by | Nov 11, 2016 9:30 am | Comments (1)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Lesiga.
Nina Lesiga remembers when she realized that the chicken she was eating for Sunday dinner — a little tough and chewy, come to think of it — was in fact Vanya, once her grandmother’s favorite black-and-yellow plumed, softly cooing pet.
Thanks to a growing story-sharing initiative at the Institute Library, New Haveners now do too .
by | Nov 8, 2016 11:00 am | Comments (0)
Poster for the film.
A new New Haven-based film, I Am Shakespeare (The Henry Green Story), not yet in its premiere phase, is slated to be screened at a Nov. 19 fundraiser.
The audience will not only get to see the film and participate in a talk-back with the film’s subject, Henry Green, and director, Stephen Dest; it will also be contributing to an exciting light installation project in New Haven by world-renowned artist Sheila Levrant de Bretteville.
by | Oct 27, 2016 8:15 am | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Rawling.
Standing in the middle of Lyric Hall’s intimate stage, soprano Zohra Rawling was having a perfectly normal Thursday afternoon conjuring spirits, her voice reaching the rafters and pushing upward to the roof. Oooo oooo ooo ooooooohhhoo, she sang, the first of three puppets appearing before her with neat, ruby red lips and a bone-white face. Ooooooo oooo, she continued. A few backstage cobwebs dissolved with the vocals.
Right on cue, stilt-walker-cum-ghost Allison McDermott teetered behind Rawling, waving her arms to the music. Another puppet appeared, and an opera got underway.
by | Oct 20, 2016 4:56 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Jafferis and student.
In a quiet upstairs room at Long Wharf Theater, a group of students were getting Thanksgiving preparations underway, bowing their heads as they began a sort of prayer-cum-beatboxing. Aaron Jafferis, Hanifa Washington and Angela Clinton made chewing noises in 4/4 time. At Aleta Staton’s direction, they were riding that rhythm as hard as they could.
by | Oct 19, 2016 4:17 pm | Comments (0)
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the prince’s advice to the players suggests that “the purpose of playing” is “to hold the mirror up to nature,” but we might wonder exactly what “nature” means there. Does it include political matters? Or something more essential?
Today, most of us — audiences, artists, critics — are aware that our “nature” is almost inextricably fused with our politics. Therein lies the purpose behind the arch and suggestive comedy of Sarah Ruhl’s Scenes from Court Life, or the whipping boy and his prince, now in its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Mark Wing-Davey.
Continue reading ‘In “Scenes Of Court Life,” There’s No Escaping History’
by | Oct 14, 2016 8:15 am | Comments (0)
Elizabeth Green Photos
The cast-mid fight: Crowe-Legacy, Jamison, Kuo, Udom and Wainiqolo.
Just moments after a woman has screamed from the pain of childbirth, fists are flying. Limbs are lunging. On one end of the room, a grandmother emerges from her dreary shuffle to restrain the pregnant woman, one elbow cutting across her neck as the other swings back, ready to move into action. Just feet away, a father and son wrestle each other to the floor, alternating swings as they rotate around each other, grudging and violent planets in paternal orbit. Their bodies, seething with anger and distrust, fill the space.
Somehow, everything operates at a whisper. The whoosh of labored breath is the only guaranteed sound. They, these weary and wary fighters, know what we in the audience are still learning: If the woman screams again, it could cause an avalanche to come crashing down on their home, and their village.
by | Oct 11, 2016 12:20 pm | Comments (2)
T. Charles Erickson Photo
Myrin and Brown.
Fans of comic actor, playwright, and humorist Steve Martin will no doubt find something to like in his latest play, now at the Long Wharf after a successful run at the Old Globe in San Diego. Meteor Shower, directed by Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein, bases its appeal on Martin’s celebrated gift for the non sequitur. There are jibes at the pretensions and insecurities of married couples, moments of uncanny or absurdist humor, ironically erotic scenes, actual pyrotechnics, and gestures toward an all’s‑well-that-ends-well faith in normalcy.
Martin’s approach works when it works, but viewers might find themselves wondering what purpose this walk on the mild side serves, beyond fitful amusement.
by | Sep 28, 2016 8:14 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Fledgling director Smith and his stage manager, Megan Chenot
Earlier this year, as Donald Trump’s steamroller victories in the primaries were gathering an unstoppable head of steam, New Haven Theater Company actor J. Kevin Smith happened to catch a televised version of one of the canon’s most famous plays about the paralyzing fear and inaction that can result from a perceived all-encompassing political powerlessness.
by | Sep 9, 2016 8:19 am | Comments (0)
Courtesy Long Wharf Theatre
Miller, Mississippi, the new play by Boo Killabrew that opens Long Wharf Theatre’s second annual Contemporary American Voices festival this Friday evening, comes with a lot of baggage.
Two years before Killabrew even thought about bringing a work to New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, she had a problem.
by | Aug 30, 2016 10:16 am | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Onstage, Bertha Kahn recalls a childhood spent in Nazi Germany.
A kiss that convinces you the kisser will be your partner for life.
Your Bronx public school third-grade teacher’s very first words: “Open the windows. I can’t stand the smell here. You Jews, don’t you bathe?”
And this obituary notice recommendation for the fall of 2016: “In lieu of flowers, please don’t vote for Trump.”
by | Aug 25, 2016 12:01 pm | Comments (0)
Mike Franzman Photo
Anthony Peeples as Demetrius, Stephanie Jean Lane as Helena, Anna Paratore as Hermia, and Evan Gambardella as Puck.
Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of William Shakespare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — now playing in Edgerton Park until Sept. 4 — begins with yipping, barking, and marching, the first signs of a war between Greek soldiers and Amazon warriors that breaks out all over the set. That is, until the combatants freeze, comically, mid-swing, mid-yelp, almost mid-fall, so that an announcer can stride onstage to say the usual thanks and tell audience members to turn their cell phones off.
When she departs, the battle continues, just long enough for veterans of the play to realize that this is the battle in which Theseus (Dave Demke), now ruler of Athens, bests the Amazon Hippolyta (Tai Verley) in combat and then plans to make her his wife.
Both the noisy battle (which isn’t in the script) and its absurd interruption are a sign to the audience that this won’t be an entirely straightforward production of Midsummer. Some liberties, some chances, will be taken. Some interesting choices will be made. Will they pan out?
Continue reading ‘Elm Shakespeare Makes “Midsummer” A Dangerous Caper’
by | Aug 17, 2016 12:37 pm | Comments (0)
Mike Franzman Photo
Stephanie Jean Lane as Helena, Anthony Peeples as Demetrius, and Steven Godoy as Lysander.
“Can you shriek, please, when he touches you on the head?”
“Your ‘eeeeeeik’ has got to be higher when he gooses you.”
“Can you roll the ‘r” in ‘Rude, hard-handed men?”
And “if you don’t have an urgency to your speaking, we are not urgent, as an audience. You’ve got to need to say it.”
by | Aug 9, 2016 8:30 am | Comments (0)
Alessandro Rumie Photos
Powderly as Hippolytus and Stahlman as Phaedra.
By the time Hippolytus (Niall Powderly) has wiped two snot and semen-coated fingers on a questionably clean sock, settled into a bed-cum-bathtub filled with trash, adjusted his Burger King crown, and pulled a supersized bag of Skittles to his chest, one thing has become abundantly clear. This is probably not the prince — or the royal family that grudgingly orbits him — with whom you became familiar somewhere between Classics 101 and a seminar on French theater.
Nope. Definitely not. This Hippolytus sneezes, pinches and rubs his unwashed genitals, finds another sock, sniffles, eats more Skittles. Doesn’t wash his hands for any of it. From the wings, there’s the faint, earthy hum of French playwright Racine turning in his grave, Seneca and the Stoics not far behind him.
by | Jul 6, 2016 7:49 am | Comments (1)
Christopher Thompson Photos
Roy (Marie Botha).
Three-fourths of the way into Antarctica! Which Is To Say Nowhere at the Yale Summer Cabaret, a decked-out Rena (Ricardo Dávila, in drag) explains to the audience what she perceives as the American way. One, she declares, weaving through the theater with her head cocked high: You have the über-wealthy one percent, who are so afraid of losing their footing with rising taxes that they force those below them to work harder, then harder still, without a reasonable rise in pay or social stature.
Two: there’s a shrinking middle class, working their asses off for the aforementioned über-wealthy.
Three: There are the poor, who can work and work but never quite rise above their circumstances because the system is so deeply rigged against them.
by | Jun 27, 2016 7:24 am | Comments (0)
As New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) Maestro William Boughton drew the first airy strains of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from the symphony, a flick of his fingers catching in the light, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye that he hadn’t seen before when running through the piece.
At center stage, another maestro had appeared, scanning the stage for possible boxes and crates on which to balance before a swelling, giggling audience. Already there had been a contortionist, pretzeling herself high above the stage, a great wheel in which a figure spun and balanced wildly. Perhaps, Boughton and the symphony had thought, that was enough excitement for the evening. But there he stood, arms outstretched, feet sure, as he began a series of balances that had the audience — if not also the musicians — at the edge of its seats.
by | Jun 23, 2016 7:19 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Keshisheva Photo
Annalise Lawson and Annie Hägg.
The cherry orchard must sit at stage right, tucked back into a corner. Across from it, Nina Zarechnaya can daydream on the damp grass beside a lake, where the moon flickers and she falls into bouts of deep thought. Moscow University will remain offstage. A birch grove will hang from the rafters; a hospital around center stage. A headstone, marked by brown bread and slowly-evaporating vodka, close to the audience. And the railroad must skirt the edges of town, hugging just one side of it like a locomotive bookend.
by | Jun 23, 2016 7:00 am | Comments (0)
Courtesy Arts & Ideas
If someone handed you a sum of money — no strings attached — what would you do with it? You might know right away. But what if you had to get a group of other people to agree on how the money should be spent? Would you argue for a certain beneficiary? Would you let others call the shots? Would it depend on how much money?
by | Jun 17, 2016 7:01 am | Comments (0)
Courtesy Steel Hammer
Berryman in Steel Hammer.
Truth: John Henry was a steel-driving man. He was a cotton-picking man. He was jailed for no good reason. He worked every single day he had on this earth. He was 22 when he died. He was 35 when he died. He was 50 when he died, and weighed 220 pounds. 225 pounds. Over 300 pounds. His wife was Polly Ann. Mary Ann. Julie Ann. Sary Ann. Sally Ann.
There were many versions of him, one more powerful than the next, and all of them have some degree of truth.
by | Jun 14, 2016 3:02 pm | Comments (0)
Dressed in a form-fitting Annie Shirt and dark jeans, DJ Bucciarelli took 168 York Street Cafe‘s courtyard-turned-stage as Jack, flashing a devious grin at the audience before bringing the mic to his mouth.
The wee hours of Sunday morning had just commenced, and he had a serous message for the bar’s packed house, there to hear a selection from GRINDR: The Opera — An Unauthorized Parody.
by | Jun 13, 2016 7:57 am | Comments (0)
Manuel Harlan Photos
The cast.
When the lights come up on the U.S. premiere of Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, on at the Yale Repertory Theatre through June 25 as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, it’s not exactly clear when the play’s promised raucousness is going to kick in.
Hands clasp. Starched skirts are straightened one final time. Ironed blouses glow bone-white from the stage. The first notes of Felix Mendelssohn’s “Lift Thine Eyes,” sung in seamless harmony, float out across the audience. A pin could drop in the pregnant silence between verses.
by | Jun 10, 2016 9:50 am | Comments (1)
Gianni as Gianni; Ghee as Lola.
As the actors at New Haven’s latest Broadway touring show left the stage, two stories of self-discovery emerged on a deep red splash of carpet inside the Shubert Theater’s capacious auditorium.
One, a tale of sexual identity and revelation from a senior at Co-Op High School, came quickly, words spinning it into being before an audience.
The other, an unfolding narrative of clandestine drag performances and a father’s hesitant acceptance, revealed itself slowly in short, polite sentences and laughter-tinged personal anecdote from an actor who had just left the stage.
by | Jun 2, 2016 7:17 am | Comments (2)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Luis Dejesus, Heather Bazinet, and Allison Hardy as Edna, Velma and Motormouth in Hairspray.
At the Halo Awards, celebrating the best in Connecticut’s high school theater, Wilbur Cross High School received 14 nominations for its March production of the loud, brash, socially charged, and subversively smart musical Hairspray — and took home two awards.
by | May 20, 2016 7:01 am | Comments (0)
What’s your favorite sin? Or, to put it another way, what’s the sin you find hardest to resist?
This year’s Yale Summer Cabaret team — Elizabeth Dinkova and Jesse Rasmussen, co-artistic directors, and Emily Reeder, producing director — has enlisted all seven deadly sins in the Summer Cab’s schedule.
by | May 13, 2016 7:20 am | Comments (0)
T. Charles Erickson Photo
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is hunched over a table in a dirty cabaret when he discovers absinthe. It comes to him in the form of a dancer. She is borne aloft by several men so effortlessly, and her own movements are so fluid, that she appears to be half-flying, half-swimming through the air, bathed in green light. The music, born of the bal musette but reaching all the way to the present day, swells and swoons.
When Toulouse-Lautrec succumbs, so do we.
by | May 9, 2016 7:11 am | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Kimbro.
Taking in the sounds of Dr. Caterwaul’s Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps and Arms & Voices as a mist began to fall over Whalley Avenue, pint-sized Westvillian Ava Kimbro and her mom Marjorie made a decision: stick it out, at least until Ava could get a big, blooming flower painted on her face. After all, this was their third Westville Artwalk, and they weren’t going to be that easily deterred. They inched toward the front of the line, where face artist Lauren Wilson was hard at work with her palettes, brushes, and stencils.
Continue reading ‘Despite Drizzle, Artwalk Spreads Spring Cheer’