Theatre
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Fifth of July at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Asking and Telling
By: - Aug 18th, 2010With two men kissing on Broadway in Lanford Wilson's 1978 play Fifth of July it caused a buzz and sold tickets. In the current Williamstown Theatre Festival production this evokes little beyond an apathetic, ho hum response. It was challenging to care about this play and its over played, outrageous, self absorbed and often obnoxious characters. There were however some finely drawn, tender and endearing moments midst all the screaming and bathos.
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Macbeth at Berkshire Theatre Festival
The Scottish Play at Warp Speed
By: - Aug 08th, 2010There is a Shakespeare marathon in the Berkshires with concurrent productions at three of the four major theatre companies. The generalist Berkshire Theatre Festival has joined the race with quick and lively Macbeth. It stars C.J. Wilson and Keira Naughton as Lady Macbeth. There are lots of blood and guts on stage in Stockbridge.
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The Taster by Joan Ackermann
Premiere at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Aug 07th, 2010On the evening when Shakespeare & Company closed its $10 million drive by securing an $800.000 Kresge Foundation challenge grant they premiered a new play. Berkshire resident Joan Ackermann wrote The Taster for specific S&Co actors. It is work that will appeal to the palate of a refined, upscale, Berkshire audience used to dining on pricey entrees. This drama/ comedy morsel that straddles centuries is loaded with theatrical calories. Yum.
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The Last Goodbye a Smash Hit in Williamtown
With Any Luck Music of Jeff Buckley Broadway Bound
By: - Aug 07th, 2010In the intimate Nikos Stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival the smash hit The Last Goodbye is the hottest and toughest ticket of the summer. It combines the cult rock of the late Jeff Buckley with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Forget West Side Story. That was then and this is now. This is the best new musical and best Romeo and Juliet I have ever seen. Trust me.
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Shakespeare & Company Secures Kresge Grant
Successful Conclusion of $10 Million Capital Campaign
By: - Aug 06th, 2010Shakespeare & Company has just received an $800,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation. The funds were released after the Company raised an additional $1.5 million bringing its $10 million Capital Campaign , launched at its 30th Anniversary Gala in May 2007, to a successful conclusion. The centerpiece of the Campaign has been the creation of the Bernstein Center for the Performing Arts , a production center including state of the art rehearsal studios , new scene and property shops , and the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.
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Sea Marks by Gardner McKay
At Shakespeare & Company to September 4
By: - Aug 02nd, 2010It starts as an awkward correspondence between the Irish fisherman Colm (Walton Wilson) and the Welsh born Timothea (Kristin Wold) who works for a publishing house in Liverpool. The pen pals evolve into lovers. She surprises him by editing his love letters into Sea Sonnets a thin volume of verse. This is a charming and heart warming play presented at Shakespeare & Company in rotation through September 4.
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Bruce Norris Premiers at Steppenwolf
Parallel Universes Explored
By: - Jul 31st, 2010Steppenwolf can be counted on to provoke, engage and first and foremost entertain. Concluding their series on belief, they have gone outside the box, like the recent film Inception, to explore what we do and do not experience and to figure out if we can change anything, including ourselves. A witty and fun evening at the theater in Chicago.
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Our Town at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Campbell Scott Anchors Martin’s All Star Cast
By: - Jul 30th, 2010For his final production as artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival Nicholas Martin has put 40 actors on stage including many community members. There is an all star cast starting with the magnificent Campbell Scott as the Stage Manager. Joining him are such WTF regulars as Becky Ann Baker and her husband Dylan Baker, John Rubenstein and Jessica Hecht. An actual Williams Professor, Sam Crane, plays, guess what, a Professor..
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Tony Nominee Jessica Hecht
In Our Town for 7th Williamstown Season
By: - Jul 29th, 2010It has been a great year for veteran actress Jessica Hecht. In addition to Brighton Beach Memoirs her second Broadway play this season, View from the Bridge, earned her a Tony nomination as Best Actress. She also had a riveting role in an episode of the TV hit The Good Wife. For her 7th season at the Williamstown Theatre Festival she is appearing in Nicholas Martin's all star production of Our Town.
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John Oliver at the Colonial
Standup Guy Appears August 14
By: - Jul 28th, 2010John Oliver has been a writer and correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since 2006. As a result of his popularity on The Daily Show, Comedy Central asked John to write and star in his own one hour stand-up special, Terrifying Times, which premiered in April 2008 and was subsequently released on DVD. In 2008 John starred in the Mike Myer’s movie, The Love Guru and is currently appearing in a recurring role in the NBC series, Community.
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Life Is Cabaret My Friends
At American Repertpory Theatre to Oct. 29
By: - Jul 26th, 2010The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) opens its 2010/11 Season with Kander and Ebb’s CABARET, directed by Steven Bogart, with musical direction by Lance Horne and movement by Steven Mitchell Wright, starring Amanda Palmer as the Emcee. Set and costume design is by David Israel Reynoso,lighting design by Nick Vargelis, and sound design by Clive Goodwin.
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Yasmina Reza’s Art
Zesty Production at Barrington Stage Company
By: - Jul 26th, 2010Since its 1995 Parisian premiere Art by Yasmina Reza has been translated into 30 languages and performed all around he world. On Broadway Reza has won Tonys for Art as well as God of Carnage. Art was presented as a staged reading at the Clark in collaboration with Williamstown Theatre Festival several months ago. It is presented at Barrington Stage Company this summer. There will be a free staged reading at Mass MoCA on August 4. We wonder why this play is so universally admired?
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After the Revolution at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Premiere of Amy Herzog’s Riveting Marxist Play
By: - Jul 23rd, 2010A family of Marxist activists is thrown into turmoil when in 1999 it was revealed that its patriarch was among 349 identified through decoded wartime messages to have been collaborators and spies for the Soviet Union. Emma has founded an organization named for her disgraced grandfather. This is the background for the superb play After the Revolution by Amy Herzog in its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It is by far the best new play of a rich and diverse Berkshire season.
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Pool Boy at Barrington Stage Company
Musical Premiere Drowns in Pittsfield
By: - Jul 22nd, 2010The much anticipated world premiere of a musical Pool Boy by Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard ended up drowning at Barrington Stage. It is slated for intensive care and an extreme makeover if it hopes to have legs beyond this ambitious, zesty but messy production in Pittsfield. With a lot of work there may yet be life after this D.O.A. debut.
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Aspenlieder Returns in Bad Dates
Hit Show at Shakespeare & Company to Sept. 12
By: - Jul 21st, 2010Elizabeth Aspenlieder who won an Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performanceâ€"returns this summer for a special , limited run in a freshly re-imagined production directed by Eric Tucker (Women of Will this season , Pinter’s Mirror 2009). Haley Walker. The show that set the Berkshires astir in 2009â€"and nettarismatic heroine of Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates , possesses a sharp wit and an unsinkable determination to pursue the promise of new love , even while providing for her daughter.
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Guardsman at Berkshire Theatre Festival
Smiles for a Summer Night
By: - Jul 20th, 2010Just for laughs the Berkshire Theatre Festival is presenting Ferenc Molnar's hilarious period comedy The Guardsman. It stars the husband and wife team of Jayne Atkinson and Michael Gill playing a pair of actors. After six months of marriage he hopes to test her in a mock seduction by a smarmy Russian Prince.
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Damn Yankees at The Mac Haydn Theatre
Whatever Lola Wants in Chatham, New York
By: - Jul 16th, 2010Yes those Damn Yankees. The perennial favorite of musical theatre will be staged at the Mac Haydn Theatre in Chatham New York from July 22 to August 1. Watch the pinstripes give their all in the pennant race. What fun.
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Six Degrees of Separation at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Introducing Ato Essandoh
By: - Jul 16th, 2010The 1993 film, based on John Guare's 1990 play Six Degrees of Separtation made a star of Will Smith in the role of the hustler and con artist Paul. Based on the stunning and witty performance of Ato Essandoh we again witness an emerging star in the riveting role. Essandoh, who impersonates the son of Sidney Poitier to gain access to the homes and resources of wealthy New Yorkers, is the invaluable glue that holds together an otherwise uneven production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Seeing Essandoh as Paul assures potential bragging rights for years to come.
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John Douglas Thompson Plays a Hunch
Richard III Reconfigured at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Jul 13th, 2010For the past two seasons John Douglas Thompson captivated Berkshire audiences as Othello. He returns as Richard III at Shakespeare & Co. He has received rave reviews for off Broadway appearances this year as The Emperor Jones and with Dianne Wiest in The Forest. Increasingly critics regard Thompson as among the finest Shakespearean actors of his generation. Richard III has been given an extreme makeover in Lenox.
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Beckett's Endgame at Berkshire Theatre Festival
Trashing Randy Harrison
By: - Jul 12th, 2010A regular of the Berkshire Theatre Festival company, the brilliant Randy Harrison, has ended up in a trash can as Nagg in Samuel Beckett's wrenching and demanding Endgame. This is a flawless production with a stunning cast of Mark Corkins, as Hamm, David Chandler, Clov, and Tanya Dougherty. While one of the best offerings of the season this play is not for the weak and feeble. Consult a physician before seeing this harrowing play.
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Samuel J. and K. by Mat Smart
Williamstown Theatre Festival to July 16
By: - Jul 09th, 2010The father of Samuel J. abandoned him when he was four. His mother adopted Samuel K. who was abandoned by his parents in Cameroon when he was three. They are brothers. Or are they is the theme of a provocative play by Mat Smart having its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
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Yazmina Reza's Art at Barrington Stage Company
July 22 to August 8
By: - Jul 07th, 2010Compared to Sweeney Todd the second production of the season at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield is as different as black and white. Well, more white on white actually. The Tony Award winning play by Yazmina Reza, Art, focuses on the divisive responses of two friends to a collector's acquisition of a minimalist painting. The evening of theater brings out the worst in everyone. To the amused delight of audiences.
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A Thousand Clowns in Pittsfield
New Stage Theatre Company July 15 to August 1
By: - Jul 06th, 2010The New Stage Company above Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield is presenting A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner from July 15 to August 1. A Thousand Clowns is the hilarious and touching Tony Award winning play that was later adapted into an Academy Award winning film starring Jason Robards. It is the story of an unemployed television writer trying to adapt his cantankerous worldview in order to find work and retain custody of his 12-year-old nephew.
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Richard III at Shakespeare & Company
Starring John Douglas Thompson
By: - Jul 06th, 2010An all-star troupe of Shakespeare & Company talent comes together this summer for an unforgettable rendering of Shakespeare’s gripping Richard III. In the whirligig of its ambitious plots, the beauty of its language, and the chilling magnetism of its haunting central figure, Richard III has proved an irresistible lure for over 400 years. This indelible interpretation, featuring OBIE and L ucille L ortel Award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson (title role in Othello 2008 & 2009), was conceived by Artistic Director Tony Simotes and directed by Jonathan Croy with assistance from Malcolm Ingram. Richard III runs July 2 through September 5,
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The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown
Relationship Drawn Out at Berkshire Theatre Festival
By: - Jun 27th, 2010The conceit of The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown is that the couple Cathy (Julie Reiber) and Jamie (Paul Anthony Stewart) follow separate time lines through their relationship and marriage that terminates in a bitter divorce. He is an author with no life experience other than his own bathos and she is an aspiring actress with meager talent. We found little to care about this train wreck of a relationship. If that's your cup of tea walk don't run to Berkshire Theatre Festival.
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