Andrew McGinn News

Leopoldstadt marks the 19th production of a Tom Stoppard play to open on Broadway since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead opened 55 years ago. Stoppard has won four Best Play Tony Awards, more than any other playwright in history. What are the 18 other productions of Tom Stoppard plays to open on Broadway? Let's take a look back!

Seattle Shakespeare presents the original, limited-time podcast series house of sueños by Meme García. Spanish and English are interwoven with Shakespeare's Hamlet and García's imagistic language in this multilingual audio-drama about family, mental health, and the power of dreams.

Unknown painter Nora Baker in 2016 visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where things quickly get weird. From New York she travels to an artist's studio in southern France in 1900. Nora desperately wants to get back to 2016 but Paul Cezanne, another obscure artist with his own problems, is not being helpful. Also ensnared in Nora's crisis are an art historian from Utah and Cezanne's gardener.

Red Rover Theatre Company presents the world premiere of 'Visiting Cezanne', a play by Duane Kelly, at 18th & Union Arts Space in Seattle.

Book-It presents a darkly funny, world-premiere adaptation of Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson. When good ol' boy D'aron Davenport lets it slip that his hometown in Georgia hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, his new friends at UC Berkeley plan to stage a protest in the form of a "performative intervention." Armed with youthful exuberance and misguided ideas of the South, the intervention goes badly awry.

To close out their 27th season, Book-It presents a darkly funny, world-premiere adaptation of Welcome to Braggsville, a novel by T. Geronimo Johnson. When good ol' boy D'aron Davenport lets it slip that his hometown in Georgia hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, his new friends at UC Berkeley plan to stage a protest in the form of a "performative intervention." Armed with youthful exuberance and misguided ideas of the South, the intervention has devastating consequences.

Director Robin Lynn Smith and a stellar company including Shakespeare veterans Reginald Andre Jacskon (Henry V), Andrew McGinn (Ghost of Falstaff), Lisa Norman (Mistress Q) and Peter Dylan O'Connor (Pistol/York) bring HENRY V to stirring life with live music composted by Kultur Shock member Srdjan "Gino" Yevdjevich and movement by Butoh dancer Vanessa Skantze.

Back in 2013 the Seattle Rep gave us a lovely Christmas Present with R. Hamilton Wright and David Pichette's wonderful adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". So when they announced that they would be ending this season with more Holmes from Wright with "Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem", naturally there was a lot of excitement and anticipation for more from this team. And while the team is still on point and while it's still more Sherlock goodness, this original Holmes mystery from Wright doesn't quite have the elegance and grace of a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle piece.

Power shifts, betrayal, adultery, rape, murder and lots and lots of blood. No it's not the latest Tarantino film but it might as well be as Seattle Shakespeare Company puts up their latest effort, "Titus Andronicus" but with a dark and edgy grindhouse feel. But beyond all the blood there's still some wonderful Shakespeare behind it and some stirring moments from the cast.

Savage and sublime, brutal and beautiful Seattle Shakespeare Company will produce its first ever production of Titus Andronicus at the Center Theatre. Directed by David Quicksall, Titus Andronicus will January 12 through February 7, 2016.

Seattle Repertory Theatre's 2015-2016 season was announced today by Acting Artistic Director Braden Abraham. The season is headlined by the new musical Come from Away, Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced and the world premiere of R. Hamilton Wright's Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem.

When you go to see a Tom Stoppard play such as "Indian Ink", currently playing at Center Theatre from Sound Theatre Company and Pratidhwani, you can expect to be immersed in whatever subject Stoppard has chosen, whether that be literature, history, math, music or landscape architecture, along with a fascinating interpersonal story with the characters. And while I usually appreciate the interpersonal stories of his plays, his chosen subject of interest is usually lost on me (mostly due to the feeling that you need to take a Masters class in whatever the subject is before you see the play to totally get it). Stoppard's "Indian Ink" is no exception although the love story at its heart certainly outweighed any gaps of historical knowledge I felt.

Sound Theatre Company contributes to the hot Northwest summer with the steamy, smart Seattle premiere of Indian Ink by Tom Stoppard. This passionate tale that explores art and colonialism, set on two continents and in two eras, is a co-production with South Asian cultural organization Pratidhwani, and is directed by Andrew McGinn.

Seattle Repertory Theatre's 2015-2016 season was announced today by Acting Artistic Director Braden Abraham. The season is headlined by the new musical Come from Away, Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced and the world premiere of R. Hamilton Wright's Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem.

It felt like they were trying to shove a ten-pound show into an 8-pound bag. Sometimes a show is just too big even for Village's usually ample stage. Such was the case with "Mary Poppins" over at Village Theatre. Yes, the talent was all there to support it but the technical wizardry felt at its worst clunky and at its best under rehearsed which tended to sap the magic from an otherwise magical show.

Sound Theatre Company completes its eighth season with '5 By Beckett,' an evening of short plays by Samuel Beckett as part of the Seattle Beckett Festival and presented in conjunction with ACT Theatre's Central Heating Lab.

Sound Theatre Company completes its eighth season with '5 By Beckett,' an evening of short plays by Samuel Beckett as part of the Seattle Beckett Festival and presented in conjunction with ACT Theatre's Central Heating Lab.

Freehold will tour The Flower of England's Face: William Shakespeare's Henry IV directed by Freehold Artistic Director Robin Lynn Smith, to unique locations across the greater Puget Sound area, June 30 - July 20, 2014.

Most of ESP's recent outings have been stories written directly for the stage. For our January 2014 reading (the last to be held at our beloved NSCC before we move to ACT), we turn to a master playwright's take on (apparently) undramatic material - John Van Druten's adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, I Am a Camera.

I love it when a production manages to actually make me giddy with its technical aspects whether that be the gorgeous set, the intricate staging or the storytelling lights and sound. It appeals to the theater geek in me. So, Dear Readers, you can imagine how much I was in geek heaven at the Seattle Rep's current production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" which managed all four of those elements. And when coupled with a fresh fun new script and equally fun cast, this new production makes for a chilling romp through the world of Sherlock Holmes.