by Sierra Pasquale Schenectady Civic Players’ production of In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) approaches Sarah Ruhl’s quietly subversive comedy with clear affection for the text and a strong commitment to its period sensibilities. Set in the late nineteenth century at the dawn of modern gynecology, the play…
by Sierra Pasquale There is something delightfully conspiratorial about The Mystery of Edwin Drood. A show that invites its audience not just to watch but to participate, to judge, to choose, and to revel in theatricality for its own sake. In the hands of SLOC Musical Theater, this production embraces…
Holiday greetings from all of us at Berkshire on Stage! This is your Webmaster (Webmistress??), Gail M. Burns (and my dog, Sylvie). I asked my excellent team of theatre critics to write a little something about their favorite experiences of 2025. I gave them no instructions as to length or…
#1 At the Wedding – Harbinger Theater at the Sand Lake Center for the Arts Bryna Turner’s At the Wedding was the rare production that managed to be laugh-out-loud funny and quietly devastating in the same breath. This staging succeeded because it trusted its audience. Never softening the ache at…
by Sierra Pasquale Having seen the 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls I was not sure what to expect from a stage production (other than being generally familiar with it). I arrived at SLOC Musical Theater with a sense of both excitement and trepidation knowing that the score is unrelenting and…
by Sierra Pasquale “Taming of the Shrew is a hard one”, my companion for the evening noted as we were leaving thetheater and, especially in 2025, I agree. Few works in Shakespeare’s canon provoke as much heatedconversation as this battle-of-the-sexes comedy, whose closing monologue can seem like a ringingendorsement of…
by Sierra Pasquale Having seen “A Bronx Tale” on Broadway where the towering presence of Nick Cordero as Sonny left a lasting impression, I wasn’t sure what to expect from another production, however, the Mac-Haydn Theatre’s 2025 production doesn’t just live up to the original, it finds new life, depth,…
by Sierra Pasquale In At the Wedding, playwright Bryna Turner threads heartache through hilarity with surgical precision, crafting a one-act triumph that dances between raw vulnerability and razor-sharp wit. The latest staging of this bittersweet gem, coproduced by Harbinger Theatre and the Sand Lake Center for the Arts, is a…
