by | Jul 7, 2015 1:14 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photos
“I just couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of someone who appeared to be the female forefather of the theater and I got so intrigued by the fact that no one knows the real facts about her … she just seemed to contain so many selves,” said Leora Morris on a recent afternoon, her hands whizzing through the air as she spoke.
Continue reading ‘19th-Century Lady Gaga Takes Over Summer Cab’
by | Jun 26, 2015 11:44 am | Comments (0)
Courtesy Machine de Cirque
“We are going to survive no matter what happens,” crackled a Cronkitean voice to the half-dark of the University Theater, the determined squeal of a radio signal falling silent after several seconds. Cloaked behind two long, dimly lit curtains, a number of silhouettes leaned in, listening for any last, surprise utterances before the world around them quieted completely.
by | Jun 19, 2015 1:06 pm | Comments (2)
“I love making people laugh … in the back of all my hijinks and hilarities, you’re gong to just feel better about yourself,” said Shawn Bodey, sipping his coffee on a recent morning at Cafe Romeo. At his sandaled feet, his dog Soul searched for loose toast crumbs, settling under the table after he had found a few. Bodey pulled down his sunglasses, adjusted his plaid overshirt, and looked up at the sky, an unadulterated shade of New Haven blue with a few cloudy wisps floating past.
by | Jun 19, 2015 12:18 pm | Comments (0)
The International Festival of Arts and iIdeas is intentionally scheduled to provide a smooth transition from the end of the school year into the summer entertainment season. Usually, that just means providing stuff to do during an otherwise lackluster period at the end of June.
But this year, Arts & Ideas is actually providing a seasonal transition as well. Two dance pieces this week — Mark Morris’s Acis and Galatea and a piece by the Ragmala Dance Company (stay tuned for Lucy Gellman’s review) both boasted a spring in their step, ushering in a bright breezy summer.
Continue reading ‘Mark Morris’ “Acis and Galatea” Is Made For Loving’
by | Jun 19, 2015 11:19 am | Comments (0)
Judy Risota Rosenthal Photo
The day after a white supremacist killed nine black people in a Charleston, S.C., church, an actor with Charleston roots brought home the violence facing black Americans for a mostly white audience up north, tossing around the “n” word and raising uncomfortable questions about how we view victims.
by | Jun 18, 2015 3:03 pm | Comments (0)
“Ekos vayonya tst,” recited Klondo the great poet speaking in her native language — er, “Klondo.” Then came the immediate translation into English: “I was so terrified, I thought I was toast.”
The crowd leaned forward on its seats and chuckled. The actors continued, first in Klondo, a totally made up gibberish of a language: “Snya dosn playa.”
The immediate translation followed, also utterly made up: “Mr. Ghost, I’m pleased to meet you.”
by | Jun 17, 2015 3:14 pm | Comments (0)
“I dreamt that I was walking with hundreds of people down LA‑1 towards Grand Isle,” wrote Nick Slie of Louisiana-based music and theater troupe Mondo Bizarro, about the inspiration for Cry You One. “It was the last day we could all live in Southeast Louisiana and we were parading from New Orleans. Everyone I consider an important part of my Louisiana experience was present, all carrying meat and vegetables. When we arrived at the beaches of Grand Isle, the most renowned Louisiana chefs took our food and placed it in the world’s largest gumbo pot as we all walked towards the Gulf. At the water’s edge were hundreds of rafts, each with a famous Louisiana band. We then decided which raft we wanted to leave on, said our goodbyes and off we went, into the Gulf, never to return to Louisiana.”
by | Jun 16, 2015 2:44 pm | Comments (0)
“The spring, the summer, / The childing autumn, angry winter change / Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world, / By their increase, now knows not which is which,” Titania cried, raising her voice to the heavens as a summer –– or was it winter? Or spring? –– storm unfolded around her bared, gleaming shoulders. Lightning cut through the trees; wind moaned as branches crashed to the ground. She was in full control of her element now.
Continue reading ‘At Yale Cabaret, It’s Been Midsummer For Weeks’
by | Jun 14, 2015 11:26 am | Comments (2)
Judy Sirota Rosenthal Photos
Friday’s show (and post-show party) reportedly featured the star bantering with State Sen. Ted Kennedy Jr. about the nature of “anal pussy.” Or so Taylor Mac related in Saturday’s show, where there were even more of-the-moment references: “Darlene Love is playing down the street… and here we are.”
by | Jun 9, 2015 8:18 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
James Jeffrey as Prince Hal and Jamari Linen as Falstaff.
Arguably the most Shakespeare-saturated K‑8 school in the New Haven system is one whose theme is science and technology.
Continue reading ‘Uneasy Lies The Head That Wears A Crown, Dude’
by | Jun 3, 2015 4:54 pm | Comments (0)
Lucy Gellman Photo
Sarah Holdren was in a theatrical pickle. It was midwinter in New Haven, the snow promised to last for at least another four months, and after successfully pitching a program to the Yale Summer Cabaret’s 2015 board, she found herself unsure of how exactly to make one of her old favorites — A Midsummer Night’s Dream — into something new and intrepid.
by | May 22, 2015 1:38 pm | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photo
Wearing a hard hat because the crew was still assembling the set, Sound Resident Lindsay Wagner demonstrated some of the sound design for the Long Wharf’s staging this weekend of The Boy at the Edge of Everything, by Finegan Kruckemeyer. She looked toward the stage, where one crew member was up on a ladder that reached to the high ceiling of Long Wharf’s Stage II, adjusting a light. Another crew member was below him, checking his work.
“Sound!” Wagner called.
by | May 19, 2015 12:23 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
A cult has been identified in New Haven, thus far unknown to authorities. All we know of it is the following: This (above) is its emblem and name, Albean. At their weekly meetings, adherents have been sighted wearing long robes. At initiations the new acolyte strips to the waist — women can retain their bras — and the leader, a 30-something named Tyler, draws three black concentric circles on their naked torsos.
Whenever they speak to each other, on matters as trivial as announcing that a vaginal itch has finally been cured, the exchange concludes with the earnestly whispered words, “With love.”
Continue reading ‘New Haven Theater Company Receives The Words of Albean’
by | May 18, 2015 8:37 am | Comments (0)
T. Charles Erickson Photo
The Second Mrs. Wilson, now playing at Long Wharf Theater through May 31, is both timely and old-fashioned.
In the last few years of its first half-century, the Long Wharf Theater and its artistic director, Gordon Edelstein, have been doing their damnedest to revive a dying dramatic genre — the history play. One-person biodramas will never go away — they’re easy to produce and attractive for celebrities. But ensemble pieces based on true life events? Lavish period pieces reliant on real research? Revisionist histories? They don’t write ‘em like they used to.
by | May 15, 2015 4:12 pm | Comments (0)
Hooker eighth-grader Melissa Cisija was acting out again. Seated against a backdrop of her favorite possessions — a globe, rocking softly to and fro from its stony shelf, an eyeglass, and a fork, formerly known as a dinglehopper — she crossed her arms, shook her head, and glared at the audience before her.
“I just want to belong!,” she exclaimed.
by | May 13, 2015 3:24 pm | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photo
John Fisher, Mia Sinclair Jenness, Gabby Gutierrez, Mabel Tyler, Toni Harp.
“New Haven: Bigger than Los Angeles,” proclaimed Mayor Toni Harp.
Harp made the declaration at the Shubert Wednesday afternoon, explaining how the touring company for the Broadway hit Matilda is following the old-school pattern of opening its show at the New Haven theater before taking it on the road.
While in town, the play is expected to generate about $2 million in overall economic activity for the city, officials said..
“We’re excited from an arts and cultural standpoint,” Harp said. “We’re also excited from a dollars and cents standpoint.”
by | May 11, 2015 1:06 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
Never in her life had Rachel Zwick gone into Home Depot — or any store — to buy a five-sixteenths combo wrench or five-inch floppy disks for sanders.
Continue reading ‘Co-Op Grad Scores Backstage “Matilda” Role’
by | May 6, 2015 1:11 pm | Comments (0)
Carol Rosegg Photo
Alfredo Narciso and Laurel Casillo.
Funny, fun to watch, and perceptive, Sheila Callaghan’s Elevada, directed by Jackson Gray and playing at the Yale Rep through May 16, is a play aimed at the young, but not so young — those who are still looking for fun and for meaningful relationships, those willing to be indulgent, even silly, but trying too for a certain gravitas. Set in a New York of virtual lives, life-threatening disease, recovery from addiction, and trying to connect, it’s a play about adults still trying to figure out what adult means well after college and well before middle age.
by | May 6, 2015 12:10 pm | Comments (0)
Joan Marcus Photo
Emily Zemba thinks her generation takes itself maybe a “little too seriously.” Phillip Howze admits that he has long had “a secret crush on musicals.” And “something clicked” — the spark of a new play — when Ryan Campell read Euripedes.
by | May 4, 2015 8:00 am | Comments (1)
C.A. Nolte Photo
Before he was roasted, Andy Sharpe stepped out of Joker’s Wild Comedy Club on Wooster Street for a cigarette. The interior of the club was dim, amber light filling the space everywhere except for the stage, where the spot light rested on an empty podium. Two rows of armless chairs lined the stage to the left, where the roasters would sit. A wicker chair with cushioned footstool, looking like a castoff from the set of Golden Girls, was positioned between the stage and the roasters’ bleachers. A few people milled about, ordering drinks.
by | Apr 15, 2015 1:59 pm | Comments (2)
DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTO
For Elizardi Castro, doing hard time as a Puerto Rican attorney in America may not have been nearly as challenging as being the only lawyer in a large, Puerto Rican family.
by | Apr 15, 2015 7:14 am | Comments (0)
America’s first black serial killer. A not-quite love song to a favorite purple and mercurial fruit that doubles as a touching and insightful narrative of family relations. A series of unfolding scenes in Clarkston, Washington.
Continue reading ‘Contemporary American Voices Arrive In Elm City’
by | Apr 9, 2015 3:29 pm | Comments (0)
Heather, a young teacher, is tidying up her desk at the end of a long school day when there’s a knock on the door. Corynn, a mother, arrives for her scheduled parent-teacher conference. Seems like a mundane situation.
Except that the 11-year-old boy, the subject of the conference, has recently killed himself.
Continue reading ‘Collective Consciousness Theater Unties “Gidion’s Knot”’
by | Apr 7, 2015 4:30 pm | Comments (0)
brownsville song (b‑side for tray) is a love poem of sorts to a certain way of life in a specific part of Brooklyn. There’s gang violence and drug dealing and less overt adversities, like getting through the school day or not losing your temper with your family. Kimber Lee’s script is earnest and hopeful.
by | Apr 2, 2015 2:54 pm | Comments (0)
Allan Appel Photo
“Every Day Be Sunday By and By,” Boston, White & Smith Co., 1881, from Beinecke’s James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection.
Published in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin almost immediately was adapted for the minstrel show stage. Twenty-five years had to pass for the racial powers-that-be to allow an actual African-American actor, Sam Lucas, to replace the white actor playing Uncle Tom in that eponymous role.
Roll the clock ahead a century or so. A Broadway curtain rises and you see that the white, Jewish Loman family in a 1996 production of Death of a Salesman is all African-American.
Progress?
Continue reading ‘“Casting Shadows” Sheds Light On Race In Theater’