May 10

Geeks Nerds and Artists Episode 6: Spiro Veloudos

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photo credit: Lyric Stage of Boston

Episode 6: Geeks, Nerds & Artists Podcast: Spiro Veloudos, Artistic Director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston and director of current production of Avenue Q

http://www.lyricstage.com/

Avenue Q: May 11-June 24, 2012 (it is selling out presently)

Spiro Veloudos is the Producing Artistic Director of The Lyric Stage Company. and has been honored with numerous awards and honors including The Elliot Norton Award and The Independent Reviews of New England (IRNE) Award. He has been personally honored with the 2006 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, Stage Source’s 2002 Theatre Hero Award and was cited as the city’s Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston program in 1999. Continue reading →

May 08

Small Theatre Alliance of Boston: A Force for Good Theatre

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IN THE DARKNESS

OF A SMALL THEATRE

CREATING NEW, CHALLENGING, AND EXCITING

PRODUCTIONS, WHERE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION WERE SCATTERED

A GROUP OF ARTISTS JOINED TOGETHER TO INCREASE COMMUNICATION BY FORMING

THE SMALL THEATRE ALLIANCE OF BOSTON

Interview with John Geoffrion by Becca Kidwell

Between 2009 and 2010, Meg Taintor, Daniel Morris, Nora Long, and other small theatre leaders joined together to form the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston share resources, information, ideas, and support each other. Continue reading →

May 07

Horrific Comfort Food: LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

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l. to r. Bill Mootos, Ceit McCaleb Zweil, Lovely Hoffman, and Jennifer Fogarty in Little Shop of Horrors. Photo by Andrew Brilliant / Brilliant Pictures.

Little Shop of Horrors, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, New Repertory Theatre, Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 4/29/12-5/27/12, http://www.newrep.org/little_shop.php.

Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew

(Watertown, MA) Sometimes you are having a bad day. Sometimes you are in such a bad mood that escapism is the only way to manage.  It was in such a state that I entered the New Rep’s production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Arsenal Center for the Arts. I tell you this so that you will know exactly how steep a hill the cast had to climb in order for me to emerge smiling; which I did. Continue reading →

May 07

Lunatics Running the Asylum: ASSASSINS

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As the culminating event in the College's year-long examination of the theme of violence, Assassins brims with a particularly urgent energy. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky for Boston University Photography © 2012 Boston University all rights reserved

Assassins, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, Boston University Colllege of Fine Arts School of Theatre, Boston University Theatre, 4/4/12-4/10/12, http://www.bu.edu/cfa/2012/04/20/assassins/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) It’s nice for Stephen Sondheim and his partner John Weidman to clear up a few things for us about theater in their mishmash of a play, Assassins, playing at the Boston University Theatre.

They have proven a fundamental truth: You can populate your play with profoundly interesting characters, give them things to do that impact every theatergoer’s psyche and bestow wonderful music for them to sing as they do it, but if the script doesn’t allow them to interact in a meaningful way, it’s just an exercise in futility.  The playwrights prove this point despite the best efforts of a talented cast, who creates full-fledged and compelling characters. In fact, the cast and stellar set give us such high expectations that it makes the mind want to rebel at this idle script all the more.    Continue reading →

May 07

Juventas New Music Ensemble-A Company to Watch

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Juventas New Music Ensemble‘s upcoming events:

Illuminations Release Party, Saturday, May 12 at 8:00pm, Futura Productions – Roslindale, MA
Juventas performs music by Polina Nazaykinskaya, Florie Namir, Moshe Shulman and others. at Rachmaninoff Festival May 26-27
New Music on the Lake, June 9 at 3pm
AND WHY YOU SHOULD GO SEE THEIR PERFORMANCES:
Folklore Shapes and Splinters The Fiddler and the Old Woman of Rumelia
retrospective by Gillian Daniels

Deep in the Balkans, a wandering gypsy woman, Roma (Hilary Anne Walker), meets and agrees to share a week of travel with Hajduk (Kevin Kees), an outlaw. They are not characters, really, but character archetypes who have drifted from their respective stories. Now they seek an audience. Continue reading →

May 03

Geeks Nerds and Artists Episode 5: Meg Taintor

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Episode 5:  Geeks, Nerds & Artists Podcast:  Meg Taintor, Artistic Director of Whistler in the Dark Theatre

http://www.whistlerinthedark.com/

Trojan Women:  May 18- June 2 at the Factory Theatre in Boston

Meg Taintor is the founding Artistic Director of Whistler in the Dark Theatre, for whom she has directed 13 productions. Also for Whistler, Meg produced three years of FeverFest, a new works festival dedicated to connecting adventurous audiences with young and vital theatre companies and artists in Boston. Meg has also directed for Mill6 Theatre and New Voices @ New Rep.

In 2009, Meg joined with other artists working in the small and fringe theatre scene to form the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston, where served for two years as President of the Board. She is now Chair of the Alliance Events Committee and a member of the Board for StageSource. Meg believes passionately in the necessity for a strong community of local artists supporting and challenging itself to do better and more exciting work.

Her regional theatre credits include the National Players, Rorschach Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, the Potomac Theatre Project and Washington Shakespeare Company. She holds a B.A. in Theatre and Women & Gender Studies from Middlebury College. (profile from website)

May 01

WIN TICKETS TO T: AN MBTA MUSICAL!

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Performance dates:  June 8, 15, 29 and July 6 at Club Oberon in Cambridge, MA

Part of why T: An MBTA Musical reaches such a wide audience is because anyone who has ridden the T, even once, know the craziness that is the MBTA.

To win tickets to this show (that will sell out again), tell us your strangest, most humorous, or horrific story by filling the comment form below (click on title or “read more” for the full post) by May 8th.  You must enter your full name and a valid email address to win.  Winner will be announced on May 10th. Continue reading →

May 01

Life Lessons in a Lull: TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

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photo credit: Stratton McCrady

Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, The Modern Theatre, 4/25/12-5/20/12, http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/events/troilus-and-cressida-0.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) There are two major ways to connect audiences to Shakespeare, despite the tricky language: you can glitz up the production so theatergoers don’t realize their brains are doing heavy-lifting (a la Baz Luhrmann’s seizure-inducing Romeo and Juliet) or make sure you serve up quality and let the script speak for itself.  Tina Packer consistently has chosen the second option in her body of work.   Continue reading →

May 01

Familiar Territory Retread in A PICASSO

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Photo credit: Salem Theatre Company

A Picasso by Jeffrey Hatcher, Salem Theatre Company, 4/26/12-5/19/12, http://www.salemtheatre.com/on_stage.htm.

Reviewed by Gillian Daniels

(Salem, MA) With nowhere to go, two characters bounce off each other, alternating between affection and violence. Their relationship follows a familiar trajectory. The World War II bunker where both are trapped is a well-mined setting, too. Still, it’s satisfying to watch Pablo Picasso (Stephen Cooper) and his German interrogator, Ms. Fischer (Linda Goetz), scrape each other raw in The Salem Theatre Company’s production of A Picasso.

Continue reading →