This One Man 1930 - Articles Page 6

Theatre for a New Audience founding artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz, having just received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 OBIEs, today announces TFANA's 40th anniversary season. The 2019-2020 programming exemplifies what makes TFANA, in the words of the OBIE committee, one of the city's most vital institutions championing adventurous and urgent productions of Shakespeare alongside other writers.

Reaching for the American dream while adjusting to living under prejudice is exposed by Alfred Uhry's 'The Last Night of Ballyhoo' at South City Theatre. This Tony award winning play is a touching, relatable, and revealing look at the cost of acceptance. The story peels back the layers to expose the complicated dynamics of a Jewish American family living in Atlanta in the 1930's.

Earth, air, water, and fire - every vital element reaches critical risk level in Last Man Club, an engaging, dystopian mood piece from writer/director Randy Sharp at Axis Theater. This tense one-act historical drama blows in with gale force as Sharp and her creative team unearth the allure and agony of manifest destiny compounded by an environmental crisis. We see hope through an apocalyptic lens as tragedy howls outside the door.

It's that time of the week, theater lovers! With the weekend set to kick off at any moment - personally, we like to consider Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. the official start of the weekend (that's directed primarily to the Dowager Countess of Grantham who quite clearly didn't understand what actually constitutes a 'weekend') - so we are back with a few suggestions of our own to help make your job easier. There are some new shows opening, others which are continuing their runs and still more which will be winding up their slate of performances this weekend!

What makes a Broadway theatre? Technically any venue with 500 seats or more, located along Broadway in New York City's Theatre District is a Broadway theatre, and the art that is produced in these special places is widely considered the highest form of theatrical entertainment in the world. Today, forty-one theatres are technically Broadway houses, each with their own rich history. Below, we're giving you the scoop on the life of every one of them!

A review of premiere biographer Holly Van Leuven's Ray Bolger: More Than A Scarecrow, chronicling the life of one of entertainment's most iconic men of stage and screen.

Axis Company presents a return engagement of Last Man Club, written and directed byAxis Artistic Director Randy Sharp, June 5-28. The "atmospheric, expertly structured one-act drama" (The New York Times), presented first in 2013 and now again as part of Axis's 20th anniversary season, exemplifies the company's work-raw, unblinking theater, staged in Axis's intimate West Village space, that frequently explores dark moments in America's past. As news stories about the acceleration of climate change and its human toll break daily, the production takes audiences to the Dust Bowl, another era of environmental and economic strife catalyzed by unrestrained human greed.

The Man Who Came to Dinner, a classic American stage comedy, opens on the Lohrey Stage April 26 and runs through May 12, 2019. Written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, this 1930's madcap play features as a well-known radio wit, Sheridan Whiteside, who falls while dining at the home of prominent socialites making him an unexpected guest for six weeks of recovery. The hosts, however, are most in need of recovery as Whiteside invites in what becomes a glamorous and odd three-ring circus of comic chaos which grows to include a luncheon for homicidal convicts and a complete children's choir.

I've never felt quite so transported into the realities of a convent or the freshness of a mountain or the sadness of a man who has lost his wife and is too aggrieved to notice his children. This is quite discombobulating (in the best possible way) considering I've grown up with the movie, appeared in the musical twice and directed it. The singing is sensational. Under the guise of Musical Director Andrew Christie assisted by Vocal Coach Kerry Ackerman the harmonies are on point and the light and shade most definitely in all the right places. Accolades to the orchestra who supported the performers so ably. Michael Potts (Captain von Trapp) has a voice that is almost too big for the senses. He worked it to perfection bringing us near the point of 'overwhelm' then subtly pulling back. Potts took the feelings evoked by the music to new heights. I could literally smell the edelweiss and those top notes - wow. He is a gifted being.

The idea of two companies in one community doing the same show within a few months of each other poses many questions. Sometimes the rights to a popular musical become available and there is something of a feeding frenzy - a dedicated theatergoer could have availed themselves of no less than four productions of Mamma Mia! in this area in the last year. Perhaps they were all stellar productions. I certainly didn't hear any complaints about poor attendance, which indicates either an insatiable appetite for an ABBA jukebox musical or the payoff of careful cultivation of core audience support by each company. In any case, nobody appeared to suffer any ill effects from the repetition.

General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the next production of Lyric Opera of Kansas City's Explorations Series, Mack The Knife is The Man I Love: A Weill-Gershwin Cabaret which will feature the songs of George and Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill. The 2018-2019 Explorations Series performance, with musical direction by Mark Markham and stage direction by Fenlon Lamb, will showcase the Lyric Opera's Resident Artists, including Kaylie Kahlich, Kelly Birch, Joseph Leppek, and James Maverick, plus Apprentice Artists Ruby Dibble, Jonathan Ray, and Armando Contreras. The performance will be held February 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lyric Opera's Michael and Ginger Frost Production Arts Building.

Officially organized on Jan. 11, 1930, the Grand Rapids Symphony will be on the job for its 89th birthday, performing the timeless music of Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart.

BWW reviewer, Peter Nason, celebrates 2018 with his choices for the best in local theatre (Tampa, St. Pete and Sarasota) that the past year had to offer.

'The Nance' brings 1930's NYC life to vibrant life at the Spinning Tree Theatre in Kansas City. Perfectly cast with a standout ensemble this bawdy comedy (with some musical treats) is an absolute knockout performance. Definitely in the 'not to be missed' category, treat yourself to this fabulous show before it closes on November 18th.

The Art Gallery of South Australia presents Picasso: The Vollard Suite from 10 November 2018 to 3 February 2019. This National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition explores the inner musings of the most famous and influential artist of the twentieth century through 100 etchings produced over a 7-year period from 1930 to 1937.

Get ready for a laugh-out-loud and heartwarming classic from the late great "King of Comedy" Neil Simon. The Farmington Players will open the season with Simon's coming-of-age tale, Brighton Beach Memoirs, the 18th Simon show to be performed at the Barn. It's the first in a trio of the playwright's semi-autobiographical stories about growing up in an impoverished Jewish family in 1930's Brooklyn.

An exciting group of theatre stars have joined The Jamie Lloyd Company's Pinter at the Pinter season, which began its unprecedented celebration of Harold Pinter this month, featuring all the Nobel Prize winning playwright's short plays.

On October 12th, Blonde Medicine will release Ryan Singer's Free Love, a comedic love letter to the world, reminding people that they are allowed to believe and in fact, it is more fun to do so. For his fourth album, Singer decided it was time to share the love, so the album is free everywhere for everyone. This latest offering is Singer's attempt to wedge some fun, whimsy, and love into a world that has grown increasingly dark and divisive, so in that way it bucks the traditional trend that comedy must come from pain. Singer is anything but traditional and believes that great comedy can from joy and love. The material contained within his comedic universe is evidence of that - covering everything from the joys of growing older to believing in Bigfoot and the coming Singularity. For him one thing is certain: 'It's more fun to believe.' 

Get ready for a laugh-out-loud and heartwarming classic from the late great "King of Comedy" Neil Simon. The Farmington Players will open the season with Simon's coming-of-age tale, Brighton Beach Memoirs, the 18th Simon show to be performed at the Barn. It's the first in a trio of the playwright's semi-autobiographical stories about growing up in an impoverished Jewish family in 1930's Brooklyn.

Theatre West - Actor-playwright Ian Ruskin portrays the legendary union organizer Harry Bridges, capturing his passion, struggles and wicked sense of humor in the one-man play, "From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks".

Mark Stuart Dance Theatre (MSDT) will celebrate their 10th anniversary gala, honoring 10 years of art inspiring change, on Sunday, September 16, 2018 at 5pm at New York Live Arts Theater (219 W 19th St).  The gala will include a performance of When Change Comes: A Movement Forward, which is playing a limited tour in September of 2018.  Featuring special performances from Abigail Breslin (Academy Award nominee, Little Miss Sunshine), "American Idol" alum Jerome Bell, and singer/songwriter Matt Cusson (John Lennon Songwriting Award winner, 'One of Those Nights' & 'Leaving L.A.'), and more, this one-night event marks a decade of MSDT's physically stunning and emotionally compelling storytelling making bold statements about our society.  A portion of the proceeds from the Gala will go directly to benefit March for Our Lives. 

The Paul Taylor Dance Foundation announced the death yesterday of legendary choreographer Paul Taylor in Manhattan on August 29.

For the past several summers, I have attended the Festival of Arts and The Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. But this year, I also decided to also visit two other art festivals along Laguna Canyon Road rather than spend any time cruising the town as I had done before. The full-day of exploring all the artistic delights on display this year at all three locations left me dazzled by all the talent on display, while wishing I had lot of extra income to purchase and bring home many of the awe-inspiring items that caught my fancy. But the real highlight of the day was viewing the abundance of 'local color' on display in this summer's 'Under the Sun' themed Pageant of the Masters.