Previews
New Ron Jenkins play being read at Wesleyan TONIGHT!
Wesleyan Center for the Arts in Middletown is premiering a new play by Ron Jenkins tonight. The reading is held at 7 p.m. tonight, Sept. 28, in the center’s CFA Hall, for free. Must be cool to go to school where Ron Jenkins teaches. I never studied with him, but I followed Jenkins for … Continue reading
Sinthea Starr Shines on Westville’s Lyric Hall: An Interview with Her Muse Joel Vig
“I first met Sinthea Starr aboard the Theatre Guild ship when Joy Behar was supposed to join us but got snowed in in New York. We had 25 minutes, but needed to get 55 ready, while sailing. “Sinthea Starr had performed before, a single number. So I had seen her perform at that time. Since … Continue reading
Ukulele Faustus: Chris Arnott plays tonight
I have a ukulele gig tonight (Thursday, Sept. 22) at the New Haven club Café Nine. I mention it because, as part of what I laughingly call my “act,” I perform a ukulele variation on the incantation speech from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Just the one scene so far, but I’m working on more. My father … Continue reading
A Broken Umbrella Strikes Westville Again
A Broken Umbrella Theatre Company delights in site-specific productions that bring to light darkened corners of New Haven history. Last Halloween they staged a creepy new play Vaudevillain, about an actual Westville murder case from the early 20th century, for which they led audiences around and through the newly renovated Lyric Hall in present-day Westville. … Continue reading
One Knows, Don’t One?
The cast and creative team of the impending Long Wharf Theatre production of Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Oct. 26-Nov. 20) has been announced, and every member has been involved in some previous production of the same show. Which is appropriate, since this isn’t one of those Long Wharf musicals which seeks to reinterpret large-cast classics for a … Continue reading
The Unsinkable Molly Sweeney: An Interview with the Irish Repertory Theatre’s Ciaran O’Reilly
The first show of the Long Wharf’s 2011-12 season was the last one chosen for it. Molly Sweeney wasn’t mentioned at the theater’s season-announcement event in May. Long Wharf’s artistic director Gordon Edelstein explains that while he was looking for something economical, with a small cast, to fill the remaining mainstage slot on the sched, … Continue reading
Belleville, Population Four
The spirit of Sarah Ruhl will still rule the Yale Rep, even after her season-opening adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters ends its run. The Rep’s just announced the cast of the second Rep show of the 2011-12 season, Belleville by Amy Herzog. The central role of Abby will be played by Maria Dizzia, whose last … Continue reading
Still Hanging on Fringes
Some of you might be wondering whatever became of Aoife Spillane-Hinks. I’ve known Aoife since she was a tot, dashing around auditoriums following the grueling grown-up productions which her mother, theater critic for the New Haven Independent (the long-defunct 1980s print one, not the current online one) would bravely bring her to. Aoife attended the … Continue reading
Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most
The impetuous youth whirlwind pop spectacle Spring Awakening didn’t waste any time getting its performance rights into the hands of eager college theaters once the Broadway hit finally stopped touring. At least four Connecticut colleges have already announced plans to do Duncan Sheik and Steven Sate‘s modern-rock take on Frank Wedekind’s early 20th century “children’s … Continue reading
New Light Shine, new Yale Drama Series judge, new life for a previous winning entry
Tonight (Monday Sept. 12) marks the reading of the latest winner of the Yale Drama Series. The play is New Light Shine by Shannon Murdoch and is described as a drama in which “four small-town lives are linked through a violent crime.” The reading is directed by Jackson Gay, whose work I was regularly entranced … Continue reading