Stagestruck: The Italian (Dis)Connection

Stagestruck: The Italian (Dis)Connection

For many people, opera is the highest and noblest form of theater—high-flown drama married to ravishing music sung by glorious voices, lifting it to a higher plane than mere spoken dialogue or opera’s downmarket cousin, the musical. But I’ve never...
Elder Rites

Elder Rites

This week sees the culmination of an adventurous three-week process led by the French choreographer Thierry Thieû Niang. A co-presentation of MIFA Victory Theatre and Vermont Performance Lab, du Printemps reimagines the once-scandalous Rite of Spring,...
Making Way for the New

Making Way for the New

When the play Skyscraper hits the stage this week, it offers one intriguing resonance with reality, and it offers an equally intriguing take on the financial model of putting on shows and paying participants. The play focuses on the lives of six people (two of them...
Unhidden Harmony

Unhidden Harmony

“We’re trying to get the most visual bang for the smallest spatial buck,” says Alan Schneider, one of the artists behind PanOpera. He’s standing beside a tall, narrow steel scaffold which serves as the multipurpose set for the group’s...
Live on Screen

Live on Screen

This season, as Britain’s National Theatre marks its 50th anniversary, the company also celebrates the fifth year of NT Live, its series of performances satellite-beamed from its London stage and other U.K. venues. What started in fall 2009 as a risky experiment...