by Barbara Waldinger During the question and answer session that concludes his solo production, George Gershwin Alone, Hershey Felder was asked by an audience member at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Colonial Theatre why he did not choose to be a concert pianist.  His response was that in performing his nine distinctive…

by Roseann Cane The first musical written by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Oklahoma! opened on Broadway on March 31,1943. An box-office smash from the get-go, it ran for more than 2,000 performances. During the nearly 76 years since, it’s a fair bet that this deservedly…

by Fred Baumgarten Comedy, arguably one of the two greatest human gifts – the other being music – is a timeless art. Picture an arrow pointed on two sides, flying through spacetime, picking up a Greek comedy here, a courtly farce there, a Gilbert and Sullivan here, a Seinfeld there,…

by Barbara Waldinger Does anyone remember Tubal?  Aside from Shylock, he’s the only Jewish character in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; in fact, they are the only two Jews in the entire Shakespeare canon. In 1998 Gareth Armstrong, British actor and playwright, wrote and began performing his solo play, Shylock,…

by Barbara Waldinger   A musical about fracking?  Is it doomed to share the fate suffered by entertainments on such unlikely subjects as Anne Frank or Anna Karenina, the Musicals:  obscurity and a critical chorus of “What could they have been thinking?” Decidedly not! Fall Springs by Niko Tsakalakos (music…

by Roseann Cane   I lived in Manhattan for many years, and, particularly downtown and in other neighborhoods heavily populated with tourists, fast-talking young men enticing naive people to bet on a game of three-card monte were a familiar sight. Standing behind makeshift tables made of a few crates and…

by Macey Levin   Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is the first successful show written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice; it was followed by smash hits Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.  First produced in England in 1974 it had its initial Off-Broadway showing in 1981 and then…

by Roseann Cane Information about the HAM4HAM Lottery   Yes: it’s every bit as good as you’ve heard.   There are many reasons why Hamilton has exceeded the ticket sales, awards, and critical acclaim of every previous Broadway show. It is unlike any musical that preceded it, combining a glorious…