While Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre is more accustomed to hosting repeat visits from tours such as Jersey Boys and The Book of Mormon (both scheduled for this season), on October 15th, Charm City audiences will be the first in the U. S to see the British musical We Will Rock You, the West End phenomenon featuring […]
Archives for September 2013
Slings and Arrows: Season 2:05 “Steeped in Blood”
“All you really have to do is connect. With the other actors. Live moment to moment; that’s exactly how Macbeth is living.” – Geoffrey
She Stoops to Conquer
Story-telling conquers in She Stoops I know what I’m supposed to see in She Stoops to Conquer. The man who wrote the play, Oliver Goldsmith, also wrote an essay arguing that if we couldn’t convince playwrights to quit flirting with the virtues of private life and get back to sneering at its vices, we’d lose […]
A Young Lady of Property
A tense vulnerability rings throughout A Young Lady of Property. It is both draining and riveting, and left me feeling as if I’d relived the million moments from youth when we all struggled to understand where we belonged. As Wilma (Christine Demuth), her Aunt Gertrude (Yvonne Erickson), and her best friend Arabella (Kathryn Zoerb) sing […]
Director Michael Kahn and actor Brandon Uranowitz on Torch Song Trilogy
Trivia question: what Tony Award was Michael Kahn nominated for in 1983? Second trivia question: who was sitting in front of him at the awards ceremony? I’ll reveal the answer to the first question later. The answer to the second question is Harvey Fierstein, who was a somewhat surprising two-time winner that night. His first […]
Hamlet
A career as a stage actor won’t make you a millionaire, but if you’re working with New York’s Bedlam Theatre it’ll definitely save you a gym membership. The amount of exercise that Artistic Director Eric Tucker wrings out of Bedlam’s Hamlet, alongside his three very talented (and equally hard-working) co-stars Andrus Nichols, Ted Lewis, and […]
Nadine Zahr and Sharon Kenny: The Love-Junk Chronicles
Closing out Signature Theatre’s first Autumn Cabaret Festival, Nadine Zahr (understudy for Brother Russia and Side by Side by Sondheim) returned to the intimate Ark Theatre along with fellow NYC-based singer-songwriter Sharon Kenny. The duo – with background vocals from Signature favorite Madeline Botteri – explored Nadine’s serial dating tendencies in Los Angeles and New […]
Agreement reached: Shakespeare Theatre will remain in the Lansburgh
Shakespeare Theatre Company announced late Friday that an agreement has been signed which will allow the theatre company to remain in the Lansburgh Theatre. A long simmering dispute between Shakespeare Theatre Company and its landlord, Lansburgh Theatre, Inc., which erupted into a threatened eviction, has had both parties in court since June, 2012.
For Faction’s biggest Fool, Matthew R. Wilson, all life’s a comedy
Here’s a job that you might not expect to be the sort that will prepare you to run a theatre company later in life: usher. On the other hand, maybe it’s the perfect sort of on-the-job observational training, if you’re lucky enough to work at a theatre housing a production that aligns with your own […]
The Velocity of Autumn
You could fairly hear the crackle of anticipation on opening night at Arena Stage when the lights went up on Estelle Parsons. She sat asleep in a chair and there she slept – until the audience tittered with delight at such an audacious beginning. Behind her a middle-aged man struggled up a tree and climbed […]
Vaclav Havel tribute performances start this weekend
Václav Havel is well known for having been a political dissident, but he was also a well-regarded playwright in his time. His writings were banned by the Communists in the ’70s and he became leader of the revolution that drove them out of power. In 1993, he was elected president of the newly independent Czech […]
Saint Joan
The voices in Joan of Arc’s head guide her on a journey into parts unknown, winning hearts and minds to her cause. The cast of Saint Joan are living a similar life these days, having wandered far from New York into Olney, Maryland (not exactly parts unknown, but close). And the multitude of voices from […]