Author Archives: Christopher Arnott

If you dug February House at the Long Wharf Theatre last month, you’re probably intrigued by some of the projects being worked by the based-on-real-life inhabitants of the titular literary boarding house of the new musical. One you hear quite a lot about is the ill-fated 1941 youth opera Paul Bunyan by February House residents … Continue reading »

Two vulnerable forms of popular culture—newspaper comics and live theater—have an affinity for each other, as our latest selection of the stage-minded strips from GoComics and Daily Ink proves.  

At its final show of the 2011-12 season this past weekend, the Yale Cabaret announced who will be leading the student-run, experimental, underground, 44-year-old theater space at 217 Park Street next year: Ethan Heard, Artistic Director Jonathan Wemette, Managing Director Benjamin Fainstein and Nicholas Hussong, Associate Artistic Directors Xaq Webb, Asssociate Managing Director (Fall semester) … Continue reading »

Betty’s thrift-store tap shoes.

Carnival/Invisible Through April 14 at the Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. (203) 432-1566. Created by the Ensemble. Written and directed by Benjamin Fainstein. Lighting & Scenic Designer: Edward T. Morris. Costume Designer: Nikki Delhomme. Dramaturg: Caroline V. McGraw. Stage Manager: Jenny Schmidt. Technical Director: Daniel Perez. Producer: Shane Hudson. Performed by Merlin Huff … Continue reading »

So…. Smash? Is there some stigma attached to watching this show? I don’t think I’ve heard a single theater friend of mine mention it. Nobody’s alerted me to any watching parties. Sure, Backstage and Playbill offer weekly plot recaps, but that’s not the same. But I’m unashamedly, unabashedly stuck on the series, old 42nd Street … Continue reading »

Latest batch of stagey strips culled from GoComics and Daily Ink, including Pab Sungenis’ The New Adventures of Queen Victoria, Will Panganiban’s Frank & Steinway, Salpino’s And Now…,” Mark Litzler’s Joe Vanilla and Leigh Rubin’s Rubes.

The Yale Institute for Music Theatre has named the two shows it’ll workshop this summer. The two-week “intensive lab setting” development process culminates in a staged reading of each new musical, presented in association with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Mighty Five’s Infinite Funk Odyssey concerns “Fuzzbot, a robotic dance instructor without a … Continue reading »

Updated the NHTJ calendar page at long last; a few dozen listings to get us through the spring and into the Fall, with more to come once the summer season heats up. Send your listings and audition notices to me at chris@scribblers.us and I’ll post ‘em, I promise.

Archie and the gang have mistaken this poor man for a Hollywood agent or somesuch. I like the concept of football star Moose Mason as Tennessee Williams’ Stanley Kowalski. (For local readers: A Streetcar Named Desire had its world premiere at New Haven’s Shubert Theater, as a pre-Broadway try-out.)