With its dizzying brew of tragedy, comedy, palace intrigue, pastoral tomfoolery, and cameos by a  marauding bear and a living statue, The Winter’s Tale often gives the impression that Shakespeare is taunting earnest theater types from beyond the grave. Though the Bard’s tricky work can often defy adaptation, director Rebecca Taichman meets and exceeds the challenge with her thoughtful, visually stunning adaptation for Shakespeare Theatre Company. [Read more...]

Wallenstein’s director Michael Kahn, poet laureate Robert Pinsky who adapted the original work by Schiller, and lead actor Steve Pickering, all share with the central figure of Wallenstein a sense of enormous vision, purposeful ambition, and potential greatness. Together, they have mounted a much-neglected dramatic classic to speak to today’s audience through this iconic historical character. [Read more...]

Performed with Wallenstein as part of STC’s Hero/Traitor Repertory, Shakespeare’s less-performed Roman tragedy roars to life at the STC. Director David Muse sheaths the tragedy’s notoriously complex text in a muscle-bound character study, and Patrick Page gives a ferocious portrayal of the general-turned-invader as a fanatically uncompromising military man whose only flaw is a refusal to play at something he’s not. [Read more...]

Some actors push their virtuosic energy boldly across the proverbial footlights, as if demanding audience members to listen, all but grabbing them by the throats. Then there are others who hold their energy close in, necessitating any audience member who wishes to understand to draw close and pay very focused attention. [Read more...]

Big things usually start small, so let me begin with an understatement: FELA! is no ordinary Broadway musical. Yes, it’s bigger, brighter, and louder than almost everything else in town. But its heated moral core, bent toward social and political justice, bestows our toe-tapping with a wakening sense of substance and struggle. The show’s fusion of beats and biography packs an inescapable punch, pulling off an ambitious and vivid concept with flying colors. [Read more...]