Brown University’s theater department has launched its new season with By The Way, Meet Vera Stark – a truly brilliant work with some first-rate performances. The subject matter, which deals with racial stereotyping in films, couldn’t be more timely. In the 1930s, African-American maid Vera works for the glamorous actress Gloria Mitchell (Eleonora Saravale). Gloria […]
“If you’ve never seen the world then how would you know?” the titular character says to Emilia in Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief, at Burbage Theatre Company. “Women are clad in purdah, we decent, respectable matrons, from the cradle to the altar to the shroud … bridled with linen, blinded with lace …. […]
Some reviews write themselves, and this is one of them. Wicked has flown into the Providence Performing Arts Center for their season opener, and it is every bit as captivating and magical as you would expect it to be. I knew I would enjoy myself because I am very familiar with this show, I know the […]
Newport Playhouse has opened their season this year with Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite. This charming show is a bit different from the farces I’ve grown accustomed to seeing at the Playhouse, but the switch is welcome as they put on a solidly funny show. Plaza Suite is a bit of a switch for Simon as […]
In Wilbury’s “Fascist Mash-Up” of three plays – although really two plays and an epilogue – director Josh Short deserves praise for conceiving a radical experiment well carried out. Interweaving scenes from The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht and from Party Time by Harold Pinter, the result is surprisingly more palatable than […]
There is so much theater out there that when you come across a show that has that ever lasting endurance, you know you’ve stumbled upon a classic — an iconic play. Wicked is one of those plays. I remember when it first hit Broadway how I desperately wanted tickets (and how they were one of the […]
This continues a series of interviews where Epic artistic director Kevin Broccoli interviews other ADs in the area to create a more in-depth conversation about theater in Rhode Island. This month’s interview is with 2nd Story’s artistic director Ed Shea. Kevin Broccoli: 2nd Story produces theater year-round. Is it difficult not being able to take […]
Einstein and the Polar Bear is an offbeat play filled with eccentric characters in a rural setting. Bill Allenson (Christian O’Brien) is a former author in a home in the quaint hamlet of Spider Lake. He runs a used book shop out of his home, so the living room is crammed wall to wall with […]
Trinity Rep’s production of Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage is a lot more fun than the average high school English class, and there won’t be a quiz afterward. The catchy rock-opera style of the book and lyrics by Jason Craig and music by Dave Malloy is a very modern take on an epic poem […]
When I’m not writing articles for Motif, I can be found in a classroom teaching high school English classes. I feel as passionate about teaching as I do about theater. In fact, it is because of my love of theater that I returned to college to become a teacher at an age where most people […]