Noise Within (ANW) is now presenting Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Tony Award®-winning play that first brought Stoppard to the attention of an international audience. The play will perform through Nov. 18, 2018. Two minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet take the spotlight here, although one thing is clear: they are destined to […]
Parson’s Nose Theater (PNT) opened “Clearly Classic: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night” last weekend. “Clearly Classic” is a new PNT series which includes a brief introduction to a classic play’s characters, language, and themes, enhancing its enjoyment for modern audiences. This is an original 90-minute adaptation Lance Davis, who co-directs with Gary Lamb. Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night […]
A Noise Within (ANW) is currently presenting A RAISIN IN THE SUN by Lorraine Hansberry, directed by Gregg T. Daniel, in repertory with HENRY V, through April 8, 2018. This is the story of the Youngers, an African-American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment in pre-civil rights America, as they struggle with competing dreams […]
Tennessee Williams’ A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE is now playing (through Mar. 25) at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena. I had the pleasure to attend last weekend; my first time at Boston Court, and totally recommend it. Director Michael Michetti has re-envisioned the play with a multicultural cast and in a modern setting […]
The second production of A Noise Within (ANW)’s 26th season is The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux, translated by Maurice Valency. Directed by Stephanie Shroyer, the poetic, surreal and comic fable features Deborah Strang as Countess Aurelia, the Madwoman herself, performing through Nov. 11, 2017. Oil is discovered under Paris, and Countess Aurelia and […]
The feel-good comedy AH, WILDERNESS!, written by the master of American realism Eugene O’Neill, is now performing at A Noise Within (ANW) in Pasadena, directed by Steven Robman. AH, WILDERNESS! tells the story of the educated middle-class Miller family in New London, CT, on a 4th of July, and in particular of the coming of […]
“Futuristic parable” is the description that the Furious Theatre Company gives to “Foxfinder,” currently playing at the Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton Theatre. Thankfully for you and me both, “futuristic” does not mean robots and aliens. While it is not so described, the story seems set in a post-war time when society is dysfunctional and nature […]
“This play is not pretty,” writes Steve Julian in the Playwright’s Note regarding his work “What Kind of God?” which is currently performing at the Lillian Theatre in Hollywood. He says so because the play deals with substantially polarizing subjects – religion, faith, and how much trust is due to those who say to represent […]
One of the happiest of Shakespeare plays, “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” opens the A Noise Within’s 2013-2014 season. Considered one of the Bard’s late romances, “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” contains everything that make the romances special – the reunion of long-lost family members, fantasy, magic, the presence of a superhuman goddess, shipwrecks, swordfights, and so […]