Larisa Mount - Page 6

Closing out the 2012-2013 season at PlayMakers Repertory Company is the world premeire of Spring Training, a commissioned work by UNIVERSES, as a part of their prc2 line-up. UNIVERSES is a group of performers who create original work using a blend of performance styles, including vocal percussion, spoken poetry, music, and prose (and much more) to create dynamic new theater. Spring Training was inspired by Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and deals with coming of age in America.

The cast is truly an ensemble, but as Algernon Moncrieff, Gus Allen anchors the play with poise and consistency. Though the British accents aren't perfect, the actors seem to enjoy their work, and that translates to the audience. Though written over 100 years ago, the acting and directing prove that Wilde's work is still comically relevant and makes an entirely enjoyable evening of theater.

Burning Coal Theatre Company's ambitious production of Ruined tells of the lives of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amid a conflict which has no clearly defined 'good guys,' the women have little reprieve from the violence and well-established culture of sexual abuse. In a world where children are handed automatic weapons, no one is safe. The story follows Mama Nadi as she runs her own business, which is half bar and half brothel. Mama takes in women to work for her in the brothel, and it can be argued that the women are significantly safer there with Mama Nadi, since they cannot return to their villages and have no way of protecting themselves or earning income elsewhere. Making her own way as a single woman in war-torn Africa, Mama Nadi is rare. Three women who work for her, Josephine, Salima, and Sophie, are featured in the story. Mama takes a big risk by taking in Sophie, a girl who is 'ruined.' The meaning of 'ruined' is not explicitly evident, but it's clear that it devastatingly awful. Mama Nadi's is a somewhat neutral place, as men from both sides of the conflict patronize the establishment. Mama is no-nonsense, and maintains a strict 'leave your bullets at the bar' policy.

PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill is currently staging a production of Kander and Ebb's 1967 Tony Award-winning best musical Cabaret that is racy, dazzling, and thought-provoking. Starting and ending on two very different trains, and set largely in the Kit Kat Klub nightclub and in a boarding house, Cabaret features many characters of uncertain goals, ambiguous sexuality, and real heart, who are, whether they are willing to admit it or not, facing real danger with the rise of the Nazi Party looming. Though perhaps existing on society's fringe, the show is a real testament to the average German and their inability (or even refusal) to believe that something truly terrible could be brewing in their own nation. Interestingly enough, the story is largely told through the story of a Brit, Sally Bowles (played to perfection by Lisa Brescia), and an American, her lover Cliff Bradshaw (the undeniably charming John Dreher), as they provide a sort of outsider's perspective on how people reacted to the decline of Weimar Germany and the rise of Nazism. Hosted by the club's Emcee, played by Taylor Mac, the show goes from glitzy dance numbers to heartfelt ballads and back again as it navigates through one of the most tenuous times in the history of the Western world.

The Actors Comedy Lab and Raleigh Little Theatre present playwright Kim Rosenstock's Tigers Be Still, a dark but hilarious tale of depression, grief, and escaped zoo animals. Presented in Raleigh Little Theatre's Gaddy Goodwin Teaching Theatre, Tigers Be Still is the simple enough story of a young woman, Sherry, trying to get her life back together as she starts her job as a middle school art teacher with a side gig as an art therapist. Oh, and it also happens that a tiger has escaped from the local zoo.

The theater scene in the Triangle is thriving, and a brand new theater company is jumping into the mix. There are so many wonderful voices bringing live theater to the area, and this one fits right in. Common Wealth Endeavors opened its debut season (which has been coined a 'beta test' of sorts) with the US premiere of young Canadian playwright Daniel Karasik's The Innocents.

The Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern is staging two pieces from the canon of the Theatre of the Absurd, both by Polish playwright S?awomir Mro?ek. Out at Sea and Striptease together create a night of theater titled derklownschpankeneffekt. Each of the two plays, approximately forty minutes apiece, is quite different. One features three men stuck on a raft far out to sea, and the other features two men (who may or may not be the same man, it's hard to tell) trapped in a room after encountering one another, at the mercy of a giant hand who wants their clothes.

The 2011 Tony Award-winning Best Revival has docked in Durham and brings honest-to-goodness Broadway talent to the Triangle. Anything Goes is tap dancing its way into the hearts of audiences who are eager to see a traditional musical get new life.

One-actor shows are such a specific kind of challenge - how does one actor keep up the momentum? How does one actor keep the show lively and engaging? How does one actor memorize over an hour and a half of text? I certainly don't know the answers to any of those questions, but luckily actor Jesse R. Gephart and director Dana Marks have got it all figured out.

PlayMakers Repertory Company is unafraid to tackle big issues, issues that are polarizing, issues which make audiences uncomfortable. The magic of PlayMakers is their ability to tackle those issues while showing their respect for the intelligence of the audience and trusting audiences to understand the value of taking risks in the theater. This has never been so true as with Clybourne Park.

The winner of the 2005 Tony Award for Best Musical, Monty Python's Spamalot is has taken up residence in Raleigh, presented by NC Theatre and Broadway Series South. It is playing through Sunday at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts.

The world's best nanny has just flown into Durham, and has taken up residence at the Durham Performing Arts Center for one week only.

PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill is currently showing Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, playing in rotating repertory with Bruce Norris's sequel-of-sorts, Clybourne Park. In some ways a period piece, and in some ways shockingly current, A Raisin in the Sun is a gutsy look at race in America, from a voice and perspective that had gone largely silenced until the play's original production.

Bus Stop, written in 1955 by William Inge, and currently playing at Raleigh Little Theatre, tells the story of a Kansas country diner which, as the title implies, doubles as a bus stop, in the middle of a snow storm that strands several travelers. The travelers come from all walks of life, and include two cowboys, a night club singer, and a professor with a drinking habit and a proclivity for teenage girls. Add to the mix the diner owner, the bus driver, a high school-age waitress, and the town sheriff, and things really get interesting. The plot lines range from a cowboy trying to re-light the spark of a romance gone south to the bus driver's less-than-perfect ruse to secretly get the diner owner alone upstairs. Moments in the show run the spectrum of serious to comedic, but manage to achieve some real humanity along the way. The show is written in the style one would expect from a 1950s play - a little too polished, but loveable nonetheless.

Currently playing at the Burning Coal Theatre Company is Good, the WWII-era period play which follows an unlikely Nazi leader from writing novels all the way to supervising Auschwitz.

The new musical comedy, NERDS, is trying to make its way to Broadway, and it's starting out right here in Raleigh. This is a great opportunity for the Triangle theater community, and the show is absolutely worth a trip downtown.

Jekyll & Hyde is hitting Broadway this spring, but it's making a pit-stop right here in the Triangle on the way. It's a rare and fun chance to see a show before it opens on the Great White Way. Top that off with three show-stopping stars, and it amounts to a theatrical experience you won't want to miss.

Raleigh Little Theatre's production of Cinderella is absolutely kid-friendly. It's my opinion that kids need theater early and often. So, why not let your kids dress up as Cinderella or Prince Charming and experience theater that is accessible for them? Your kid may even get to try on a glass slipper.

Put on your blue suede shoes and head down to the Durham Performing Arts Center for a fun-filled evening of rock and roll legends. Million Dollar Quartet tells of the historic night, December 4, 1956, when four legends happened to be in the recording studio at Sun Records at the same time: Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash.

Opening exactly 56 years to the date of the actual event, Million Dollar Quartet is coming to the Durham Performing Arts Center this week. On Tuesday, December 4, 1956, four music icons came together for a jam session. Those four - Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis - and that one fateful night are the subject of the musical. I recently had the chance to sit down with David Elkins, who plays Johnny Cash, to ask him about how he landed the gig, how he prepares for the role, and more.