by | Mar 4, 2015 4:46 pm | Comments (0)
Before there was Engelbert Humperdinck, the super-lite English pop singer (sort of the Brits’ Wayne Newton), there was the man from whom he took his name, the great German opera composer Engelbert Humperdinck (1854 – 1921).
by | Mar 3, 2015 3:25 pm | Comments (0)
Yale Cabaret
The Yale Cabaret’s most recent feature, The Untitled Project, proposed and directed by Ato Blankson-Wood and devised by the ensemble, is a meditation on being a black man in America. Using a battery of techniques, including straightforward address to the audience, a series of projections from historical and popular sources, interpretive dance, soliloquies, readings, skits, and even a send-up of blackface minstrelsy, the show might be likened to Hamlet’s strategy in trying to outfox the king: “by indirections find direction out.” The “indirections” are the many, many racist distortions of what it “means” to be black; the direction is finding a way to maintain purpose and dignity within a racist context.
by | Mar 3, 2015 1:40 pm | Comments (0)
NHTC
Steve Scarpa.
What is the value of doubt? In directing John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play Doubt: A Parable, the latest offering from New Haven Theater Company, George Kulp finds that keeping uncertainty as part of the creative process is key to the dramatic possibilities of the play.
Continue reading ‘New Haven Theater Company Puts It All In “Doubt”’
by | Feb 26, 2015 2:49 pm | Comments (0)
Yale Cabaret
“When it comes to the physical side of things, you have to know how to hit someone without damaging a kidney.”
“I’m proud of the fact that I got two kids out of my small hole. My boys are awesome.”
So said two of the eight women — including a nun, a dominatrix, a musician, a lawyer, an actress, and someone who worked for Mother Teresa in Calcutta — in Shiny Objects, a show conceived, developed, and performed by Maura Hooper and Zenzi Williams for a Feb. 19 – 21 run at the Yale Cabaret.
by | Feb 25, 2015 9:11 am | Comments (0)
Peter Chenot Photo
Curtiss checks out Dixwell’s Elephant In The Room gym.
Curtiss Cook Jr. has an all-too-familiar story to tell New Haven, one he hopes the city will help him unpack: a story about a young African-American man, full of promise, shot dead in a senseless murder.
Continue reading ‘Eyeing Breakthrough, He Explores City’s “B Side”’
by | Feb 24, 2015 4:01 pm | Comments (26)
Markeshia Ricks Photo
John Cavaliere doesn’t want Lyric Hall to be added to a growing list of places in New Haven that used to be — but a five-figure back-taxes bill threatens to lower the curtain on the Westville cultural gathering place.
Continue reading ‘Historic Westville Theater Faces Foreclosure’
by | Feb 24, 2015 9:37 am | Comments (1)
Contributed Photo
For six years, A Broken Umbrella Theatre has been producing theatrical works that incorporate New Haven history, staged in relevant locations. With Seen Change!, which has its final run of shows Feb. 25 – 28, the local troupe has put together a show that trades upon the history of theater in New Haven, using the Shubert lobby for Act I, the lobby of the Taft next door — where traditionally opening night receptions were held — for Act II, and the stage and orchestra section of the Shubert itself for Act III.
by | Feb 23, 2015 4:05 pm | Comments (1)
Allan Appel Photo
Andreassi with mentee Mychael Green during rehearsal last summer.
James Andreassi, the guiding spirit behind New Haven’s Elm Shakespeare Company, has decided to retire as artistic director. But he has one more round of free summer performances to stage first.
by | Feb 20, 2015 2:34 pm | Comments (0)
The New Haven Firebird Society and Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church are sponsoring a black history theater workshop series for the last two Saturdays in February.
by | Feb 20, 2015 12:44 pm | Comments (0)
Dan Dion/NPR
At The Outer Space music club, everyone had come to hear writer, comedianne, and radio show host Ophira Eisenberg’s comedy.
For her part, Eisenberg was perhaps hoping to have people correctly pronounce her name.
“My name is Ophira Eisenberg, or as I was introduced recently at a party, as Oprah … something Jewish,” she said.
And then there was the hapless fellow she met in a bar, whose inability to understand her name ended, as most bar misunderstandings do, in Nazis: “ ‘Your name is the Fuhrer!?’ Yes. Yes. The Fuhrer Eisenberg.”
Continue reading ‘Ophira Eisenberg Offers Tough Love To NPR Crowd’
by | Feb 18, 2015 5:23 pm | Comments (0)
Christopher Thompson Photo
Ato Blankson-Wood prepares for one -night School of Drag show.
I was raised in a pretty heteronormative household on the East Side of Detroit. My mother, who put herself through college and has had a full-time job since age 21, does not find anything remotely funny about drag. For her, drag is clear-cut, simplistic, and injurious.
by | Feb 16, 2015 4:53 pm | Comments (0)
Tom Breen photo
Bennett Lovett-Graff.
On Thursday night, Bennett Lovett-Graff, George Kulp, and J. Kevin Smith smuggled two epic poems into the Institute Library, disguised as 20th-century American short stories.
The two stories, Harlan Ellison’s “Along the Scenic Route” (1975) and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” (1964), were the featured works in February’s installment of Listen Here!, one of the Chapel Street upstairs haunt’s several now-regular events.
by | Feb 16, 2015 1:51 pm | Comments (1)
Gov. Dannel Malloy may have called for a second-chance society. But the people who make money off the prison system have no interest in second chances. They just want to make money. And nothing will change until that does.
That was the message from the audience at the New Haven Public Library Saturday to Rev. Marilyn B. Kendrix. She was there as co-author of The Justice Imperative: How Hyper-Incarceration Has Hijacked the American Dream, which makes the case for criminal justice reform in Connecticut. The talk was sponsored by the library and the Long Wharf Theatre, in anticipation of brownsville song (b‑side for tray), which will run Mar. 25 to Apr. 19.
Continue reading ‘Can “Second-Chance Society” Compete With Big (Prison) Business?’
by | Feb 13, 2015 3:04 pm | Comments (0)
Long Wharf Theater
For many actors, landing a role at Long Wharf Theater is a feather in their cap, a chance to walk the same stage as Al Pacino, Brian Dennehy, or Kathleen Turner. For Kelly McQuail, who’s making her debut there in the controversial Bad Jews — which opens next week and is apparently almost sold out — it is also a homecoming.
Continue reading ‘“Bad Jews” Lead Credits ECA For Launching Career’
by | Feb 12, 2015 2:38 pm | Comments (0)
Batman, the crime-fighting alter ego of millionaire Bruce Wayne created as a comic strip in 1940, has perhaps never been more iconic after the hip and hyped success of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies. But well before those milestones in the Batman story, and even before Tim Burton’s creepier film versions (let’s forget about Joel Schumacher’s corny travesties), there was Batman, a kids’ TV show of the late 1960s. That show ran for 120 lovably campy episodes and then went to syndication.
Until now. Husband and wife team Tori Keenan-Zelt and Steven Koernig concocted an imaginary Episode 121, titled Catfight, and that “lost episode” was brought to blam! pow! life at the Yale Cabaret, from Feb. 5 to Feb. 7.
by | Feb 11, 2015 2:50 pm | Comments (4)
LWT
Tickets for Bad Jews, which opens at Long Wharf Theater on Feb. 18, have nearly sold out — while sparking five outraged calls, and counting, of protest.
The complaint? That Long Wharf, the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven, and the Jewish Federation of New Haven have the chutzpah to present and support a play that might be “bad” for the Jews.
by | Feb 9, 2015 3:57 pm | Comments (0)
JOAN MARCUS PHOTO
Saidah Arrika Ekulona and Harvy Blanks
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Danai Gurira’s Familiar, given her previous work at the Yale Rep, is how traditional it is. What is not surprising is how enlightening and entertaining it is, too.
by | Feb 2, 2015 1:02 pm | Comments (0)
Joey Moro Photo
Drawing room before the French Revolution. Air raid shelter after World War III.
by | Jan 30, 2015 9:49 am | Comments (2)
Allan Appel Photo
As the national touring company of the latest Broadway production of Matilda forms up for its debut at the Shubert Theatre this spring, the talented second-graders at the Worthington Hooker School on Canner Street made their own contribution, a Matilda spin-off production.
by | Jan 22, 2015 1:06 pm | Comments (0)
Contributed Photo
John Fischer of the Shubert with First Niagara’s Paul McCraven.
Fair Haven second-graders will read about a precocious kid who loves reading and overcomes obstacles in her life, thanks to a grant to a local theater.
by | Jan 22, 2015 9:29 am | Comments (1)
Yale Cabaret Photo
For 50:13, the Yale Cabaret’s first play after winter break, the space was transformed into a fascimile of a prison cell in a tall cage — complete with cot, basin, and toilet — surrounded by chairs and tables. In the play, Jiréh Breon Holder, a second-year playwright in the Yale School of Drama, dramatizes life “inside” for Dae Brown, an inmate who has only three days left to serve.
by | Jan 19, 2015 9:31 am | Comments (0)
Dael Orlandersmith’s back at Long Wharf Stage II, and it feels like she never left. She’s sharing uncomfortable truths, but she’s comfortable here.
by | Jan 12, 2015 1:01 pm | Comments (1)
Tom Toner, left, and Leslie Cass in Long Wharf Theatre’s inaugural production of The Crucible.
Charles Kingsley remembers Long Wharf Theatre’s first production, Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, as being “awfully well done.” The show — and the theater — opened on July 4, 1965.
by | Jan 6, 2015 2:32 pm | Comments (0)
Craig Schwartz Photo
Veteran stage director Neel Keller had never directed a one-actor, close-to-the-bone autobiographical solo show. Until this season.
The result: Dael Orlandersmith’s Forever, debuting at Long Wharf on Wednesday and running until Feb. 1, digs down to the roots of theater. It’s elemental storytelling that connects us all, no matter how different we may be.
by | Dec 16, 2014 4:00 pm | Comments (0)
Yale Cabaret Photo
Full of references to SF movies and cult TV shows, Ryan Campbell’s The Zero Scenario at Yale Cabaret recalls the days of staged rather than CGI special effects, and manages to be exciting, hilarious, and unsettling all at once.