Theatre
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Simona’s Search at Hartford Stage
World Preimere Needs Work
By: - Feb 07th, 2024Simona’s Search is worth seeing, even if you finally conclude that it needs improvement. Less monologue would help, as would having someone point out that Simona’s conclusions may be wrong. The only person who does that, her thesis director, is so blatantly sexist and demeaning that the audience immediately discounts that position.
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Shakespeare & Company News
Four for Next Summer
By: - Dec 14th, 2023Shakespeare & Company announces the first four titles of the 2024 season, including a World Premiere and a musical exploration of Shakespeare’s language and music. In addition to titles yet to be announced, Shakespeare & Company's 47th Season includes:
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La Jolla Playhouse Goes Gonzo
By: - Sep 28th, 2023The world premiere of The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, is presented by the La Jolla Playhouse. Fifteen years in the making, the musical envisions Hunter’s life from childhood to his tragic death. The book is by Joe Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, music and lyrics by Iconis, and choreography by Jon Rua.
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Madama Butterfly for Boston Lyric Opera
Eradicating Yellowface Tradition
By: - Jun 26th, 2023Chinese American artist, advocate and director Phil Chan, whose book Final Bow for Yellowface altered the conversation about Asian representation on ballet stages around the country, turns his attention to opera this September, when he directs a new, Asian American take on "Madama Butterfly" for Boston Lyric Opera (BLO).
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Treat Williams Performed for Berkshire Theatre Group
In 2013 We Discussed Lion in Winter
By: - Jun 13th, 2023Treat Williams, the actor known for his roles in the movies “Hair” and “Deep Rising” and the TV show “Everwood,” has died. He was 71. A S.U.V. crashed into his motorcycle in Dorset, Vt. He was 71. We spoke with him in 2013 following a performance as King Henry in “Lion in Winter.”
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World Premiere Wisconsin
Festival of New Plays
By: - Jan 19th, 2023This spring, theater companies around Wisconsin are launching World Premiere Wisconsin, a statewide festival celebrating new plays and musicals that has been years in the making. We have 52 participating theaters along with festival partner Ten Chimneys. Quite the undertaking as we look to put new plays back at the center of our work post-pandemic.
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Kevin Puts' New Opera Opens
Starry Trio of Renee Fleming, Joyce Di Donato and Kelli O'Hara
By: - Nov 23rd, 2022OUT magazine suggested an opera based on the film The Hours back in 2014. At the time, Fabian Brathwaite wrote: (wishful thinking) Based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the 2002 Stephen Daldry film is basically two hours of “EMOTION!” Tears, breakdowns, more tears and a prosthetic nose — ingredients for operatic gold. And look no further for casting. Just give Meryl three weeks and a pack of lozenges. Renee Fleming now takes on Meryl Streep's role.
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John Corigliano Premiere at Jordan Hall
Anthony Roth Costanzo Stars
By: - Nov 15th, 2022The Lord of Cries is a mélange of two classic literary works written two millennia apart: the Greek tragedy The Bacchae by Euripides, and the Gothic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Set in Victorian London at the fearsome time of Jack the Ripper, the opera begins with its title character – Dionysus, the god of fury – returning to earth. Anthony Roth Costanzo featured.
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Opera Philadelphia Expands Poe's Raven
Toshio Hosokawa's Monologue with Dance
By: - Sep 29th, 2022Opera Philadelphia and the Obvious Agency present a choreographed Raven, based on Toshio Hosokawa's Monologue. The audience is transported by the fantastic music and dance.
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Presented by BroadwaySF
By: - Sep 12th, 2022The appeal of the show draws on the naughty titillation of the fin de siècle cabarets that emerged in the steamy Montmartre district of Paris, where the working set, bohemians, and the demi-monde (the upper class who go slumming), sat side-by-side. The Moulin Rouge marked the spiritual epicenter, where the can-can was originated and danced by courtesans.
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Athena by Gracie Gardner
At Thrown Stone Theater in Ridgefield
By: - Jul 18th, 2022Teenage angst is not necessarily the material for meaningful drama. Athena by Gracie Gardner one of two plays at Thrown Stone Theater in Ridgefield reveals the hazards. It, and the other play Hysterical! run in repertory through Sunday, Aug. 6.
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ABCD By May Treuhaft-Ali
World Premiere at Barrington Stage Company
By: - Jul 14th, 2022Barrington Stage Company in its tradition of encouraging new voices is providing playwright May Treuhaft-Ali with her first professional production. She has created a topical work based on ripped from the headlines reporting on the crisis in American public education.
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Rabatt, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin
A Serious Issue as a Farce
By: - Apr 15th, 2022Rabatt (discount), the newest production at the Gorki Theater in Berlin is a hilarious farce about a very serious issue – the burials of poor people in the world of the well to do.
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Gordon Getty Premiers a New Opera in New York
New York City Opera and Festival Napa Valley Co-Present
By: - Mar 03rd, 2022The opera by Gordon Getty, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, had its New York premiere as an opera reimagined for film. Co-presented by New York City Opera (NYCO) and Festival Napa Valley, Getty’s fourth opera is based on the popular 1934 novella Goodbye, Mr. Chips and other stories by James Hilton.
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Christmas Theatre in Connecticut
Tons of Fun
By: - Dec 04th, 2021There's lots of fun for the whole family on stage in Connecticut. Here's a cheat sheet.
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The Many Loves of Eleanor Roosevelt
Harriet Harris in Eleanor
By: - Aug 02nd, 2021Harriet Harris has caught Eleanor’s mannerisms well, her physical motions exactly - living in the age of newsreels, her figure, her speech, her presence are indelible in public memory.
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Noah Haidle’s Sweet and Painful play, Smokefall
An Encore by Goodman Theatre
By: - Apr 15th, 2021Noah Haidle’s sweet and painful play, Smokefall, directed by Anne Kaufman, staged by Goodman Theatre in 2013-14, and now streaming as part of Goodman’s Encore series.
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A Class Act
A Garden Theatre production in Florida
By: - Jan 31st, 2021The Garden Theatre in Winter Garden, near Orlando, is presenting A Class Act, based on the life of A Chorus Line lyricist Edward Kleban. The touching and funny production runs through Feb. 7. You must wear a mask and practice social distancing in order to attend.
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A Christmas Carol
From Theatre to Radio PLay
By: - Dec 12th, 2020For the first time in its 44-year history, American Conservatory Theater’s holiday tradition, A Christmas Carol, comes to life as a radio play.
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Translating Movies into Opera
Why Operatic Movies Fail on Stage
By: - Jun 07th, 2020It is tempting for current composers of new opera to use films as a jumping off place. In two recent efforts, the creative artists miss the strength of the film's story arc and flatten their effort to create opera. Marnie at the Metropolitan Opera (and English National Opera) and Breaking the Waves (Opera Philadelphia) both overlook the strengths which provide drama in the films on which they are based.
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Music and the Virus
Pitching In
By: - Mar 25th, 2020Many organizations are offering wonderful streaming. Reports suggest that music with videos is doing better than sound only. Atlanta Opera, led by Tomer Zvulun, may be providing the most useful help.
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A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi
At Livermore Valley Opera
By: - Mar 09th, 2020These two operas make for a highly entertaining evening. The only false note concerns the orchestra, which was skillful in the comedy on opening night. But especially in the overture and early parts of the tragedy, dissonant tracts sounded more out of tune and out of sync as if the orchestra hadn’t mastered Zemlinsky’s more challenging and unfriendly music. It also overpowered the singers at times.
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New York Philharmonic Pairs Schoenberg and Bartok
From Sweden Come Rich New Takes
By: - Sep 29th, 2019The New York Philharmonic became an opera orchestra for Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle. A Swedish cast, including the incomparable Nine Stemme and directed by Bengt Gomer, provided new twists to the tales, emphasizing the real or imagined murder of an errant lover and possible survival of an eighth wife of Bluebeard. His beard is not blue, and attractions go beyond a castle and riches.
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The Irish Troubles
An Overview in the Arts
By: - Jul 19th, 2019A particular period of Irish history has been the focus of several recent remarkable works of art: two books, one an experimental novel, and the other journalistic nonfiction, plus a much-praised Broadway drama. All of them won multiple awards. I’ll also add a 2008 film to this list of artistic works. They all commemorate the years of the Troubles, that period of history of Northern Ireland in which more than 3500 people died or were disappeared.
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The Diary of Anne Frank
Palm Canyon Theatre
By: - May 11th, 2019“The Diary of Anne Frank”, at the Palm Canyon Theatre (PCT) in Palm Springs, is a must-see production no matter wherever and/or whenever it is staged. It’s a poignantly dramatized play written 76 years ago by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, that unfortunately is very relevant today.
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