Stage
Stagestruck: One-Pitch Wonder
In baseball parlance, having “a cup of coffee” refers to a player who is called up from the minors for a brief stint with the major-league team – staying just long enough to have a figurative cuppa. Stan Freeman’s The Pitch is about a fictional ballplayer who barely...
Stagestruck: Plain Jane
Jane Eyre may be the most-adapted of 19th-century English novels, and that’s saying something, in a field shared with Austen and Dickens. The Wikipedia entry for Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 gothic masterpiece lists over 50 film, radio and TV versions, together with dozens...
Stagestruck: Facts & Fancies
In these fake-news days, when fiction rules the cybersphere and truth is called a lie (and vice versa), the lifespan of a fact can be the length of a tweet (if it’s not stillborn). The play now running at TheaterWorks in Hartford (through March 8) can’t help but be...
Stagestruck: Peter Pan, Meet Lizzie Borden
Two of the shows coming up on three Five College stages this week and next are family-friendly journeys into Neverland’s backstory. The other is a rock musical about a sensational axe murder. First up is Finding Neverland, the musical based on the 2004 film. It was...
Stagestruck: The Shape of Silence
In 1981, Ota Shogo had a vision: “A broken faucet center stage. A thin line of water from the spout. The sound of water. A variety of people come by, approach, touch the water, and pass on. In this composition, silence breathes as living human time, not as form.” From...
Stagestruck: Filling in the Blank
Brian Stanton, an aspiring actor, is doing a class exercise based on Oedipus Rex, and he freezes. The story of the Greek king who’s tragically ignorant of his real parents strikes too close to home. Brian, like Oedipus, was adopted, and like Oedipus he’s both eager...
Stagestruck: Stand Tall, Mi Gente!
The name of the Performance Project’s youth program, First Generation, comes from its entrance requirement. All the participants identify as being a “first” in their family – the first to grow up in this country, to graduate high school or go to college, to be...
Love Letter to a Nightmare
“I secretly believe that I am a goddess with very brief moments of incarnation,” Jennifer Johnson declares, robed in a long white shift, a pair of ram’s horns set on her head. She’s portraying – or perhaps channeling – Leonora Carrington, the free-spirited...
Stagestruck on the Road: Witches in Berkeley
With all the talk of “witch hunts” flying around these days, it probably wasn’t quite a coincidence that two shows I saw recently in Berkeley, Calif., are on that very topic. Not the trumped-up political kind of witch hunt, though, but real ones born of historical...
Stagestruck: Theater in Motion
You’d think things would slow down after the hectic holidays, but no. The Cratchits are still picking at the Christmas leftovers and the Sugar Plum Fairy has barely taken off her toe shoes, when January blows onstage full of New Year promise. This month I’m looking...
Stagestruck: The Equity Equation
Every year in this column I make an equity survey of area theaters – not Equity the actors’ union, but the representation of women and people of color. And every year the outlook, once deeply depressing, gets a little better. Of the 45 full productions I saw this year...
Stagestruck: History Lessons – Recalling the past to inform the present
The past, as they say, is prologue. We look back to ground our present and see ahead more clearly. And in these murky times, that’s more necessary than ever. At least, that’s the impression I drew from the sheer number of shows I saw this year that have their roots in...
Stagestruck: Holiday Stages, Part Two – Potpourri
Last week I previewed some area productions of those holiday stalwarts A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker. But it’s not all ghosts and sugarplums this Yuletide. Here are some alternatives for your seasonal theatergoing, tracking north to south, then making a curve...
Stagestruck: Holiday Stages, Part One – Evergreens
Charles Dickens’ classic tale of the mean old miser who gets the Scrooge scared out of him by midnight spirits is likely the second-most often retold Christmas story, after the one about Jesus. The Russian fairy tale about the little girl and the nutcracker is...
Stagestruck: Eye of the Storm
Nilaja Sun is, quite simply, the most exciting solo performer I’ve ever seen. She’s a small, wiry woman whose expansive presence fills a stage. Drawing on an astonishing talent for physical and vocal mimicry, her pieces are fully formed plays that bring to life a...
Stagestruck: Campus Cornucopia
This weekend and next, Valley colleges present a fall cornucopia of performances – a culture clash at Amherst, a gamer fantasy at Mount Holyoke, and the Valley premiere of a national dance piece at Smith. First up is Peace in the Home, this Thursday to Saturday...
Stagestruck: Assassination Rituals
Sometimes, in your darkest fantasies, when you’re struggling to process the latest outrage from this trumped-up president — you might just entertain visions of the regicides that feature in two Valley productions. One of them is about presidential assassins, the other...
Stagestruck: Women in the Lead
Three productions by women-led theaters are playing in the Valley this weekend, and another opens in the Berkshires. They echo themes around gender – from activities women aren’t “supposed” to engage in, to a trans transition, to young men of color in the...
Stagestruck: Live from London, in Amherst
National Theatre Live began its eleventh season this month and the Amherst Cinema has been there from the start, screening live-capture HD broadcasts from the London stage. First up is a transgressive, immersive Shakespeare (Oct. 19 & 30). That’s followed by...
Stagestruck: Forced to the Border
Two Latinx plays in the area revolve around themes of dislocation — displaced neighborhoods, populations, and minds. Quixote Nuevo, at Hartford Stage, transplants Cervantes’ demented knight errant to a Texas border town, and Not for Sale, in Holyoke, puts the gente in...
Stagestruck: Badass Women
These days it seems you can’t put on a play without your publicity assuring the public it’s going to be funny – no matter what play it is. (“Hamlet, a timeless tragedy with doses of wacky humor.”) So it might be a little suspect to report that Silverthorne Theater...
Stagestruck: On the Border, and Beyond
Two shows coming to this area have Mexican echoes. One is a children’s-story allegory of the current border crisis, the other a Mexican dramedy with an international range. Ropes, by Bárbara Colio, has been performed extensively in Spanish-speaking countries,...
Stagestruck: Summer Snapshots
Thinking back over the summer theater season just ended, images from memorable shows are passing before my mind’s eye, and ear — from striking moments in performances to sets and soundscapes. Here are some Valley snapshots. Chester Theatre Company celebrated its 30th...
Stagestruck: Dancing While Black
It wasn’t intentional, but thinking back on the programs I’ve seen at Jacob’s Pillow this summer, and forward to one that’s on this week, I realized that every concert on my dance card this year is by African-American-led companies. Unintentional, perhaps, but not...
Stagestruck: In Company with Shakespeare + a truly Bazaar production
Shakespeare & Company’s name has threefold associations. It’s a theater that works in the company, as it were, of its eponym. It shares the name of the legendary bookshop on Paris’s Left Bank, lending an air of bohemian audacity and camaraderie to the enterprise...
Stagestruck: Curve of the Season
Summertime is winding down, and so is the Valley’s theater season – but not quite yet. Chester Theatre Company opens its final show this week (see below), Double Edge Theatre continues the month-long run of its perambulating epic I Am the Baron (reviewed here), and...
Stagestruck: Child’s Plays
Both of the longstanding children’s theaters that enliven the Valley’s summer schedule tickle the funnybone while feeding the imagination, but they go about it in quite different ways. Tom McCabe’s PaintBox Theatre specializes in twisted takes on treasured tales, with...
Stagestruck: Getting Sticky
In the final week of this year’s Ko Festival of Performance, Sabrina Hamilton is looking forward to this weekend’s performance by the Ugandan musician-humanitarian Samite (see below) while musing on the season-so-far. Attendance is high and season subscriptions are...
Stagestruck: Ripped from the Headlines
Three plays now on area stages were inspired by real-life events: a superpower scrimmage, a mass shooting, and a nuclear disaster. These timely dramas humanize the headlines and highlight the power of theater to hold a mirror up to our best and worst natures. ...
Stagestruck: All the Livelong Eons
Two shows now playing on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge stages look at who we are as humans. One goes up close to delve into folks’ working lives, the other takes a long view – very long, from the dawn of time to the day after tomorrow. Working, subtitled...
Stagestruck: Past, Present and Prologue
Two timely dramas are playing in the Valley this week and next, while a timeless tragedy is prequelled in the Berkshires, all of them grappling with essential questions of life and death. New Century Theatre’s comeback season, which opened with a riveting performance...
Stagestruck: The Shrew Problem
The Taming of the Shrew is Shakespeare’s trickiest play to perform these days – a thoroughly misogynistic tale in which daughters are auctioned to the highest bidder and the “shrew” of the title is “tamed” by a cunning fortune hunter. He (of course, he) is Petruchio,...
Stagestruck: Total Immersion
It’s summer, folks, time to get off our butts and take some exercise. A little stroll, perhaps, to enjoy the scenery – and a play. That’s the current invitation from two hilltown theaters. Double Edge Theatre presents a brand-new Summer Spectacle on its Ashfield farm,...
Stagestruck: “Culture is my food!”
This year’s through-theme at the Ko Festival of Performance, is Habitat (human) – a topic that also runs through two more current Valley offerings: How I Learned to Drive, from Ghost Light Theater in Holyoke, and Moving Water, a work in progress at Serious Play...
Stagestruck: Out of the Shadows
“Who knew?” is the question in the air these days at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. For example: Who knew that many of the great Duke Ellington’s compositions were written by someone else? And who knew that the pious religious community known as Shakers had...
Stagestruck: Dreams Deferred
More than any other summer theater festival in these parts, Williamstown thrives on stars. For the theater it’s a sure-fire audience and income generator, but for the stars it’s an opportunity. Here they can dig into roles they might not otherwise be offered, and...
Stagestruck: Upstarts – A brand-new theater and a newly minted king
Last weekend, Strident Theatre strode confidently onto the Valley stage. The brand-new company debuted at Smith College with The Final Say, a dramedy by local playwright Meryl Cohn. According to founder Susanna Apgar, who co-directs the show with Shakespeare &...
Stagestruck Abroad: The National Theatre, London
When I was in England recently, I saw two shows at the country’s flagship playhouse, the National Theatre. One is a new play, the other a timely revival, both of them responding to current hot topics. Small Island, the premiere, reflects the crisis of...
Stagestruck: Ghosts on Summer Stages
The best thing about summer theater in this region is its variety. Last weekend, for instance, I saw an Irish drama, an American musical and a world premiere. The premiere, at Barrington Stage Company, is a metaphor within a satire that becomes an indictment. America...
Stagestruck Abroad: The Bard
When I was in London this month, I saw two Shakespeare plays. No, make that two and a half: the Bard’s most popular comedy, one of his least performed, and a new play in which he’s a character – and a plagiarist. Just a stroll along Thameside from the National...
Stagestruck Abroad: Norway
One of the first things I noticed about Norway when I was there earlier this month – along with the brisk air, the clean streets, and the tall blondes (and taller blonds) striding along those streets – was the 19 hours of daylight. Not quite “midnight sun,” but it...
Stagestruck: Grand Openings – Summer theaters busting out all over
The summer season has been slowly gaining momentum, and this week it explodes, with 10 shows in the Valley and Berkshires opening or already up and running. Among these are a pair of classic musicals, two uncommon love stories set in Ireland, a satirical look at...
Stagestruck: Hot Topics – Summer theaters reflect the times
Hamlet, we recall, reminded the players visiting Elsinore that the theater’s job is to reflect “the very age and body of the time.” Times being what they are, it’s no surprise that quite a number of shows this summer do just that. The schedule in the Valley and...
Stagestruck: Classics Revisited – Masterpieces coming to summer stages
In a season studded with world premieres (five at Williamstown Theatre Festival alone and three at Barrington Stage Company, for example), I’m equally struck by some of the revivals coming up in the Valley and Berkshires this summer. I don’t mean chestnuts from the...
Stagestruck: The Flamingo Kid cruises into Hartford
I missed The Flamingo Kid when the Garry Marshall movie came out in 1984, but I recently caught up with it. It’s a coming-of-age story that takes place in the summer of 1963, the era of Marshall’s TV series Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Although it was...
Stagestruck: Summer Theater Preview – New & Different
I’m looking at my summer theater calendar and counting over 60 productions due up over the next three lively months in the Valley and beyond. Some dozen world premieres, along with even more regional premieres, stand alongside classics from Ibsen to Albee, not to...
Stagestruck on Broadway: Family Squabbles – the Clintons and the Lears
Two plays now on Broadway for limited runs, a world classic and a world premiere, revolve around fractured families whose dynastic dreams turn sour. One involves the ambitious daughters of an English king, the other the ambitious wife of a former U.S. president....
Stagestruck: Pre-Season Previews – Summer begins, spring continues
There’s usually a bit of a lull between the end of one theater season and the start of the next – the spring pause before the summer rush. But the pause keeps getting briefer and the seasons are starting to overlap. Take this week, when three Berkshire theaters open...
Stagestruck: Scully, Scandal, and Buckets of Blood – National Theatre Live in Amherst
Two revisioned classics, a brand-new political drama, and some audience favorites are on tap in the Amherst Cinema’s series of broadcasts from the London stage via National Theatre Live. First up, this Saturday and again on the 14th, is Shakespeare’s most lyrical...
Stagestruck: Liaisons, both neighborly and dangerous, at the Bushnell
When the twin towers crumpled on September 11, 2001, American airspace was closed for fear of further attacks and all U.S.-bound flights were diverted to other airports. One of these was Gander International, i n Newfoundland, where 38 airliners landed, carrying...
Stagestruck: Around the World in 80 Minutes
Jules Verne’s 1873 novel/travelogue, Around the World in 80 Days, is best remembered these days from its movie versions, including Disney’s in 2004 and the Oscar-winning three-hour blockbuster from 1956, both of them teeming with exotic multitudes and spectacular...
Stagestruck: The Dollar Princess – WAM Theatre premieres “Lady Randy”
Anne Undeland, the playwright and star of Lady Randy, says she wanted to find a 19th-century woman to build a one-person show around. “It soon became clear that if I wanted name recognition, I had to find a woman who was associated with a famous man. Dammit!” She...
Stagestruck: Community Colleges Get in on the Act
I often write in these pages about theater at the Five Colleges, all of which have robust degree programs and busy production seasons. But I don’t pay as much attention to the Valley’s other academic theaters as they deserve, and I’m going to partially correct that...
Stagestruck: Angles and Aliens — Three productions take a slanted view of our world
These are precarious days, observes Peter Schumann, founder and director of Bread & Puppet Theater. The social order, the democratic contract and the earth itself are tottering from unprecedented stresses. Bread & Puppet’s Diagonal Life: Theory and Praxis,...
Stagestruck: Shakespearean Trifecta
It’s the Bard’s birthday next week, and three shows on area stages are celebrating it. (Shakespeare’s actual birthdate is unknown, but it was sometime around April 23, 1564, and since he died on April 23, 1616, that symmetry has become traditional.) This weekend and...
Stagestruck: ‘Death of a Salesman’ and ‘The Tattooed Man Tells All’
Two plays coming to area campuses this week and next have starkly different, but equally pessimistic takes on life and death. Death of a Salesman, at Springfield College, finds tragedy in an ordinary life, while The Tattooed Man Tells All, at Smith College, draws...
Stagestruck: New Kid on the Block
There’s a new theater company in the Valley, with a kick-ass name and no less a purpose than helping to “undo established hierarchical structures and their attendant damage.” It’s called Strident Theatre, and its vociferous founder is actor/director/playwright Susanna...
Stagestruck: Imperfect “Nonsense”
My brother is the world’s biggest P.G. Wodehouse fan. Well, maybe not the biggest — he’s got legions of competitors for that title — but big enough to have come up from his home in New Jersey to accompany me to the American premiere of a new Wodehouse-derived play....
Stagestruck: 25 Years on the Edge
In 1994, Stacy Klein moved her adventurous company, Double Edge Theatre, from Boston to a former dairy farm in rural Ashfield, and started milking the Muse. A quarter-century later, the 100-acre spread is home to a resident company of artists and a hub of visceral,...E-Edition
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