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Theatre

  • Lucy Prebble's Compelling The Effect

    Off Broadway at Barrow Street Theatre

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 20th, 2016

    Lucy Prebble selects topics of heightened interest and then makes of them marvelous plays. Enron on the collapse of a fake US energy company is now followed by an exploration of drug trials and what they tell us about human beings.

  • Sex with Strangers at LA's Geffen Playhouse

    Talky Two-hander by Laura Eason

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 24th, 2016

    In “Sex with Strangers, the plot revolves around Olivia (Rebecca Pidgeon), an intelligent, mid-career, one-book novelist who is having second thoughts about her ability is a writer, and Ethan (Stephen Louis Grush), a wildly successful, young, hyper-energetic stud/blogger with an ego to match, who meet in a mutual friend’s borrowed cabin on a snowy winter night in Michigan.

  • Disney’s The Little Mermaid at Theatre 29

    Theatre Still Delivers on Its Mission Statement

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 24th, 2016

    “Disney’s The Little Mermaid” is one of the most ambitious productions Theatre 29 has tackled. And they have succeeded admirably. The California production continues through April 9.

  • Endangered Species by Tony Padilla

    Pearl McManus Theatre in Palm Springs

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 24th, 2016

    “Endangered Species” written and directed by Tony Padilla stars Bonnie Gilgallon as Tina, a suburban Chicago housewife married to David a successful businessman played by Alan Berry. The couple married over twenty years are in New York on a holiday where they plan to relax and recharge their romantic batteries.

  • Blackbird Not Broadway-Worthy

    Disappointing Despite All-Star Cast

    By: Deborah Heineman - Mar 25th, 2016

    The combination of Michelle Williams (Una) and Jeff Daniels (Ray) should have been Broadway gold. When the curtain went down at the Belasco Theatre my companion’s comment was “well there was a whole lot of garbage on the stage.” Indeed the entire play takes place in a lunchroom strewn with leftover food wrappers and empty paper cups. For a play about the damaging relationship between a 40+ man and the woman he had sex with when she was a girl of 14, there were no surprises and little character development. The play was a disappointment given such a potentially explosive topic and talented cast.

  • Big Year for Bill Russell, One of Broadway's Best!

    BCEFA Benefit Premieres an Exciting 2016 for Lyricist Russell

    By: Deborah Heineman - Mar 25th, 2016

    Writer/Lyricist Bill Russell has brought us some of the best of on and off Broadway – yet many do not recognize his name. Creator of the moving and critically acclaimed Side Show, Russell recently staged a benefit performance of Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (for Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIDS) at the Birdland Jazz Club in NYC which was spectacular. 2016 will be a big year for Russell, with world premieres and revivals of three of his shows (Side Show, Pageant, and premieres of both Brave New World and Unexpected Joy) in London and across the U.S. from Cape Cod to the Carolina's and the Black Hills of South Dakota!

  • Tom Stoppard's Arcadia

    Launches New Writers Theatre in Glencoe, Illinois

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 29th, 2016

    Writers Theatre opened its spectacular new theater in Glencoe this week with an appropriately spectacular production of a play by Tom Stoppard one of today’s greatest playwrights, smartly directed by Michael Halberstam. It was almost a four-star evening.

  • Ivo Van Hove Meets Arthur Miller

    Stark, Timeless Setting Sets Emotional Wallup

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 08th, 2016

    In anticipation of hot director Ivo Van Hove's production of Arthur Miller's Crucible, we re-visited his current hit production of Miller's A View from the Bridge. Physicalized acting in a plain set provides the perfect visual for the intense emotional action that impels Miller's drama.

  • In a Little World of Our Own by Gary Mitchell

    Irish Theatre's Chicago Production

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 07th, 2016

    Playwright Gary Mitchell is from a working-class, loyalist background and grew up in North Belfast. He’s considered Northern Ireland’s finest playwright.

  • Berkshire Theatre Group 2016

    Lively Mix of Musicala Plays and Performances

    By: BTG - Feb 20th, 2016

    The Berkshire Theatre Group announces a full schedule of musicals, plays and performances at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield as well as its two stages in Stockbridge. The program includes events from June through October. As usual a musical, Little Shop of Horrors, opens at the Colonial just after the July 4th holiday weekend which launches high season in the Berkshires.

  • Superhero Clubhouse's Jupiter at La MaMa

    A Play About Power!

    By: Deborah Heineman - Feb 20th, 2016

    Jonathan Camuzeaux, Jeremy Pickard and Sarah Ellen Stephens deliver powerhouse performances in Jupiter – A Play (literally) about Power. Camuzeaux & Pickard are also responsible (respectively) for the music and script for this futuristic “what if” that explores the potential disasters that lie ahead if we continue to abuse the environment. Jupiter will be at La MaMa through February 28.

  • 2666 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre

    Adapted from Roberto Bolaño's Massive Novel

    By: Nancy Bishop - Feb 22nd, 2016

    The Goodman's production of the late Roberto Bolaño's epic novel 2666 takes five-and-a-half hours to unfold on stage. It’s a beautiful mess.

  • Denver Playwriting Summit Part I

    Readings, Full Productions, Playwrights at Work

    By: Susan Hall and Diane Pinkard - Feb 22nd, 2016

    Readings, full productions, theatre has been key to Denver since Henry Lowenstein arrived to work for the Bonfilses. For the past 11 years Denver has put on a playwriting summit, celebrating theatre and bringing forward talent waiting to hit the main stage.

  • Forest Whitaker Charms in O'Neill's Hughie

    The Life-Sustaining Power of Performance as Mourning Becomes Morning

    By: Susan Hall - Feb 23rd, 2016

    Erie Smith in Eugene O'Neill's Hughie is often played for the dark side of a fleabag world of dawls and bangtails. Chuckles erupt as a funny story is woven yet submerged. Forest Whitaker in his Broadway debut creates an incredible lightness of being in the dark night of an off-Broadway flop house.

  • Denver Playwright Summit Part II

    Measuring Degrees of Change

    By: Susan Hall and Diane Pinkard - Feb 24th, 2016

    A Greenland research project measuring climate change, perhaps caused by Shakespeare's death, and the passage of time when beloved possessions no longer work. These are all the subjects of wonderful plays in development in Denver. After years of work, Theresa Rebeck got her play The Nest ready for its well-received premier.

  • City of Glass is Sensational!

    Robert Honeywell Wows in Einhorn Adaptation of Auster Novel

    By: Deborah Heineman - Feb 24th, 2016

    Untitled Theater Company No. 61's presentation of "City of Glass" is outstanding theater, with a phenomenal performance by Robert Honeywell as Daniel Quinn -- the only speaking actor in this 95-minute-long play! "City of Glass" was adapted and directed by Edward Einhorn from the novel written by Paul Auster. Mateo Moreno (Silent Man) and Dina Rose Rivera (Silent Woman) are terrific in this dark and disturbing -- but also very funny -- theater "noir!" Composer/Musician Freddi Price is excellent as well.

  • Trevor Nunn Directs Pericles at Polonsky

    Storytelling Reaches New Heights at Theatre for a New Audience

    By: Susan Hall - Feb 27th, 2016

    Pericles marked a turning point in Shakespeare's career. Director Trevor Nunn has anchored the many strands of the play in a giant orb, in the storyteller Gower and in the music of the Pigpen Theatre. The many strands of a play, difficult to weave into one satisfying piece, are brought together brilliantly in the Polonsky Shakespeare Center of the Theatre for a New Audience.

  • Othello after William Shakespeare by Soeren Voima

    Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin

    By: Angelika Jansen - Mar 01st, 2016

    The small Gorki Theater in Berlin will be honored on May 15, 2016 with the prestigious Theaterpreis (Theatre Price) for its innovative and daring plays. The current production of 'Othello' offers one such performance. Shakespeare's play was adapted by Soeren Voima.

  • I Love You You're Pefect Now Change

    Charleston's New Midtown Cabaret Theatre

    By: Sandy Katz - Mar 02nd, 2016

    I Love You, You're Pefect, Now Change was originally an intimate Off Broadway musical revue about late 20th century romance.It is being given a lively and enjoyable production in Charleston's comfortable new Midtown Cabaret Theatre.

  • William Inge’s A Loss of Roses

    Rarely Produced Play at Chicago's Raven Theatre

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 03rd, 2016

    William Inge, author of a string of successful plays in the 1950s, was known for his depictions of midwestern small-town life in Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus Stop; and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. He had a special sensitivity about solitary female characters such as the spinster schoolteacher in Picnic, the waitress in Bus Stop, and the housewife in Come Back, Little Sheba. Helen and Lila in A Loss of Roses are perceptively drawn characters in this repertory.

  • Premiere of Now You See It

    Farce at North Coast Repertory Theatre

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 03rd, 2016

    Alison Minick, Kern McFadden, David McBean, John Greenleaf, and Ruff Yeager are a winning ensemble cast who know their way around a classic farce when they are in one. It’s a delightful production that will tickle everyone’s funny bone.

  • Anna Fitzgerald's Reverse Cascade

    Puppetry Flies at The Tank

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 04th, 2016

    The draw of puppetry may be the space that is left for an audience member's imagination. In a delicate figure of a circus performer and athlete who is losing control of her body to MS. The story of Judy FInelli is movingly and engaging told by Anna Fitzgerald's troop. Ellen Cherry on the electric cello adds a touching dimension.

  • Jonathan Norton's Mississippi Goddam

    Wins ATCA's 2016 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award

    By: ATCA - Mar 30th, 2016

    The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) announces that Jonathan Norton has won its 2016 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award for an emerging playwright. The award will be presented at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville on April 9.

  • O'Neill's Long Day’s Journey Into Night

    Court Theatre Production in Chicago

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 30th, 2016

    If Eugene O’Neill is the master of dysfunctional family plays, then Long Day’s Journey Into Night is the masterpiece of the genre. Recognized as one of the greatest plays of the 20th century, the play won the Tony for best play and the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1957. Currently it is being produced by Court Theatre in Chicago through April 10.

  • The Submission by Jeff Talbot

    South Florida's Island City Stage

    By: Aaron Krause - Apr 25th, 2016

    Jeff Talbott explores the race issue from an angle not often explored in the theater: infighting among minority groups as to which has been subject to more discrimination, hate and suffering. Forget about racial harmony between white and black people for a moment; if members of minority groups can’t get along and stand with each other in solidarity against hate and bias, how will the race issue ever go away, Talbott challenges us to consider.

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