Steve Underwood News

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.

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 THE HIGH ROAD, running February 1st through the 19th. THE HIGH ROAD stars Steve Underwood, who also wrote the play. See photos from the show!

Good Theater continues its 20th anniversary season with THE HIGH ROAD, running February 1st through the 19th. THE HIGH ROAD stars Steve Underwood, who also wrote the play.

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.

Good Theater welcomes the new year and continues its 20th anniversary season with Crimes of the Heart, running January 11th through January 29th.

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.

Following a successful return to live theater in 2021 after the COVID-19 crisis darkened stages around the world, Good Theater has announced the schedule for the 2022/2023 season. This season marks Good Theater’s 20th anniversary, and promises to be a yearlong celebration with plenty of laughter, music, and, of course, good theater.

Portland’s Good Theater’s final offering of its nineteenth season is a deliciously zany and stylish production of Peter Kellogg and David Friedman’s 2017 musical comedy, DESPERATE MEASURES, a witty, saucy sendup of Shakespeare’s MEASURE FOR MEASURE set in the Wild West. Directed by Brian P. Allen and Cary Libkin with musical staging by Raymond Marc Dumont, the comedy written in rhyming verse is a rollicking, madcap adventure from start to finish.

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.

The Maine premiere of George Eastman’s HARRY TOWNSEND’s LAST STAND is a sad, sweet, sassy rumination on aging and the fragile communications between father and son as they navigate this daunting process. Despite its poignant and serious underpinnings, Eastman’s play succeeds because of its unsparing humor, uncanny ear for authentic dialogue, the trim direction of Brian P. Allen, and the strong performances of the Good Theater’s stars, Will Rhys and James Noel Hoban.

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.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, has just released a video of “Seasons of Love”  from RENT, featuring 14 singers and stunning Maine video footage.  The song can be viewed on Youtube, at the link:

Good Theater has postponed its production of Desperate Measures.

The tautly paced, compactly plotted 1983 psychological spy thriller, PACK OF LIES by Hugh Whitemore, proves to be a cliff hanger for audiences at the Good Theater, where its recent revival, expertly directed by Brian P. Allen with a finely tuned ensemble cast, demonstrates the relevance of its message in the chaotic political context in which we currently live.

Good Theater continues its 18th season with the Portland premiere of the acclaimed British drama PACK OF LIES by Hugh Whitemore. The production opens February 12th and plays through March 8th, 2020 at Good Theater's home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. For tickets and information, please call the Box Office at (207) 835-0895 or visit www.goodtheater.com.

In the Good Theater's delightful winter comedy, the play is the thing to rescue the moribund town of Popcorn Falls from the clutches of a greedy, self-serving villain who would turn its main street into a sewage plant. The citizens, led by their mayor, hatch the improbable solution of creating a theatre company and a play to win grant money needed to revitalize the town. James Hindman's multi-character drama, played by two actors, seizes on this premise and imbues the situation with breathless comedic wit and zany antics, punctuated by moments of touching poignancy.

Each year Portland's Good Theater presents a holiday musical revue, written and directed by Brian P. Allen, and dedicated to celebrating a decade in American musical theatre history. Allen's show this year is devoted to the 1940s when so many of the geniuses of the a?oelegitimatea?? musical theatre style reigned supreme. The revue he has created is ambitious and comprehensive featuring twenty-five performers, including several Broadway actors, and covering the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, and the Gershwins, together with many lesser-known writers. Performed with the intimacy and informality of a cabaret setting, Broadway at the Good Theater offers a nostalgic and delightful musical evening.

The Good Theater opens its season with Joshua Harmon's powerful and persuasive drama about class and race, aspiration in America, and the complexities of navigating a world where nothing is black and white, no matter how much one wishes it so. ADMISSIONS is a stunningly astute choice for 2019, though it was written long before recent headlines and made its Lincoln Center debut in 2018. As Executive/Artistic Director Brian P. Allen expands the Good's season to five main stage plays and four second stage shows, this Maine premiere of Harmon's play represents Allen's keen sense of the moment and what is excellent drama.