Theatre
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American Buffalo in Chicago
Mamet Classic at Mary-Arrchie Theatre
By: - Feb 13th, 2016American Buffalo is David Mamet's story of one day in the life of three Chicago hustlers who try to run a home burglary to get at a rich man’s coin collection. (The buffalo nickel is an often prized version of an early 5-cent piece.) Donny (Richard Cotovsky, a founding member of Mary-Arrchie and its artistic director, is the usually calm, business-focused owner of Don’s Resale Shop. Bobby (Rudy Galvan) is his gopher, and Teach (Stephen Walker) is a neighbor, an angry, emotionally needy man.
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Company XIV’s Adults-Only Snow White
Outrageous Burlesque at NY's Minetta Lane Theatre
By: - Feb 11th, 2016Company XIV has a World Premiere of adults-only Snow White at the Minetta Lane Theatre in NYC -- the third offering in a season of rowdy entertainment by Austin McCormick and the multi-talented cast.
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Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley
At San Diego Rep Theatre
By: - Feb 10th, 2016Toiling for years off-Broadway, John Patrick Shanley has now zoomed to the top tier of much-in-demand playwrights and screenwriters. His latest theatrical effort is the romantic comedy “Outside Mullingar”, which takes place in rural Ireland.
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A Very Hungry Caterpillar on Broadway
Berkshire's Eric Carle's Stories and Art Live
By: - Feb 07th, 2016Puppets in the collage-inspired work of Eric Carle engage in story-telling on Broadway. Three actors tell four of Carle's stories in the magical tones of familiar classics, the audience is incanting phrases like, "but he was still hungry." The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Art and its literacy programs in Amherst benefit from this production of Jonathan Rockefeller's charming puppetry.
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Irish Repertory Theatre Presents The Burial at Thebes
Seamus Heaney's Poetry a Triumph
By: - Jan 28th, 2016Charlotte Moore has directed The Burial at Thebes to make it not only timely, but even more important, present. Each character is etched individually and then brought together with loved ones and adversaries, incidental characters and crucial ones. The chorus has disappeared, its lines and messages now humanized in individuals. This tale is about people and the gods are hardly considered.
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Lauren Gunderson's I and You
Award Winning Drama at 59E59 in NYC
By: - Jan 25th, 2016Kayla Ferguson and Reggie D. White reprise their roles from the Merrimack Repertory Theatre as two teenagers seemingly randomly throw together to complete a class project. But Lauren Gunderson's "I & You" is actually about far weightier things -- life, death, the connectedness of all human beings -- all brought home in a riveting finale that had audiences gasping in surprise. Directed by Sean Daniels, "I & You" is having a limited run at 59E59 Theaters from January 15 - February 28.
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Nice Fish: A Brilliant Catch At A.R.T.
The Remarkable Mark Rylance
By: - Jan 24th, 2016On a frozen Minnesota lake, the ice is beginning to melt as is Salvador Dali's Melting Watch paintings. It’s the end of the fishing season, and two men are out on the ice angling for answers to life’s larger questions. TONY and Olivier Award-winning Mark Rylance, who co-wrote the play with the American poet Louis Jenkins is spectacular. Based on Jenkins' prose poems, it is a Waiting for Godot on ice. It deserves to be a contemporary classic.
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The Blizzard of 2016 Shut Down Broadway
Plan B: Luke's Theater for Plucky Ruthless!
By: - Jan 24th, 2016Craving adventure theatre critic Fast Eddy Rubin was thrilled by blizzard of 2016, one for the record books. Scheduled for a matinee he and a neighbor trudged up town. Only to find all of Broadway including restaurants shut down. Imagine if you had those precious seats to Hamilton? Stomping about our ersatz Sargent Preston of the Yukon stumbled onto one of the few theatres where the show went on. Mush you huskies. He just loved Restless at the intimate St. Luke's Theatre.
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Sherlock Holmes at North Coast Repertory Theatre
Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Great Nome Gold Rush
By: - Jan 23rd, 2016The world premiere production of Joseph Vass’ comedy/mystery “Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Great Nome Gold Rush”, may be a mouthful to say but it’s easy to enjoy; so are the songs and music written and composed by Vass for the production, who is also a musician and is one of the driving forces behind the Klezmer music movement in the country.
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Sunset Baby at Timeline
Chicago Premier of Dominique Morisseau Play
By: - Jan 22nd, 2016The bluesy, politically charged music of Nina Simone is the aural background for Sunset Baby, Timeline Theatre’s Chicago premiere of the 2012 play by Dominique Morisseau. Nina (AnJi White), the stubborn, independent woman whose life, dreams and family are the heart of this story, is Simone’s namesake.
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Yes Tim Realbuto's Deceptive One Act Play
At New York's Hudson Guild Theatre
By: - Jan 22nd, 2016YES falls into a category, a genre, if you will, in which two characters, metaphorically speaking, battle to the death. In between drinking scotch, perhaps even vodka – bottles of liquor, one beside his bed, another aside his desk, and doing coke twice – Patrick begins, under the guise of giving Jeremiah acting lessons, taking charge of the seemingly innocent seventeen year old.
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Ann Liv Young's Elektra Has U.S. Premiere
Unfortunately, My Favorite Part was the Pig
By: - Jan 21st, 2016A pig is included in an avant-garde performance of Elektra Sophocles' classic story of murder, deception and revenge. The Amy Liv Young version of the Greek tragedy had its U.S. premiere at New York Live Arts.
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London Wall by John Van Druten
Chicago's Griffin Theatre
By: - Jan 19th, 2016Griffin Theatre creates a perfect microcosm of the pre-feminist age in London Wall, the 1931 John Van Druten play about the personal lives and work culture in a London law firm. Robin Witt directs a smart, sprightly trip into the past that manages to shine a light on the present as well.
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Disgraced Stirring At Huntington Theatre
Multiethnic Drama Underscoring Human and World Issues
By: - Jan 19th, 2016Disgraced is engaging, thought-provoking theatre. The narrative is about difficult situations in a compicated world. . It demands that you pay attention from the opening scene until the play's end. A stellar cast and perceptive direction make this an evening of theatre that you will not soon forget.
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Hamilton on PBS
Making of a Musical Masterpiece
By: - Jan 18th, 2016HAMILTON’S AMERICA is produced by Academy Award® and Emmy®-Winning producers RadicalMedia (What Happened Miss Simone?, Keith Richards: Under The Influence, In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams for PBS). The documentary combines interviews with experts and prominent personalities, new footage of the production in New York, and cast-led expeditions to DC, Philadelphia and New York.
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Playwright Sharyn Rothstein Wins ATCA Award
2015 Francesca Primus Prize for By the Water.
By: - Jan 17th, 2016The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) announces that playwright Sharyn Rothstein has been awarded the 2015 Francesca Primus Prize for her play By the Water. Rothstein will receive the $10,000 award check immediately and be officially congratulated at an upcoming ATCA conference. Jointly sponsored by ATCA and the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation, the Primus Prize is given annually to an emerging woman playwright.
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Dan LeFranc's Bruise Easy
World Premiere at Chicago's American Theatre Company
By: - Jan 15th, 2016Dan LeFranc’s script takes us through this awkward renewal of family connections and the gradual exposure of family history and the actions of both father and mother. Director Joanie Schultz is a Chicago-based freelance director who has directed productions in Washington DC and Kansas City as well as many Chicago shows.
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Barrington Stage 2016
Programming Theatre That Matters
By: - Jan 14th, 2016Barrington Stage is the first to announce its program for the 2016 season. For the winter blues there will be the 10x10 New Play Festival February 11-28. The shoulder season warms up with previews beginning May 10 with the world premiere of a musical "Presto Change-o."
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Bowie's Lazarus: Departing This World with Music
A Final Work by David Bowie and Edna Walsh
By: - Jan 11th, 2016The review of the musical "Lazarus" by David Bowie and Edna Walsh, directed by Ivo van Hove was in the works long before the announcement of Bowie's passing. The author, critic Edward Rubin, has opted to treat this as a note added to the review rather than lead as an obituary. The point is to cover as fresh and current the work of a great genius and unique artist of his generation. Tickets to the off Broadway production sold out almost immediately.
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Rimini Protokoll's Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf
At Berlin's Hebbel Am Ufer from Jan. 7 - 10
By: - Jan 11th, 2016Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' had not been newly published in Germany post WWII. As of December 31, 2015 Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' has been in the public domain and on January 7th, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich published a two volume scholarly edition with approximately 3700 notes on 2000 pages. The first 5000 volumes have been sold out with 1500 pre-orders already booked. Also from January 7th to January 10th Rimini Protokoll presented its first performance of 'Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, Band 1 & 2' at the theatre complex of Hebbel Am Ufer in Berlin to sold out audiences.
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Calderoni Performs MDLSX at La MaMa
Alternative if Awesome
By: - Jan 10th, 2016An Avant-garde multi-media production by Italy's Modus Company was featured at New York's La MaMa. It comprises a solo performance by Silvia Calderoni that combines dance, music and multimedia. It continues through January 17.
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Mother Courage Produced in Germany
Brecht's Epic Timely as Ever
By: - Jan 05th, 2016In this powerful current production of the play at the State Theatre in Pforzheim, Germany, the artists have taken the liberty of adding lines to Brecht’s. It makes the play more of the moment. It also illustrates how Brecht, often called an epic playwright, is also a playwright for all time. The Volkswagen emissions scandal is hurled at us. Mrs. Merkel’s constant assurance that “We can manage,” is suggested at moments when it is clear not no one on stage or in the audience can. When Mother’s Courage’s daughter is raped, she says, “All you have to do to get raped is go to Cologne.” Less than a week ago, a very large group of young male immigrants attacked and raped women in Cologne, Germany.
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2015 in the Arts
Hiphopera, Tap, Berkshires and Beyond
By: - Jan 02nd, 2016In some of the most exciting and insightful productions and performances of the year there was a notable cross pollination and invention as vernacular street cultures and indigenous art forms conflated into high art. Classic works were not just revived but reinvented from the insight out. The best works of 2016 raised the bar through risk taking and challenging audiences. These rare experiences tend to make the majority of what we experience ordinary and enervating. In an era signified by ubiquitous standing ovations what is truly worthy of special recognition?
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The Golden Bride by National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Museum of Jewish Heritage Hosts Opera
By: - Dec 27th, 2015Inspired immigrants, excited by their new land and still carrying a touch of the old with them, created works for the Second Avenue Theatre early in the 20th century. The joy of the forms they created lives on today, in the original works and the work they inspired in the Broadway musical theatre.
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Black Ensemble Theater's Dynamite Divas
Soul Music in the Windy City
By: - Dec 26th, 2015Dynamite Divas features appearances (via Mr. Maurice's "Assimilator") by soul singers of the past such as Nina Simone (performing "Mississippi Goddam" and "Young, Gifted and Black"), Dinah Washington ("This Bitter Earth"), and film excerpts of sensational older divas. There's even a cameo by a Beyonce impersonator, asking "Why Not Me?"
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