilson’s great ten-play, ten-decade “Pittsburgh Cycle,” of the black experience in America that takes place outside his home town. Although the black bottom in the title refers to the flapper dance of the period, it seems intended as a double entendre with sexual innuendo. Both connotations are relevant to one of the important verbal clashes among the band members.
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National Black Theatre Festival
Audience as Congregation in Winston-Salem
By: - Aug 10th, 2019Thirty years ago the late Larry Leon Hamlin founded National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The biannual event, July 29 to August 3, featured 30 productions on stages in and around the city, They ranged from intensive dramas to entertaining musicals. A great part of the experience was being part of audiences that might better be described as congregations. People assemble from all over American for this unique celebration of African American history, theatre and culture.
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Before the Meeting By Adam Bock
Astonishing World Premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Aug 11th, 2019Last night, attending the world premiere of Before the Meeting by Adam Bock at Williamstown Thatre Festival, felt like an historic occasion in contemporary American theatre. This new play will surely make the rounds of regional theatres after a likely New York run. The success of future productions will entail finding a greal actress like Deidre O'Connell to perform the soon to be classic monlogue of Gail a recovering alcoholic.
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Sustaining Regional Black Theatre
Harlem, Houston,Winston-Salem, Chicago, Sarasota
By: - Aug 12th, 2019In a conference organized by Florida critic, Jay Handelman, 30 members and guests of American Theatre Critics Association attended the biennial of the 30-year-old National Black Theatre Festival. In and around Winston-Salem, North Carolina there were 30 productions. During two insightful panel discussions we met artistic directors from Winston-Salem, Sarasota, Chicago and Houston. It provided a compelling overview of black theatre in America.
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National Black Theatre Festival, 2019
Winston-Salem, North Carolina,7/29-8/3
By: - Aug 12th, 2019It was our first visit and participation at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During the four days we experienced eight performances. The Festival attracts thousands of visitors every other year. It was a complex production, where a series of buses would transport audiences to a many theater and auditoriums all over two towns. The Marriott Hotel in downtown Winston served as the focal point and it was buzzing!
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Yang Liping's Under Seige at Mostly Mozart
Stunning Dance at the David Koch Theater
By: - Aug 11th, 2019Yang Liping has created a dance drama in such startling colors and designs that the audience is swept into the single Ancient Pipa melody of the same title. The tapping of swords, soldiers cries and horses whinnying and snorting are all suggested as the song portrays the end battle of the war for control of China in 205 B.C. The armies of the Chu and the Han face off in dance. Blood has never been so beautifully suggested, as a mass of red feathers fly through the air, some streaking the bodies of soldiers.
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Steve Martin's Comedy The Underpants
Extended Again at Old Globe
By: - Aug 14th, 2019Silly is, as silly does, could easily be the subtitle following the name of the current comedy/farce romp “The Underpants,” now on stage at the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White stage. The Steve Martin comedy has been extended twice now through September 8/
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More on National Black Theatre Festival
Biennial Event Seeks to Inspire All
By: - Aug 14th, 2019American Theatre Critics Association members hold their annual conference to coincide with the National Black Theatre Festival. 'Black theater is for everyone,' a panelist tells critics during one of several discussions. This year's festival line-up ranged from well-known works to new plays. The event attracts black theater companies worldwide to perform productions from an African American perspective.
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Fall Springs at Barrington Stage Company
Fracking a World Premiere Musical
By: - Aug 15th, 2019Juke box musicals with butkis for plots have become the norm. Kudos to Barrington Stage for its world premiere Fall Springs which actually has a compelling book. But fracking, the musical, oh my goodness! While it has entertaining moments this creation by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and Niko Tsakalakos is a whacky long shot. It's more than just a town that sinks in the sludge.
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What We May Be By Kathleen Clark
World Premiere Comedy at Berkshire Theatre Group
By: - Aug 17th, 2019The structure of Kathleen Clark's world premiere comedy What We May Be, at Berkshire Theatre Group, is a play within a play. Actually, four plays within a play. That makes for a hard to follow , count them, five plays. It's confusing and not particularly funny. The writing of Clark and misdirection of Gregg Edelman squander generally fine performances by a terrific cast.
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Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward
In NY at The Irish Repertory Theatre
By: - Aug 17th, 2019Alone and in duo, Ross and KT perform some two dozen Noel Coward songs, read a number of letters and first night theater opening telegrams (remember those days) both written by and received from his fans, famous friends, and yes, you might have guessed it, letters both to and from his mother.
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Jenufa by Leoš Janácek
Produced by Santa Fe Opera
By: - Aug 19th, 2019With the exception of a little light relief in the wedding preparation, Jenufa is tense and emotionally charged from beginning to end. Janácek endows his lead characters with complexity and with demanding vocals. In keeping with the tone of the action, much of the vocalization is harsh, yet particularly in the orchestra, appealing passages emerge. Overall, the score fulfills many demands with great success.
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The Pearl Fishers at Santa Fe Opera
Georges Bizet with Libretto by Eugène Carmon and Michel Carré
By: - Aug 20th, 2019Many operas have suffered a rocky road to recognition and appreciation, The Pearl Fishers, among them. Yet when one considers its virtues, it is hard to understand why. Santa Fe Opera presented a rare and much appreciated production.
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Shakepeare's Macbeth
A Production by Ft. Lauderdale's New City Players
By: - Aug 19th, 2019New City Players' dark and creepy Macbeth taps into the zeitgeist. This production in South Florida isn't perfect, but features admirable acting and vivid, foreboding sound effects. Ft. Lauderdale-based company's mounting runs through Sept. 1 in that city's downtown. For the most part, darkness shrouds the extremely intimate playing space, which offers a visceral theatrical experience.
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All Quiet on the Western Front in Chicago
At the Red Tape Theatre
By: - Aug 20th, 2019The Erich Maria Remarque novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a literary masterpiece. Perhaps yuu have read it or seen the classic 1930 film. One likely comes to this stunning stage production with many preconceptions. This galvanic production at Red Tape Theatre more than adequately meets out expectations.
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The Thirteenth Child at Opera Santa Fe
By Poul Ruders with Libretto by Becky and David Starobin
By: - Aug 21st, 2019In an age of sweeping movement toward gender equity, Danish composer Poul Ruders has surprisingly drawn on a Grimm fairytale as a source for female heroics and female enabling. The result is a fable for adults – a taut and riveting opera, yet one that begs for more. Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere of The Thirteenth Child offers stunning production values that enhance the score and yield an engaging musical drama.
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Romeo and Juliet
At San Diego's Old Gold Theatre
By: - Aug 21st, 2019Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe Theatre’s Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director, is not only a recognized scholar of the Shakespearean canon, He’s also the author of “Thinking Shakespeare” a book that has become the standard text on American Shakespeare Acting in universities and academies across America. Who better, then, than Edelstein to direct the Bard’s famous and tragic story of star crossed lovers, “Romeo and Juliet,.”
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Topdog/Underdog by Susan-Lori Parks
Riveting Pulitzer Prize Drama at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Aug 22nd, 2019Directed by Regge Life Shakespeare & Company is presenting a riveting, superbly acted production of Topdog/Underdog by Susan-Lori Parks In 2002, Parks received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Outer Critics Circle Award for the play. The actors Booth (Deaon Griffin-Pressley), and Lincoln (Bryce Michael-Wood) give astonishing performances. This is on the short list of best dramas of the 2019 Berkshire season.
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Ladies Night at Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble
Bond, Musgrave and Viardot Intrigue and Engage
By: - Aug 22nd, 2019Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, always venturesome, presented an evening in which three female composers were featured Franz Liszt had said that in Pauline Viardot the world had finally found a woman composer of genius. Her short opera Cendrillon was performed in full.
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Gershwin Alone By Hershey Felder
A Musical Seance at the Colonial Theatre
By: - Aug 25th, 2019Gershwin Alone by Hershey Felder has been performed on Broadway and toured globally. Too briefly this remarkable musical seance is at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. Felder is actor/ entertainer, musicologist and biographer switching from schtick to instructive. With a "that's not all folks" surprise the ninety minute performance was followed by an eclectic engagement with the audience. That included a couple of sing alongs from The Great American Songbook.
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Sea Wall/A Life at Hudson Theater in NYC
Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal
By: - Aug 27th, 2019Sea Wall/A Life, two-one act plays now at the Hudson Theater in New York City through Sept. 29 takes you on an emotional roller coaster. In part, this is due to the spectacular performances by Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal.
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