Theatre
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Another Palm Canyon Theatre Hit
Tony Winner Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights
By: - Jul 15th, 2017“In the Heights” by Lin Manuel Miranda chronicles the daily struggles of the neighborhood in its day to day existence of raising families, paying the rent and trying to keep one’s business from going bankrupt, along with the age-old frustration of the younger residents in not being able to make their own choices in their searches for love, romance, and marriage.
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Tender Napalm by Philip Ridley
Anton's Well Theater Company in Oakland
By: - Jul 16th, 2017Several recurring themes frame the arc to provide color to the story telling. Detailed sexual activity with graphic anatomical references as well as analogies such as bullets and exploding grenades are often described. Unfortunately, the tsunami of f-bombs reduce their effectiveness and seem like a child's learning a nasty word and mindlessly repeating it until it becomes meaningless.
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Where Storms are Born in Williamstown
World Premiere by Harrison David Rivers
By: - Jul 17th, 2017In its smaller Nikos Stage the Williamstown Theatre Festival features another, homegrown, world premiere. Last summer playwright Harrison David Rivers was a fellow at the renowned festival. The play that he was developing Where Storms Are Born is being produced this season. Again there is a focus on diversity and plot points hinged on gay characters, There is risk taking in this strategy wih bold and progressive but unresolved results.
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East of Edinburgh New Plays at 59E59th
Two Matters of Life and Death
By: - Jul 15th, 201759 East 59th Street Theaters is presenting New York’s annual Edinburgh Festival Preview. The acting in the plays is terrific. While these are works in process, the directors give us engaging productions on provocative themes.
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1984 On Stage in Pompano Beach
Adaptation of Orwell Novel in South Florida
By: - Jul 18th, 2017Outre's production depicts a future-- and even a present -- in which surveillance is becoming more prevalent. Actors fare better after intermission in Outre Theatre Company's 1984. Interrogation scene not as graphic as what audiences are reportedly witnessing on Broadway.
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Speech & Debate at Barrington Stage
Coming of Age Comedy by Stephen Karam
By: - Jul 19th, 2017Speech and Debate is a 2007 play by Tony winner Stephen Karam (The Humans). Since then there have been more than a hundred productions. It is being refreshed at Barrington Stage. It focuses on the bonding of three high school misfits. The awkward and insecure Howie (Austin Davidson) came out when he was nine. The uptight, preppy Solomon (Ben Getz) is a closeted wannabe investigative reporter. Diwata (Betsy Hogg) is a plain Jane, nerdy teen, passed over by the drama club, who wants to be a star. This makeover of a popular play slogs along until coming alive when the amazing Hogg takes the bit in her mouth and races hell for leather to a remarkable finish. Fasten your seat belts.
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Syrian Drama at Lincoln Center Festival
Into the Heart of Damascus
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Syrians are spreading across the world as civil war rages on in their country. We who greet, house and share our countries with them are curious about the country from which they have come and what it feel like to live there during this period of torture and destruction. The theater of Syria helps us understand what prompts exodus.
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Lela & Co. by Cordelia Lynn
At Chicago's Steep Theatre
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Cordelia Steep’s U.S. premiere of Lela and Co. is set in some unnamed wartorn region of the world—perhaps central Europe. It’s Lela’s story, beginning with her birth, when she learns that a woman’s role is “to sing the songs, the early songs and the late songs, the songs of sleeping and the songs of mourning.
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Taylor Mac’s Hir
At Steppenwolf in Chicago
By: - Jul 20th, 2017Hir is a family story, a chaotic kitchen-sink story. Playwright Taylor Mac describes it as absurd realism, with a simple plot: The prodigal son returns home from the war and finds nothing is as it was when he left. Isaac (Tyler Olwin) has been away for three years, working on a mortuary crew in Afghanistan.
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The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga
By Min Kahng in Palo Alto
By: - Jul 20th, 2017The bouncy, Vaudeville-influenced opening number "The Four Immigrants" theme sets the early tone of the hope for success in the new land. The men struggle, as most immigrants will, but then the first major setback occurs, San Francisco's 1906 earthquake.
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At the Old Place by Rachel Bonds
At the La Jolla Playhouse
By: - Jul 21st, 2017In “At the Old Place”, the story, set in rural Richmond, Virginia, centers around Angie (Heidi Armbruster) who is trying to come to grips with any guilt and closure that occurs following the death of her mother and the unrequited issues that linger and eventually fall to her for resolution. One unfinished piece of business that takes her back is the sale of her mother’s house.
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Finding Mona Lisa in Coral Gables
World Premiere Play at Actors Playhouse
By: - Jul 21st, 2017Finding Mona Lisa is a fun-filled, quick-paced play with colorful characters. Six actors skillfully portray multiple roles in new Michael McKeever historically-based drama. The new play about the world's most famous painting produces plenty of laughs.
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CompagnieXY at Lincoln Center
French Acrobats Create Dance
By: - Jul 21st, 2017In N'est Pas Le Minuit by Compagnie XY, a group of acrobats whose physical feats demands cooperation and trust. They take that spirit and make it into a global miniature.
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Off the Rails by Randy Reinholz
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Reconfigures Measure for Measure
By: - Aug 06th, 2017This play is both entertaining and rich with messages. It deserves to be seen. At the same time, the playwright tries to accomplish a great deal, perhaps at the expense of cohesion. The tone changes often as dialogue alternates between Shakespearean tracts taken directly from the source and the naturalistic speech of the Old West.
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Michael Bernardi Discusses Fiddler on the Roof
Filling His Father Herschel's Boots an Original Tevye on Broadway
By: - May 19th, 2016Michael Bernardi lost his father, Herschel, when he was not yet two. Still, for much of his life, he has sensed his father’s presence. His father played Tevye on Broadway over three years and 702 performances, beginning in 1965. The younger Bernardi is currently playing Mordcha in the Tony nominated Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.
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Feeding the Bear by Michael Aman
World Premiere at Island City Stage Near Ft. Lauderdale
By: - Jun 08th, 2016If “Feeding the Bear” doesn’t exactly break new ground, it works primarily because it’s the type of story with which many can identify. It’s a work that will make you cry one moment and laugh the next. Sometimes, you’ll do both simultaneously.
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Tokyo Fish Story at Old Globe
If You Knew Sushi
By: - Jun 08th, 2016“tokyo fish story” is a splendid production that performs, without an intermission, on the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre Stage and runs through June 26, 2016.
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Full Committed in Charleston
Smash Hit in 2016 Piccolo Spoleto Festival
By: - Jun 09th, 2016The Threshold Repertory Theatre in Charleston, South Carolina presented the hilarious and zany "Fully Committed" as a 2016 Piccolo Spoleto offering which was a festival favorite with sold-out performances.
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Provincetown Festival to Combine Williams and O'Neill
Annual Theatre Event from September 22 to 25
By: - Jun 09th, 2016We attended the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans which inspired us to participate in TWF in Provincetown in 2015. Both festivals were thrilling in presenting rare and insightful works. For the 2016 festival in Provincetown works by Williams will be paired with plays by Eugene O'Neill. His first works we created and produced by the Provincetown Players. The annual event will occur from September 22 to 25.
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Huntington Theatre Company Gets A Reprieve
Theatre To Stay Put on Avenue of the Arts
By: - Jun 09th, 2016After Boston University decided to sell the building in which the Huntington Theatre Company has had its lovely theatre last Fall, there was a great deal of agita and even grief as to what would become of the Huntington. Would the theatre company have to relocate? Would the large structure be torn down for expensive condos? Could the City of Boston help find a development/real estate partner? Like a Deus Ex Machina, Good News has arrived with a happy ending.
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Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler
At North Coast Repertory Theatre in San Diego.
By: - Jun 10th, 2016Long before TV soaps made their debut in America, Henrik Ibsen was scandalizing the patrons of Europe’s theatrical stages with similar themed plays. There’ is no doubt about it. We human beings are a complicated, conflicted, and a fascinating lot. Hedda Gabler has a fresh translation for this lively production.
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A Gambler's Guide To Dying
Gary McNair's Spoleto Festival Gem
By: - Jun 11th, 2016Our Charleston correspondent, Sandy Katz, continues with coverage of the annual Spoleto Festival. She was completely absorbed by a poignant one-man-show by the Scottish actor and playwright Gary McNair. He narrates as himself telling the tale of his colorful grandfather in A Gambler's Guide To Dying. By the end of the evening she was endeared to a colorful rascal.
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Hauptmann by John Logan in Chicago
Lindbergh Baby Killer Trial at City Lit Theater
By: - Jun 12th, 2016Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the “baby killer,” the man tried, convicted and executed for the 1932 kidnapping of the Charles Lindbergh baby, is vividly personified by George Seegebrecht in City Lit Theater’s new production of Hauptmann by John Logan.
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White Man on a Bus by Bruce Graham
Curious Theatre in Denver Produces
By: - Jun 12th, 2016Curious Theatre in Denver is committed to plays which pack a powerful punch. White Man on a Bus is a knockout, describing the current state of race relations in the US. It is also very good theatre.
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Sweet and Lucky by Zach Morris
Denver Gives a New Audience Experience
By: - Jun 12th, 2016How can theater reach out to new, young audiences? Brooklyn's Third Rail and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts have come up with one answer: Keep the audience standing and walking. Let the audiences move through a 14,000 square foot set. Keep the audience guessing where they are and what they are looking at. Disorient, move, provoke, satisfy.
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