Theatre
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Kate Burton on Stoppard's Hapgood at WTF
Three Generations of Burton Family Theatre
By: - Jul 05th, 2013While a graduate student at Yale Kate Burton first performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1980 with Frank Langella and Christopher Reeve as leading men. In 1987 she returned with her husband , Michael Ritchie, who later took over as artistic director, with Jenny Gersten as his associate. From July 10 to 21 she stars at WTF in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood. She took time from rehearsals to discuss finding her own way in theatre as the daughter of Richard Burton. Next year Nicholas Martin will direct Kate and her son Morgan Ritchie in Chekhov's The Seagull for Boston's Huntington Theatre.
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American Hero by Bess Wohl at WTF
Taking a Bite Out of Corporate America
By: - Jul 03rd, 2013Bess Wohl returns to Williamstown Theatre Festival for her sixth season and second as a playwright. American Hero a send up of the fast food industry and corporate America is a side splitting hoot. While a hilarious play it also leaves us with food for thought. As Jack Nicholson would say "Give me a BLT but hold the lettuce, hold the bacon and hold the tomato." Or ham on wry.
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The Lion in Winter Roars in Stockbridge
Treat Williams and Jayne Atkinson Star for BTG
By: - Jul 01st, 2013While thoroughly entertaining, particularly in a lively production by Berkshire Theatre Group, James Goldman's The Lion in Winter is a loose pastiche and confection of grim medieval history. These are meaty roles that great actors like Treat Williams and Jayne Atkinson love to sink their chops into. During the actual Middle Ages, unlike this witty comedy, there wasn't much to laugh about.
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Treat Williams Discusses Lion in Winter
Wants to Do More Berkshire Theatre
By: - Jun 30th, 2013Since moving to Vermont film and television actor, Treat Williams, is getting more involved with theatre in the Berkshires. We spoke with him following opening night of The Lion in Williams, with Jayne Atkinson, for Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge. With its star billing the play is sure to be a top draw for the 2013 season. He talked about working with South African playwright Athol Fugard.
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Educating Rita at Vermont's Weston Playhouse
Laughter Accompanying Learning
By: - Jun 29th, 2013Updated in 2003, Educating Rita continues to be relevant and delightfully entertaining. What a pleasure it is to see a world-class production of this play in the intimate Weston Playhouse, a gem of a theater in the small, bucolic town of Weston, Vermont.
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Animal Crackers a Crackup at Williamstown
Marx Brothers Zany Musical Comedy Soars
By: - Jun 28th, 2013In 2009 Henry Wishcamper adapted and directed the Marx Brothers musical Animal Crackers for the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Now he has restaged it in a lively and thoroughly entertaining production which launches the 59th season of the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Through July 13 what's not to like? Enjoy.
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Yes, Prime Minister at LA’s Geffen Playhouse
Sexual Escapades and Bunga Bunga Parties
By: - Jun 24th, 2013The west coast premiere of “Yes, Prime Minister†at the Geffen Playhouse co-written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn and directed by Lynn (two honest to goodness Brits and the original creators of the highly successful BBC TV comedy series “Yes Minister†of the 1980’s), have no fear of “telling it like it is†when it comes to the darker and less ethical side of world politics. Transparency? Forget it!
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Vermont's Weston Playhouse Theatre Company
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
By: - Jun 23rd, 2013Vermont's Weston Theatre's season kicks off with a "Terribly" charming children's "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." This winsome musical was adapted by Judith Viorst in 1998 from her award-winning book by the same name that was first published in 1972 with illustrations by Ray Cruz.
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Jayne Atkinson Headlines WAM Benefit
June 30 Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
By: - Jun 21st, 2013WAM Theatre, presents Claiming Her Place, a benefit to be held Sunday, June 30 at 7pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. Co-produced and hosted by Tony nominee Jayne Atkinson, the evening will feature a celebrity panel discussing the challenges women face in the entertainment industry. The panel includes: Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under),Michel Gill (House of Cards), Marin Mazzie (Tony Nominee), Linus Roache (Law & Order) and Debra Jo Rupp (That '70s Show).
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Barrington Stage Outs Muckrakers
Ripped from the Headlines Play by Zayd Dohrn
By: - Jun 20th, 2013The new play Muckrakers by Zayd Dohrn is surely provocative and timely as breaking news. It explores the dichotomy of Big Brother spying on our privacy and extreme measures for government agencies to expose and prevent acts of terrorism. While advancing vital and relevant issues how does this translate into a compelling evening of theatre? For that, heads or tails. Your call.
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Caucasian Chalk Circle at Classic Stage Company
Brecht's Liars, Killers, Cheats, and Self-Servers
By: - Jun 19th, 2013Serving up a dish of rotten folk, with one or two good ones thrown in for good measure, is the Classic Stage Company's production of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle nicely directed by CSC’s artistic director Brian Kulick.
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On the Town Boffo at Barrington
Directed by Tony Winner John Rando
By: - Jun 17th, 2013The first musical of Leonard Bernstein On the Town is rarely produced. This season however there are two. The first at Boston's Lyric Stage and now in the Berkshies at Barrington Stage. With tony winner John Rendo directing and choreography by Emmy winner Jushua Bergasse don't be surprised if a producer takes this revival to Broadway. Musical theatre just doesn't get better.
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Stoppard's Translation of Heroes by Sibleyras
Wordy Absurdity at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Jun 15th, 2013In a Tom Stoppard translation from the French of the Gérald Sibleyras 2003 play Le Vent Des Peupliers we have a wordy and challenging evening of theatre at Shakespeare & Company. Not much happens but director Kevin G. Coleman sets a brisk comic pace. The play will alternate with Master Class through the summer season.
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Annette Miller Masterful as Maria Callas
Shakespeare & Company Through August 18
By: - Jun 13th, 2013For the all too brief span of a decade Maria Callas was the best paid and most renowned opera singer of her era. Not known for meticulous adherence to the score or its conductor her dramatic interpretations were thrilling, inventive, controversial and inconsistent. As was her personal life as mistress to the richest man in the world Aristotle Onassis. The play focuses on Callas past her prime flogging students in a master class whom she stridently refers to as victims.
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A.R.T. Wins 4 Tonys and Huntington Wins 1
Boston Theatres Recognized for Artistic Achievement
By: - Jun 10th, 2013The 66th Annual Tony Award Ceremony took place on CBS on Sunday, June 9, 2013. One of the most prestigious and coveted honors in the entertainment industry, the Tonys recognize the best of theatrical and artistic achievement on stage in America. This year Boston theatres won five awards. A.R.T.'s Pippin won four and the Huntington Theatre Company won for the Best Regional theatre. Well-deserved on all counts.
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His Girl Friday at La Jolla Playhouse
John Guare's Spin on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
By: - Jun 10th, 2013John Guare has a new take on the classic screwball comedy The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. The original story was a pointed study in the shenanigans committed by news reporters, predatory journalists, scoundrels, and scalawags, all in search of a “scoop†during the good old days when newspaper ink coursed through the veins of anyone with a by-line.
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More Williamstown Theatre Festival Updates
Dominique Morisseau 2013 L. Arnold Weissberger Award
By: - Jun 04th, 2013Brooks Ashmanskas, De'Adre Aziza, Reed Birney, Joey Slotnick, and Omar Metwally are among the actors who will take part in this Williamstown Theatre Festival summer’s productions. Dominique Morisseau has been awarded WTF’s 2013 L. Arnold Weissberger Award for Playwriting for her play Paradise Blue. She will receive a $10,000 grant and receive a reading as part of WTF’s FRIDAYS@3 series, as well as publication by Samuel French, Inc.
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Musical Comedy Whore With David Pevsner
Desert Rose Playhouse
By: - May 31st, 2013“Musical Comedy Whoreâ€, is not as prurient, sexy, or as self-serving a show as straight audiences might imagine. The audience, both gay and straight, is listening to the life story of a man who passionately bares his soul because he believes in honesty.
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Rapture, Blister, Burn At Huntington
Midlife Female Angst Over What Could Have Been
By: - May 29th, 2013The not so simple issues of marriage, feminism and parenthood are stirfried together with who we are and what we have become in Gina Gionfriddo’s drama/comedy that was a finalist for a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The story looks at more than a decade after grad school when Catherine pursued a career as a star feminist academic, while Gwen built a home with husband and children. Each friend covets the other's life. With comedic and at times tender insights and clever bantor, this new comedy investigates family, career, romance, and the decisions that define an unfulfilled life.
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The Ensemble Studio Theatre's Marathon
Thirty-four-years Young and Still Going Strong
By: - May 27th, 2013The five one act plays presented in Series A at the Ensemble Studio Theatre’s 34th marathon promise a bang up series in 2013. At the top of the evening was John Patrick Shanley’s Poison, about which the characters should have had much doubt. Not the audience however who bought in immediately and hopefully as a young woman, rebuffed by her boyfriend, seeks a fortuneteller’s help in getting him back.
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Bashir Lazhar at Barrington Stage
Juri Henley-Cohn as an Algerian Refugee in Montreal
By: - May 27th, 2013The play Bashir Lazhar by Évelyne de la Chenelière preceded Monsieur Lazhar which was a 2012 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film. The play, translated from French by Morwyn Breubner is being presented to enthusiastic audiences at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. It is a one man performance by an American actor, Juri Heney-Cohn with a convincing Algerian accent.
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Alan Cumming as Macbeth and Everyone Else
Descent into Madness Electrifies at the Barrymore
By: - May 23rd, 2013Shakespeare called his Macbeth the Scottish play, and it seems particularly appropriate that the Scotch actor, Alan Cumming, magnifying his burr, takes on the play. Cumming portrays all the characters as they whirl from his mind onto the stage.
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A.R.T.'s Second Stage Oberon
Events for June
By: - May 23rd, 2013OBERON, the American Repertory Theater’s second stage and club theater venue, continues its mission to bring exciting and original programming. A destination for theater and nightlife on the fringe of Harvard Square, OBERON is the home of the A.R.T.’s hit productions of Pirates of Penzance, The Lily’s Revenge, Futurity, The Donkey Show, Cabaret, and Prometheus Bound and Ryan Landry’s Rocky Horror Show. OBERON is also a thriving incubator for local and visiting talent.
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Arena Stage Mary T. & Lizzy K.
Mary Todd Lincoln and Her Domestics
By: - May 21st, 2013The most beautifully written and deeply felt of Lincoln retellings is Tazewell Thompson’s play Mary T. & Lizzy K at the Arena Stage in Washington DC. Here the playwright, who is also the director, awards the play’s starring roles to Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd, her seamstress and confident Elizabeth “Lizzy†Keckly, and Ivy, Lizzy’s young assistant, both freed slaves. This production closed on May 5.
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Five First-Rate One Acts in New York
The Distinguished Workshop Theater Presents
By: - May 20th, 2013The Workshop Theater is made up of 150 actors, directors and writers. In a small space, you are smashed up against the action. Each of the actors in this series found just the right balance between up close drama and in your face, It is particularly exciting to have performance next to you. You either enter the drama or embrace it or both.
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