Karen Bovard - Page 6

Hartford's a good city for a production of David Lindsay-Abaire's play GOOD PEOPLE, which centers on questions of class in America: how is it that some people get out of the 'hood' and get ahead while others who work plenty hard don't?

Plays about brainy and complex women are way too scarce. Sarah Treem-known for her work on cable shows like THE AFFAIR, IN TREATMENT, and HOUSE OF CARDS-has given us a new one which provides two great roles, plenty of emotional punch, some terrific lines, and lots to think about.

Director Darko Tresnjak, who won big with A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER on Broadway last season, has masterminded another Broadway-style musical confection with his new production of KISS ME KATE at the Hartford Stage Company.

The current production of GUYS AND DOLLS at Goodspeed is infectious, fast, and smart. It does Frank Loesser's topnotch score justice, nailing the balance between vocalists and the pit orchestra, letting us enjoy both the witty lyrics and memorable tunes of so many of the best songs ever written for musical theater.

Impassioned and topical, David Robson's new play at TheaterWorks in Hartford offers a gripping confrontation between two men: one a former football legend, the other a generation younger.

Historically accurate, THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE at Hartford Stage Company is genuinely uplifting due to the tremendous virtuosity of Mona Golabek, the sole performer. This is especially true as she uses the piano to tell a story that matters deeply to her: her own mother's life.

Yale Rep's production of Bertolt Brecht's classic CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE is very faithful to his intentions as a politically motivated playwright and theorist.

BAND OF THE BLACK HAND is a stage mashup of film noir tropes (both visual and story based), interpreted with the aid of clever shadow screen work derived from Indonesian puppetry roots.

Outrageous, bawdy, and pointed: LYSISTRATA may be one of the oldest comedies we have (written in 411 B.C.E. by the great Greek troublemaker Aristophanes) but it remains both wickedly funny and pertinent. He wrote it 20 years into a bloody war that seemed endless. His premise? Have women conspire to withhold sex from their men until they can't take it any more and agree to a peace treaty.

Loneliness in the big city takes center stage in Matthew Lopez' new play at Hartford Stage Company.

Order. Decorum. Control. In A.R. Gurney's play, these are the values celebrated in the ritual of formal dinner parties of yore. We glimpse the barest beginning of one in the final, elegiac moments of his first widely successful play.

She's a Broadway dancer who's sustained a devastating injury and may never dance again. He's a brilliant but autistic professor with an extreme aversion to touch. What brings them together? He's got to learn enough dance moves to survive an upcoming gala where he's the honoree.