In his director’s note for The Alchemist, Stratford Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino makes a preemptive strike against the argument that he should have set the early seventeenth century play in “our own era”, saying that it adds “a needless layer of complexity to an already challenging text”. Intriguing defensiveness aside, the problem with this statement […]
Before the show even started, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins immediately won me over. I was at the BCA, ready to watch a performance of appropriate, the New England premiere of the play and a SpeakEasy Stage Company production directed by M. Bevin O’Gara. In the program notes, Jacobs-Jenkins pointed out how revealing laughter can be as […]
As I toiled at my college dorm desk in December of 2006, cursing my political science methodology thesis, my classmates were breaking dorm policy by blaring music during quiet hours. Not just any music – the same iTunes playlist that had been on repeat all day. Most type A personalities would have been infuriated, but, […]
Edges is a musical with which I feel I should share some enduring connection, given attending an amateur production of it was one of the first experiences I had with university life. I recall the production being rather good, inspiring me, even, to get involved with the local university theatre society. However, in the years […]
The old art form known as commedia dell’arte appears infrequently in modern U.S. theatres. With masked, clown-like actors engaging in loud, brazen and eccentric sketches, commedia dell’arte relies heavily on lowbrow humor and audience participation to entertain, uninhibited by carefully scripted and staged material. When done well, commedia dell’arte can bring a smile to even […]
The Sweethearts is a show not to be missed. Telling the story of a girl band going to give a charity concert to British troops in Afghanistan in 2014, it promises a night filled with emotions from humor to sadness, and it forces the audience to question both individual and societal values. The Raise Dark […]
Like A Generation is Coyote Collective’s re-mount of an earlier production from 2013 with an updated multi-media set and lighting design. Written by Max Tepper, and directed by Blue Bigwood-Mallen, the show is a show “about television (or I suppose streaming since no one actually watches TVanymore,” Bigwood-Mallen writes in the show programme. And indeed […]
Despite the vast number of diverse theatre productions in New York City, there is a noticeable lack of plays that depict the lives of Americans living in the middle of the country. Susan Merson’s new musical play Between Pretty Places does just that in a surprisingly genuine way while also exploring themes of grief and […]