by Macey Levin Neil Simon, now 91 years old, is one of the premier comic playwrights of the American theatre. The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, California Suite, Last of the red Hot Lovers, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Sunshine Boys, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound, and more……
by Gail M. Burns Back in the early 1980’s a couple of musician friends dressed up in mechanics overalls, billed themselves as the Pump Boys, and performed songs they’d written for their characters. This promptly got them fired from their gig playing country tunes in a New York City cowboy…
by Barbara Waldinger Wilted spinach salad with warm bacon dressing; seared wild salmon with a Bengali onion chutney; seared asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper; gnocchi, pork belly sliders, scallops. . . This is not a restaurant menu but rather a gustatory appreciation of Theresa Rebeck’s Seared at Williamstown…
by Macey Levin There was woman, born to a Jewish father and Catholic mother in Warsaw, Poland, in 1898. In Petrograd Russia, she married a wealthy Polish lawyer who was arrested in the midst of the Russian Revolution in 1917. After he was freed they journeyed with their infant daughter…
It’s late July and the theatre scene is hopping! None of our regular Berkshire On Stage critics was able to fit a trip to the Mac-Haydn to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame into their schedule, but luckily Lisa Jarisch, a longtime subscriber to the Mac, agreed to share her…
by Macey Levin The first Chinese woman to arrive in America was Afong Moy in 1834; she was 14 years old. Her father sent her here after receiving a payment from the Carne brothers who exhibited her in the Pearle Museum in New York City. Afong Moy is the protagonist…
by Barbara Waldinger In a recent interview with the Times Union, Nicole Ricciardi, director of Shakespeare & Company’s current production of Creditors, describes the play as “one ninety-minute song.” Despite the fact that there is no music, Ricciardi and her consummate cast devote themselves to “following the rhythm” in Strindberg’s…
by Roseann Cane The only way to truly understand the impact of a crisis is to put a face on it, to humanize it, to make it accessible on a feeling level. We may read about current events, but as ghastly as it is to read about families being torn…
