Deb Sullivan News

Shakespeare & Company presents Shakespeare's Cymbeline, directed by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer. This tale of love and passion, produced for the first time on the Company's Mainstage, runs in the Tina Packer Playhouse from July 4 to August 6, 2017. The production also marks a personal milestone for Packer, who, after opening her production of Cymbeline, will have directed all 37 plays in the Shakespeare canon. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company in rehearsal below!

Actors' Shakespeare Project closes its 13th season with the definitive Shakespearean recipe for mirth and magic. Start with equal parts poetry and wit, add one misapplied love potion, stir in a feuding celestial couple, and finish with the most unintentionally awful play-within-a-play ever created, and you get A Midsummer Night's Dream. Directed by Patrick Swanson (Revels' Artistic Director), the production features Resident Acting Company members Steven Barkhimer* (Bottom), Sarah Newhouse* (Puck), and Paula Plum* (Titania) (Picture left by Nile Scott Shots.) Performances are May 10 - June 4, 2017 (Press Performance Saturday, May 13, 2017, 8 PM) at Multicultural Arts Center, 41 Second Street, Cambridge. For tickets and more information, visit actorsshakespeareproject.org.

Actors' Shakespeare Project (ASP) has earned its reputation for performing the works of William Shakespeare with clarity and focus on language, emphasis on the characters' journeys, and a commitment to remain actively itinerant. The 13th season will exemplify ASP's vision for presenting Shakespeare, with productions of HAMLET, THE TEMPEST (Directed by Allyn Burrows; December 1, 2016 - January 8, 2017; Willet Hall at United Parish, Brookline), Christopher Marlowe's EDWARD II (Directed by David R. Gammons; February 22 - March 19, 2017, Charlestown Working Theater), and A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (Directed by Patrick Swanson, May 10 - June 4, 2017, Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge). For more information visit actorsshakespeareproject.org.

Recent IRNE Award-winner Sarah Gazdowicz directs LAURA with a steady hand, garnering especially strong performances from Alexander Cook as Detective Mark McPherson and Steven Barkhimer as Waldo Lydecker. Jasmine Rush coolly plays the title character, an attractive career woman whose portrait infatuates the detective investigating her murder.

Everyone is a suspect in the murder of Laura Hunt, an irresistibly attractive business woman trying to make her way in the world of advertising. A hard-boiled detective on the case becomes infatuated with her portrait after reading her memoirs, but her closest friends don't trust him. The twists and turns of this film noir classic, adapted for the stage, will have you guessing whodunit.

Everyone is a suspect in the murder of Laura Hunt, an irresistibly attractive business woman trying to make her way in the world of advertising. A hard-boiled detective on the case becomes infatuated with her portrait after reading her memoirs, but her closest friends don't trust him. The twists and turns of this film noir classic, adapted for the stage, will have you guessing whodunit.

Actors' Shakespeare Project takes a break from the Bard to stage the first Boston area production of Jenny Schwartz's linguistically-rich play GOD'S EAR. Thomas Derrah directs and draws authentic, heartbreaking performances from Tamara Hickey and Gabriel Kuttner as a married couple grieving the tragic loss of their son. Humor and hope rise to the surface from the depths of their suffering.

Actors Shakespeare Project's production of Phedre, which took place at the First Church of Boston, a highly descriptive and heightened diatribe of a play.

The Nominating Committee of the Independent Reviewers of New England has just announced nominees for the 2014 IRNE Awards. The Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Awards, founded by Beverly Creasey of the Journal Newspapers and Larry Stark of TheaterMirror in 1997, recognize the extraordinary wealth of talent in the Boston theatre community.

Huntington Theatre Company has received 29 IRNE Award nominations from the Independent Reviewers of New England for its 2013 productions. The Committee recognized the Huntington with the following nominations:

Actors' Shakespeare Project mounts a lighter, accessible version of Anton Chekhov's final play in Founder's Hall at The Dane Estate at Pine Manor College in Brookline. Performing in the round in this stately, dramatic setting, the actors inhabit space and time in a way that allows their characters to emerge naturally, enhanced by the proximity of their audience

This story of a king's obsession with obtaining a male heir is not one of Shakespeare's commonly produced works, but the Actor Shakespeare Project's production was beautifully familiar and accessible.

National New Play Network rolling premiere of Steven Dietz's 'Rancho Mirage' comes to New Repertory Theatre in Watertown as aimless as tumbleweed tumbling in from the prairie.

THESE SHINING LIVES tells the important story of a 1928 groundbreaking case which established legal precedents for labor safety standards still in effect decades later. Five factory workers, dubbed the 'Radium Girls,' sued their employer after contracting life-threatening radium poisoning while painting watch dials with the glow-in-the-dark substance. Playwright Melanie Marnich focuses on four of the thousands of women who entered the work force for the first time in the 1920s, rejoicing in the opportunity to make money before finding their lives forever changed by unanticipated camaraderie and unforeseen deleterious effects.

It takes a pretty special production to fully capture my interest for the entirety of a Shakespearean work, particularly given the length of most of his plays.The Actor Shakespeare Project's production of Pericles, performed at the Modern Theatre, is one of these special productions. One of Shakespeare's least produced pieces, Pericles tells the complicated story of a nobleman's journey from land to land, escaping murder, falling in love, losing his family, and regaining hope.

The Huntington Theatre Company world premiere of RYAN LANDRY'S 'M' is a design triumph, but the plot misfires. Karen MacDonald is an anxious menace skulking around the periphery, casting giant shadows, and Larry Coen milks every drop of humor from his multiple roles, but playwright Ryan Landry's story gets snagged between who he is and who he is trying to be.

Due to unprecedented demand, SpeakEasy Stage Company is adding one additional week of performances to its acclaimed production of the 2012 Tony Award-winning play CLYBOURNE PARK. The show will now play thru - and must close on - Saturday, April 6. Tickets for these new dates go on sale this Friday, March 22 at 9am for web sales, and at noon for phone and walk-up purchases.

Continuing its 9th season - 'Turning Toward Home' - Actors' Shakespeare Project will formally introduce its production of Will Eno's Middletown.

Continuing its 9th season - 'Turning Toward Home' - Actors' Shakespeare Project will formally introduce our production of Will Eno's Middletown.