RI Selects: Plays & Musicals
March 12 - 28
It takes a gutsy and socially conscious community theater to follow a production of Falsettos with Rent, the powerful 1996 rock musical about AIDS that is set in New York’s gritty East Village. Even as it chronicles devastation, Rent—a cross between Hair and La Boheme— is a show that fills your heart with hope.
Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck
Rhinebeck, NY
Now - March 21
Devious scheming, sexual intrigue fueled by pitiless motives, Les Liaisons Dangereuses was ahead of its time in 1872, and its portrayal of sexual decadence still shocks today. This production of Christopher Hampton’s 1988 adaptation of the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos features Elizabeth Aspenlieder and is directed by Tina Packer.
Shakespeare & Company, Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre
Lenox, MA
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/10/10 at 05:10 PM • Permalink
Les Costumes Magnifiques!
Recycling is second nature to Govane Lohbauer. Last year, Shakespeare & Company’s costume director got a call from S&Co founder Tina Packer who said she wanted to direct a winter production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which is set in the 18th century French court and requires elaborate costumes. “Tina asked me, Can we do it from stock?” recalls Lohbauer, who knew the financially-challenged theater company could not afford to buy the sort of sumptuous fabrics needed to make new period dresses and dress coats. “I told Tina we could do everything from stock—except the wigs.”
Lohbauer (right) has been designing costumes for S&Co for 30 years. “My studio used to be in the eves in the stables at The Mount, which we shared with the bats and the mice,” she says, smiling at the memory as she stands in her enormous sunny studio above the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. Since 1980, she has saved seemingly every belt, buckle, blouse, coat, hat, petticoat, shoe and trouser that has ever been worn on stage at S&Co. Her vast fiefdom looks like a meticulously organized Goodwill store with an incredible pedigree. “We’re the envy of every costume shop in the northeast,” she says. “And everybody rents from us—Barrington Stage, BTF, Williams College, and all the companies in Boston.”
One of the challenges of designing Liaisons was its location in the smaller Bernstein Theatre where the actors are literally inches away from the audience, so there could be no sleight of hand. “I couldn’t use zippers, for instance, because they’re not period,” she says. A self-taught costume scholar, she explains how she remade dresses from The Merry Wives of Windsor to be appropriate to late 18th century France. “What distinguishes these from the Renaissance is the sleeves, which are really tight,” Indeed, authenticity is key to Lohbauer’s philosophy. “Lizzie Aspenlieder wears a full corset,” she says. “The actors wore panniers [the wire contraptions that create exaggerated hips] since day one of rehearsal.”
Serendipity also plays a part in the costume process. “People are always donating things to us, and we got two very important gifts last year,” she says. “There was a decorating business in Great Barrington that went out of business and she gave us bolts of expensive silk fabrics that I put aside for this show. And my daughter, Sandy [Wade-Cleary], got a stash of lace from someone she worked for and gave it to us. I think the lace made all the difference for these costumes.”
And the quality of the costumes makes all the difference to the actors. “Costumes are integral to defining a character’s status, wealth, and station and support the world of the play,” says Elizabeth Aspenlieder, who plays La Marquise de Merteuil. “In Liaisons, it’s layer upon layer of deception – so my character is the only female with no less than 3 separate and stunning dresses. Costumes are especially important in an 18th century French period piece where manners, etiquette and how one presents oneself is key. To some degree the costumes become a layer of who you are and how you define yourself, how you move.”
Alexandra Lincoln, who plays Emilie, the courtesan, echoes Aspenlieder’s sentiments. “My two costume pieces are corsets and this very elaborate, gaudy, lavender dress with gold trim and lavender gloves,” she says. “Plus a sequined purse. My pannier is also bigger than everyone else’s. I think ‘more is more’ is the philosophy behind my costume. And that does translate into my character, who doesn’t obey all of the rules. I burp, I laugh at people, I do what I want. I have a healthy sense of joie de vivre that the opulence of my costume reflects.”
“You always think of a whore as being dressed in reds and more racy colors, but in my costume I appear very girlie and playful, with purple bows and lavender,” continues Lincoln. “I do think that affects the character. I’m not a dark force. The play has a lot to do with maintaining false appearances, and here is this courtesan with frilly bows, almost like Little Bo Peep gone very badly astray.”
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 02/17/10 at 03:11 PM • Permalink
What’s My Line? A Quiz to Win Free Tickets to “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” at Shakespeare & Company
All of the actors at Shakespeare & Company have behind-the-scenes roles. You can’t just be a player when you’re a member of Shakespeare & Company; you also have to be a teacher, administrator or director. The troupe’s guiding ethos is the interconnectedness between its Performance, Education and Training wings; all of its artists are trained as practioners as well as teachers. The cast of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which is being directed by founding artistic director Tina Packer, all have day jobs, which support the company’s mission. If you can match the actor to his or her day job (scroll down), you can win a pair of tickets to the new production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which runs January 29 - March 21.
1. Joshua Aaron McCabe (The Vicomte de Valmont) 2. Alexandra Lincoln (Emilie)
3. Lydia Barnett-Mulligan (Cécile de Volanges) 4.Douglas Seldin (Victoire/Majordomo)
5. Scott Renzoni (Azolan) 6. Elizabeth Aspenlieder (Marquise de Merteuil)
7. Enrico Spada (Chevalier Danceny) 8. Renée Margaret Speltz (Madame du Rosemonde)
9. Jennie Burkhard Jadow (Madame de Volanges)
WHO’S WHO AFTER HOURS?
The Cast’s Day Jobs
Answer Form
1. _________
2 _________
3. _________
4. _________
5. _________
6. _________
7. _________
8. _________
9. _________
A. Concession & Retail Manager
B. Communications assistant/Williams College student
C. In-school resident educator
D. School programs manager
E. Marketing and web manager
F. Information techonology manager
G. Co-director Shakepeare in the Courts
H. Director of publicity and playbill advertising
I. Food services manager
Cut and paste the form above into an email, and place a letter (corresponding to a job description) in the blank space next to each number (corresponding to the actors’ headshots.)
Email answers to danshaw@ruralintelligence.com by noon on Monday, February 1.
Everyone who correctly matches each actor with his or her job will be eligible for a drawing to win two tickets to see Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which runs through March 21.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 01/27/10 at 09:36 AM • Permalink
Berkshire Fringe Festival Grows Up
Fringe founders Peter Wise, Sara Katzoff & Timothy Ryan Olson
The Berkshire Fringe Festival operates in the spirit of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which started in Scotland in 1947, when eight theater troupes turned up uninvited at Edinburgh International Fesitval and had to perform on the outskirts of the city. Although the Berkshire Fringe’s home at Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington is not exactly an out-of-the-way location, it is removed from the tourist-friendly Old Guard Berkshire Cultural Establishment, which is anchored by Berkshire Theatre Festival (est. 1928), Jacob’s Pillow (est. 1933), Tanglewood (est. 1937) and Williamstown Theatre Festival (est. 1955). The Berkshire Fringe (est. 2005) is the love child of Sara Katzoff, Timothy Ryan Olson, and Peter Wise (above), who all graduated from Simon’s Rock. Their mission is to give other young artists a chance to test themselves and their ideas in front of an audience in a real theater. “We want every artist to have a venue and voice,” says Katzoff, who notes the three volunteer their time to the not-for-profit festival. “Our theme this year—and really every year—is embracing artistic risk.” (To see highlights from previous seasons click on the video below)
The Fringe has struck a chord with established talents like actresses Karen Allen, Karen Beaumont, and Hilary Somers Deely, who serve on the fringe’s advisory board. “Fringe festivals are really popular all over the world,” says Katzoff, who has performed herself at the San Francisco Fringe. The biggest challenge is recruiting an audience for edgy material such as The Gay Agenda’s Big Broadway Show, the story of Micah and Nicholas who’ve been sequestered in their basement by a family member for years with only original cast recordings to listen to during their isolation. (Click here for the full calendar.)
Alternative Festivals in the Berkshires
Bang on A Can Summer Music Festival
July 16 - August 1
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA
WordXWord Festival
August 17 - 22
Pittsfield, MA
To help create buzz, the first night for each of the six shows in the festival (which are performed five times over 21 days) will be “Pick Your Own Price,” and you can pay as much or as little as you like for your ticket. (On other nights, the main productions are $16, but there are free events, too.) “Word of mouth is our biggest asset in selling tickets so we hope this helps spread the word,” says Katzoff. The Fringe also does a mellow version of guerilla marketing by sending its interns loose with pamphlets and fliers on the sidewalks of Great Barrington to talk up the shows with pedestrians. “It would not work in New York City, but it’s incredibly effective here.,” says Katzoff. “People feel like they have been personally invited to a show.” The personal touch extends to this year’s gala on Monday, July 27, which is nearly sold out. “We had a committee for the first time and they wrote personal notes on the invitations,” says Katzoff. “It was a very proper thing to do. I guess that means we’re now a proper organization.”
Berkshire Fringe Festival at Simon’s Rock
Great Barrington, MA; 413.320.4175
July 27 - August 17
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 07/22/09 at 10:15 AM • Permalink
From Pittsfield to Pougkeepsie: The Evolution of “The Burnt Part Boys”
Four years ago, Julie Boyd and William Finn announced that they would start a Musical Theater Lab in Pittsfield, which would make its home at Barrington Stage Company’s Stage 2. They said it would be an incubator for new musicals, and it got off to a brilliant start in 2006 with The Burnt Part Boys (photo left); the show—with music by Chris Miller, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and a book by Mariana Elder—was presented in the basement of the Berkshire Athenaeum, which had been cleverly outfitted with planked walls to feel like a shaft in a coal mine. Finn, who had taught two of the show’s creators at NYU, was kvelling and wrote in the playbill: “They are not only charmers, these writers, but they’re artists not afraid of entertaining. This story is classic but fresh; it’s an old western transposed to a mining town where lessons are learned and lives are changed. The lyrics I love because no one else but Nathan could have written them in such an openhearted way. And the music, by Chris Miller, is down-home yet sophisticated and always transporting. How lucky I am to present the professional debut of these young writers.”
Fast forward three years, and the incubation period is not quite over: The Burnt Part Boys, which is still being billed as a “new musical,” will be presented this summer at Vassar & New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater (July 17 - 26). What’s more, it is already set to open Off Broadway in 2010 in a joint venture between Playwrights Horizons and the Vineyard Theater. “I didn’t see it three years ago, so I cannot say exactly how it is different,” says Johanna Pfaelzer, artistic director of New York Stage and Film, who says that the “story has radically changed” since its first incarnation. “This is the next step in the evolution,” she says.
Boyd takes great pride not only that Barrington Stage presented the “world premiere” of The Burnt Part Boys, but also that another Musical Theater Lab show from 2007, Calvin Berger (book, music and lyrics by Barry Wyner), will be getting a staged reading this month at Playwrights Horizons in New York directed and choreographed by Tony-winner Kathleen Marshall. So, it’s a sure bet that a couple of this summer’s Musical Theater Lab productions will have lives after Pittsfield, too.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/30/09 at 04:58 PM • Permalink
Professor Karen Allen Directs “Moonchildren” at Simon’s Rock
Karen Allen—the actress who played opposite John Belushi in Animal House, Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Joanne Woodward and John Malkovich in The Glass Menagerie directed by Paul Newman—has become famous in Great Barrington for her eponymous Railroad Street store that sells Allen’s locally-made knitted cashmere clothing and other luxe bohemian apparel. Though the movies made her a star, it is theater where she honed her craft, playing parts such as Helen Keller in the Broadway production of Monday After the Miracle in 1982 and Annie Sullivan in the 1987 revival of The Mircale Worker at New York’s Roundabout Theater .
Now, Karen Allen is teaching the art of acting at Simon’s Rock, the “early college” for high-school age students, up the hill from her store, and she is directing Michael Weller’s Vietnam-era play Moonchildren, which runs for seven performances at the Daniel Arts Center from Wednesday, April 22, to Sunday, April 26.
The play, which is set at a college in 1965-1966 just before the eruption of massive student demonstrations against the war, is deja vu for Allen. “I went to college in 1969 at George Washington University,” says Allen, who has set the play there. “Everything was changing. Students were co-habitating for the first time. They could live in an urban commune.” Allen lived in what she calls an “urban commune” in Washington, DC. “It was a brownstone with five floors and we kept our bikes in the backyard,” she recalls. “There were eight of us and we all contributed to taking care of the house and we took turns cooking dinner one night a week.”
She chose Moonchildren, after reading dozens of plays, because she knew that she had the right students to cast in the roles (and for the two adults she cast David Wade Smith and Kale Browne, her ex-husband and father of her son) and because it would offer the students a literate way to learn about the pre-Woodstock era when everything started to change in American life. “Their parents were children in 1960s, if they were even born!” she says.
Professor Allen has been challenged by a schedule that only allowed for 9 hours of rehearsal a week. “That’s one day in professional theater,” she notes. And she is concerned, as any conscientious mother and director would be, about the health of her actors who are busy with exams and final papers. “We don’t have undertstudies,” she says. “Every night I tell them, Go home and get a good night’s sleep!”
The original Broadway production of Moonchildren—“bitterly funny and funnily bitter” according to Clive Barnes’s 1972 New York Times review—was a launching pad for the actors Edward Herrmann, James Woods, Jill Eikenberry and Christopher Guest, and it established Weller as an important voice of his generation.
“Michael Weller, who I knew a little bit in New York in the 1970s, is such a gifted writer,” says Allen. “He studied jazz at Brandeis and he writes like a jazz musician. The play is a series of riffs.” She says the play differs from her own college experience in one important way. “I don’t remember anybody in our house being this witty,” she says.
Moonchildren at Simon’s Rock
April 22 - 24 at 7:30 PM; April 25 & 26 at 2 PM & 7:30 PM
Reservations highly recommended; 413.644.4400
Suggested donation: $5
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/22/09 at 12:11 PM • Permalink
Top Ten Reasons Why 2009 Will be a Summer of High Drama (So Get Your Tickets Now!)
1. Julianne Boyd knows how to breathe fresh life into classic musicals (as she did brilliantly with Follies four summers ago when Barrington Stage Company was based in Sheffield), and this year she’s directing Rodgers & Hammerstein’s magnificent Carousel on Barrington Stage Company’s main stage in downtown Pittsfield; it will run June 17 - July 11.
2. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley returns to stage The Jacksonian, her 8th play at Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, which is celebrating its 25th year collaborating with New York Stage & Film.
3. It’s hard not to be happy listening to the music of Leonard Bernstein on a summer’s night, and Berkshire Theatre Festival will be doing a semi-staged version of his operetta Candide, directed by Ralph Petillo, in the intimate Unicorn Theatre (July 8 - August 15.)
4. If you’ve always wondered why The Fantasticks ran for 42 years Off Broadway (and how you somehow managed to never see it), the Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck will give you the opportunity to make up for the lapse; the musical runs May 29 - June 14
5. A stage version of the Mike Newell’s movie Enchanted April, which follows four English ladies on their vacation to Italy (and seems like a Merchant Ivory production), will be at The Ghent Playhouse from May 15 - 31.
6. A.R. Gurney and Sam Shephard are among our best living playwrights and their worlds could not be more different. Williamstown Theatre Festival will stage revials of Gurney’s Children and directed by John Tillinger (July 1 - 12), which will be followed by Daniel Goldstein’s production of Pulitzer Prize-winner Sam Shephard’s True West.
7. You probably know the 1956 film starring Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby (and Louis Armstrong as himself) but have you ever seen a stage version of High Society? The plucky Mac-Haydn Theatre kicks off its 41st season with the Cole Porter musical May 28 - June 7.
8. To make sure we are intellectually challenged as well as entertained, Bard Summerscape will present The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Choephori, and The Eumenides, the trilogy of plays by Aeschylus and translated by Ted Hughes, in various combinations, from July 15 - August 2.
9. If ever there were a Broadway show that was meant to be a community theater staple it’s Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man, and TriArts will no doubt give it a rousing, 76-trombone production at the Sharon Playhouse from August 6 - 23.
10. Stageworks in Hudson has grit, gumption, and champions new work such as Lucille Lichtblau’s Car Talk, which has its world premiere July 22 - August 9.
11. So who’s counting? If you missed Shakespeare & Company‘s muscular production of Othello last summer, you’ll have more than a dozen chances to see it performed in the Founders’ Theatre between July 3 and August 29.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/31/09 at 02:04 PM • Permalink
A Masterful Clown’s Free Performance at Simon’s Rock
Tomas Kubinek gives performance art a good name. “Mr. Kubinek is an acrobat, storyteller, stilt walker, unicyclist, musician, magician, clown and comic whose jokes and ad-libs bring giggles from youngsters and laughter from adults,” according to The New York Times. As critic Lawrence Van Gelder wrote: “Mr. Kubinek would be worth seeing if he accomplished no more than his remarkable feat of balancing a glass of red wine on his forehead, which is so broad, he says, that he calls it his fivehead. But Mr. Kubinek doesn’t stop there. Still balancing the glass, he manages to lower himself to the stage floor, turn a complete somersault and, without spilling a drop of wine or using his hands, drink the glass empty. Oh, yes, one more thing: he does all this while playing a ukulele and, for most of the time, whistling ‘It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie’.” When he played the Mahaiwe more than two years ago, he bowled over critic Seth Rogovoy who wrote: “Kubinek is a one-man circus and dramatic repertory company and band. This guy is so talented at so many different things he makes your average multitasker look like a sloth.”
What’s more, although Kubinek’s work is sophisticated and borders on the intellectual, it is also appropriate for children over the age of seven, which is another mean feat. He will be performing for free on Saturday, March 14, as part of his Aritst-in-Residency stint at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, and the public is invited.
Tomas Kubinek
McConnell Theater/Daniel Arts Center
Bard College at Simon’s Rock
Great Barrington; 413.644.4400
8 PM
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/10/09 at 01:49 PM • Permalink
Recession Drama: Shakespeare & Company Will Do More With Less
Tina Packer announcing the 2009 -2010 Shakespeare & Company season
Tina Packer usually defies—and exceeds—expectations. Over 32 years in the Berkshires, the founder of Shakespeare & Company has transformed the troupe that put on plays in the dilapidated Mount and its surrounding woods into a theatrical powerhouse. With year round educational programs and a reputation for producing gutsy versions from the Bard’s canon as well as new works by contemporary playwrights, S&Co has become a cultural bellwether. On Tuesday, Packer announced the lineup for the 2009 - 2010 season and, resisting the conventional wisdom in a recession, she said S&Co will mount 18 productions—10 more than last year. The season’s apt slogan: “Play On!”
Packer is not playing the fool. She’s read Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times , and she’s going to make the most of her resources. She is enlarging the season by remounting several plays that will be easy for her to get up because they’re already cast and have their costumes and scenery (which, when you think about it, is what opera companies do by bringing back audience favorites year after year. What’s more, she already has rave reviews in hand and does not have to worry what local critics say.) She’ll be reviving Hamlet from 2006 and last summer’s Othello (above), which played to sold-out audiences, and using members of those casts to do the comedy Twelfth Night.
Packer, who is in her final year as artistic director (but will stay on with the company), will perform in what she’s calling the “Diva Series” of one-woman shows. She’ll revive her performance as Shirley Valentine in Willy Russell’‘s 1986 play; Annette Miller (left) will return with Golda’s Balcony, which is being dedicated to its playwright William Gibson, who died last year; Penny Kreitzer will star in The Actors Rehearse the Story of Charlotte Salomon, which chronicles the life of an artist who fled Nazi German and worked in France for several years before being captured by the Gestapo and being sent to Auschwitz.
Now that the new black box Elayne P. Bernstein Theater is up and running (thought it needs another $1 million to be fully utilized), S&Co will do a 90-minute, seven-actor version of Romeo & Juliet (which is touring schools in New England for five months) as well as several contemporary plays, including the North American premiere of Devil’s Advocate by Donald Freed, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by Tony- and Oscar-winner John Patrick Shanley, White People by J.T Rogers, and the world premier of Cindy Bella (or the Glass Slipper) by Anna Brownsted and Irina Brook, which is a 21st century version of Cinderella (which had two workshop performance at S&Co last year.)
Packer’s goal is to keep people coming back to the Lenox campus all year long. She’s thinking of hosting concerts and poetry slams, and she’s already added a Lunch Box Shakespeare series, where the audience will be served a box lunch during the intermission of Measure for Measure. “We are going to keep this place throbbing,” she said, giddy with excitement in spite of the economic challenges. “In the end, creativity is going to save the company.”
Shakespeare & Company
70 Kemble Street, Lenox; 413.637.1199
Box Office Opens March 5.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/03/09 at 03:55 PM • Permalink
“Kiss This - A Valentine’s Day Cabaret” at Barrington Stage
Nikos Tsakalakos is the type of talented and ambitious young artist who finds Pittsfield a font of creativity. “Two years ago, Bill Finn told me his crazy idea that he wanted to make Pittsfield the epicenter of new musical theater,” says Tsakalakos, who was a student of the Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist at New York University. “I have become one of the foot soldiers in his mission.”
Tsakalakos first came to Pittsfield two summers ago to work as Finn’s assistant at Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theatre Lab. He had an especially productive period of songwriting. He put together an evening of cabaret called “Songs from A Night Owl,” which was a hit. Last summer, he did a three-night cabaret run that was so enthusiastically received that BSC artistic director Julianne Boyd told him she wanted to help him create a full-scale musical based on his narrative song “Poolside at the Hotel Bel Air,” which chronicles a summer of waiting on the rich and famous in Los Angeles. “I wrote that song by the pool at Reba’s,” he said, referring to BSC board member Reba Evenchik, who often invites BSC artists to hang out at her beautiful house in Pittsfield. (He’s been developing the show with writer Janet Allard, and they are scheduled to do a staged reading of the full musical on Memorial Day weekend.)
Meanwhile, Boyd asked Tskalaskos if he could pull together the work of up-and-coming songwriters for a Valentine’s weekend cabaret at BSC’s Stage 2. Tsakalkos will perform along with Cassie Wooley (who appeared in BSC’s See Rock City) and Demond Green (who appeared in BSC’s Spelling Bee.) “All the songs are about having love, losing love, and longing for love,” he says.
Kiss This - A Valentine’s Day Cabaret
Friday, February 13 at 8 PM; $20
Saturday, February 14 at 9 PM; $25
Barrington Stage Company Stage 2
36 Linden Street, Pittsfield; 413.236.8888
