Bob Abelman

Down, But Not Out: The ongoing saga of the Bristol Theatre Company

This is the second article in a series about community theaters located throughout RI. According to the American Theater Association, it has always been difficult to get an accurate count of community theaters in operation in the United States and its territories – currently guesstimated to be over 6,000 venues. This is because of their […]

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Profiling Rhode Island’s Community Theaters: The stories behind our neighborhood storytellers

Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream may not have been the first play to parody amateur theater, but his depiction of the exceptionally incompetent Mechanicals certainly created the mold for more modern-day, like-minded British comedies like Noises Off and The Play That Goes Wrong. Christopher Guest’s now-iconic Waiting for Guffman – a mockumentary about the aspirations […]

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Christmas Past & Present: ‘Tis the Season for Dueling Dickens

Surely, you know the story. Set in mid-19th century London, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a morality tale about Ebenezer Scrooge’s one-night transformation from malevolent miser to charitable cherub. After revisiting the lost opportunities of Christmas past, witnessing the wasted potential of Christmas present, and foreseeing the impending horrors of Christmas yet to come, […]

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From Summer Stock to Straw Hat: It’s beginning to look a lot like summer theater

Doing a Block Island retreat. Touring the East Bay Bike Path. Exploring some of the state’s 266 hiking trails and numerous world-class gardens. Lounging on the beaches that dot over 400 miles of coastline. Experiencing WaterFire and other invigorating outdoor art installations. These are the things that make summer in the Ocean State so enjoyable. […]

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Twelfth Night: Gamm Theatre mines all that’s amusing in this Elizabethan comedy 

There’s a tendency of late for directors to re-envision Shakespeare’s masterworks by staging them in a different time and territory, and with a more modern temperament, as if today’s audiences needed an assist in finding the plays’ relevancy.   This misguided movement was recently touched on by satirical digital news source The Onion in a mock […]

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IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, A LIVE RADIO PLAY: The charm alone is enough to get an angel its wings

If this Gamm Theatre production of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play was any more adorable, it would be licking your nose and following you home from the theatre. How could it not be adorable? Its source material is the abundantly charming 1946 holiday film classic directed by Frank Capra and starring everyman […]

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HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS, THE MUSICAL: Quite the fan, I am

I can’t stand the Bard’s pentameter verse Though Gilbert & Sullivan bothers me worseBut the one writing style for which I’ve no useIs the preening rhymed scheming of one Dr. Seuss The Grinch’s tetrameter is hard to endureParticularly sung and when presented on tourAnd it’s no help at all if you first read the bookYou’ll be […]

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL: Trinity Rep once again comes a’carolling

Charles Dickens’ play A Christmas Carol was so popular in London in 1843, the year the novella on which it was based was released, that there were eight stage productions playing concurrently by Christmas Eve.   His play is popular still if the nearly two million people who have seen the annual holiday classic at Trinity Repertory […]

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