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…
by Macey Levin Ralph Albert Blakelock is one of the least famous artists of the Hudson River School overshadowed by Thomas Cole and Frederic Church amongst others. In 1916, however, his “Brook By Moonlight” (below) was bought for $20,000, the highest price ever paid for a painting by a living…
by Dan Mayer In storytelling, insightful political commentary can sometimes come at the cost of fully realizing the characters as people. In Casa Valentina, playwright Harvey Fierstein manages to do both, delivering a cast of likable human characters with realistic ideological differences. Schenectady Civic Players bring the characters to life…
by Macey Levin David Zellnik’s musical entitled “Yank” about gay soldiers during World War Two ran off-Broadway in 2005; it had several workshops in New York, but no Broadway producer or company took an option to produce it. In 2017 a production in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sent Zellnik to…
