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Theater Review: Parade - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Parade - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown's "Parade" was 1998's quick-closing Tony winner, widely dismissed as coldly overproduced. Stripped down and stark at the hands of helmer-choreographer Rob Ashford for London's Donmar Warehouse two years ago, it was revealed as a work of extraordinary depth and thematic resonance. Now remounted at the Taper with a dream cast, Ashford's "Parade" appears to be, by any standard, Southern California's production of the year.

Theater Review: Animal Crackers - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Animal Crackers - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

"The Drowsy Chaperone" demonstrated why 1920s musicals are more easily recalled to the stage as objects of affectionate ridicule than as subjects of earnest revival. The shows consisted primarily of vaudevillian skits built around the performers' specific acts, interspersed with songs barely connected to a storyline. Co-written by George S. Kaufman, "Animal Crackers" may be a better-than-usual example of its kind, but it remains a challenging show to produce in a contemporary context. Goodman Theater's well-executed revival admirably showcases the old-fashioned entertainment style and pays tribute to the Marx Brothers, even if it never quite makes a complete case for itself.

Theater Review: Little House on the Prairie: The Musical - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Little House on the Prairie: The Musical - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

In the first hour of "Little House on the Prairie: The Musical," now embarking on a nationwide tour starting with New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse, the Ingalls family starves, freezes, battles scarlet fever and watches the wheat crop disastrously burn on the Fourth of July. One half-expects locusts to descend after intermission. Instead, musical-comedy gears spring into action with a villainess in Shirley Temple ringlets wearing bright pink bunny slippers. Those slippers, in small-town South Dakota circa 1880, are indicative of this ambitious but disjointed show's problems.

Theater Review: Come Fly With Me - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Come Fly With Me - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

In earlier pieces, Twyla Tharp proved that songs sung by Frank Sinatra could inspire great dances. The question for "Come Fly With Me," her latest musical-theater work, premiering at Atlanta's Alliance Theater, is whether an evening-length show can be more than a suite of terrific dances. The answer is a qualified -- but jubilant -- yes. Those reservations are largely beside the point in terms of pure audience entertainment and touring prospects. The show will reportedly hit the road beginning in summer 2010 and is being eyed as a candidate for Broadway

Theater Review: The Donkey Show - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The Donkey Show - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

There's nothing like a party to let the new neighbors know exactly what type of person you are. With "The Donkey Show," Diane Paulus, the new artistic director of American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., is throwing a doozy of a rave -- one that partied hearty for six years Off Broadway. It's an infectious, celebratory and titillating event that starts Paulus' first season off with giddy good fun, empty calories and a full liquor license. It also reflects the form-busting helmer's sensibilities and her penchant for pushing theatrical boundaries for both actors and audiences.

Theater Review: Mistakes Were Made - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Mistakes Were Made - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

On the one hand, Craig Wright's "Mistakes Were Made" is a straight-ahead showbiz satire, a portrait of an Off Broadway producer as craven commercialist. On that level, it's cleverly crafted and robustly entertaining, if unsurprising. But there's more. The play has been developed for and with the intense actor Michael Shannon ("Bug," "Revolutionary Road"), an expert portrayer of the deep inner wound who couldn't be further from the Zero Mostel/Max Bialystock-type figure of the producer who'll do anything, usually with cheerful desperation. Wright and Shannon infuse that desperation with a very different edge, pursuing, and mostly pulling off, a satire possessing psychological and even existential insight.

Theater Review: First You Dream: The Music of Kander and Ebb - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: First You Dream: The Music of Kander and Ebb - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

With "First You Dream," Signature Theater's long-running relationship with the music of John Kander and the late Fred Ebb has taken another inventive turn to open its 20th season. The company has packaged an eclectic selection of numbers from 15 K&E shows and films into a delightful revue that practically screams "tour me" -- which is precisely what its execs have in mind.

Theater Review: A Streetcar Named Desire - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: A Streetcar Named Desire - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

With Liv Ullmann at the helm as director, the Sydney Theater Company's enthralling production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" looks set to be an Antipodean hit and is on track to repeat similar acclaim as it travels to Washington, D.C., and New York later this year. The announcement that STC co-artistic director Cate Blanchett would play Blanche DuBois enraptured Sydney's theater set, and the consummate thesp fulfills her promise to strap auds into an emotional roller coaster. A strong ensemble not only supports Blanchett but also gives more heft to roles that are sometimes obscured by the power of Blanche and Stanley.

Theater Review: Peace - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Peace - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

For one month, Latino comedy rascals Culture Clash transform the Getty Villa into the Getty Pancho Villa for their exuberant musical satire "Peace," Aristophanes' ancient (421 B.C.) antiwar tract rendered as timely as this morning's headlines. If you like your summer entertainment with a milewide raunchy streak, a little food for thought and a lot of heart, give "Peace" a chance.

Extension for 'Mary Poppins' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Extension for 'Mary Poppins' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

"Mary Poppins" will stick around four weeks longer than announced, based on demand for ducats at L.A.'s Ahmanson Theater. Tuner opens Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 7, according to producers the Center Theater Group, Disney Theatricals and Cameron Mackintosh. Helmed by Richard Eyre, the musical is toplined by Ashley Brown, who originated the title role on Broadway, and Gavin Lee, who originated the role of Bert on the West End and Broadway.

Broadway vets join 'Sisters' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Broadway vets join 'Sisters' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

Broadway vets Alexander Gemignani, Laila Robins, Lynn Cohen, Hannah Cabell, Keith Reddin and Frank Wood are among the cast of Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's upcoming production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters," in a new version written by Sarah Ruhl and helmed by John Doyle. Doyle's production of "Company" originated at the Playhouse before it went on to a Broadway run in 2006. Gemignani appeared in the 2005 Broadway staging of Doyle's production of "Sweeney Todd." Design team includes Scott Pask (sets), Ann Hould-Ward (costumes) and Jane Cox (lights). Show runs Oct. 24-Nov. 21.

Theater Review: Quartermaine's Terms - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Quartermaine's Terms - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

"Quartermaine's Terms," Simon Gray's terrifically sad/funny play of isolation in academic circles, now receiving a worthy revival in the Massachusetts Berkshires, could have just as easily been called "Otherwise Disengaged." The lonely, well-meaning bachelor St. John Quartermaine (Jefferson Mays) survives, barely, in the dreary staff room of an English private school for foreigners. It's the classroom where his disconnect is increasingly evident: not knowing his students, skipping out on class or just drifting away in an old, worn armchair, oblivious to the changing forces around him.

Theater Review: The 39 Steps - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The 39 Steps - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Alfred Hitchcock announced that his 1935 spy yarn "The 39 Steps" was "out to give the public good, healthy, mental shakeups," because society had become so drowsy, "We cannot appreciate sufficient thrills at first hand." Seventy-five years and innumerable first-hand mental shakeups later, the belly laughs of Patrick Barlow's live adaptation are positively restorative. Maria Aitken's La Jolla restaging of her metatheatrical London and Gotham hit, performed by four of the world's hardest-working thesps, has its arid patches and disappears into the ozone almost upon arrival. But it's a treat while it lasts.

Theater Review: Ever Yours, Oscar - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Ever Yours, Oscar - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Perfectly simple, simply elegant and elegantly touching, "Ever Yours, Oscar" provides a minor-key look at the life of Oscar Wilde to accompany the C-major exercise in hilarity Brian Bedford has made of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," also in the Stratford season. Both shows are playing to SRO audiences, which is a tribute to Bedford's undiminished drawing power in this, his 27th season at the festival, as well as the public's appetite for first-rate material presented with a minimum of fuss.

Theater Review: Noises Off - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Noises Off - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Mid-summer madness prevails at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey with a revival of Michael Frayn's giddy 1982 farce "Noises Off," which remains one of the funniest plays of the past half-century. The play-within-a-play concerns the chaotic rehearsals of a feuding troupe of traveling performers; director Paul Mullins has harnessed his clownish players into a three-act comedy that's as knee-slapping as a three-ring circus.

Theater Review: The Importance of Being Earnest - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The Importance of Being Earnest - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Although there's nothing revolutionary about either the production concept or the conceit of a male actor playing the pivotal role of Lady Bracknell, the current version of Oscar Wilde's comedy classic "The Importance of Being Earnest," now on at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, moves comfortably into the winner's circle through a combination of wit, talent and sheer class. Director Brian Bedford is one of this continent's past masters at how high comedy should be done, and his expertise with the likes of Coward and Moliere have easily paved the way for his triumph with Wilde. Bedford knows the key to such works lies in two things: devotion to what's in the text and a true sense of what lies underneath it. He delivers both here, thanks to a cast that shares his vision perfectly. This isn't a Chekhovian "Earnest" or a brittle, frivolous one, but rather a production that seems filtered through what we know about what happened to Wilde just after he wrote it. Yes, it's consummately witty, but also dangerously so, with lines that mock everything Victorian England held dear. No wonder the establishment of the period was so anxious to leap on the bandwagon of Wilde's destruction once his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas became public. Designer Desmond Heeley sets the whole thing in shades of silver and gray, filled with swirling textures, almost as though it were an aging and slightly decadent greeting card. It's a beautiful physical production but a slightly melancholy one as well, which is a sublime combination. Equally inspired is the casting of the two leads. Ben Carlson gives us a Jack as foursquare and solid as any Victorian would want his son to be, while Mike Shara, while never tipping over into effeminacy, is deliciously equivocal in his sexuality -- provoking, charming and flirting with virtually everyone on the stage, from his dour manservant Lane (a superb cameo from Robert Persichini) to his beloved Aunt Augusta. She, of course, is better known as Lady Bracknell, and although she only appears in two of the play's three acts, she sets its tone with her vinegar-dipped aphorisms and air of social superiority. Bedford is superb in the role, never once camping or sending it up, but being deeply funny simply because he takes himself so seriously. It's not only a hilarious performance in itself but also an object lesson in how this sort of comedy ought to be played. That extends to the whole cast as well, most notably Sara Topham's elegantly lacquered valentine of a Gwendolen, charming and chilly all at once. This superb production would be at home on any major stage in the world, and one can't help but think that with Bedford's reputation, it would also be able to earn a profitable place for itself on Broadway. Set and costumes, Desmond Heeley; lighting, Kevin Fraser; composer, Berthold Carriere. Opened, reviewed June 2, 2009. Runs through Oct. 30. Running time: 2 HOURS, 20 MIN.

Theater Review - 'The Prisoner of Second Avenue' - Neil Simon Comedy at the Berkshire Theater Festival - NYTimes.com

Theater Review - 'The Prisoner of Second Avenue' - Neil Simon Comedy at the Berkshire Theater Festival - NYTimes.com.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — “There are no jobs for 47-year-old men,” wails the newly and miserably unemployed Mel Edison in Neil Simon’s temper-tantrum comedy “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” The plaintive cry elicits robust chuckles of sympathy from audiences at the Berkshire Theater Festival here, where this play from 1971 has been revived during our own summer of seething economic angst.

Theater Review: The First Wives Club - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The First Wives Club - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

The female empowerment tuner, lately represented by "Mamma Mia!," "9 to 5" and "Vanities," gains no fresh luster with "The First Wives Club," which slavishly follows the hit 1996 pic in every respect except the most important one: the emotional grounding to make us care about its titular trio. Constructed around vague hear-me-roar sentiments hammered out in generic Motown terms, this Old Globe tryout tuner is eyeing Gotham, but one is skeptical -- to paraphrase Groucho -- whether audiences will opt to join any club with these ladies as members.

Theater Review: Guys and Dolls - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Guys and Dolls - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Call it dumb, call it clever; ah, but you can give odds forever that any staging of "Guys and Dolls" is going to bring more pleasure than pain, thanks to the peerless professionalism of its creators and unfailing good nature. Last weekend, Kevin Stites and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra did right by the evergreen Frank Loesser score for a pleasant night out, in the face of grievous miscasting and a total absence of drama.

National Black Theatre Festival Honors Jubilee Theatre Artistic Director Ed Smith 8/3

National Black Theatre Festival Honors Jubilee Theatre Artistic Director Ed Smith 8/3.

This year, the prestigious National Black Theatre Festival® will honor Jubilee Theatre Artistic Director Ed Smith with the festival's first annual Lloyd Richards' Director's Award. Smith is receiving this award because of his significant contributions to black theatre and American theatre in general. The festival will be held from August 3 through 8, 2009 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The theme for this year's festival remains the same as the past ten festivals: An International Celebration and Reunion of Spirit. Mr. Smith will be presented with the award at the Opening Night Gala Awards Banquet, which will be held on Monday, August 3. Larry Leon Hamlin founded the National Black Theatre Festival® (NBTF) in 1989. His goal was to unite black theatre companies and ensure the survival of the genre into the next millennium. With the support of Dr. Maya Angelou (who served as the Festival's first Chairperson) the NBTF was born. The NBTF is a biennial event that brings together the black theatre companies of America and the world. Approximately 25 companies are selected to perform during the week for a total of over 100 performances. The festival hosts nightly Celebrity Receptions as well as an International Vendor's Market. This year, the Youth/Celebrity Project will serve at least 6,000 children and teenagers. Nearly 50 celebrities of television, film and stage will lend their support to the celebration. Over 50,000 people are expected to attend this theatrical experience. In 1958, Lloyd Richards galvanized Broadway with his production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. This production began a new era in the representation of African-Americans on the American stage. In 1979, he was tapped to become dean of the prestigious Yale University School of Drama and Artistic Director of the highly influential Yale Rep. Throughout his career, Lloyd Richards sought to discover and develop new plays and playwrights as Artistic Director of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre Center from 1968 to 1999. Richards's long search for a major new American playwright bore fruit with the 1984 production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson. Throughout the 1980s and into the '90s, Richards directed the Yale Rep and New York productions of the successive installments of August Wilson's multi-part chronicle of African-American life. The plays in this cycle include Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running and Seven Guitars. Their pairing has been described as one of the most important in the history of American theater. Lloyd Richards's productions for television included segments of Roots: The Next Generation, Bill Moyers' Journal and Robeson, a presentation on The Life of the African-American actor and activist Paul Robeson, who was an early inspiration for the young Lloyd Richards. He continued to serve as Artistic Director of the Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center until 1999. He died in 2006, on his 87th birthday. Ed Smith is an award-winning director whose productions of Fences, Our Town, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Piano Lesson, I'm Not Rappaport, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and most recently, The Bluest Eye, have all received critical praise. Smith has directed over ninety plays at many of the country's professional and university theatres, as well as in Canada and the West Indies. In the late 1960's, he founded his first theatre, the now-defunct Buffalo Black Drama Workshop. In the 1970's, he also helped to start Black Canada in Toronto. Then in the 1980's, he served as Founder/Artistic Director of Buffalo Black Dinner Theatre. In 1989, Ed created the original staging and direction for Endesha Ida Mae Holland's From the Mississippi Delta. From 1993 to 1996, he served as Associate Artistic Director of the acclaimed Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, Alabama. While there, his duties included directing many of the main stage productions, as well as directing and conducting a reading series for the Southern Writers Project. In 2002, Ed was recommended by the notable and distinguished director Lloyd Richards to direct Ossie Davis's last play, A Last Dance for Sybil, featuring Ruby Dee, Earl Hyman, and Arthur French. Ed acknowledges this production as one of his best experiences in American Theatre. Ed was a full professor at State University of New York at Buffalo and at Florida State University. He also taught at the University of California in Los Angeles, and while at Wayne State University he taught in the Hilberry graduate program and was director of the Black Theatre Program. Ed is the author of Black Theatre: Ethnic Theatre in the United States (Greenwood Press). He has fed his love of traditional/jazz recordings by working as a radio jazz announcer for almost 20 years. Currently, Ed acts as Jubilee Theatre's Artistic Director.

Steppenwolf Invites Three Local Companies to Present in February: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 07/29/2009

Steppenwolf Invites Three Local Companies to Present in February: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 07/29/2009.

Chicago's The Dog & Pony Theatre Company, Pavement Group, and Thirteen Pocket are the three theater groups that Steppenwolf Theatre Company has invited to take part in its Visiting Companies Initiative for 2009-2010. The groups will each offer a production that will run in rotating repertory for ten weeks beginning February 2010 in Steppenwolf's Garage Theatre. Dog & Pony will present The Twins Would Like To Say, a play written and directed by Seth Bockley and Devon de Mayo that looks into the true story of identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons, who made a secret pact that went unbroken for over 20 years. Gregory Moss' punkplay will be the production offered by Pavement Group. Directed by David Perez, this piece explores the story of two boys who find that punk music might be their escape hatch from their suburban 1980's existence. Adore, written and directed by Stephen Louis Grush, will be the presentation from Thirteen Pocket. In this piece, two men find each other over the internet, and begin a complex and strange relationship. For further information, visit www.steppenwolf.org.

Theater Review: The Prisoner of Second Avenue - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: The Prisoner of Second Avenue - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

While Neil Simon may have been built for Broadway, the playwright's work now also seems an excellent fit for regional theater. With a Simon work, you pretty much know what you're getting -- the trick is in delivering the goods. In Berkshire Theater Festival's staging of "The Prisoner of Second Avenue," helmer Warner Shook and his six actors more than just revive this melancholy comedy: They breathe new life into the play with an ensemble collaboration that feels relevant, timely and surprisingly sweet.

Theater Review: What Is the Cause of Thunder? - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: What Is the Cause of Thunder? - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Somewhere in Noah Haidle's "What is the Cause of Thunder?" there might be a more purposeful, poignant and even more comedic work waiting to get out. But as seen in this early incarnation at Williamstown Theater Festival, the two-hander has the feel of a schizophrenic draft in which half the play is working at a level the other half has not yet reached. Neither the slick staging nor the superb performances by its two hardworking actors can solve the nagging problems of this imaginative but problematic new work.

Theater Review: Fiddler on the Roof - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Fiddler on the Roof - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

In Topol's "farewell tour" re-creating his 1971 pic triumph "Fiddler on the Roof," the 73-year-old thesp possesses all the stamina of Anatevka's young whippersnappers and easily doubles their warmth and technique. Much of the revival in a three-week stop at the Pantages is more kitsch than kosher, but anyone who's never seen "Fiddler" live should consider experiencing this Tevye, one of those star turns people talk about for years afterward. Leaner and frailer now, Topol has lost no measure of authority as the long-suffering dairyman trying to keep a handle on traditional ways in the face of the next generation's pressure. That supple, lightly accented voice remains comfortable with Old Testament pontification in the bottom register while swooping up to falsetto to tease his daughters (it's a funnier performance by far than the film's). Most remarkably, the 1991 Tony nominee sustains in each scene the "illusion of the first time," notwithstanding about 40 years' worth of touring and numbing repetition. This Tevye confidently wields the reins of "Fiddler's" pathos. The star's ineffable authenticity has not rubbed off on everyone else. Of the sons-in-law, Eric Van Tielen's Fyedka is easy and natural, but Erik Liberman (Motel) and Colby Foytik (Perchik) indicate their traits -- agitation and sanctimony, respectively -- rather than inhabiting them. Susan Cella's Golde is a stock scold with little vocal or emotional chemistry with her husband, while Mary Stout's deeply felt Yente the matchmaker misses the comic self-delusion ordinarily copping guaranteed laughs.

Theater Review: What Is the Cause of Thunder? - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: What Is the Cause of Thunder? - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Somewhere in Noah Haidle's "What is the Cause of Thunder?" there might be a more purposeful, poignant and even more comedic work waiting to get out. But as seen in this early incarnation at Williamstown Theater Festival, the two-hander has the feel of a schizophrenic draft in which half the play is working at a level the other half has not yet reached. Neither the slick staging nor the superb performances by its two hardworking actors can solve the nagging problems of this imaginative but problematic new work.

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JERSEY BOYS Announces Boston Dates 7/23-8/30

JERSEY BOYS Announces Boston Dates 7/23-8/30.

Dates have been announced for the Boston engagement of Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, playing the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre for six weeks only! The musical will make its Boston premiere on Thursday, July 23 and play through Sunday, August 30. Press night is scheduled for Wednesday, July 29 at 7 PM. Tickets go on sale in time for the holiday gift giving season on Sunday, December 7 at 10AM. Jersey Boys is the winner of the 2006 Best Musical Tony® Award and the 2006 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Show Album. Directed by two-time Tony® Award-winner Des McAnuff, Jersey Boys is written by Academy Award-winner Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe

Theater Review: Tinyard Hill - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Tinyard Hill - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

If you're going to set a musical in the American South of 1964, certain looming shadows are ignored at your peril: the Civil Rights Movement, the escalating Vietnam War and myriad other momentous societal changes just over the horizon. But TheatreWorks' world premiere "Tinyard Hill" consigns all such issues to the status of faint backdrop or irrelevancy amid a tepidly star-crossed Nawthern girl/good ole boy romance. This bland "country musical," in a twanged-up generic-contemporary-showtune mode by Tommy Newman and Mark Allen, may appeal to regional houses looking for new and unchallenging chamber-scaled tuners.

Theater Review: Vices: A Love Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Vices: A Love Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

A Caldwell presentation of a dance musical in one act with music and lyrics by Michael Heitzman, Ilene Reid, Everett Bradley and Susan Draus, book by Heitzman and Reid. Directed by Clive Cholerton. Musical direction, Jon Rose. Choreography, A.C. Ciulla. With: Holly Shunkey, Marcus Bellamy, Natalie Venetia Belcon, Carlos L. Encinas, Lara Janine, Leajato Amara Robinson. The summer swelter spiked this month with the world premiere of sultry dance musical "Vices: A Love Story" at Florida's Caldwell Theater. Considering that much of the show was created during the past three weeks in the rehearsal hall, "Vices" is a minor miracle of on-the-fly craftsmanship from a creative team and performers mostly culled from Broadway and Off Broadway.

Seattle Arts - Stage: Strawshop’s The Elephant Man - page 1

Seattle Arts - Stage: Strawshop’s The Elephant Man - page 1.

Despite an assortment of directors, an intermittent schedule, and disparate choices of material, Strawberry Theatre Workshop has a style all its own. When they're on, they're daring, penetrating, and endearingly baroque. And when they're off, it's nearly as impressive to watch their visions play out. The gears are definitely grinding in The Elephant Man. There are affecting moments of pathos, and some insight into the torments of ridicule vs. celebrity. (No wonder Michael Jackson wanted those bones.) But the company has trouble keeping playwright Bernard Pomerance's turgid text in forward motion. It's like watching a Final Four game played with a medicine ball. Pomerance's drama about the real-life Joseph Merrick (played here by MJ Sieber) is oddly anachronistic—not because it's set in the late 1880s, but because it seems so much a period piece from the late 1970s, when singer David Bowie famously took over the title role on Broadway. The script constantly nibbles at the edges of revelation, but as with '70s shows Equus and Bent, high concepts (blinding horses, gay concentration-camp romance) often distract from actual character development. In the play, Merrick is subsisting as a sideshow attraction when he's discovered by up-and-coming London surgeon Frederick Treves (David Pichette). At the outset, Treves' interest is medical, but not purely so. Just as Merrick was exploited by carnies as a freak of nature with his bony outgrowths, hideously spongy skin pockets, and grotesquely deformed limbs, Treves rents Merrick from the tent show to display him before an audience of physicians. But after Merrick is beaten by an angry mob, Treves has an attack of his own—one of conscience. And once Treves recasts the Elephant Man as the cause du jour for the upper crust of British society, Merrick has his every financial need met, and begins a new life as Treves' pet project. Or is it simply pet? The doctor frequently acts as a benefactor in attempting to find people who will see Merrick as a human being, while himself unable to shake his fascination with the creature down the hall. Pomerance's play only hints at Treves' vacillations between compassion and self-interest, but Pichette's performance finds spaces for self-reflection, all of which seem to raise the play's central question: If you had a cash cow, could you resist the urge to milk it? Treves' actions are never short of magnanimous—except when he discovers that Merrick and a young actress named Mrs. Kendal (the magnetic Alexandra Tavares) have engaged in a flirtation that offends his Victorian sensibilities. Having seen Sieber play a sweating, manic buffoon in last year's hysterical Guttenberg! The Musical, it's sublimeto watch him deliver a performance that emanates almost exclusively from the eyes. The more you watch him, the more you want to, and his scenes with Tavares will break your heart. Supporting players do double duty in a variety of roles, but anytime the stage is not occupied by two or more of the central trio, the production loses momentum.If director Julie Beckman can generate some heat, or accelerate through the passages in which the pompous docs and society matrons mutter about What It All Means to harbor a circus freak as one might keep a rare butterfly pinned to a wall, then STW will have done the show better than playwright Pomerance has written it.

Theater Review: Mutiny at Port Chicago - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Mutiny at Port Chicago - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

An awful event from the annals of WWII Navy lore and America's sorry racial heritage is at the center of Paul Leaf's "Mutiny at Port Chicago," in its world premiere at the Ruskin Group Theater. The little-known instance of high-level institutional prejudice leading to a mass refusal to obey an order maintains interest, even though its presentation here rarely rises above the pedestrian.

Theater Review: Vices: A Love Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Vices: A Love Story - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

The summer swelter spiked this month with the world premiere of sultry dance musical "Vices: A Love Story" at Florida's Caldwell Theater. Considering that much of the show was created during the past three weeks in the rehearsal hall, "Vices" is a minor miracle of on-the-fly craftsmanship from a creative team and performers mostly culled from Broadway and Off Broadway.

At the Vineyard Playhouse, the Summer Fare Is Not Stock - NYTimes.com

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At the Vineyard Playhouse, the Summer Fare Is Not Stock - NYTimes.com.

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. M J BRUDER MUNAFO never had any real interest in theater until she became a year-round resident of Martha’s Vinyard in 1975, when she began assisting with props for shows as a way of becoming involved in her new community. She quickly became a theater critic of sorts as well, if her private thoughts were any measure. “I remember watching rehearsals and thinking, ‘I don’t understand why the director is doing it that way,’ or ‘I don’t understand why we’re doing yet another production of “Guys and Dolls,” ’ ” she said. “It sort of set me on a course.” For the last 14 years Ms. Munafo has been artistic director and producer of the Vineyard Playhouse here, a year-round professional stage that gives new, serious meaning to the idea of community theater. The Vineyard being the Vineyard, its community includes Tony- and Oscar-winning artists and as-yet-undiscovered talents, and the 120-seat black-box playhouse has emerged as a bustling gathering place for all of them to work. “This isn’t summer theater; this isn’t just putting on ‘No, No, Nanette,’ ” said Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and island resident whose play “Knock, Knock” was produced at the Playhouse in 2006. “It’s also trying to do theater in an honest, direct way that tries to engage our minds and emotions.” The first of this summer’s three productions, “Fly,” was one of many playhouse shows that fit Mr. Feiffer’s description. With a bare-bones set and a cast of mostly Actors’ Equity members, “Fly” is a moving drama about the racism and other challenges faced by the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. The play, by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan, was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education — not your standard theater fare in most summertime tourist spots. Ms. Munafo said she chose to produce “Fly” in part because “African-American theater is very much part of our formula,” given the large black population in the Vineyard town of Oak Bluffs. Black and white island residents don’t socialize much, she said, so she has tried to turn the playhouse into one place where they do. “A lot of theaters set up shop in a community but don’t really involve or reflect the community,” Ms. Munafo said. “Integrating the community into the playhouse has been an essential goal of mine.”

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Sam Waterston has 'Seen Us' - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

Sam Waterston will topline the world preem of Athol Fugard's "Have You Seen Us?," which will bow at Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn., Nov. 24-Dec. 20 on the theater's main stage. A.d. Gordon Edelstein will helm the play, which is set in a Southern California strip-mall diner on Christmas Eve. It will be the first U.S.-set work from the South African playwright, who is now living in San Diego. Waterston will play Henry Parsons, a South African history professor "forced by a chance encounter to deal with the demons in his heart." Waterston previously played at Long Wharf in Tom Stoppard's "Travesties" in 2005. In January, Fugard's "Coming Home" had its world preem at the theater, also helmed by Edelstein.

Theater Review: Monty Python's Spamalot - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

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Theater Review: Monty Python's Spamalot - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Monty Python's Spamalot" finally arrives in L.A. in the wake of three Tonys, four years in Gotham and a hundred-city tour, though as a celebration of the inimitable Brit sketch team's 40th anniversary, tuner is more enthusiastic than representative. Creators Eric Idle and John Du Prez have jettisoned the unique grit and bite from source pic "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," retaining a bunch of memorable lines and routines for fans to revel in. Colorful as a candy box and every bit as nourishing, "Spamalot" gets its laughs and promptly recedes from the memory.

Horizon Presents Jones's A COOL DRINK OF WATER 7/10-8/23

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Horizon Presents Jones's A COOL DRINK OF WATER 7/10-8/23.

A Cool Drink of Water by Thomas W. Jones, II and directed by Andrea Frye will be performed at the Horizon Theatre Company from July 10 - August 23, 2009. Cool Drink of Water is a new South Festival world premiere by the author of Horizon’s hit Three Sistahs. Hopes and dreams brew as a family searches for their “cool drink of water” in this provocative contemporary twist on A Raisin in the Sun. Newly “retired” from his good job, Walt is dreaming new schemes. Wife Ruthie’s nest is almost empty, but wannabe rapper son Trane won’t move out and get a job. And Benita and Asa move back from Africa with baggage and secrets. Is that Mama Lee haunting the house? A powerful and funny update to a classic story. Now in its 25th season, Horizon Theatre Company has been bringing exciting area and world premieres of contemporary plays to Atlanta's audiences under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors and Founders Lisa and Jeff Adler since 1983. A professional theatre with a reputation for excellent ensemble acting, Horizon produces outstanding new plays by today's playwrights that reflect and challenge the lives of the diverse people living in the urban Southeast. Horizon has introduced Atlanta audiences to the works of such well-known contemporary playwrights as Rebecca Gilman, Wendy Wasserstein, David Hare, Terrence McNally, and David Ives, as well as plays by talented emerging writers. In addition to producing its five-play mainstage season, Horizon also develops new plays through workshops, readings, and through our annual New South Play Festival, dedicated to plays from, for, and/or about the South. Horizon develops new audiences and artists through the Horizon Playwriting Education programs, and Senior Citizen Ensemble programs. Horizon's home is an intimate 175-seat theatre located in Atlanta's eclectic Little Five Points business and arts district.

Theater Review: Too Big to Fail - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Too Big to Fail - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

A major milestone for U.S. political theater, the San Francisco Mime Troupe's 50th anniversary is marked by "Too Big to Fail," a relatively minor addition to the annals of the company's free annual park shows. As usual, script and production are likely to tone up during the ensuing weeks of Northern California tour stops. But at present this comic parable about the current global financial meltdown is just an amiable, rather than notably hilarious or barbed, demonstration of SFMT's time-tested agitprop punch.

At 84, Elaine Stritch Keeps Trucking in ‘The Full Monty’ - NYTimes.com

At 84, Elaine Stritch Keeps Trucking in ‘The Full Monty’ - NYTimes.com.

Friends of Elaine Stritch, the Broadway legend, have expressed surprise that, at 84, she is acting this summer in a small role in “The Full Monty” at the Paper Mill Playhouse in suburban Millburn, N.J. One friend asked her how things were going at “the Paperback Playhouse,” to which she replied, in true Stritchy style, “No, we’re first edition.”

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Theater Review: Up - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Up - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

Bridget Carpenter's "Up" -- inspired by the 1982 balloon flight of truck driver "Lawn Chair Larry" Walters, and the turbulence of his later life -- shares a title, buoyant balloons and an admirable degree of emotional nuance with Pixar's current hit animated film. But the two diverge in their immediate conception, approaching the pursuit of dreams from a fundamentally different angle. In the film, the old-man protagonist lifts off to escape a stultifying retirement home and fulfill a lifelong promise made to his late wife. In Carpenter's crafty, mostly realistic play, the balloon flight itself is viewed almost entirely from the rearview mirror.

Theater Review: Restoration - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Restoration - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

While Claudia Shear's "Restoration" nominally fictionalizes the 500th birthday effort to spruce up Michelangelo's David, it's really out to demonstrate the restorative powers of great art and ordinary human contact on the wounded spirit. Delicate and talky, as long on wit and wisdom as it is short on incident, the La Jolla Playhouse world premiere should act on audiences in the manner of most museums: Those in a contemplative mood will find much to ponder and be enriched by, while others won't get what the fuss is about.

Theater Review: Kill Me, Deadly - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Kill Me, Deadly - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

As eternally cool as it is, film noir, with its supercharged style and general seriousness almost begs to be deflated -- and playwright Bill Robens answers the call. In a voice redolent of cigarette smoke and wailing saxophone, "Kill Me, Deadly," has great fun with the genre stereotypes, including a tough gumshoe whose secretary is a much better detective than he is. The world premiere production at Theater of Note succeeds on all levels, from its lush look to Kiff Scholl's inspired direction, and its cast, with assorted thugs and a deeply duplicitous dame, is hilarious and superb.

Theater Review: Farragut North - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Farragut North - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

If all politics is local, and all politics is personal, then every politician had better be particularly careful of the people closest to him. This rough syllogism is the jumping-off point for Beau Willimon's "Farragut North," a crackling good entertainment set in the snowy wilds of an Iowa Democratic presidential primary. Not incidentally, it offers a substantial role for Chris Pine, beaming down from "Star Trek" to demonstrate as much command on the Geffen Playhouse's boards as he shows on the Enterprise's bridge.

'Ella' enchants regional theaters - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety

'Ella' enchants regional theaters - Entertainment News, Legit News, Media - Variety.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- It's never played New York, and has neither a celebrity star nor high-profile creators, but "Ella" has become the little show that could, racking up big numbers across the country. It's the sure thing regional theaters turn to for a guaranteed audience. In the past four years the biotuner about vocalist Ella Fitzgerald has played at 18 regional theaters across the country and counting, frequently to sold-out houses, amassing total grosses of more than $3 million for its theaters. That might seem like small potatoes for Broadway and its touring offshoots but it's substantial coin for the regional circuit. The show's journey is far from over; additional gigs are set this season at such prestigious venues as the Guthrie in Minneapolis and the Actors Theater of Louisville, Ky. Negotiations are under way for a commercial national tour, with gigs in Europe and Canada also being discussed. As recession blues and the non-profit cash crunch continue to shape subscription seasons toward material with proven crowd appeal, it's safe to assume the market for shows like "Ella" will not be tapped out any time soon. New York, however, is still the territory this show has purposely avoided. The unspoken fear appears to be that Gotham critics might not be as enraptured by the show as their colleagues in the hinterlands, and that Fitzgerald's story might lack the dramatic heft of such other singers as Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf and Dinah Washington.

Pitts. Public Theater Announces 09-10 Season, Runs Thru 6/27

Pitts. Public Theater Announces 09-10 Season, Runs Thru 6/27.

Producing Artistic Director Ted Pappas has announced the line-up for Pittsburgh Public Theater's 09/10 season. The six-play subscription series begins October 1, 2009 and runs through June 27, 2010. "Our audiences will experience a season of infinite variety," Pappas said. "Included are Shakespeare's best-loved play, a musical about the greatest jazz singer of all time, and a ferocious tour-de-force starring a great actress. Add to that a British comic masterpiece from a living genius and friend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning romantic comedy by an American treasure, and a sweet surprise as the finale. This season has it all," he said. In addition, The Public will present two special engagements. Subscriptions are available by calling 412.316.1600. Prices for the 09/10 season have not been increased and six-play packages range from $126 to $309. Pittsburgh Public Theater's home is the O'Reilly Theater in the heart of Downtown's Cultural District. Visit www.ppt.org for more. Pittsburgh Public Theater's 09/10 Season Six-Play Subscription Series OCTOBER 1 - NOVEMBER 1, 2009

NAKED BOYS SINGING Returns To Provincetown 6/25

NAKED BOYS SINGING Returns To Provincetown 6/25.

aked Boys Singing, the international hit musical revue now in its 10th smash year Off-Broadway, returns to Provincetown summer 2009. Opening June 25th at the Post Office Café and Cabaret, Naked Boys Singing is a traditional musical revue, in the vein of Vaudeville and high-camp musical theater, which reminds us that clothes alone do not make the man! The show features six handsome "boys" of various body types with gorgeous voices, perfect comedic timing, and no clothing! With song titles ranging from "The Bliss of a Briss" to the culinary inspired "I Beat My Meat", Naked Boys Singing is 60 minutes of non-stop laughter! This will be Naked Boys Singing 4th engagement in Provincetown. Produced and directed by Tom D'Angora and Michael Duling this production will follow on the heals on their blockbuster 2007 production, featuring a cast of New York's finest and freshest young talent. Producer Tom D'Angora has had a long history with Naked Boys Singing starring in the highly controversial, and highly publicized, 2001 Provincetown production. In 2001 Naked Boys Singing performed within 500 feet from a church, violating an old blue law that prohibited nudity. Slapped with cease-and-desist orders at every performance the show created quite the stir! Despite the controversy the little nudie show that could DID! Naked Boys Singing managed to sell out the entire run, adding performances each week, it made national news with stories on CNN and other news networks, and eventually went before a packed town hall to win their case and get the laws rewritten!

Harriet Harris and Laila Robins to Headline Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's Noises Off: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 06/22/2009

Harriet Harris and Laila Robins to Headline Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's Noises Off: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 06/22/2009.

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has announced casting for its Mainstage productions of Moliere's The School for Wives, to run July 8-26, to be directed by Brian B. Crowe, and Michael Frayn's comedy Noises Off, to run August 5-30, to be directed by Paul Mullins. The School for Wives will star Bruce Cromer as Arnolphe, Erin Partin as Agnes, Daren Kelly as Orante, Jon Barker as Horace, Kristie Dale Sanders as Georgette, Greg Jackson as Alain, Scott Whitehurst as Chrysalde, and Jim Hopkins as Enrique. Noises Off will star Tony Award winner Harriet Harris as Dotty Otley, Laila Robins as Belinda Blair, Andrew Weems as Lloyd Dallas, Scott Barrow as Garry Lejeune, Matt Bradford Sullivan as Frederick Fellows, Edmond Genest as Selsdon Mowbray, Katie Fabel as Brooke Ashton, Jessica Ires Morris as Poppy Norton Taylor, and Jack Moran as Tim Allgood. For tickets, call 973-408-5600 or visit www.ShakespeareNJ.org.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Review on TheaterMania.com - 06/22/2009

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Review on TheaterMania.com - 06/22/2009.

Can't you just picture the families of the 25th Century huddled on their picnic blankets as they thrill to the poetry, romance, and absurdity of William Shakespeare? They'll certainly want to if the performance they witness is anywhere near as lively as Shakespeare on the Sound's A Midsummer Night's Dream, as helmed by new artistic director Joanna Settle and aurally enhanced by the award-winning musician Stew. Staged on a winding, wooden catwalk that transects a coveside park in Rowayton, Connecticut (the show moves to Greenwich in July), Settle's highly physicalized rendition has a bit of the carnival midway about it. Players are constantly racing by, arms pumping, or slithering onstage lizardlike, or draping themselves from a convenient tree. At one point, the scorned Helena (a nicely homespun Gretchen Hall) tries to hurl herself over the park wall to elude what she perceives as her tormentors. Perhaps only Stew -- the genius behind Passing Strange -- would have guessed that the blues would be just the right genre for Bottom (a hilariously over-the-top Ty Jones) to bemoan his discomfort at finding himself suddenly rendered asinine? (Costumer Ilona Somogyi gives him goggles, floppy burlap ears, and hoofed armlets for an on-the-spot makeover.) This donkey is so adorable that the "O, how I love thee!" lullabye delivered by Titania (the lush-voiced, lithe Doan Li) seems almost reasonable. In fact, it's worth braving rush-hour traffic just to hear him call out "This-BEH!" street-style or flop about like a fish on a hook in what is surely the most belaboredly acrobatic death scene ever devised.

T.R. Knight to Star in Mark Taper Forum's Parade: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 06/20/2009

T.R. Knight to Star in Mark Taper Forum's Parade: Theater News on TheaterMania.com - 06/20/2009.

Stage and television star T.R. Knight will play Leo Frank in the Mark Taper Forum's upcoming production of the Jason Robert Brown-Alfred Uhry-Harold Prince musical Parade, to run September 25-November 15, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times. The show will be directed and choreographed by Tony winner Rob Ashford. No official casting has been announced. On Friday, ABC and Knight officially confirmed that the actor will not return to Grey's Anatomy, the series he has starred in since 2005. His character, George O'Malley, was severely wounded in the final episode of the 2008-2009 season. Knight's New York stage credits include Broadway revivals of Noises Off and Tartuffe and the Off-Broadway show Scattergood, for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Arts - Westchester - Shakespeare at Boscobel via Town and Country - NYTimes.com

Arts - Westchester - Shakespeare at Boscobel via Town and Country - NYTimes.com.

“PERICLES, Prince of Tyre” is about love, jealousy, incest, a virgin prostitute, a woman buried alive and the requisite long-lost relatives. And if Terrence O’Brien — Terry to his friends and colleagues — has anything to do with it, about grown men finding the silliest possible ways to ride imaginary horses.

Theater Review: Mercury Fur - Theater and Musical Production Reviews

Theater Review: Mercury Fur - Theater and Musical Production Reviews.

uring civilization's final descent into barbarism, says Philip Ridley's 2005 U.K. hit "Mercury Fur," the powerful will indulge their most insane fantasies, while the rest of us try to maintain a little dignity as we cater to them. The young Needtheater company's stunning, superb production at the Imagined Life Theater drags us into a circle of hell while affirming the indomitability of humanity's best instincts, even when apocalypse is now.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old Lace.

Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace—staple of the community theatre/high school theatre circuit for 50 years now—is perhaps the last thing you'd expect a group like Dysfunctional Theatre Company to take a crack at. I mean, this is the troupe that gave us Hoover: A Love Story with a cross-dressing FBI chieftain and his beloved Clyde Tolson making merry onstage, and before that titles like Sodom and I Am Star Trek. But the Dysfunctionals are bringing this charmer of a chestnut to the indie theater stage right now, and they're doing it with love and respect and—I think this is exactly the right word—glee. They actually helped me see the play anew, and they gave me a fun evening out in the process. What more can one ask for?