AR Gurney’s play, Sylvia, has been around for just about as long as I’ve been a self-proclaimed theater geek. And I’ve never read or watched the play. What took me so long? Well I’ll first admit (and please don’t go reporting me to ASPCA), I’m not really a dog person. Don’t get me wrong — […]
A touch of the familiar is always welcome, especially when an institution like The Gamm opens its doors in a new city with an entity as unfamiliar to most audiences as Tennessee Williams’ The Night of The Iguana. The sprawling, operatic epic, (which was recently staged at American Repertory Theater, to mixed reviews) is […]
Watch on the Rhine, written in 1941 by Lillian Hellman (and winner of the New York Drama Critic’ Circle Award in the same year) is a perfect combination of drama, old-fashioned comedy and historical storytelling. The audience is seated in an intimate and well-to-do living room. Pillows and blankets are in the seats so you […]
Ira Levin’s Deathtrap boasts the title of longest running comedy-thriller on Broadway. Granted, there are only a handful of works that fall into such an oxymoronic category, so perhaps this isn’t as impressive an accomplishment as it may sound. It’s not difficult to imagine why so few plays like this exist; it’s a genre that […]
Led by founder and creative director Lynne Collinson, the new women-forward theaterecollaborative WomensWork is off to a strong start with their inaugural production of Susan Miller’s autobiographical drama My Left Breast, playing to sold-out houses this weekend, Oct 12-13, 2018. WomensWork’s October limited run of My Left Breast marks the new group’s foray into […]
Mixed Magic Theatre takes on a substantial challenge in dramatizing the two most well-known short stories by Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat” and “The Gilded Six-Bits.” Characterized by subtle word play, idiomatic dialect, puns and heavy-handed biblical allusions, Hurston’s fiction has generally not translated well to the stage. Mixed Magic wisely inserts Hurston as a character, […]
Epic Theatre continues its season, themed “Conviction,” by tackling one of the ultimate tests of conviction. Stephen Alby Guirgis’s 2011 play, Motherfucker with the Hat, tackles a challenge of addiction that is less often discussed but perhaps the most difficult: preventing a relapse. After the intense season opener, We Are Proud to Present…, this is […]
One day in high school, I sat in an assembly where some earnest actors tried to show us how “edgy” Shakespeare was. I remember thinking the whole thing was pointless, since by then, we all knew that Shakespeare was filled with sex, violence and murder. The REAL challenge – or so I thought – would […]
I had the recent opportunity to speak with Trinity Rep’s conversationalist-in-residence, Christina Bevilacqua. Our conversation follows: Alison O’Donnell: What does a conversationalist-in-residence do, and what brought you to play that role at Trinity Rep? Christina Bevilacqua: I kind of made up the title! In the 11 years I spent producing humanities-based conversations at the Providence Athenaeum […]
My heart soars when I see a show that feels important. Word of mouth is the best marketing any show can get and sometimes a show leaves me not just feeling like I want to tell people about it, but rather to demand they see it due to its power. The Father, a play originally […]