The Good Theater opens its 21st season with a luminous production of Matthew Barber’s poignant 2017 play about the flickers of late-life romance, expertly directed by Brian P. Allen, starring Valerie Perri in a nuanced, delicate and incandescent performance.
FIREFLIES, as the title and central metaphor suggest, draws a subtle portrait of the sparks that simmer repressed in a lonely woman’s soul, only to be kindled by the attentions of an erratic, but appealing drifter who comes into her life and enables her to shake off decades of claustrophobic expectations. Barber draws his four characters with great insight and empathy, and though the ending may be fated from the start, keeps the audience guessing as to the directions the principal pair will choose. His dialogue is wry, laced with a warm wit and tender pathos, and he manages to infuse every moment of the week-long action with palpable emotion.
Good Theater has announced FIREFLIES by Matthew Barber as the opener of the company's 21st season. Learn more about the show and find out how to get tickets here!
La MaMa will present Coffeehouse Chronicles #172: If These Walls Could Talk, an examination and celebration of rich and extensive history of La MaMa’s 74A East 4th Street.
Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s classic, YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, is eighty-six years young, and the latest revival at Portland’s Good Theater makes a strong case for the work’s perennial appeal. Directed by Brian P. Allen and featuring a cast of eighteen, most Good Theater veterans, this delightfully zany script, filled with wacky but loveable characters, delivers a timeless message about family and the secrets to true happiness.
Good Theater will present the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU as the finale of its 20th anniversary season, running March 29th through April 23rd. See photos from the production!
Good Theater will present the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU as the finale of its 20th anniversary season, running March 29th through April 23rd.
In the 1970s when legendary dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, and famed scion of the Wyeth dynasty, Jamie Wyeth, came together to engage in a series of portrait sittings that would extend over the next two decades, they ignited a volatile, probing, and passionate friendship that was to last until Nureyev’s death in 1993. The interaction of these two artistic geniuses, their sparring, their seeking answers to the mystery of artistic creation is told with penetrating honesty and sharp wit by playwright David Rush in his 2014 work, NUREYEV’S EYES, which Portland’s Good Theater brings the tale to life in a perfectly calibrated production, directed by James Noel Hoban.
Directed by James Noel Hoban, the production will star Joseph Bearor as Jamie Wyeth and Michael Grew as Rudolf Nureyev, and feature a set by James Noel Hoban and Craig Robinson, props by Annon Bill, costume design by Michelle Handley, lighting design by Iain Odlin, and stage management by Michael Lynch. Check out a first look in the photos here!
Good Theater continues its 20th anniversary season with NUREYEV'S EYES, running February 22nd through March 12th. Directed by James Noel Hoban, the production will star Joseph Bearor as Jamie Wyeth and Michael Grew as Rudolf Nureyev, and feature a set by James Noel Hoban and Craig Robinson, props by Annon Bill, costume design by Michelle Handley, lighting design by Iain Odlin, and stage management by Michael Lynch.
CRIMES OF THE HEART, Beth Henley’s Pulitzer-Prize winning 1981 dark comedy about three sisters and their shared secrets, receives a compelling production, directed by Brian P. Allen, at Portland’s Good Theater. Set in the Mississippi in the mid-twentieth century, Henley’s character-driven play has Chekovian overtones, as the relatively plotless piece relies on a series of revelations about the past to shape the mordent tragi-comedy.
The current production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL at the Good Theater represents the realization of a lifelong dream for Executive/Artistic Director Brian P. Allen, and the show that he has conceived and directed is both ambitious and genuinely affecting. Marshalling all the resources that this small company can command, Allen has created a chamber version of this 1945 masterpiece that preserves the heart of the tale and pays homage to what is arguably Rodgers & Hammerstein finest score.
The Good Theater’s latest offering, SIGNIFICANT OTHER, is an edgy, quirky, bittersweet look at the complexities and pitfalls of modern love and friendship, seen from the perspective of a quartet of marriage-age friends, who try to navigate this rocky road as best they can. Told with humor and compassion, Harmon’s play, examines the yearnings, strivings, and conflicts that befall the heart.
Romance is back in the air at Good Theater with Joshua Harmon's bittersweet hit comedy SIGNIFICANT OTHER. SIGNIFICANT OTHER opens March 2nd and plays through March 20th, 2022 at Good Theater's home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland.
Circa has announced CircAbility, an exciting and much anticipated new program bringing participants from the disability community together to learn circus skills and techniques in a series of month-long workshops and participant performances taking place in Brisbane, Cairns, Ipswich and the Gold Coast.
Good Theater continues its Second Stage series with the return of Shannon Thurston's solo show MEN: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT. The production will run in repertory with the main stage production, PACK OF LIES.
Good Theater is presenting the world premiere of the acclaimed adaptation of the Jane Austen short novel LADY SUSAN. Directed by Brian Allen and James Noel Hoban, the show stars Brynn Lewallen, Joseph Bearor, Hannah Daly, Jay Mack, Halsey Redman, Amy Roche, and Nathan Gregory. October 20 - November 14.
The Good Theater reopened its doors last night with a breathtakingly stunning world premiere of Rob Urbinati’s new play LADY SUSAN, directed by Brian P. Allen and James Noel Hoban. Taking its inspiration from Jane Austen, this 21st century work has all the eloquence of an early 19th century classic, as it explores the intricate, timeless mating games that seem as relevant today as they did more than two hundred years ago.
