Theatre
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Tina Packer Is Shirley Valentine
Diva Series at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox
By: - May 28th, 2009Tina Packer, the founder of Shakespeare & Company, drew on memories of her mother and aunt to develop her signature role as "Shirley Valentine" the mad Liverpool housewife who tosses the apron for a fling on a Greek island. The stunning one woman performance launches the Diva Series in Lenox.
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Enchanting Pirates At Huntington Theatre Co.
A Brilliant Adaptation of Pirates of Penzance
By: - May 25th, 2009Pirates are always an interesting subject. Lately, the romance has been taken away by the threatening, even deadly Somali pirates on the waterways off the Horn of Africa. But a revival of positive pirate interest may evolve from the wonderful Pirates! at the Huntington Theatre Company. It is a compellingly entertaining late Spring entertainment.
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Romeo and Juliet Launches Shakespeare & Company's 32nd Season
The First of a Record 18 Productions
By: - May 24th, 2009"Romeo oh Romeo wherefore art though Romeo?" Well, at Shakespeare & Company, actually, to start a busy season of 18 productions in Lenox, Mass. This version of Romeo and Juliet has been on the road since January with more than 70 performances by a group of seven talented young actors in 14 different roles.
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Intense Faith Healer Opens Berkshire Theatre Festival
Like the Play, Sometimes it Works, Sometimes it Doesn't
By: - May 24th, 2009The BTF season begins with this challenging play by Brian Friel exploring the shifting concept of truth in the modern world. Does he heal? How does it happen? Three characters tell their intertwined stories through four extended monologues. They do not appear on stage together until the final curtain call.
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Second Sight: Grey Gardens at Lyric Stage
The Litter Box as Musical Theatre
By: - May 18th, 2009Big Edie Bouvier Beal was the aunt of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. She lived for many years in a ramshackle 28 room mansion "Grey Gardens" with her daughter, Little Edie, Beal in East Hampton, Long Island. In 1975 the Maysles Brothers documented them living with cats, and rodents amid mountains of garbage. They were the subject of a recent HBO drama as well as the musical now running at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston.
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David Mamet's Romance at American Repertory Theatre
Courtroom Farce Makes a Mockery of the Law
By: - May 17th, 2009There is a long standing relationship between the American Repertory Theatre and arguably the greatest American playwright of his generation, David Mamet. While ART has seen world premieres of several of his plays it is currently staging a mini festival with "Romance" (2005) on its main stage, the Loeb Drama Center, and two successive Mamet productions for its smaller Zero Arrow Theatre.
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Berkshire Theatre Professionals Receive Several Elliot Norton Awards
Receiving Honors are Nicholas Martin, Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Kate Burton
By: - May 13th, 2009As Berkshire Fine Arts has stretched to cover more Boston theatre, the Elliot Norton Awards have looked westward to honor several of the Berkshire's best.
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A Spellbinding Grey Gardens Rises at Boston's Lyric Stage Company
The Prisoners of a Crumbling Estate
By: - May 12th, 2009Lyric Stage Company is in top form with the New England Premiere of this Tony award musical about the famously dysfunctional branch of the Kennedy dynasty—the Bouvier-Beales—who were being hounded by county health officials threatening to evict them from their cottage in the Hamptons, Grey Gardens.
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Mandy Patinkin at the Colonial Theatre June 13
Accompanied by Paul Ford on Piano
By: - May 07th, 2009Tony and Emmy Award-winner Mandy Patinkin has an extensive list of theatre credits that include Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theater. He won a Tony Award for his 1980 Broadway debut as Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita and was again nominated in 1984 for his starring role in the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Sunday in the Park With George. He returned to Broadway in the Tony Award-winning musical The Secret Garden (1991). He will perform in Pittsfield for a one nighter at the Colonial Theatre on June 13.
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Dickey Betts and the Producers Slated for the Colonial Theatre
Springtime for Hitler in Pittsfield
By: - May 06th, 2009For a night of country cookin with a bluesy twang check out Dickey Betts in a one nighter at the Colonial Theatre on May 20. They'll be goose stepping down the aisle from June 4 through 8 when The Producers hits the boards in Pittsfield.
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Jerry Springer: The Opera at Boston's Speakeasy Stage Company
NE Premiere of Musical Satire Attracts Pickets and Praise
By: - May 06th, 2009Like "Porgy and Bess" and "Tommy" before it, this musical parody uses the high art form of operatic theatre, but is down to earth in content. This spunky New England Premiere by the SpeakEasy Stage Company is a jaw dropper, and that is why audiences are flocking to see it.
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Mahaiwe: Berkshire Playwrights Lab Launches Project with New David Mamet Play
Gala Event on May 29 Features Celebrities
By: - May 05th, 2009New plays by David Mamet, Eric Bogosian, Larry Gelbart and Joan Ackermann will be read by Karen Allen and others at the BTL Gala at the Mahaiwe on May 29. Proceeds will help fund the free series of readings.
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David Mamet's Romance at American Repertory Theatre
Sex, Satire, Romance and Ducks May 9 to June 7
By: - Apr 24th, 2009There is a long and rich association between the playwright, David Mamet, and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. The A.R.T. season winds down from May 9 through June 7 with a production of "Romance." Arguably they have been saving the best for last.
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Spring Awakening Blossoms at Boston's Zeitgeist Stage
A Very Young Cast Takes on a Very Old Sex Ed Play
By: - Apr 20th, 2009"Spring Awakening: The Play" has arrived in Boston before the musical version. It is given an authentic and daring production for perhaps the first time in its 100 year history by the feisty Zeitgeist Stage Company. In a bold move, director David Miller decided on a cast that would be the same age as the 14 year old characters. Did this casting twist work theatrically?
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Last Chance to See Stephen Karam's Speech & Debate
Hilarious Play at Lyric Stage Through April 25
By: - Apr 14th, 2009For an opportunity to see the new generation of theatre at its best check out "Speech & Deliver" which is having its premiere at Lyric Stage in Boston. The very young Stephen Karam has written an awesomely hilarious play.
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Huntington Theatre Company 2009-2010 Season
Fences by the Late August Wilson Returns to Boston
By: - Apr 07th, 2009The late August Wilson, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award premiered a number of his plays at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. The 2009-2010 Huntington season will highlight a production of his acclaimed "Fences."
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Two Spring Awakenings in Boston This Month
Zeitgeist Offers the Uncut, Uncensored Original Play
By: - Apr 04th, 2009A hundred years have passed since Frank Wedekind wrote the most censored play in history. To this day Boston has never seen it performed as originally written. Now two Spring Awakenings will open within 12 days of each other, the uncut original play, and the popular musical based on the play. David Miller who is directing the play at Zeitgeist Stage spills the beans in a candid interview .
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Trojan Barbie at American Repertory Theatre
World Premiere of Christine Evans Play
By: - Apr 02nd, 2009The Christine Evans play "Trojan Barbie" now in its world premiere at the Amerian Repertory Theatre in Cambridge is an update of the Euripides tragedy "Trojan Women." The ruthless conquering Greek army resembles American troops in Iraq. Somehow a British tourist on holiday, Lotte (Karen MacDonald), is caught up in the mess. It takes a village.
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Dream-Like Sea of Birds Lands at Mass MoCA April 4th
Remixing the Visual and Performing Arts
By: - Mar 31st, 2009Innovative theater artist Sebastienne Mundheim recreates a child's fantasy world at the Hunter Center of Mass MoCA in North Adams, using striking, large kinetic paper sculpture, dancers, live musicians, and video projection in a rich mix of the arts. It is said that Sea of Birds is like "Pan's Labyrinth", only on steroids and in person.
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Boston Premiere of Speech & Debate at Lyric Stage
Identity, Sexuality and Belonging in the Internet Age
By: - Mar 30th, 2009Lyric Stage is best known for its inspired stagings of the classics, but it has an edgier side as well. Their take on Stephen Karam's 2006 Speech and Debate is a double edged sword. Like a teenager's face, the play is brilliantly fresh and appealing, but it also has a few blemishes.
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Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon in Exit the King
First Broadway Revival of Eugene Ionesco Play
By: - Mar 30th, 2009The "dream cast" of Oscar winners, Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon in a revival of Eugene Ionesco's 1962 "Exit the King" was mostly a snore. We know that the 400-year-old King Berenger I is dying within minutes of the first act but the bathos is dragged out through a tortuous evening of Theatre of the Absurd. Indeed.
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The Wrestling Patient: at SpeakEasy Stage Co.
World Premiere of WWII Play about Dutch Writer
By: - Mar 30th, 2009In the last 60 years, Holocaust stories are familiar narratives about good and evil. The SpeakEasy Stage Company is having the World Premiere of a true story that has been little told about a distinctive Dutch Jewish writer Etty Hillesum during the last years of her life.
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Footloose the Musical at the Colonial Theater
Road Show Launches Season in Pittsfield
By: - Mar 20th, 2009The touring company of "Footloose the Musical" appeared for two sold out performances at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield. Our critic titubated down the aisle after a fabulous show.
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Shakespeare & Company Faces Economic Storm Calmly, Creatively
Balances Cuts and Restructuring with Program and Revenue Growth
By: - Mar 17th, 2009Shakespeare & Company is a $5.6 million dollar theatrical operation employing more than 200 people each year in the Berkshires. When the economy took its dip, the company and its Board got into action, readying the survival plans and donning the life preservers for the stormy economic seas in the months ahead.
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Jane Fonda in 33 Variations
Return to Broadway After 46 Year Absence
By: - Mar 14th, 2009In 1991 Jane Fonda announced that she "retired" from acting. But she has appeared in a couple of movies since then. Her last appearance on Broadway was 1963 in "Strange Interlude." After a lapse of 46 years she returned this week to star in "33 Variations" by Moises Kaufman. As Dr. Katherine Brandt she is dying of Lou Gehrig's disease while researching why Beethoven created "33 Variations" on a seemingly trivial waltz by Anton Diabelli.
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