REVIEW: “On the Exhale” at Chester Theatre Company

by Macey Levin   A college professor relates the story of one of her students demanding that she raise his grade.  When she refuses he takes out a gun  and shoots her.  This is a dream after which she takes several non-violent and inconsequential steps to prevent such an event.…

REVIEW: “Tell Me I’m Not Crazy” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

by Barbara Waldinger Gun control, stay-at-home fathers, working mothers, breast feeding,  immigration, fear of “the other,” white rage, forced retirement, a young child acting out, home invasions.  These are only a few of the contemporary hot-button issues raised in Sharon Rothstein’s world premiere comedy, Tell Me I’m Not Crazy, directed…

REVIEW: “Ragtime” at the Mac-Haydn Theatre

by Lisa Jarisch As a former librarian, I  am almost always wont to pronounce “the book was better” or “read the book” when presented with a film or stage adaptation of a printed or published work. And like thousands of readers, I devoured E.L. Doctrow’s best seller of 1975 and…

REVIEW: “Gertrude and Claudius” at Barrington Stage Company

by Barbara Waldinger Gertrude and Claudius, Barrington Stage Company’s newest offering by Mark St. Germain, based on John Updike’s 2000 novel by the same name, might well have been called simply Gertrude, for this is her story.  A prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the play traces thirty years in the life…

REVIEW: “Lucy’s Wedding” Living Room Theatre

by Gail M. Burns “Elderly” folks like me may remember the late Dudley Moore’s classic skit (if you don’t you can watch it HERE) where he plays multiple variations on the Colonel Bogey March and then is unable to end it. He plays coda after coda after coda, but they…

REVIEW: “Working: A Musical” at the Berkshire Theatre Group

by Fred Baumgarten At the risk of stating the extremely obvious: it’s 2019. American goods are manufactured in Mexico, Vietnam, and China. Something called “Democratic Socialists” are making a political stir. The wealth gap continues to grow to obscene proportions. I mention this not to start an argument, but because…

REVIEW” “DIG” at the Dorset Theatre Festival

by Gail M. Burns We are so blessed with the close and productive relationship between playwright Theresa Rebeck and the Dorset Theatre Festival, where she has developed at Dorset more than half a dozen plays, most have which have gone on to productions at other major regional theatres and in…

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