The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm (The Gamm) opens Season 31 (2015-2016) with a timeless American classic, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by the author of The Glass Menagerie (Gamm 2010) and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof(Gamm 2002) is an undisputed masterpiece and a landmark of 20th-century theater. Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella directs, featuring Marianna Bassham (Hedda Tesman in Hedda Gabler, 2014) as Blanche DuBois, the former southern beauty whose fragile world is crumbling; resident actor Karen Carpenter (Thea Elvsted in Hedda Gabler, 2014) as Blanche's sister, StellaKowalski; and Anthony Goes (Barnabas in Paul, 2010) as her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski.
A Streetcar Named Desire
by Tennessee Williams
directed by Tony Estrella
Sept. 17-Oct. 18
Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchangs St., Pawtucket, RI
Tickets: gammtheatre.org/401-723-4266
previews (Sept. 17-20) $30. Regular tickets: $41, $49 depending on day/time
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) has received the prestigious $25,000 Shakespeare in American Communities grant to perform its Season 31 production of The Winter's Tale (April 21- May 29, 2016) for at least 10 area middle and high schools. The award will also pay for accompanying educational activities including in-school residencies, workshops, and post-performance discussions. This is The Gamm's second Shakespeare in American Communities award, having received the same grant to support education efforts surrounding its 2014 production of Macbeth.
At times, it can be hard to imagine that there was ever a period in history when society was as celebrity-obsessed as we are right now. With the internet, social media, Twitter, 24-hour cable news and everything else, information about the rich and famous is everywhere, all the time. It seems impossible to avoid and seems that the public's appetite for it is insatiable. On the other hand, David Adjmi's play Marie Antoinette, now playing at the Gamm Theatre, casts the famous French queen in much the same kind of world. And while the uneven play doesn't offer much that's new or original, it does provide another lens through which we can view and examine our own society and it's problems.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) continues its 30th anniversary season with American playwright John Guare's dark comedy The House of Blue Leaves. This multi-award-winning piece of comic chaos by the author of Six Degrees of Separation is the story of a family so obsessed with fame and the American Dream that its members are incapable of connecting with each other. Fred Sullivan, Jr. directs a crazy cast of characters including a zoo-keeper who aspires to be a songwriter (Tom Gleadow) and his wife who won't leave the house (Jeanine Kane) in a production that is by turns laughable, thought-provoking and deeply moving.
Tony Estrella, artistic director of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), has announced the theater's 2015-2016 season. Season 31 includes two undisputed classics, a contemporary favorite, and two works new to Gamm audiences, as described by Estrella:
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) continues its 30th anniversary season with American playwright John Guare's dark comedy The House of Blue Leaves. This multi-award-winning piece of comic chaos by the author of Six Degrees of Separation is the story of a family so obsessed with fame and the American Dream that its members are incapable of connecting with each other. Fred Sullivan, Jr. directs a crazy cast of characters including a zoo-keeper who aspires to be a songwriter (Tom Gleadow) and his wife who won't leave the house (Jeanine Kane) in a production that is by turns laughable, thought-provoking and deeply moving.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre board of directors will host the theater's annual fundraiser on Monday, March 30 at 6 p.m. at the Center by the Blackstone, 175 Main St., Pawtucket.
2014 was a powerhouse year for theater in the Ocean State. BroadwayWorld Rhode Island is pleased to feature some of the exceptional performers and artists who made this year a most memorable one on local stages.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens the new year with a thrilling world premiere, 15 years in the making! Morality Play, adapted for the stage by Tony Estrella from the best-selling novel by Booker-Prize winner Barry Unsworth, is historical fiction in the form of a Plague-time whodunit, with intrigue, suspense and fascinating insights on the evolution of story telling. Tyler Dobrowsky, Associate Artistic Director at Trinity Rep, directs a cast of Gamm veterans and newcomers portraying travelling actors, clergy, royalty and townspeople intertwined in a medieval murder mystery.
The board of directors of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) is pleased to announce the hiring of Oliver Dow as Managing Director, effective November 3.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) is pleased to stage a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. The Norwegian playwright's 19th-century antiheroine--and one of the famous enigmas of the stage--is the newly married, beautiful and inscrutable wife of an academic for whom the bourgeois life is simply not good enough. Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella, who authored this adaptation of Ibsen's masterpiece, directs Marianna Bassham (Joan in Far Away, Charlotte in The Real Thing) in the title role.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) is pleased to stage a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. The Norwegian playwright's 19th-century antiheroine--and one of the famous enigmas of the stage--is the newly married, beautiful and inscrutable wife of an academic for whom the bourgeois life is simply not good enough. Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella, who authored this adaptation of Ibsen's masterpiece, directs Marianna Bassham (Joan in Far Away, Charlotte in The Real Thing) in the title role.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens its 30th Anniversary Season with the New England premiere of Grounded, American playwright George Brant's suspenseful one-woman drama about an ace fighter pilot reassigned to fly drones over Afghanistan after she becomes unexpectedly pregnant. Gamm Resident Director Judith Swift directs Boston-based actor Liz Hayes in her Gamm debut as 'The Pilot'. Grounded runs for four weeks only from tonight, September 4 through 28 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens its 30th Anniversary Season with the New England premiere of Grounded, American playwright George Brant's suspenseful one-woman drama about an ace fighter pilot reassigned to fly drones over Afghanistan after she becomes unexpectedly pregnant. Gamm Resident Director Judith Swift directs Boston-based actor Liz Hayes in her Gamm debut as 'The Pilot'. Grounded runs for four weeks only from September 4 through 28 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI.
Leon Boghossian III, president of the board of directors of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), announces the resignation of Managing Director David M. Wax.
David M. Wax, managing director for The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), announces the resignation of Education Director Steve Kidd, effective August 25. Kidd, who is also a Gamm resident actor, will be joining the faculty at Moses Brown School in the fall, where he will teach performance studies and direct the upper-school theater productions. Education and Outreach Coordinator Susie Schutt will be promoted to Education Director upon Kidd's departure, ensuring a smooth transition and continued growth of the theater's robust education programming.
Recently, Yankee Magazine, in their Editors' Choice Best of New England 2014 issue, awarded the title of "Best Intimate Theatre" to Rhode Island's own Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre. The Gamm's home in Pawtucket is intimate, there's no argument about that, a perfectly sized and perfectly utilized theatrical space. Proximity with the audience can at times be a risky bet, a chance for a company to live or die by the sword of theater that is very up close and personal. In the case of the Gamm, it is a bet they always win. Just one example is this season's final play, Blackbird, which again showcases how the space's intimacy can and does make great theater even more powerful and impactful.
The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre presents Blackbird by David Harrower and directed by Tony Estrella. It stars Madeleine Lambert and Jim O'Brien and runs from May 1 to June 1. Tickets are available here. Scottish playwright David Harrower's most acclaimed and most controversial play, Blackbird 'is theater at its most elemental,' says The New York Times. In a littered factory break room, 55-year-old Ray and 27-year-old Una engage in a confrontation so real and raw that you feel you should look away. But how can you? Fifteen years earlier, the two had a sexual affair...when she was 12. Ray has assumed a new identity and a new life following his imprisonment, while Una has not stopped searching for answers to her conflicting emotions. What emerges from the recriminations and explanations is a complex relationship that blurs the boundaries between love and lust, obsession and abuse. Uncompromising, shocking and surprisingly tender, Blackbirdwill leave you hanging on every word and every uncomfortable silence.
For mature audiences only.
Trinity Rep announced today that Jeffrey Osborne will be honored with the 2014 New England Pell Award for Artistic Excellence, acknowledging his artistic achievements and philanthropic work throughout Rhode Island.
