Theatre
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Mahabharata as Battlefield via Peter Brook at BAM
A Startling Message from the Distant Past
By: - Sep 30th, 2016Mahabharata is older and many times as long as the Bible. Its message of man's impulsive thrust to war and destruction is as fresh today as it must have been when it was first composed. Brook has tackled the piece before. This short form packs a powerful punch.
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Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife
From Stratford Festival to Chicago's Timeline
By: - Oct 01st, 2016The Last Wife premiered last year at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and Timeline snagged it for its first US production. The 2.5 hour play is smart and funny and will have you turning on your phone at intermission to look at Katherine Parr’s Wikipedia page.
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October Sky at Old Globe
Musical is Outasight
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016“October Sky” is an uplifting, feel-good type of musical that boasts 19 songs with such numbers as “Look to the Stars”, “We’re Gonna Build a Rocket”, “Stars Shine Down”, “The Man I Met”, and “The Last Kiss Goodbye”, the latter number being especially poignant as sung by the miners’ wives and girlfriends.
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Tony and Emmy Winner Hal Linden
Now 85 in Fantasticks at Pasadena Playhouse
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016I think because the writing was solid, not “trendy”, and always very relatable. I recently put together a clip reel for a concert appearance I was doing, and I had to sit down and watch over 100 hours of “Barney Miller” episodes. I was amazed at how substantial they were, and that they still hold up almost forty years later.
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New Victory's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Captain Nemo Makes His Case
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The New Victory uses every imaginable tool to go to the depths of the ocean in a 19th century submarine. Jules Verne tells his story with present references to the throttling of the sea by plastic and a case for democratic leadership.
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The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley
Faking Vermeers in WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group's Co-Production
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley in Stockbridge at the Unicorn Theatre is a co-production of WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group. An artist is on trial for selling Vermeers to the Nazis. He has to make a fake to prove his innocence. The play is based on a true story in post war Holland.
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The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
Florida's Outre Theatre Company
By: - Oct 04th, 2016“The Normal Heart” deals with multiple thought-provoking, timely themes and issues that spur discussion, make us look inward and potentially take action: The need to work together toward a common goal, the uselessness of fighting and blaming one another, reconciliation among family members, the agenda of the press and government, the right to be recognized as valued citizens and feel loved as well as to live and die with dignity.
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Sunday in the Park Stunning at Huntington
Sondheim and Seurat Bring Out the Best in Each Other
By: - Oct 06th, 2016Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his obssession with “the art of making art.” Certainly, one of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois who did a superb job with last year's A Little Night Music.
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Miller's A View from the Bridge
Ivo Van Hove Directs at LA's Ahmanson Theatre
By: - Sep 23rd, 2016The cutting edge, Dutch director Ivo Van Hove has transferred his stark and riveting production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge from Broadway to LA. With cast changes there is the same stark staging that reworks a classic Miller play.
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Berkshire's Fiorello Comes to New York
BTG Production Transfers With a Wallop
By: - Sep 21st, 2016I happened on the Berkshire Theatre Company production on East 13th Street in New York and was entranced. Packed into a small stage and directed to perfection by Bob Moss, the intimate setting works perfectly for this musical portrait of an oversized man.
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Love’s Labor’s Lost
Old Globe’s Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival Theatre
By: - Sep 10th, 2016Director Marshall nicely controls the on stage silliness that frothy, light Shakespearean rom-coms deliver to audiences while at the same time providing the actors the opportunity to enjoy themselves. When they have a good time we have a good time.
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Hershey Felder's Maestro
Leonard Bernstein's Tanglewood and So Much More
By: - Sep 11th, 2016After an early triumphant conducting performance, the press crowded into the green room to speak to the young Maestro. They then turned to his father Sam and asked," Why did you block your son’s early career in music,?" To which Sam replied "How did I know he was Leonard Bernstein?"
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Invasion of Privacy by Larry Parr
Florida's The Abyss Stage
By: - Sep 12th, 2016Pigs Do Fly Productions is a small theater company that has, until this point, produced short plays featuring characters over age 50. “Invasion of Privacy” is its “first foray” into a full-length play, founder and artistic director Ellen Wacher announced before Saturday evening’s performance.
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Sondheim's A Little Night Music
Stratford Festival of Canada to October 23
By: - Sep 12th, 2016Gary Griffin has established himself internationally as an exciting director and re-thinker of staging musicals and has created a streamlined but very elegant production with Stratford’s great ensemble. This is really a wonderful revival.
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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
By C.S. Lewis; Adapted by Adrian Mitchell, at Stratford Festival
By: - Sep 13th, 2016Stratford’s lovely production is enormously imaginative. The stage-creature that is Aslan, the holy lion, is inhabited by three men and made up of five separate segments which move fascinatingly together.
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Sam Shepard's True West
Chicago's Shattered Globe Theatre
By: - Sep 15th, 2016In Sam Shepard's True West the duality of emotion lies in wait in every aspect of our tense two hours with brothers Lee (Joseph Wiens) and Austin (Kevin Viol). They compete and collaborate, love and hate, drink and work, reminisce and prevaricate.
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The Birds Updated for the Stage
Du Maurier to Hitchcock to McPherson
By: - Sep 15th, 2016The Birds comes to the stage via a Daphne Du Maurier story on which Alfred Hitchcock's classic film of the same title was based. Now it provides the basis for playwright Conor McPherson's innovative play at 59E59th Street Theatres. McPherson has moved his story into a setting that is more reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road than Du Maurier and Hitchcock.
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Life Sucks by Aaron Posner
Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre
By: - Sep 21st, 2016Life Sucks is Aaron Posner’s sort-of adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, that often-performed masterpiece in which members of the rural bourgeoisie loll about, falling in love with the wrong people and longing to change their miserable lives. What is the play about? Love, longing and loss, as the characters tell us in their prologue. The basic elements of the human condition.
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'62 Center at Williams Announces Its Program
Launching Twelth Season
By: - Sep 16th, 2016The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance unveiled its twelfth season of diverse and challenging theatre and dance programming for the Williams College community and beyond.
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Fortune's Ire by Ramon Guillermo
At Miami's Storycrafter Studio
By: - Sep 17th, 2016The captivating play Fortune's Ire by Ramon Guillermo is on stage in North Miami’s intimate Storycrafter Studio space, through September 25. It is a finely acted and directed production. It begins with an interesting but seemingly harmless premise: A woman who claims to be suffering from amnesia steps into a psychologist’s office to receive help in figuring out her identity.
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Isabel Huppert is Phaedra(s) at BAM
Triple Queen Seduces at the Harvey Theater
By: - Sep 18th, 2016Phaedra is a character who has fascinated through time. Now the fascinating actress Isabel Huppert plays her. Racine best captured Phaedra's sense that neither lucidity nor sincerity is helpful in resolving emotional problems. Consciousness of failure is a noble human trait. Phaedra knows but her knowledge is useless.
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Gutenberg the Musical
Florida's Sol Theatre
By: - Sep 19th, 2016Audience members play a pivotal role in any show, but especially this one. That’s because the fate of a musical by characters Doug and Bud rests in the pocketbooks and banks of the producers.
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Circle Mirror Transformation
Annie Baker Play at Florida's Area Stage Company
By: - Sep 20th, 2016The plays by the 35-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, Annie Baker, can be long, and with their pregnant silences, exasperating for audiences. Patience, however, is rewarded by enduring Circle Mirror Transformation which is having its regional premiere at the renowned Area Stage Company in Coral Gables, Florida.
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St. Germain at Barrington and Theatre Works
Revival in Pittsfield and New Einstein Play with Richard Dreyfuss in Hartford
By: - Sep 20th, 2016Since 2009 when Freud's Last Session opened at Barrington Stage there have been annual meetings and numerous e mails with playwright Mark St. Germain. We met recently at Dottie's for brunch to talk about current projects. In Pittsfield there is a revival of Camping with Henry and Tom. At TheatreWorks in Hartford is a production of Relativity about Albert Einstein that stars Richard Dreyfuss. He is also adapting Freud, which has had 200 plus global productions, as a screenplay. He ranks at 14 on the 2016 list of most produced American Playwrights. That does not include his global productions.
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Hamilton Hip-Hops on Broadway
Game Changing Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda
By: - Nov 22nd, 2015Hamilton, the hip-hop opera by Lin-Manuel Miranda is the most refreshing, titubating, brilliant and exciting musical to grace Broadway in decades. It follows his earlier, award winning "In the Heights." Now in his mid thirties Miranda is an immense talent to be reckoned with for years to come. He is a force for change in American culture. This hit show is sure to run for years on Broadway followed by a national tour and tons of regional productions. Hamilton is the greatest invention since sliced bread.
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