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Cymbeline Through December 16 at the Yale University Theatre, 222 York Street, New Haven. By William Shakespeare. Directed by Louisa Proske. Scenic Designer: Meredith B. Ries. Costume Designer: Nikki Delhomm.  Solomon Weisbard. Composer and musician: Michaël Attias. Sound composer: Palmer Heffran. Dramaturg: Kee-Yoon Nahm. Stage Manager: Nicole Marconi. Performed by Adina Verson (Imogen), Fisher Neal … Continue reading »

Krapp’s Last Tape Through Dec. 18 at Long Wharf Stage II. By Samuel Beckett. Directed by Jennifer Tarver. Performed by Brian Dennehy. Set & Costume Design: Eugene Lee. Lighting Design: Stephen Strawbridge. Sound Design: Richard Woodbury. Stage Manager: Katrina Lynn Olson. Krapp’s den. Front center a small table, just a few feet from the front … Continue reading »

A Doctor in Spite of Himself By Moliere. Adapted by Christopher Bayes and Steven Epp. Directed by Bayes. Through Dec. 17 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven. Music direction and original compositions by Aaron Halva. Scenic design: Matt Saunders. Costumes: Kristin Fiebig. Lighting by Yi Zhao. Sound design by Ken Goodwin. Dramaturg: Benjamin Fainstein. … Continue reading »

Striking 12 Overture (2007) – in HD from BigFan007 on Vimeo. “It’s a concert with a story where the actors are the band,” explains Ben Milburn, the actor/pianist in that band. That’s the main thing you need to know to prepare for Striking 12, which plays two shows (4 p.m. & 7 p.m.) at Westport … Continue reading »

I’ve been making random lists of Occupy-friendly pop songs over at the main www.scribblers.us site, here and here. Realized how many musical theater ditties apply as well. (For our readers outside Connecticut, be it known that Occupy New Haven still occupies dozens of tents on New Haven Green and is one of the longest lasting … Continue reading »

Regular NHTJ readers recognize that I am something of a Faustus freak. BBC Radio 4 is rerunning the network’s uproarious 2008 tongue-in-cheek revision of various Faust dramas, adapted by Martin Jenkin and celebrated fringe-circuit playwright and Red Shift Theatre founder Jonathan Holloway. The five part series gives rather more attention to Mephistopheles (Mark Gatiss) than … Continue reading »

I way overthink lazy theater metaphors in news stories. I’ve been mulling over this one for weeks: The interim government’s spokesman billed it as the “final act of the Libyan drama.” But there would be no closing soliloquoy from the lead player, scion of the dynasty that Muammar Gaddafi, self-styled “king of kings, had once … Continue reading »

My Krapp’s Last Tape review has been postponed due to technical difficulties. One of the show’s central voices emanates from a reel-to-reel tape machine. The backstage wizardry guiding the disembodied voice of that antiquated onstage device malfunctioned last night about a third of the way through the show. The performance had to be stopped, and … Continue reading »

“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.” —Gwendolen, in Act III of The Importance of Being Importance   As when they put rope barriers around Stonehenge (also in the news these days), the tombstone of Oscar Wilde is now off limits for close-up spiritual healing. No more kissing the dandy’s … Continue reading »

John Neville died this week. Film cultists know him for his Lord Buckley-esque Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam’s follow-up to Brazil. TV cultists know Neville as the manicured man on The X-File (a role he repeated in one of the show’s movie spin-offs). Canadian summer theater festival cultists know him as the former artistic director … Continue reading »