Stage
by Gina Beavers | Jun 14, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter, Stage
English guitarist Albert Lee is at the Iron Horse tonight. Lee is known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique. A Grammy winner, Eric Clapton says Lee is “the ultimate virtuoso. His skill is extraordinary, his ear is extraordinary and he’s gifted on just...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 14, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Daily Calendar, Music, Newsletter, Stage
THURSDAY 6/14 MUSIC Albert Lee: 7 p.m. Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St., Northampton. Drop-in Traditional Music Sessions: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. $5 at the door. Friendly traditional music sessions. Moderate swingy pace. Adults and teens of all skill levels...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Newsletter, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
A theater story: For three years in the mid-’70s, Anthony Perkins starred in the long-running Broadway production of Equus, playing the psychiatrist Dr. Dysart (pause for Psycho jokes). Just before one matinee came an announcement: “Anthony Perkins will not be...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 13, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Get Out With Staff Picks, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Pub sing at McNeill’s // Saturday, June 16 There isn’t enough singing in our pubs around here. But McNeill’s in Brattleboro is working to fix that. Led by Tony Barrand and Amanda Witman, the bar is open for sea shanties, work songs, pub songs, and all the rest. Open...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 12, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
If you’re a regular at the NT Live series of high-def broadcasts from the London stage, you’d be forgiven for thinking Rory Kinnear is under exclusive contract to the National Theatre. (He’s not, as you’ll know if you’re also a fan of the recent James Bond films, in...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 11, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Daily Calendar, Film, Music, Newsletter, Stage
MONDAY 6/11 MUSIC Music Mondays Cafe ~ An Evening with Peter Eldridge: 7 p.m. – 8 p.m. $15 adults / $10 students cash at the door. .June Music Mondays Cafe features Peter Eldridge and an evening of piano and vocal pop, jazz, standards and original works. Doors...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 6, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Daily Calendar, Music, Newsletter, Stage
THURSDAY 6/7 MUSIC Albert Castiglia: 7 p.m. Iron Horse Music Hall, 20 Center St., Northampton. Drop-in Traditional Music Sessions: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Friendly traditional music sessions. Moderate swingy pace. Adults and teens of all skill levels welcome – and...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 4, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Two plays now running in Hartford are framed by resistance movements against political and economic oppression, and both carry weighty metaphors. At TheaterWorks through June 23, a lesson in global economics is tucked into a torn-from-the-headlines thriller, and at...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 4, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Celtic band Gaelic Storm is at the Iron Horse tonight. They perform traditional Irish music, Scottish music, and original tunes in both the Celtic and Celtic rock genres. Go Climb A Tree, their most recent album, was released last year. 7 p.m. at the Iron Horse...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 1, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
I’m always excited as the summer-theater season approaches, even though it means I’ll be spending even more of my entertainment hours indoors than during the dark winter. In a brief three months, we theatergoers are treated to a greater variety of fare — not to...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 1, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Music, Newsletter, Stage
Honky Tonk goodness with the Sweetback Sisters hits the Berkshires tonight. Their unique brand of classic country and rockabilly rave-ups is a hootin’ good time. This is real deal musicianship at its best. Catch the show at 7:30 p.m. Hancock Shaker Village,...
by Gina Beavers | Jun 1, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Daily Calendar, Music, Newsletter, Stage
FRIDAY 6/1 MUSIC Bob Stabach 4tet: 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. The Lounge, 4 High St., Brattleboro. Live Music on The Deck Friday & Saturday: 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. The Deck at Union Station has live music all summer long! Friday and Saturday from 6-9pm. Check...
by Chris Rohmann | May 30, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Barrington Stage Company’s summer season launched on Sunday in the troupe’s St. Germain Stage, with a play by its eponym, Mark St. Germain. In her curtain speech, artistic director Julianne Boyd proudly announced that Typhoid Mary is the ninth play of his that...
by Gina Beavers | May 24, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Featured, News, Newsletter, Stage
“A dirty vanilla box” is how Pam Victor lovingly describes the new location of Happier Valley Comedy. The 1,300 square foot room at the end of a strip of shops on Route 9, is the culmination of years of comedic toil. “It’s the first ever improv theater and training...
by Gina Beavers | May 21, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Our illustrious stage connoisseur Chris Rohmann, has recommended a pick of the day, Guys and Dolls at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield. I like all the help I can get, so take it away, Chris: “Guys and Dolls, the “musical fable of Broadway,” is playing...
by Chris Rohmann | May 16, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
“I think she may be the most singular, eccentric individual the Cold War ever birthed.” So says one of the three dozen characters in I Am My Own Wife. He’s talking about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, née Lothar Berfelde, Berlin’s most famous transvestite. In Doug Wright’s...
by Gina Beavers | May 10, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
If you want a little Tennessee Williams with a twist, check out Shoot The Moon Theater Company’s production of The Glass Menagerie, Williams’ signature 1944 stage play. Let’s go over the plot before we get to the good stuff. Domineering Amanda Wingfield, has two adult...
by Gina Beavers | May 4, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Stage
The weekend has begun and you can take your pick of great events happening this weekend. My recommendation? The Tattooed Man Tells All. This solo stage piece was written by Peter Wortsman. Wortsman interviewed Holocaust survivors in the 1970s and distilled them into...
by Gina Beavers | May 1, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Tennessee Williams knew how to create drama. And his Pulitzer Prize winning 1955 masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is the perfect example. Brick, Maggie, Big Daddy and the gang are gathered for Big Daddy’s birthday. Simply put, these people are the worst. Greedy,...
by Gina Beavers | Apr 20, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
If you’ve followed the long strange trip that is Mickey Rourke’s life, The Ballad of Philip Andre will ring a bell. The Legible Bod(ies)’s The Ballad of Philip Andre, is loosely based on the life and career of Mickey Rourke. The troupe will explore...
by Gina Beavers | Apr 18, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Silverthorne Theater Company’s world-premiere production of TarT2f! An Irreverent Musical Comedy, by Jeff Olmsted is directed by the Advocate’s very own Stage Struck columnist, Chris Rohmann. Tart2f is described as a “light-hearted lampoon of...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 18, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
The tattoo From the title, you might think The Tattooed Man Tells All is a memoir of life on the carnival circuit. It’s anything but. This man’s tat is a five-digit number that was etched into his forearm in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Peter Wortsman’s one-man...
by Gina Beavers | Apr 17, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Hawktail, an exciting acoustic group, describes themselves this way: “Haas Kowert Tice brought on mandolinist Dominick Leslie to form Hawktail. Music fans will recognize them from their various other outfits (Punch Brothers, David Rawlings, Crooked Still, A...
by Gina Beavers | Apr 5, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Do you have a story to tell? Do you want to tell it in front of a bunch of people you don’t know? You’re in luck! Season 4 of Valley Voices is the place to do it. Tonight “The Silver Lining” is the theme. Listen to all sorts of stories told in five minutes...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 26, 2018 | Articles, Podcast, Stage
For nearly as long as the Advocate has been around, Chris Rohmann has been writing theater reviews for it. But about a decade ago he got the chance to be on the other side of a production as a director and got hooked. Next month, Rohmann will be directing Tar2f!, a...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 22, 2018 | Articles, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
It might seem like a conflict of interest, but for me, it’s a confluence of interests. You see, in addition to being the Advocate’s theater critic, I’m also a director. I work both sides of the curtain, so to speak. When I’m not sitting in a theater watching actors...
by Gina Beavers | Mar 22, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Smith College wants Emily Dickinson to just shut up already! There’s no better way to describe this show than “Emily Dickinson: poet, recluse, a**hole.” HA!!! And furthermore, this is “a pseudo-historical, quasi-biographical, hysterically existential...
by Gina Beavers | Mar 16, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
It’s the second day of the High Mud Comedy Fest and you’re invited to MASS MoCA to get in on the fun. Headlined by Mike Birbiglia of This American Life, comedians will spend the late afternoon and evening making funny. At 4 p.m. you can take a...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 9, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
The artistic nexus of the 1920s known as the Harlem Renaissance or New Negro Movement is remembered as a great flowering of black talent and a golden age in American cultural history. But at least one of its members, looking at it from the inside, saw it quite...
by Gina Beavers | Mar 9, 2018 | Articles, Newsletter, Stage
Susan B. Anthony, Alexander Graham Bell, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller, Leonard Nimoy, Elizabeth Taylor, Sylvia Plath, Dr. Seuss, Sojourner Truth and Kurt Vonnegut have all impacted the Pioneer Valley in one way or another. Tonight,...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 6, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
That wizard of wise foolery known as Avner the Eccentric is back. Avner Eisenberg is a genius of physical comedy and quick-witted clowning whose whimsical website states that “as a kid his passions were snakes and juggling. He wanted to be a doctor, but after a year...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 3, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
As I wrote in this space last year, “So much of what we see and create seems newly topical and timely” since the rise of Trump. “Everything is now filtered through a horrifying new prism, taking on fresh meaning and urgency.” A striking example of the “Trump Effect”...
by Gina Beavers | Feb 27, 2018 | Articles, Newsletter, Stage
American International College’s Theater Arts Program presents John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt: A Parable. Described as a “brilliant play” that asks many questions but challenges you to find your own answers. Doubt: A...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 27, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
A troupe of high-spirited performers bound onstage and solicit goofy suggestions for characters and situations from the audience. Then they improvise short, snappy scenes based on those prompts. The comedy flows from the incongruities and the improvisers’ quick wits....
by Gina Beavers | Feb 26, 2018 | Articles, Music, Newsletter, Stage
The big band sound never gets old, so if you’re free at 7:30 tonight, check out the stylings of the Jeff Holmes Big Band featuring composer/lyricist Dawning Holmes on vocals. They’re swinging at the 121 Club and it’s free. Holmes has performed with legendary stars...
by Gina Beavers | Feb 23, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
As the mighty Shakespeare (or the Martian) might say, “here’s the rub”: Anthony and Rosemary are two clueless, lovelorn neighbors. Anthony’s father Tony and Rosemary’s mother Aoife are locked in a bitter land feud. Rosemary has been...
by Gina Beavers | Feb 20, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Comedian Kim “Boney” DeShields is funny, except when she’s talking about making people laugh. “It’s an art,” she says matter of factly. “You have to be smart to make people laugh. You have to be well read and knowledgeable about a lot of things. But most of all,...
by Gina Beavers | Feb 16, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage
Nicholas Ryder Quintet at the Bing Arts Center It’s a good night to check in at the Bing Arts Center and warm up with some cool jazz. Nicholas Ryder Quintet will dig into some songbook standards and tunes by the legendary likes of “Long Tall Dexter”...
by Gina Beavers | Feb 16, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Stage
Robin Hood Sherwood Forest never gets old. Since the 15 century, Robin Hood (dressed in Lincoln green) and his lovable merry band have been roving the forest robbing the rich and giving to the poor in swashbuckling heroic style. Throughout film and theater, this...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 13, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
If, like me, you thought the National Theatre’s production of One Man, Two Guv’nors, either on NT Live or Broadway, was the funniest, wittiest farce you’ve ever seen (with Noises Off a close second), chances are you’ll enjoy Young Marx. It’s on this weekend at Amherst...
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 31, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
I grew up on Shakespeare and musicals, so what was I to make of Something Rotten!, the hit musical that mercilessly lampoons both? Love it for its origins or hate it for its irreverence? Having missed it on Broadway, where it earned a double handful of Tony...
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 29, 2018 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
Constellations, playing at TheaterWorks in Hartford through Feb. 18, looks at love and second chances through a prism of reflecting and refracting fun-house mirrors – or more accurately, through a spectrum of infinite chances. Nick Payne’s two-hander isn’t exactly a...
by Chris Rohmann | Jan 24, 2018 | Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
You wouldn’t think a library would be a likely setting for high drama, but here we are with two playing at once. In Hartford, Sharon Washington is telling the story of her girlhood, when she lived, not virtually but literally, in a library. And in West Springfield,...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 26, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
In this time of long-overdue comeuppance for sexual harassment and assault, I approached my annual reckoning of gender equity in theater with fresh eyes. Nationwide, women continue to be devalued and underrepresented in almost all areas of theatrical creation, on and...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 11, 2017 | Articles, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
In this season of holiday entertainments that cater to our appetite for cozy tradition (I’m talking about you, Nutcracker, Messiah, and Christmas Carol), two shows this weekend hit the nostalgia nerve from contrary angles. In the Berkshires, a new play adds a “What...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 7, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
“Bedlam” is an apt moniker for the ever-adventurous theater company going by that name. Their whirlwind adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility recently wowed New York (and comes to Cambridge beginning this weekend – see below). Now they’re back on sort-of...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 30, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Perhaps surprisingly, the Brits do American musicals really well. The National Theatre, in particular, has a long history of reinvigorating Broadway classics. The theater’s extensive relationship with Stephen Sondheim’s works continues with its current hit production...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 27, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble, rooted in the Valley for over two decades, is spreading its limbs. Long the area’s prime site for physical-theater training and performance that explores the reaches of expression through voice and movement, the company has lately...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 14, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Though it harks back more than 100 years, Jack Fry’s Einstein! shuns the usual retrospective approach to solo shows portraying celebrities. This one is both timeless and time-stamped. The title character appears to us “from the beyond,” complaining about the popular...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 8, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Note: An earlier version of this article contained several errors. They have now been corrected. In 1999, Time magazine named its pick for “the song of the century.” That song was “Strange Fruit,” perhaps an odd choice from the songbook of the era that gave birth to...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 5, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
The current world-premiere production at Hartford Stage (through Nov. 12) is “based on a true story,” according to the publicity, which is otherwise unforthcoming about its real-life inspiration. No matter. The premise for Sarah Gancher’s Seder is dramatic enough to...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 1, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
As artists, how can one watch the millions of refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention countries in Africa and Asia, and not want to address this issue? That question provoked the latest handmade production from Sandglass Theater, the world-class...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 30, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
“Once upon a time / There was a boy or a girl / Who ran far away from home …” But this is no fairy tale. Runaways, which opens this week at UMass, is a grown-up musical about homeless children — kids who have fled from home and are living on the street....
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 19, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
The timing was kind of perfect. Last week, just as the U.S. men’s soccer team was being eliminated from qualifying for next year’s World Cup, Hartford’s TheaterWorks was opening The Wolves, an energetic if puzzling play about women’s soccer. Make that girls’ soccer....
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 16, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
In last week’s column I covered a fistful of shows playing in the Valley, and now it’s the Berkshires’ turn. Shakespeare & Company’s God of Carnage recently completed a late-season run, and three quite varied fall productions are now running on other western...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 9, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Stage, Stagestruck
At the end of summer, there’s a pause before the fall season unfolds — or rather, explodes. Suddenly, this weekend and next there’s a bumper crop of shows in an abundance of Valley venues. By my count, no fewer than seven productions are on hand — 21 if you count the...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 3, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
One way to put a big play on a small stage and stay on budget is by having two actors play all the parts. In Silverthorne Theater Company’s current offering, that’s not a cost-cutting shortcut, it’s the key concept. Greater Tuna, playing this weekend and next,...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 20, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
Two plays in the Valley this weekend couldn’t be more different but at the same time so close to the bone of our current national crisis of xenophobia and identity. Building the Wall, in Northampton, is a tense confrontation that touches on today’s headlines and then...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 18, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Newsletter, Stage, Stagestruck
The area’s summer theaters have folded their metaphorical tents for the year, though three of the Berkshire companies are also mounting fall shows. For this critic, it was a Sergio Leone season: good, bad, and occasionally ugly. (An example of the extremes —...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 12, 2017 | Articles, Arts, Stage, Stagestruck
When Robert Freedman tells people about Silent Sky, the play he directs this weekend at the Shea Theater, they often think he’s talking about Hidden Figures, the recent movie about black women mathematicians who worked as “computers” for NASA in the 1960s. But, he...
