by Sierra Pasquale There’s blood on the barber’s chair at Fort Salem Theater! Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stephen Sondheim’s darkly thrilling musical masterpiece, slices its way through vengeance, loss, and madness. With haunting, complex melodies and a story as sharp as a straight razor. What drives…
by Jess Hoffman Sand Lake Center for the Arts is currently offering a truly local production: a musical, titled A Fine Family, written and directed by local theater’s own Susan Frost and James Holmes. The play concerns a family, as the title indicates, one that is fraying at the seams…
by Mark G. Auerbach Its a given that Romeo & Juliet is a classic, but Melia Bensussens vision of Shakespeare’s love story brings the classic into the contemporary, and the dynamic staging and choreography and plenty of swordplay are thrilling. The physical production from its angular platform and ramps of the attractive…
by Jeannie Marlin Woods There is a hominess and sense of Southern hospitality and graciousness in the Majestic Theater’snewest offering, WAITRESS. The Broadway hit musical by Jessie Nelson, with music and lyricsby Sara Bareilles, will run from April 17 through June 1. An extremely talented cast and creativeensemble have worked…
by Paula Kaplan-Reiss Typically, I resist reviewing Shakespeare’s plays. I question my understanding and knowledge of the breadth of the Bard’s work to adequately assess a performance. However, I just finished Jodi Picoult’s latest novel, By Any Other Name, which questions whether Shakespeare was the sole playwright of all his…
by Mark G. Auerbach When Primary Trust, Eboni Booth’s triumphant Pulitzer Prize winning drama had its area premiere at Barrington Stage last fall, the buzz was electrifying. The production was a critical and audience hit. Primary Trust won several Berkshire Theatre Critics Awards. Well, TheaterWorks Hartford is mounting its own production, importing “Berkie”…
by Paula Kaplan-Reiss I was excited to see the revised version of Working, a Musical by Studs Terkel and adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso at The Ghent Playhouse. I was part of the audition process and heard some excellent voices. I have a vague memory of seeing a…
by Paula Kaplan-Reiss I love the work of Neil Simon. In the 1970s and 1980s, his plays were ubiquitous on Broadway. 1983 saw the beginning of his semi-autobiographical Eugene trilogy with Brighton Beach Memoirs, followed by Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound. The first of this trilogy, Brighton Beach Memoirs, is…
