Entertainment
Holiday Shows for Kids Have (Mostly) Moved Past Scrooge
In addition to the usual perennial holiday fare, December shows repurpose classic tales for all ages. BY EMMA HALPERN For both mainstream theatres and theatres for young audiences (TYA), the December holidays are a time to engage with classic stories, holiday-themed or otherwise. “Grown-up” theatre offerings this season include Shakespeare in Love and Lauren Gunderson’s Pride and Prejudice sequel Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, and theatres for young audiences are offering a range of takes on well-known titles as well. From faithful revivals to fresh adaptations to the retelling of local histories, TYA companies are programming shows that resonate both with the adults who know the material well and the kids who’ll be encountering it for the first time. “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grin...
Voting Open For The 2017 BroadwayWorld Regional Awards
via www.broadwayworld.com Voting is now open for the 2017 BroadwayWorld Regional Awards all over the world! This year the BroadwayWorld Regional Awards are taking place in a record number of markets – including 56 cities across the United States; with our awards taking place globally in a record-breaking 11 countries, including multiple Canadian cities! Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2016 through September 30, 2017. Our local editors have set the categories, the readers nominated their favorites, and now YOU get to vote for your favorites! Following voting ending on December 31st, the voting will be audited for duplicates and ineligible submissions. The awards winners will be announced in early Janu...
After 60 Years, This Musical Is Getting a Revival
Harlem Repertory Theatre presents Jamaica as part of its Yip Harburg series Most theatre artists can point to the show that served as their gateway drug. For Broadway performer turned Harlem Repertory Theatre artistic director Keith Lee Grant, it was Finian’s Rainbow. “You know that first thing you do in high school? I never forgot it,” he says about appearing in the musical. “I’m African-American and from the South Side of Chicago. When I was 13, the theatre group did Finian’s Rainbow with an all-black cast! That was the beginning of my love for Yip Harburg.” TDF Stages Home
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Announces 2018 Season
BY AMERICAN THEATRE EDITORS ASHLAND, ORE.: Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) has announced its 2018 season, featuring 11 productions running in repertory at its 3 performance venues. The Angus Bowmer Theatre season will open with Shakespeare’s Othello (Feb.-Oct. 2018), directed by Rauch. Next will be Sense and Sensibility (Feb.-Oct. 2018), adapted by Kate Hamill from Jane Austen, about the three Dashwood sisters who relocate to a cottage in Devonshire after their father’s death. Hana S. Sharif will direct. Following will be Destiny of Desire (Feb.-July 2018), by Karen Zacarías, a comedy about two girls who were secretly switched at birth one stormy night in Mexico. José Luis Valenzuela will direct. The season will continue with Oklahoma! (April-Oct. 2018), with music by Richard Rodgers and...
Entertainment
International City Theatre Announces 2018 Season LONG BEACH, CALIF: International City Theatre has announced its 2018 season, featuring five works. The season will start with Daddy Long Legs (Feb. 23-March 11, 2018), with book by John Caird and music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, a chamber musical about the correspondence between an orphaned girl and her mysterious benefactor.
Poetry in Motion: August Wilson, Sonia Sanchez Inspire Two New Musicals
BY DARA MCBRIDE In UniSon, a new musical by Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s resident ensemble Universes, a young apprentice is left with a box of poetry from an old mentor. That’s a bit how the show itself developed—except that the box of poetry at its genesis was filled with the words of playwright August Wilson. Back in 1995, Universes cofounder Steven Sapp unexpectedly heard Wilson read his poetry at a gathering in Pittsburgh. “When I actually heard this man, who I only knew as a playwright, reading poetry, I thought, ‘Wait a minute—he’s a real poet,’” Sapp recalled. In fact, Wilson had begun with poetry before taking on theatre. In the 1960s, he joined the Centre Avenue Poets Theater Workshop in Pittsburgh and went on to cofound Black Horizon Theater with poets from Centre Avenue. When W...
Institute of Outdoor Theater
Learn About the IOT’s New Relationship With SETC
2 Ring Circus Has Gotten Its Act Together and Taken It on the Road
The members of 2 Ring Circus have gone a few threats beyond triple: They sing, act, dance, and play instruments, all while performing circus acts. And they’re lending their many talents to theatrical productions far afield from their home base in New York City. They’re currently in Arkansas working on a circus version of Godspell which runs June 2-25 at Arkansas Rep. The company’s artistic director, Joshua Dean, first fell in love with circus work by accident. Cast in a show in Chicago that required him to learn some tricks, he loved the training. Back in New York City, Dean focused on musical theatre, but his circus side kept nagging at him. “Eventually I kind of stopped doing musical theatre and went full-fledged into circus,” he recalls, coaxing his partner, Ben Franklin, to do the same...
Bigfork Summer Playhouse
Rising college-age stars perform in popular Broadway musicals at this summer stock theater. Address: 526 Electric Ave, Bigfork, MT 59911 Phone: (406) 837-4886
The Line in the Sand: How ‘Sneetches’ Spoke to a Divisive Moment
A girl of maybe 12 or 13 years old pushes through the doors into the theatre and stops in her tracks, looking at the world on stage: fuzzy purple grass, a raked stage covered in painted sand, a lifeguard chair with a ladder so curved it looks like it could topple at any moment. This is where the Star Belly Beachwatcher (Dean Holt) will sit, a Sneetch with the job of keeping the Star Bellies and the Plain Bellies separate. How does he do this? By watching the big, fat, stark red line right down the middle of Sneetch Beach. “Dad—lookit!” the girl effuses, her eyes gone wide. She’s ready to dive headfirst into the world of The Sneetches. Read More
Cooling Down: How Actors Unwind After Taxing Performances
Most actors methodically warm up for emotionally draining performances. But what do they do to recoup reality? BY JONATHAN MANDELL Every night I had to kill myself,” declares actor Daniel N. Durant with an exasperated shrug. Durant made his Broadway debut in the recent revival of Spring Awakening as Moritz, a young man who commits suicide in a climactic moment. It wasn’t easy. “Most of my day was spent getting into character, and then I had to go through those emotions every night,” Durant recounts. After the performance, most of his night was spent trying to reverse the process: “I played video games to get out of it. My favorite was Call of Duty, a high-energy game that I confess I’m addicted to.” Austin P. McKenzie, Durant’s castmate in the musical, portrayed Moritz’s close friend, Melc...
What Does ‘Foxes’ Say?
Cynthia Nixon and Laura Linney Find Out Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon have been doing this a while, but they still get excited about rehearsing. For one thing, it reminds them why they keep coming back to the theatre from their regular sojourns in other media. “It’s so much fun being in that rehearsal room with Dan,” Linney says of director Daniel Sullivan, who’s helming them in Manhattan Theatre Club’s (MTC) new Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. Nixon has another word for it: “It’s juicy,” she adds. .
