If there’s one thing Marquee Theatre Productions didn’t skimp on in its performance of Jesus Christ Superstar, it was production design. Director Roberto Santo Cristo Soares’ lustful production design sets the right tone for themes of power and corruption. There’s rarely a scene with fewer than 10 harlots on stage flaunting their wares to the […]
Even without any foreknowledge of the plot of The Real Thing, we’re tipped off as soon as we walk into the space that Tom Stoppard’s tale will examine lives both onstage and off. Patrick Lynch’s set design incorporates a simple and obvious stroke of symbolism by blending raw, bare scenery into the surroundings, revealing the […]
The darkness that accompanies a scene change in a play forgives many sins. On stage, silhouettes break character and move, settings are rearranged, and costumes changed. In the audience, programs are consulted, stifled coughs are let free, and critics scribble furiously in low light, hoping their witticisms will be legible the next morning. Every so […]
It is reassuring to know that innovative and experimental theatre is alive and well at AS220. In the space formerly known as Perishable Theatre, now The Performance Space at 95 Empire, new ideas are thriving. Audiences who frequented the fresh, new theatre fare at Perishable were concerned that their initiative of supporting experimental, new […]
I recently became an actor at 2nd Story Theater. I did not foresee this happening. For the past three months, I have significantly compromised my academic standing, occupational success and mental wellbeing. I play one of Nurse Ratched’s underlings in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and I sexually abuse a man with a broomstick. […]
My cell phone has been acting up lately. It seems to know exactly how to keep me on my feet, making my life a constant whirlwind of surprises. A Gemini’s dream. “It’s a funeral…chicken, fish, or steak?” was the majority of what I could make out from our conversation. “A What?” I yelled into the […]
Artistic inspiration comes in many forms. For Festival Ballet Providence Artistic Director Mihailo Djuric, the muse for his company’s upcoming production was a series of orchids photographed in various states of decompose. “It’s amazing how drying orchids look like dancers,” notes Djuric. “They even have faces.” Indeed, after viewing several photographs, the imagery becomes remarkably […]
Jonathan Larson’s Rent has become something of a sacred cow in modern musical theater. Its opening in 1996 was almost eclipsed by its author’s death, and Rent cemented its place in the American Musical canon regardless of its objective merits. Easily dismissed as a reboot of Hair, Rent was actually a logical culmination of Larson’s previous, […]
Many Americans have a sense of British history that comes from a smattering of watered down school lessons and reruns of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The Royals are a fetish for some and costume dramas have been dominating the airwaves lately, but for us non-Anglophiles, our grasp of The Tudors is hazy at best. Anne […]
by Mary DeBerry Brown University’s Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies graduate program is at once highly selective and highly intensive. From January 31 to March 2, students in the demanding three-year M.F.A. program have a chance to present their work to the public in the month-long festival. This year marks the fourth annual […]