Theatre
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Berliner Festspiele, Foreign Affairs - 2014
An Attempt to Understand
By: - Jul 23rd, 2014The 2014 Berliner Festspiele continued with a July program titled 'Foreign Affairs.' Artistic Director, Matthias von Hartz, presented a third summer festival of theatre, dance, music and visual arts that lasted nearly three weeks and ended July 13. It was a quest for collaborations and finding new forms of cultural expressions.
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Breaking the Code at Barrington Stage Company
Enigma of Alan Turing Brilliantly Portrayed by Mark. H. Dold
By: - Jul 21st, 2014As a member of the top secret team of 10,000 at Bletchley Park Alan Turning was key to the effort to Breaking the Code of the German enigma apparatus. With endless daily permutations it was used to send orders to the maurading U Boat fleets decimating allied shipping. In the role of a lifetime Mark H. Dold has totally inhabited the persona of the complex and tormented individual whom Churchill credited with shortening and ending the war. Time Magazine named Turing among the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. At Barrington Stage until August 2.
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Living on Love in Williamstown
Theatre Debut for Diva Renée Fleming
By: - Jul 20th, 2014The theatrical debut of Renée Fleming in the comedy Living On Love is a delight and triumph. The renowned opera diva plays, what else, a renowned opera diva. That would seem to be easy and obvious but Fleming underplays the role with a naturalism that parallels her real life persona. She is just charming and enchanting. Especially when intereacting with a superb cast directed by Tony winner Kathleen Marshall. Based on marquee bankability and an enthusiastic reception this Williamstown production has a shot of making it to Broadway.
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This is Our Youth: Steppenwolf to Broadway
Kenneth Lonergan's Classic Play Coming to the Cort
By: - Jul 19th, 2014If these are the children of the 80’s and now the parents of the 21st century, what kind of kids are they producing? In the upper echelons of New York, many of these characters are working their way out of adolescence in paretts’ homes or supported by their successful parents. Drugs and alcohol continue to make the passage to adulthood even more complicated than it always has been. If our children have to smell a bit to help us release the offspring we love so much and wish to protect, the stink has not gone. And Broadway should welcome them in this taut, funny, moving Steppenwolf production.
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Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike in Vermont
Finding Comedy in the Overwhelming Futility of Life.
By: - Jul 19th, 2014A modern comedy mirroring the structure and themes of the master playwright Anton Chekov, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike finds humor in the regrets and disappointments of life as they are confronted during two days in the family home by three siblings in their middle age. This play wll run through July 26 at Vermont's Weston Playhouse.
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A Slight Ache by Harold Pinter
Produced by Eve Mugar Off Off Broadway
By: - Jul 14th, 2014Jimmy's 43 E 7th St, New York, NY 10003 provided an off off setting for Harold Pinter's Slight Ache was produced by Eve Mugar.. Due to its brevity and the limited number of actors in the play, it provided the opportunity to mount a play in New York. She purchased the rights, sent the word out to fellow actors, raised some money on line and rented a venue for two nights
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Out of the City Premieres at Dorset Theater Festival
Turning 60 and Still Discovering Themselves
By: - Jul 13th, 2014Two couples, celebrating a 60th birthday "out of the city" are still finding themselves in this new light comedy by Leslie Ayvazian set in the Poconos.
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Michael Frayn’s Benefactors
Skyscrapers for 1%ers at Berkshire Theatre Group
By: - Jul 13th, 2014The triumph of the one percent and destruction of the middle class is underscored by the soaring speculation of urban real estate and resultant skyscraper residences. The 1984 play Benefactors by Michael Frayn focused on this topic which is being given a superb production at Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge
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A Great Wilderness in Williamstown
Drama Launches Nikos Season for WTF
By: - Jul 11th, 2014In a mountaintop retreat in Samuel D. Hunter's, A Great Wilderness, through prayer, scripture and intent listening Walt counsels young men struggling with identity, confusion and the "sin" of homosexuality. This intense and thought provoking drama opens the Nikos Stage season for the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
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Renée Fleming Living on Love
First Career Dramatic Role at Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Jul 07th, 2014Over the Fourth of July weekend Renée Fleming was the featured soloist for the opening night performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer season in Tanglewood. On July 16, for the first time in her career, Fleming will appear in a play Living on Love at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Depending upon its success at WTF the production may be bound for Broadway.
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June Moon Brightens Williamstown
Vintage Lardner / Kaufman Comedy Launches WTF Season
By: - Jul 04th, 2014Mostly a moldy fig, the vintage, 1929 comedy June Moon about Tin Pan Alley, by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman, seems like an oddly conservative choice to launch the Williamstown Theatre Festival season. With tedious plot exposition the play slogged through the first act but under the adept direction of Jessica Stone came alive hilariously in the second act.
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Jessica Stone Returns to Williamstown Theatre Festival
Remembering Her Mentor and Friend Nicholas Martin
By: - Jul 02nd, 2014Jessica Stone made her debut as a director when through a hunch her mentor and friend, Nicholas Martin, tapped her for an all male production of Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." That first effort was a smash hit for Williamstown Theatre Festival. It was followed by "Last of the Red Hot Lovers." She returns to the main stage this season directing "June Moon." Poignantly she discussed WTF as a family and the legacy of Martin.
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Dog and Pony at Old Globe
Wolrd Premiere Musical by Rick Elice and Michael Patrick Walker
By: - Jul 02nd, 2014California's Old Globe premiered a musical Dog and Pony by writer Rick Elice and composer Michael Patrick Walker. The wobbly story that Elice and Walker have fashioned comes from a meeting the two had discussing the idea of a workplace romantic comedy. It has been directed by Roger Rees.
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The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful
Drag Farce Launches Berkshire Theatre Group’s Season
By: - Jun 30th, 2014The actors, Bill Bowers and Tom Hewitt, appears to have having as much if not more fun than the audience in a campy, over the top, drag farce the Charles Ludlam classic Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadul. It launches the season for the Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge. It's a hoot if you like that sort of thing.
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Camus; Les Juste at The Trap Door
Dynamic Reversals Charge This Chicago Interpretation
By: - Jun 29th, 2014In some ways Camus’ plays are as difficult to translate as the famous first line of The Stranger, best expressed, “Today, mother died.†It is the ‘todayness’ that often gets lost in translation. By 'Regarding the Just' and twisting from stage action to commentary, Chicago's Trap Door succeeds in making Camus live.
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Analog & Vinyl at the Weston Playhouse
A World Premier
By: - Jun 28th, 2014Weston Playhouse presents the World Premier of Paul Gordon's Analog and Vinyl. This quirky and charming modern musical comedy has been in development for three years.
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David Suchet in The Last Confession
Reaching Beyond Hercule Poirot in LA
By: - Jun 25th, 2014At LA’s Music Center’s Ahmanson Theatre, David Suchet portrays Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, a friend and adviser to the recently crowned caretaker Pope John Paul I, the successor to the conservative Pope Paul VI. The actor is best known as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot through 74 episodes for Masterpiece Mystery on PBS.
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The Country House by Donald Margulies
LA’s Geffen Playhouse a World Premiere
By: - Jun 24th, 2014“The Country House†a world premiere by Donald Margulies deftly directed by the award winning Daniel Sullivan is a bit of a mishmash when it comes to knowing what it wants to be when it grows up. Is it a comedy? Well, maybe. On the other hand, perhaps it’s a melodrama.
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Working on a Special Day Transforms Italian Movie
Chalk Talks at Barrington Stage
By: - Jun 23rd, 2014Una Giornata Particolare was a 1977 Italian movie which earned two Academy Award nominations. It has been adapted for the stage as Working on a Special Day in a performance acted and directed by the Mexican couple of Ana Graham and Antonio Vega. The charming and absorbing one act play inventively explores the boundaries between illusion and theatrical reality.
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The Dorset Theatre Festival Presents RED
An Exploration of the Value and Meaning of Art
By: - Jun 22nd, 2014Red is a play imbued with tensions between the past and the future, art and commerce, light and dark, the intellectual and the emotional. Does art matter?
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Tony Winner Nina Arianda and Sam Rockwell for WTF
To Co Star in Sam Shepherd Drama in Williamstown
By: - Jun 19th, 2014In 2011 Nina Arianda one of the most talented actresses of her generation was nominated for a Tony as the lead in a revival of Born Yesterday. Some say as a young unknown she was robbed. In 2012 she returned to Broadway and nailed a Tony for Vanda the dominatrix in the David Ives play Venus in Fur. Amazingly she will come to Williamstown Theatre Festival through a casting change announced today. With the hot Sam Rockwell as her co star act fast if you want to see the Sam Shepherd play Fool for Love.
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Doubt at Oldcastle Theater
A Neat little Parable in One Act
By: - Jun 17th, 2014Oldcastle actors make a good effort and interesting choices in John Patrick Shanley's award-winning play. The ever capable Christine Decker plays Sister Aloysius with a wry humor that makes her character more human, more likeable perhaps, and yet also more fallible.
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Kiss Me Kate at Barrington Stage
A Musical Birthday Cake for 20th Season
By: - Jun 16th, 2014Kiss Me Kate was Cole Porter's biggest hit and the only one of his shows to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. In 1949, it won the first Tony Award presented for Best Musical. It is being given a stunning revival at Barrington Stage Company in a lavish production celebrating its 20th anniversary. With all of that iconic music and stunning choreography this is a fabulous way to launch the season in the Berkshires.
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Noises Off is a Silly Play
At The Public in Pittsburgh
By: - Jun 15th, 2014Noises Off (by playwright Michael Frayn, now playing at the Public) is a silly play about a silly play. Or, more accurately: it’s a silly play about the silly things that occur when a group of people tries to put on a silly play.
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Emmy Winner Marg Helgenberger Riveting
Stars in The Other Place by Sharr White at Barrington Stage
By: - Jun 06th, 2014At mid career Emmy winner Marg Helgenberger is making the transition from TV to stage in the Berkshires. She is galvanic in Sharr White's complex and riveting The Other Place at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. She would like to take this hit production back home to LA.
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