Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 8

In a rare and very welcome bit of programming, the Good Theater has chosen to conclude its seventeenth season not only with a book musical but also with a rarely performed work. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's very first collaboration, Lucky Stiff is a delightful farce, based on a wild Monte Carlo caper, brimming with silliness and bursting with wacky characters.

An afternoon at the Maine State Ballet's production of Cinderella is an opportunity to revel in a lovely fantasy tale told in exquisite choreography. The revival of Prokofiev's ballet with choreography by Linda MacArthur Miele is opulent to look at and offers moments of dazzling dance.

Check out our list of some of the top venues to check out when visiting Maine below, including Maine State Music Theatre, Ogunquit Playhouse, Portland Stage and more!

As a sequel to producing successfully Aaron Posner's Stupid F****ing Bird, South Portland's Mad Horse Theatre company has mounted Posner's take on Chekov's Uncle Vanya, Life Sucks. Filled with colorful characters and some truly witty dialogue, Posner's new play does a fine job of bringing the Russian dramatist's story to life for a contemporary audience. One does not need to know the original to enjoy Life Sucks, but if one is a Chekov fan, the humor, allusions, and twists are all the more delicious and make one realize how truly modern Checkov was.

The popularity of Lucas Hnath's Doll's House Part 2 was underscored by its second production in southern Maine - one which followed on the heels of the first at Portland's Good Theater. That Lewiston's Public Theatre offeres a take on the work that is significantly different from the Portland production demonstrates the complexity and depth of possibilities in the piece.

Biddeford's City Theater rises radiantly to the challenge of producing the infrequently done, butexquisitely beautiful musical, The Light in the Piazza. The Craig Lucas/Adam Guettel work offers a luminous, quasi-operatic, through composed score, and requires a deft and delicate touch to bring the story and characters to life. Director Linda Sturdivant and her excellent company have done just that with restraint, taste, and soaring lyricism.

When Nora Helmer slammed the door behind her 139 years ago, the fallout from her rebellion not only heralded the bold beginnings of modern drama, but they also chartered a future for feminism. Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House has remained a classic of the stage, as fresh, relevant, and provoking as it was in the late 19th century. And because the issues raised then remain ones still to be reckoned with today, Lucas Hnath's 2017 sequel, A Doll's House Part 2,continues to fascinate and audiences. The new production at Portland's Good Theater brings the characters and their crises to life with incisive power.

'It's important to make the child the center of the story,' says playwright and theatre artist Stacey Koloski, whose Letters from the Sky is being performed this week (February 1-8) as part of Portland's STAGES Youth Theater's TYA series. The play, directed by Dana Legawiec, tells the story of a young girl's relationship with a friend from outer space, and explores the issues of understanding each individual's uniqueness. 'The play focuses on how we treat people from other places, people we don't know. Often it is the child who is most able to engage in an authentic and welcoming way. So I wanted to tell the story from the child's perspective and capture the wonder with which children see the world,' explains Koloski.

The Good Theater's winter production of David Javerbaum's 2015 satire, An Act of God, serves up mordent satiric wit that masks the playwright's very thoughtful exploration of some of the most serious existential human questions. In a brisk eighty-three minute, essentially one character dramatic monologue, Javerbaum takes on mythos, religion, tradition, and all the other central pillars of social discourse and gleefully turns them each on its head, replacing answers with questions.

For a week in January Maine State Ballet dancers temporarily put away their toe shoes, take out their tap and jazz footwear and revel in the choreography of Broadway musicals. The program, Tap, Tap, Jazz, which offers eighteen numbers - both solo and ensemble - each choreographed by a company member, showcases the entire company's versatility and talent.

Portland Stage's antidote to the winter doldrums is a new production of Oscar Wilde's incandescent classic of comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest. More than a century after its creation, this quintessential comedy of manners proves a delicious and refreshing confection of perfectly crafted playwriting. For well over two hours Wilde regales his viewers with one bon mots after another, with pithy and poetic, wise and urbane, cynical and silly dialogue that delights with its energy and acuity.

It is the winter doldrums here in North Country, but what better way to combat those blues than to take in an entertaining, moving, or inspiring evening at one of Maine's fine theatre companies? And if not in winter, why not plan ahead by subscribing to some of these companies or buying seats for one of the many exciting upcoming events for 2019? To assist you in your planning, BWW offers these picks of the ten productions and company repertoire to which we look forward most.

Anita Stewart's staging of Dickens' A Christmas Carol has been a beloved fixture on Portland's Christmas scene for quite some time now, and, indeed, despite changing casts, much of its appeal resides in its familiarity to audiences. On the December 23rd matinee, the venerable production got a fresh new uplift in the performance of Dustin Tucker as Scrooge.

In what has become a delightful Portland holiday tradition, the Good Theater presented its annual musical revue, created and directed by Brian P. Allen, starring an incandescent Valerie Perri, together with Daniel Patrick Smith and a fine ensemble of Maine talent. The program, which featured twenty-nine musical theatre classics as well as lesser-known songs of the 1980s, was woven together by Allen with his comprehensive knowledge of the repertoire and his customary wit and performed with relish and commitment by the entire ensemble.

Maine seems to be enjoying a theatrical renaissance with large and small companies vigorously engaged in producing a wide range of repertoire throughout the state. Several of the leading professional theatres have become destinations in and of themselves - (witness the inclusion of Maine State Music Theatre and Ogunquit Playhouse in Scott Andrews' upcoming book, Vacationland) - while venerable community groups continue to raise the bar for their work. I am privileged to get to sample these performances as Broadway World's Maine editor and to be able to compare many of them favorably with shows I see across the country, in New York and London. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2018, grouped by theatre company and show. MAINE STATE MUSIC THEATRE delivered a 60th anniversary season that redefined the meaning and substance of 'gala.'

For the second offering of the Good Theater's ambitious 2018-2019 season and its one hundredth production in the company's existence, Brian P. Allen has mounted the world premiere of a new play by Maine writer Karmo Sanders. Homer Bound is a rollicking, folksy comedy populated by loveable characters and guaranteed to have the audience split its sides with laughter. Directed with panache by Sally Wood and performed by six excellent actors, Homer Bound is a romp from start to finish!

In mounting Bess Welden's new play Refuge Malja, Portland Stage seeks to tell the story of contemporary Syrian war refugees in the context of history, the Holocaust, and personal conflict. Set largely in Greece and the Middle East, it intertwines the story of two journalists, their failed romance, and the struggles they have in coming to terms with past demons and the present suffering they witness. The intersection of these dramas is laden with potential for fine storytelling, but somehow Welden never manages to weave the threads into a coherent tale. Admirable in its intent, Refuge Malja remains a puzzling, under developed theatrical experience.

Dustin Tucker's THE HAUNTING 2.0, presented in the Studio Series at Portland Stage, proves to be a sophisticated and fascinating sequel to last season's inaugural Halloween event. Shaping six horror stories by Maine writers into an imaginative, often chilling dramatic sequence, Tucker's piece explores the psychological dimensions of terror with a combination of visceral fear and dark humor.

Opening its 17th season, the Good Theater's stirring production of Simon Stephens' The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time takes the company to new heights of achievement. In a long roster of excellent work, this brilliant staging stands out as one of the company's finest accom;ishments. Minimalist in its staging, eschewing the bells and whistles of the original London and New York productions, Curious Incident packs a maximum punch with its intense narrative and stunning, star- quality performance of Griffin Carpenter in the central role.

Marking its 45th season Portland Stage opened with Richard Strand's 2014 drama about the Union General Benjamin Butler's unintentional, but heartwarming sheltering of fugitive slaves during his command of Fort Monroe, Virginia, at the start of the Civil War. In a well-cast, elegantly produced staging the company offers a quirky, witty, often whimsical look at four characters who cross ideological swords and skirmish for high stakes not on the battleground but with a war of words, cleverly turned logic, solipsisms, and wittybadinage - all of which result in a remarkable turn of events that defies stereotypes, race, and convention.