Wilbury Theatre’s recent epic production of Blasted showed us what confrontational and controversial theater in Rhode Island can be like. To move from a tale of dystopian cannibalistic sexual assault and mayhem to a fairly well-known gem in the musical theater canon may seem like an absurd leap, but Cabaret is not light fare and, […]
The Cool Collective Presents an Exciting Multi-Media Experience The Cool Collective from the Resources for Human Development-Rhode Island (RHD-RI) presents an original play, Pizza World for one weekend only on Friday, June 6 at 7pm and Saturday, June 7 at 2pm at 95 Empire Street, Providence. An exciting, multi-media presentation, in development since last September, […]
Satirical Comedy Comes to the Artist’s Exchange There truly is a wonderful gaggle of talented actors in Rhode Island. And they’re not just at the “professional” venues; they are everywhere. Orson’s Shadow, by Austin Pendleton, is currently playing at the Artists’ Exchange on Rolfe Street in Cranston and it provides a vehicle to showcase the […]
Morality is personal, not political; this is, to a large extent, the theme of White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, a theatrical experiment written by Nassim Soleimanpour. Because the playwright is an Iranian who is not allowed to travel outside of his country, he is unable to participate in performances and therefore has written his play to […]
Celebrated filmmaker Roman Polanski has endured horror and suffering in his lifetime. A Holocaust survivor who made a life for himself in America, Polanski was victimized again as his wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered by the Manson family in 1969. He persevered, channeled his anguish through his work and continued on to become one […]
How many of us would take the opportunity to escape our humdrum lives for something more exciting? That’s the situation faced by Becky (Margaret Melozzi) in Becky’s New Car, which debuted on May 2 and runs until June 1 at Warren’s 2nd Story Theater. Becky works as a title clerk for an auto dealer. She […]
2nd Story Theatre has unleashed Sylvia, a witty farce from playwright A.R. Gurney. The show opened in previews on April 24 and runs through May 18. Greg, played by 2nd Story’s artistic director Ed Shea, is married to Kate (Sharon Carpentier), an English teacher. They live in a posh New York City apartment. Their children […]
There’s no business like show business, as the old adage goes. When a glamorous diva takes a fall, a beautiful up and comer has to step in and save the show in 42nd Street. Warwick’s Ocean State Theatre Company dusted off the classic Broadway musical for a three-week run (April 23 through May 18). The […]
Decades before playwright Caryl Churchill in her dotage earned a notorious reputation as arguably the most virulent anti-Semite active in mainstream British theater, her plays, despite the heavy baggage of Marxist Brechtian dialectical conventions, were plausibly entertaining. Indeed, like “Saturday Night Live,” her best and funniest work was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, […]
In 1914, absinthe was officially banned in France, ending an era (albeit a short one) and creating a legend surrounding the milky green liquid that supposedly fostered creativity, hallucinations and madness. The only true part of that legend, of course, was the fact that the spirit was erroneously made illegal in many countries for about […]