Theater

One trick of great playwriting is crafting a theatre piece that is more than meets the eye. For example, David Auburn’s Proof is a play about math that isn’t about math at all. And Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive is not really about learning how to drive. A similarly great play, Sarah Treem’s The How and the Why, […]

One might expect to see the Rhode Island premiere of a Sarah Ruhl piece at one of the state’s larger, more established venues. Her In The Next Room was a smash at 2nd Story, as was Trinity’s run of her Dead Man’s Cell Phone. However, audiences first experienced the sublime Eurydice at a high school […]

Trinity delivers a timeless yet updated version of the Dickens’ classic   Dickens’ A Christmas Carol often gets updated, contemporized and twisted in myriad of ways. It’s been set in modern times, and it’s also been turned into a musical, a cartoon and a movie starring Muppets. Still, sometimes a production comes along that takes it back […]

For anyone who has ever looked at an abstract expressionist painting and thought, “My kid can do that,” this is the play for you. Red is a window on Mark Rothko, a workman-like painter who had no time for simple expressions and pretty pictures. Only the deepest, most sorrowful feelings would do, and he devoted […]

William Shakespeare’s Richard III, currently playing at Roots Arts and Cultural Center in Providence, demonstrates the evil lengths one person will go to in pursuit of a goal. Presented by The Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater (TRIST), this fast-paced production is chock full of dastardly deeds, double-crosses, and murder in every dark corner.   Directed by […]

Daydream Theatre, fuelled by the always unique creations of playwright Lenny Schwartz, stands alone in the crowded field of Rhode Island independents. Whether presenting bizarre glimpses of post-apocalyptic shopping frenzies or skillfully crafted narrative biographies, Daydream has carved out a niche at the Bell Street Chapel. Free of the shackles of subscriber concerns, audience demographics, […]

J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls opens on a family at a dinner party, coat tails and white bowties in abundance. Everyone is snooty, and often, characters retire to the drawing room. I have no idea what a drawing room is. And unless you were choking on mustard gas in the trenches in the Great War, […]

For anyone who has ever looked at an abstract expressionist painting and thought, “My kid can do that,” this is the play for you. Red is a window on Mark Rothko, a workman-like painter who had no time for simple expressions and pretty pictures. Only the deepest, most sorrowful feelings would do, and he devoted […]