It's Not Just Child's Play

It's Not Just Child's Play

“Doing a lot of adult work and with the heavy themes that are sometimes in that work, it’s nice to just relax into a show. We don’t always need to be thinking about something.” That’s Ines Zeller Bass, co-director of Sandglass Theater....
StageStruck: Four for the Show

StageStruck: Four for the Show

Of the multiple performers I admired this past summer, four stick in my mind because of their multiplicity. Three of them were in multiple productions, and one brought a contrary pair of personalities together in a single one-man show. Coincidentally, perhaps, all...
StageStruck: On the Spectrum

StageStruck: On the Spectrum

Three years ago, Britain’s National Theatre launched an ambitious experiment: high-definition satellite broadcasts of live performances beamed from its home on London’s South Bank to movie screens around the world. One of these was the Amherst Cinema, and...
StageStruck: Brotherly Blood

StageStruck: Brotherly Blood

My review of the Theater Project’s first production of Blood Brothers, back in 1998, has become part of the company’s backstage lore. I didn’t much like the piece, but acknowledged that the rest of the audience absolutely loved it. Since then,...
Stagestruck: Pursuit of Pleasure, and Parity

Stagestruck: Pursuit of Pleasure, and Parity

Two one-person shows at opposite ends of the state, both based on verbatim texts, present opposing takes on the American Dream—one the autobiography of a refugee from the Nazi terror who grabbed the dream, the other reporting from an encampment of refugees...