A brief interview with NY-based Actor/Playwright Daniel Damiano regarding his acclaimed solo play, American Tranquility, coming to the 2019 Capital Fringe Festival. What was the impetus for American Tranquility? The theme of division was the sort of driving force. I was already seeing how divided the country was, specifically as it relates to ageism, immigration […]
Archives for June 2019
Review: Every Brilliant Thing at Studio Theatre
“Give me one reason to stay here,” crooned Tracy Chapman in 1995, “and I’ll turn right back around.” A few years earlier, a 7-year-old named Duncan MacMillan embraced the spirit of this lyric as, in an attempt to pull his mother back from the brink of oblivion, he began keeping a list of the beautiful […]
Fight choreographer Casey Kaleba on prepping actors for whole-cast swordfights in new pirate musical Blackbeard at Signature
Casey Kaleba, of Tooth and Claw Combat Arts, has been a fight choreographer at Signature Theatre for approximately a decade, teaching combat arts for shows from Jelly’s Last Jam to Midwestern Gothic to Road Show to Miss Saigon. “Very often, it’s a simple thing. I’ll come in for a slap or a character has to […]
Energie. How Anthony Bordain sparked Mark Baughman’s latest rock musical on human transformation
Energie grew out of the two events I was thinking about over the last year or so. The first was Anthony Bordain’s suicide, and how he seemed to have touched so many people so deeply. He was unpretentious and had his faults and wrestled with his demons, which he fully acknowledged without apology. On one […]
Review: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Brecht’s warning about fascism at Scena Theatre
Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (trans. George Tabori) presents us with a familiar story: a churlish Chicago mobster slashes and wheedles his way to the top. This time, it’s the top of the city’s cauliflower game. In case that doesn’t ring a bell, Scena Theatre’s production offers up Brecht’s suggested projections, orienting […]
Iphigenia in Splott, a no-holds-barred exposé on life without a ‘safety net’
I was on an airplane, flying back to the States from Heathrow. I had stopped, as is my habit, at the National Theatre Bookstore before heading back, and purchased my weight in playscripts. The first one I decided to read was Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott. The title intrigued me because I knew little of […]
Review: Second City’s America; It’s Complicated. Politics and humor blended masterfully
The new Second City comedy show, America; It’s Complicated, takes aim at liberals, conservatives, and independents, leaving the audience exhausted from laughter while perhaps noodling a few lessons on their way home. Doing what Second City does best, the show mixes sketch comedy, a few songs, improv, and some audience participation to weave together a […]
Velvet Determination, a musical journey about wrong notes, hard knocks, and the keys to success
When I was a twenty-two year old classical piano student, I moved from my home in Colorado to New York City to try and get into graduate school at The Manhattan School of Music. I had already auditioned once but was not accepted. But my Colorado family encouraged me to take a chance and move […]
Review: Superb ‘Prufrock’ is among Chamber Dance Project premieres
The irresistible paradox of T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is its gritty transcendence. It is grounded but out of body, a free-floating passage through a quotidian life with all its tedium and worries (baldness, aging, misunderstanding), as well as its elusive pleasures (flirting, art, peaches). With sad humor, it both acknowledges […]
She trains others for the spotlight. Now Deb Gottesman finds her own in Keegan’s comedy Ripcord.
As co-founder and co-executive director of The Theatre Lab, Deb Gottesman is a well known and respected director and teacher, preparing up-and-coming actors for a life in the theatre. Now, after an absence of nearly 20 years from a professional stage, Gottesman has returned to acting and is starring opposite Claire Schoonover, a graduate of […]
First Look: James F. Bruns’ Fringe show: Caribbean Command
I guess I was “nervous in the service.” But who wasn’t in those fretful days after September 11, 2001? So when the telephone rang just after the Presidential Mobilization Order came out and I saw it was a DOD number, I knew I was being recalled. Ordered to Active Duty for one year. To Headquarters. At the United States […]
GALA Theatre will offer plays, dance and film in 2019-2020
GALA Hispanic Theatre’s 2019-2020 season will feature a beloved classic from the Golden Age of Spanish theater leading into two plays by contemporary writers, interspersed with dance, theater for young audience, films and performance pieces. GALA will initiate its season with Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream, the story of a King […]