People are always asking for things. Things. THINGS. THINGS! Don’t people realize that time equals money? For a good time and money well spent, people ought to consider an evening in North Beach for the Twin Beach Players’ production of The Miser, adapted by Freda Thomas from Moliere’s work. Directed by Jeff Larsen, this hilarious French farce is a delightful romp through Moliere’s garden of giggly goodies. Ripe with puns, sight-gags,
Images create reality. The imagination creates images of our reality. There is a line, even in our imaginations, that we should not cross, but to enforce such a notion would be impossible. In a frighteningly realistic and none-too-distant futuristic world where the “Nether” (formerly the internet) has become the contextual framework for being, it’s okay to forget who you are and discover who you might be. It’s the golden opportunity to live without consequence in a reality that is not one’s own.
After reviewing the situations— which was the smashingly impressive inaugural production of Oliver— TheatreBloom has taken a moment to sit down with the Executive Director and Founding Member of Third Wall Productions Mike Zellhofer and Company Manager and Founding Member Mea Holloway to talk shop about how the company got underway, what they’re up to, and where they’re going!
Let’s get some introductions going here, tell our readers who you are and what of your work they might recognize so they can familiarize themselves with the driving forces behind Third Wall Productions.
Musical theatre these days, boy I tells ya! Might as well go to hell for what’s passing on the boards as good entertainment! But you’re in luck! Has Epic Productions Inc. got the show for you! It’s gutsy! It’s spoofy! It’s a two-handler— finally a side-splittingly funny musical about Gutenberg! It’s just what the Baltimore theatre scene needs and it’s just what Epic Productions Inc. is serving up and dishing out with their upcoming production of— you guessed it— Gutenberg!
She’s the hitch…she’s what no one believes…she’s the witch! Kristen Zwobot sits down in a TheatreBloom exclusive interview to discuss tackling a Sondheim Bucket-List role as she takes on The Witch in the Reisterstown Theatre Project production of Into the Woods.
If you could give us a brief introduction of who you are and what of your work the readers might recognize, we can get started.
Kristen Zwobot: So I’m Kristen Zwobot and I’m playing the witch.
Not just a scared little guppy— this fish has heelies! It’s time to settle into Part 2 of the “Part of Your World” interview series and meet Judah Latshaw, age nine, who is currently playing Flounder in the Milburn Stone Theatre production of The Little Mermaid. Precocious, spunky, and full of spirit, this is one young performer who is super excited about the chance to get to play on the big stage.
If the good truth were known, it would be spoke aloud that The Baltimore Shakespeare Factory has an impressive production of The Winter’s Tale to trod upon its boards the full month of April this year of 2016. What makes it so impressive, you ask? Not the fact that like at all BSF shows there is universal lighting a plenty and live music before during and at the end of the performance— both tools of the Bard’s day which serves well this merry band of players in their authentic Shakespeareance,
The truth of gender; the myth of gender. It’s small to hear but large to know and even larger to understand, respect, and accept. Appearing as a part of the Trans* Voices Workshop Series, Cohesion Theatre Company presents Aphorisms on Gender, a world premiere by Alice Stanley. Co-Directed by Caitlin Carbone and Melanie Glickman, this poignant one-act play addresses a great number of issues regarding the big and small truths of gender identity,
The 12th Annual Variations Project has arrived in Baltimore for the 2016 calendar year. Under the care of Rapid Lemon Productions, this year’s theme— as chosen by last year’s audiences— is Variations on Blame. To help spread the word and encourage local artists of Baltimore to become involved with the project, TheatreBloom sits down for an exclusive interview with the Founder of Rapid Lemon Productions to discuss the project and ways for people to get involved.
Look at this stuff! Isn’t it neat! Wouldn’t you think these interviews are complete? Well, you will once you read them, naturally. Join TheatreBloom in an exclusive 5-part series that delves “under the sea” at Milburn Stone Theatre to meet some of performers of their upcoming production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Kicking off the “Part of Your World” series, we get underway with Zach Rogers and Carl Pariso, playing Grimsby and Prince Eric respectively.
Are you cool enough to enjoy the strawberry? Because there is no difference between the past and the future, they’re all with you together in the bed of the present. Are you ready for a cinematic hybrid of chaos, confusion, and conclusive truth that is masquerading itself across the stage of Strand Theater Company? Because if you are, then you’re ready to face Harry and the Thief, written by Sigrid Gilmer.
When the name Harriet Tubman is mentioned, to many of us— especially those of us here in Baltimore— a particular image comes to mind: a kindly older woman wrapped in her shawl, showing folks the way to freedom on the underground railroad. But the legendary woman of history was so much more than that. And what happens when a time-traveling genius plots to intercept Harriet Tubman in her heyday and load her up with enough guns to incite a revolution that will echo throughout all of time and space?
Can I get an amen? AMEN! I said— I said— can I get an Amen? AMEN!!! It’s time to be raising the praises over at Church & Company as Twisted Knickers Burlesque proudly presents their bawdylicious Easter show, Res-Erection. Sharing the same name as last year’s Easter event, Producer Tapitha Kix and the girls of Twisted Knickers Burlesque are settling into their new space quite nicely. Partnering with Church & Company, the burly girls bring an extra authentic feel to their “church-themed” evening of burlesque by presenting the performance inside an actual church!
We now interrupt your regularly scheduled Thursday evening programing to bring you the March installment of Horatio Dark’s Between the Lines. Brought to you by Truth Dollars, the only way to fight communism behind the iron fence, this week’s monthly broadcast has temporarily relocated from its regularly scheduled Monday night time slot to a terrifying Thursday evening. Just what has old Horatio concocted in his lab that has the show traveling about through the nights of the week?
Passing time is painful. So what could be more titillating than other people’s hell when it comes to distracting the mind from its own personal grief? In a powerfully evocative stage adaptation of David Grossman’s novel, Theater J brings Falling Out of Time to the stage as the penultimate production of their 2015/2016 calendar season. Directed and Adapted by Derek Goldman, this strikingly emotional drama hones in on the potent power of grief and its ability to transform the lives of an entire village.
Seek summer south. Seek winter north. Seek autumn west. Seek spring east. Seek Minotaur at Annex Theater. Playing heavily into their season of Wondrous Strange, discovering identity through amazing adventure and twisted paths, this original stage work written and Directed by company member Douglas Johnson, this fully immersive experience follows down the darkened path of sensory-overload that the last few shows of the season have meandered. Powerfully evocative in its ability to disorient the senses through play of the aesthetic,
Kicking off things with a bang after a season-long hiatus, Iron Crow Theatre is back with its most ambitious season ever. Under new management, establishing a new identity, and toting a whole bunch of new ideas, the company is rebooting their version of live theatre in Baltimore. Transitioning from the well-known moniker of “Baltimore’s Gay Theatre” into the broader umbrella of “Queer Theatre”, Artistic Director Sean Elias was heard making the statement that “…Queer…as defined to be renegade and unorthodox would be the mark and focus of rebranding the theatre…” at the season launch party held on Saturday February 6th earlier this year.
Order. Design. Tension. Symmetry. Composition. Balance. Light. Harmony. And look they made a hat, where there never was a hat. Producing the final production in a “Celebration of Sondheim” festival that spanned the course of nearly two seasons, The Milburn Stone Theatre brings to a close an era of one of musical theatre’s greatest minds by mounting Sunday in the Park with George. With Musical Direction by Dan McTiernan and Production Coordinator John Desmone at the canvas,
People say you can’t get used to some things, but you do. Washington DC is used to the fact that there is a dedicated, professional theatre setting continual flight to the voices of women at Venus Theatre in Laurel, Maryland. But how much of what you hear is ever actually true? Hear this, Washington DC— the 55th script of Venus Theatre, Fur by Migdalia Cruz, which launches Season Sweet16: Groovy Young Things,
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! Fremde! Etranger! Stranger! For a one-weekend limited engagement of just five nearly sold-out performances, The Highwood Theatre of Silver Spring has been transformed. Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen…The Highwood Theatre is proud to give you, and don’t forget to give it back when you’re finished with it, the 1998 revival version of Cabaret! Performed inside the tawdry yet tasteful Kit Kat Klub, the revival version of Kander and Ebb’s racy musical is an astounding production the likes of which you’ve never seen,
It’s astonishing what a little moonlight can do. And it’s a full moon over Mount Vernon in Charm City for the next three weekends as Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill lights up the stage at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre. Featuring solo performer Anya Randall Nebel as the legendary Billie Holiday under the Direction of Jared Shamberger and Musical Direction of LeVar Betts, this truly haunting and powerfully evocative musical tale is not your ordinary jukebox musical.
Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Countymen! The day of coming together for brutal group stabbings has most recently passed! But the day of coming together for group giggling, or more aptly, group laughter-induced-explosions is upon us! A heavier task could not have been imposed than I to speak my praise unspeakable— for there be so much of it, I risk stealing the thunder right out from Prologa herself when she starts the same indescribable task of priming the audience for the uproariously delightful screamingly scandalous good time they are about to have when they attend the limited-engagement production of The Menaechmi Twins now appearing in the colosseum— well,
We are all easily explicable, what we are not is easily extricable…perhaps in your case it is not easily extricable from your job? Or from your couch when your favorite program has graced the television screen? Whatever you find your inextricability to be, make no explanations for having missed the finest show that Fells Point Corner Theatre has offered up this far this season. Making its Baltimore area community theatre debut, David Ives’ Venus in Fur will keep you perched at the edge of your seat until the rather astonishing conclusion as Thomas and Vanda have at each other over the course of 90 minutes’ stage traffic.
Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of the *super* choices in this year’s upcoming presidential election? Will 2016 be the year that America finally brings an apocalypse down upon its own head with what has made it to the near-final rounds of voting time? Are you ready to feel the Bern? Or Trump the competition with ludicrous violence? Which Hillary will you be voting for? Are you ready to make America great again? If you are,
We are not animals. We are watching. But what if we are animals and are not to be trusted? Forum Theatre brings to the stage in a fully immersive and unapologetically evocative experience Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. Directed by Yury Urnov, this deceptively dark drama and majestically macabre tale unfolds in a surreal reality that is simultaneously in the audience’s periphery and just outside of their vision. Remarkably experiential, as the audience is quite literally the on-looking totalitarian dictatorship masses,
Dearest Reader, an adventure awaits you— both bold and daring!
But with effort abound, tons of creativity and caring
A spectacular spectacle, and you must doubt those naysayers,
Comes Seussical! The Musical at Charm City Players!
It’s all been done before, it’s been done too many times
Why that musical about Seuss with all of its rhymes!
But I’m telling you this,
You must be serious about something if you wish to have any fun in life at all, and the thing to be serious about this spring is procuring a ticket to the exceptionally well-performed production of Oscar Wilde’s The Important of Being Earnest. The house is intimate and tickets are likely to be snatched up once word is out at just how resplendent and amusing the current Annapolis Shakespeare Company production is,
The mayhem never stops over at Cohesion Theatre Company and their latest mount to the stage is truly wondrous strange. Taking William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to task, Director Alice Stanely refocuses the driving forces of the plot’s actions and tunes them into the highly potent pathos of grief. Coping with loss is never easy, and the ways in which human beings express these feelings are nothing short of evocative, stirring, and daringly dramatic as witnessed in this production.
When one spends the greater part of their life in a fantasy world, there’s a great chance of slipping over completely and never finding one’s way back to reality. If the character’s that you’ve constructed inside that reality are entertaining enough to keep you there, that is. Bowie Community Theatre brings their 2015/2016 season to a close with Bernard Slade’s An Act of the Imagination. Directed by Patrick Gorirossi, this plot-twisted darkened stage thriller has a great deal of potential to entice an audience with Slade’s wicked good writing and the cameo characters that fill in the space between the pages.
Come with me to see something strange unfold and hear the weirdest tale that’s ever been told. But children, be wary if you’re faint of heart, for what’s happening on stage is more than just art! The Children’s Playhouse of Maryland is undertaking a marvelous masterpiece, an enormously fruity and fantastical story— James and the Giant Peach! What a musical! Directed by Liz Boyer Hunnicutt with Musical Direction by R. Christopher Rose,