by Gail M. Burns, February 2008 When Julianne Boyd announced in December that Barrington Stage would be presenting Trumbo in February, I had a “wait, wait, don’t tell me” moment. “What’s a Trumbo?” my date for the evening whispered. Dalton Trumbo. I knew that name, but why? “He was a writer…I think.”…
by Gail M. Burns, December 2007 Without Gail Nelson and Billie Holiday there would be no Barrington Stage. In the summer of 1995 Julianne Boyd, following her stint as the artistic director of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, announced she was starting her own company and her first production would be Lady…
by Deborah E. Burns, October 2007 All that jazz! Take two gifted songwriters; three sensuous ladies; two suave tenors; and five superb musicians. Mix them up on Barrington Stage Company’s Mainstage under the deft direction of Julianne Boyd. Add some spirits: a little champagne, some Chicago bootleg whiskey, and a…
by Gail M. Burns, August 2007 One of the trickiest things about being a theatre critic is having to review different productions of the same play in close succession, particularly if the first one you see really moves you. I was clear in my review of the Hubbard Hall production…
by Gail M. Burns, July 2007 What do you get when you put a young British sculptor, his ditsy blonde fiancée, his sultry brunette mistress, the blonde’s spit-and-polish military father, two neighbors – a flamboyantly gay antiques dealer and a tee totaling spinster – a deaf multi-millionaire art dealer, and…
by Gail M. Burns, July 2007 Calvin Berger is the Brady Bunch of musical comedy. I was twelve when Brady Bunch first came on the air. In real life I am a year young than Maureen McCormick (Marcia) and a year older than Eve Plumb (Jan). While I was never fooled into thinking the show…
by Gail M. Burns, May 2007 I cannot tell you how many times I have repeated the title of this show to people. “What is it called?” they would ask me. And no matter how carefully I enunciated the answer, the next question out of many people’s mouths was “Who’s…
by Gail M. Burns, February 2007 Barrington Stage is serving up the perfect theatrical diversion for these cold and dreary February days – an hilarious and well-done staging of Becky Mode’s Fully Committed – a one-man show about a hopelessly harried reservations clerk at an impossibly chic Manhattan restaurant. Mode is credited…
