Theatre
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Tamburlaine Today at the Theatre for a New Audience
John Douglas Thompson Rages at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center
By: - Nov 16th, 2014John Douglas Thompson is a great classic actor. As Tamburlaine, he conquers every corner of the stage, and the rafters too before his all-consuming lust for power crashes him. What a piece of work this actor is. At every turn he engages.
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The Chosen by Aaron Posner
Season Opener for CV REP Rancho Mirage
By: - Nov 13th, 2014“The Chosen†swoops into the audience’s heart and neatly captures the essence of Potok’s affecting human message of hope. Even in a diverse and secular America of 310 million citizens, every culture and every religion has the ability to leave the “old world†of European Jewry behind and blend into the “new world†of America, and still remain true to one’s Jewish traditions.
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Odets' Stirring Awake and Sing! At Huntington
Depression Era Drama About Dysfunctional Family
By: - Nov 12th, 2014Set in a cramped Bronx apartment, three generations of a working-class Jewish family are frustrated in their dreams of a brighter future. Matriarch Bessie Berger's fierce determination keeps her family afloat, whatever the cost. Gritty, passionate, funny, and heartbreaking, With outstanding performances, Odets' 1935 drama captures both the hopes, disappointments and struggles of a memorable American family.
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Hedda Gabler Quirky At Gamm Theatre
Caricatured Characters With Theatrical Energy
By: - Nov 02nd, 2014The production of Hedda Gabler at Pawtucket's Gamm Theatre is a less than nuanced production of the 1889 Ibsen classic. Set when Gabler has returned from an extended honeymoon with her tediously academic and wimpy husband, carrying heavy personal baggage she is already bored of marriage. Suffocated by bourgeois society and disdainful of intellectual pursuits, she tries to fulfill her aimless often mean-spirited desires by manipulating those around her resulting tragically. A play with offering no easy answers, the focal point is a Hedda Gabler who is a troubled and troubling woman. Slipping into despair as her options narrow, even with directional script flaws, this is a compelling play.
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Bad Jews Provocative at SpeakEasy Stage
Brilliant Layered Drama About Family, Faith and History
By: - Oct 27th, 2014Don't let the title put you off. This is not a negative play. The narrative concerns the war between two cousins over a coveted family heirloom, It is a biting comedy/drama about religion and culture. At odds are the annoyingly self-righteous Daphna, a young woman who wears her Jewishness like a badge of honor, and her equally self-centered first cousin Liam, an entitled graduate student who enjoys distancing himself from his cultural traditions. Thrown into the mix is Liam's younger brother Jonah and Liam's white bread girlfriend Melody. When the combatants are forced to spend the night in a studio apartment, all hell breaks loose resulting in a viciously funny brawl over family, faith, and legacy.
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Biblical Themed Play by Scott Carter
Geffen Playhouse Through November 23
By: - Oct 25th, 2014In the Geffen Playhouse’s current production “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discordâ€, written by Scott Carter and directed by Matt August, three of history’s great thinker/writers come together in a blisteringly funny battle of wits to explain their divergently held opinions.
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St. Germain's Freud's Last Session
At North Coast Rep Theatre in California
By: - Oct 25th, 2014Since its premiere at Barrington Stage in the Berkshires Freud's Last Session by Mark St. Germain has been produced all over the world. He was recently in Oslo for a production of his enormously popular play. Jack Lyons reviews a California production at North Coast Rep Theatre through November 9.
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Ether Dome: Medical Miracle At Huntington
Surgical Anesthetic Discovery As Gripping Narrative History
By: - Oct 23rd, 2014This clever production tells the story of the search for a new treatment promising to end pain as it pits a doctor and his student in an epic battle between altruism and ambition, ego and empathy. Based on the true story of the discovery of ether as an anesthetic in 1846, it is set in Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. This new play explores the horror of pain, the sweetness of relief, and the very modern notion of the hysteria that erupts when healthcare becomes big business.
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When January Feels Like Summer in New York
Ensemble Studio & Women's Porject Theater Join Forces
By: - Oct 20th, 2014Originally produced by Ensemble Studio Theatre this terrific play is instantly in revival and deserves any staging it gets. Cori Thomas, the playwright, has taken often stereotyped characters and made them real and full of surprises.
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Dear Elizabeth Speaks Volumes at Lyric Stage
A Play in Letters Between Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell
By: - Oct 20th, 2014Told through an extensive and compelling correspondence between two of 20th century’s most important and celebrated American poets, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, this play on and with words is a different kind of love. It is a story of the spirit and imagination between artists and friends. This thirty-year friendship served to buoy each other up in life and art. Their often messy, addictive and sometimes unhealthy lives were profoundly impacted by the other. This is a lyrical, moving portrait of a friendship that eloquently transcends oceans, continents, and time.
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Glass Menagerie at Pittsburgh Public Theatre
Superb Production of Tennessee Williams Drama
By: - Oct 17th, 2014The trick to a good production of this play – and the one at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre falls squarely into that category – lies in finding a style for representing memory, one that keeps in view not only the events as remembered by Tom, infused and informed by his guilty conscience over having left his overbearing mother and fragile sister to their own devices, but also the reality of the characters themselves, distinct from his memory somehow, so that we in the audience don’t fall into the trap of only seeing the other characters as Tom remembers them.
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Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's Bright Star
World Premiere at San Diego's Old Globe
By: - Oct 17th, 2014The immensely multi-talented Steve Martin – actor, playwright, director, musician, producer author – has joined creative forces with Southern songwriter-singer Edie Brickell becoming of one America’s newest and successful musical writing teams in the process. Their Bright Star runs at the Old Globe through November 2.
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Tony Simotes Leaves Shakespeare & Company
Rick Dildine Takes Charge
By: - Oct 11th, 2014When Tony Simotes took over Shakespeare & Company from founder Tina Packer five years ago it soon was revealed that the company was on the brink of ruin. With negotiations and austerity the company was put on a more secure footing. It is now more stable as leadership passes to Rick Dildine..
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Assassins Sinister Sondheim At New Rep
Dark Musical About Murderous Losers
By: - Oct 07th, 2014With a large cast and Stephen Sondheim's music, Assassins is a musical based on the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted (successfully or not) to assassinate various Presidents of the United States. Even though the music varies to reflect the popular music of the eras depicted, the time warps of the characters act to confuse the audience. With a fine ensemble, The New Rep tries hard with a very dark Sondheim vehicle.
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Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Alex Sharp Brilliant as an Autistic Boy
By: - Oct 06th, 2014The title suggests an Oliver Sacks' story, but unfortuntately his humanity is not translated to the stage.
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Barrington Stage Company 2015
Lost in Yonkers and Man of La Mancha
By: - Oct 03rd, 2014Barrington Stage Company (BSC),announced today two of its 2015 Boyd-Quinson Mainstage productions – Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers and Man of La Mancha.
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Two Gentleman of Verona
Indiana Repertory Theatre To October 19
By: - Sep 29th, 2014Indiana Repertory Theatre opens its 43rd season with a play in honor of Shakespeare’s 450th birthday. The show includes a cast of IRT vets like Ryan Artzberger and Robert Neal (who both starred in HART “The Tempest†this summer), along with some excellent newcomers. Two standouts were Charles Pasternak as Valentine, who vacillates between ardent lover and frustrated exile and Ashley Wickett as both Julia’s maid Lucetta and the sought-after Silvia.
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Private Eyes By Steven Dietz
Fall Comedy at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Sep 28th, 2014Private Eyes at Shakespeare & Company is a theatre about theatre comedy which evoked hearty, knowing laughter from the many actors in the audience during opening night. There are so many dizzy reversals and plot twists in this play by Steven Dietz that one requires a shrink or chiropractor to unwind from the experience.
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Doubt Unquestionable At Stoneham Theatre
Brilliant Performances About Church and Humanity
By: - Sep 28th, 2014Doubt, The Parable is about the crimes of the priesthood both proven, suggested and covered up by the Catholic Church. It tells the story of a zealous nun school principal who confronts a well-liked charismatic priest about a relationship with a student. The issue is whether she is on a witch-hunt, or is he hiding a dark secret. Wonderfully acted and directed, it is a tour de force by Karen MacDonald.
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Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate
Pasadena Playhouse to October 12
By: - Sep 28th, 2014The Pasadena Playhouse launched its 2014/2015 season with an inspired production of “Kiss Me, Kateâ€, brilliantly directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps, and a cast of seventeen wonderful singers, dancers and actors.
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Made in the Berkshires 2014
Opening Night Celebration, October 10, 2014
By: - Sep 27th, 2014The annual Made in the Berkshires festival will be held over the October 12 weekend. It features music, theatre and dance in a variety of venues. Here is the full schedule of events.
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Jim Brochu at Barrington Stage Company
Character Man Entertains and Informs
By: - Sep 26th, 2014In 2011 James Brochu appeared at Barrington Stage in the one man show Zero Hour. He has returned with another show that he has written and stars in Character Man. The great Mostel is but one of a plethora of great actors featured in a rich and colorful evening of songs and anecdotes from a life in theatre.
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Marjorie Prime by Jordan Harrison
World Premiere at Mark Taper Forum
By: - Sep 23rd, 2014What takes place on the stage of the Taper is playwright Jordan Harrison’s thought provoking “Marjorie Prime†drama of the future. It’s the sort of story that is right up director Les Waters’ alley, and one that writer Rod Serling would, most assuredly endorse.
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<50% at Fringe Festival Encores, Encores
Gianmarco Soresi's Hilarious Theatre Piece
By: - Sep 21st, 2014Soresi describes his first moment playing a role like <50%'s in second grade: "I was the Handsome Prince in "The Princess and the Pea" in 2nd grade. My crown was made of gold-spray-painted-Styrofoam. It was a big deal. In the penultimate scene, Pretty Princess said to me "I love you". My response was supposed to be "And I love you". In the heat of the moment, twenty if not thirty parents’ eyes fixed on me, I stuck my index finger down my opened mouth, tongue outstretched and made a gagging sound. The audience approved. I saw those ten-to-fifteen adults roar with laughter, people who under any other circumstance wouldn’t have given me the time of day (my parents were in the audience as well), all of us sharing something." In that moment I became a writer, an actor, and a bit of an asshole all at once.
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Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight
A Brilliant Woman's Love and Philosophy At The Nora
By: - Sep 19th, 2014Emilie du Châtelet, was a brilliant physicist before physics was a word. She was also a card shark, and all-around bad ass during the Age of Enlightenment. At the Nora Theatre Company, she as a ghost returns searching for answers: Love or Philosophy? Head or Heart? An outspoken eccentric or actual intellectual revolutionary, she was lustful and brilliant. The Marquise introduced Newtonian physics to France and took Voltaire as her lover always correcting errors in his work. This theatrical exploration traverses time and space with a woman ahead of her time, ignoring the rules of polite society, with her greatest limitation being that of her dexterous mind. The central character is wonderfully portrayed by Lee Mikeska Gardner.
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