As the house lights dimmed on a nearly sold-out crowd of 3,000 at the Providence Performing Arts Center on January 29, the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, silhouetted in silence on stage, anticipated the arrival of singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov at the foreground. Under a shadow cast by a backlight stepped Isakov, with his solitary croon […]
Not since Oscar and Felix – or Laverne and Shirley – have we cackled so hard at the antics of mismatched roommates bumbling through life. Somehow the Trinity Repertory Company team knew what we needed this season, staging a show that delivers a one-hour-and-40-minute laughfest that cleanses the heaviness of winter and the news cycle […]
Harold, a spoiled young man, experiments with destructive ways of destroying himself in order to get the attention of his self-obsessed, affluent mother. Maude is peacefully wise, an old but youthfully vibrant, offbeat octogenarian who befriends him. What could possibly go wrong?! Colin Higgins’ screenplay has us falling in love with these opposites as they […]
There’s a curious vigilance that falls over a room where a story is told without words. Not the absence of sound, but an intimacy, a heightened awareness of breath, glance, gesture. In Small Mouth Sounds, currently playing at Wilbury Theatre Group, this hush becomes the heartbeat of the production. Director Tanya Martin compassionately captures playwright […]
In Sleepwalker, a one-man show created and performed by Andy Russ and stage managed by Ollie Crowe, at the Wilbury Theatre Group in Providence, an open-air cell claims center stage. Absent walls except for a floor panel, the metallic frame of the cube suggests an imprisonment while allowing for permeability. Its bars segment the blankness […]
Picture this: grief and laughter, absurdity and tenderness coexisting cohesively. Not easy to do, yet Burbage Theatre Company’s production of The Memory of Water adeptly captures this ephemeral equilibrium. Under the expert direction of Lynne Collinson, this revival of Shelagh Stephenson’s reflective comedy lands with a bittersweet bang — funny, fractured, and full of feeling. […]
Ricardo and Bernadet Pitts-Wiley of the Mixed Magic Theatre in Pawtucket have been married for 48 years, and have been colleagues in the theatre space for 26. Over the last few years, I’ve noticed how there are so many Black trauma narratives and painful histories being told in different forms of Black art. It’s almost […]
The Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading is returning for its 31st consecutive year, to begin black history month. The annual free event will celebrate the powerful work of poet Langston Hughes with community poetry readings as well as live jazz music by Emmanuel Escobar and Avi David, as well as a presentation by guest speaker […]
The Providence Performing Arts Center presents Suffs, the new Tony Award-winning musical that boldly explores the triumphs and failures of a struggle for equality that’s far from over. Starring and written by Shaina Taub, Suffs transforms the story of the suffragists into a kinetic, heart-thudding pageant of ambition, frustration, and moral courage. It’s a historic […]
Slapstick comedy, overly dramatized characters, and a Byzantine maze of a set buoy a comedic stage production that evolved from the popular murder mystery board game “Clue.” On a Broadway tour stop at the Providence Performing Arts Center, the show drew heavily on the 1985 black comedy film featuring a brilliant ensemble cast that included […]