Duuuude! Are you down to party with the King of Navarre? Naaah man, I hear he’s got some wicked sick rules— like ‘No woman shall come within a mile of his court on pain of losing her tongue’ and ‘If any bro be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court can possibly devise.’ But we hear he throws killer parties!
Frame your face for all occasions! What is more miserable than discontent? For now is the winter of our discontent, though it be but the first day of autumn, and Analog Players will trade its kingdom for your horse if your horse be but, in fact, a butt in a seat inside the Yellow Sign Theatre as you attend His Majestic Lump of Foul Deformity. Written and Directed by Alex Hacker,
Men’s eyes were made to look and let them gaze upon the riveting new production of Romeo & Juliet at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Directed by Alan Paul, this revitalized and somewhat modern approach to the Bard’s most woeful tragedy attends the fates gaily and with swift justice for both the poetic nature of the text and the emotional capacity of the plot. Perilously little can be ascribed in complaint, save for the missed opportunities to push the conceptualized vision on the whole in a slightly different direction,
Jessica Lefkow is, indeed, “fire and air” in Brave Spirits Theatre’s brilliant, bold production of Antony and Cleopatra. She is riveting every moment she is on stage, evincing the kind of charisma that the fabled Egyptian queen used to enthrall two great Roman generals. One was Julius Caesar, who died in the eponymous play. The other is Mark Antony, played with passion by Joe Carlson. His spirit draws Cleopatra so powerfully to him,
Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on Alex Hacker. The Baltimore-based playwright and actor has is preparing for the world premiere of his newest work, His Majestic Lump of Foul Deformity, debuting with his company The Analogue Players later this month. But the play itself was an accidental response when Hacker hit a creative roadblock to a different work (one still in progress) that at present remains unfinished. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview,
Suppose within the girdles of the Greenbelt Arts Center’s walls are now confined two mighty forces— The Rude Mechanicals: a community theatre troupe that delivers judiciously trimmed and readily accessible Shakespearean plays— and Henry V: Shakespeare’s middle Henry history play. Directed by Rebecca Speas, this muse of fire finds its place among the Bard’s canon in true Rude Mechanicals style and delivers swiftly the plot, the point, and the perfectly pared-down rendition of what is otherwise a lengthy history lesson in the trajectory arc of Prince Hal to King Harry.
Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more! But what if it’s your first time into the breach, like it is for Director Rebecca Speas, who’s taking Henry V out for her first full-length directorial debut? Or you’re newcomer Allison McAlister fresh to the Maryland theatre scene by way of North Carolina and delving into the titular role of the show? In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we sit down with Rebecca and Allison to get an idea of what muses stoke their fire when it comes to the Bard and his great history lesson.
With spirits to enforce and arts to enchant, Shakespeare Theatre Company offers up the most whimsically enchanting of the Bard’s theatrical canon with their production of The Tempest. Presented as the 26th Annual ‘Free for All’ performance, and Directed by Ethan McSweeny, Shakespeare’s final play is delivered with radiant justice, mesmerizing theatrical magic, and exquisite emotional endeavors that envelope the audience for a truly fantastical experience. The majesty of Lee Savage’s set juxtaposed against a myriad of miraculous production design elements make this a truly magnificent experience for all who are able to attend.
Let me tell you a story. You’ll have to listen well since the cicadas and crickets have devious plots. Plots as thick and syrupy as Cassius’ (Utkarsh Rajawat) to slide vengeance into the noble heart of Brutus (Shannon Ziegler) under the guise of freedom. Baltimore Shakespeare Factory’s production of Julius Caesar is like a story told with a group of friends and family: a campfire tale told in a semi-circle of Tikki torches in the swirling beauty on the ground of the Evergreen Museum and Library.
Lord, what fools these mortals be— thinking that summertime theatre in Annapolis need only involve outdoor musicals! Annapolis Shakespeare Company has set up shop, for a two-weekend limited engagement, in the luxurious Gardens of The Charles Carroll House for their current production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Directed by Sally Boyett and Donald Hicken, the performance is a tightly trimmed rendition of the whimsical faerie-laden comedy, which showcases mesmerizing costumes,
Before Luke Skywalker becomes a man, he started out hanging out with an old man and a pack of ne’r do wells in a crap bar while his dad and more useful sibling were out there ruling the universe. George Lucas snagged a page from Shakespeare and made it his own into the form we know and love today. The Rude Mechanicals have taken this tumultuous two-part history of Henry IV about life,
Dreams are the children of idle brain, but let your mind sit still no longer! It is time for your imagination, your mind, your brain, and every other part of one’s thinker that by any other name reasons just as soundly, to engage with the Bard’s most iconic romantic tragedy. Tightened for core efficiency and pared to its essence, Romeo & Juliet is now the two hours’ traffics upon the Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s 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 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.
Girl wants boy. Boy wants different girl. Girl tricks boy into wanting her. And they live happily ever after. Other stuff happens. There’s a fool involved somehow. And a king. And a fistula. That the girl magically cures the king of with her magical powers, or her herbs and whatnot. And then they live happily ever after. Also some love letters and a ring. Maybe some secretive identities, a ten-o’clock kidnapping, and a horse?
I am slain! Well, I’m not slain, thankfully, lest you’d be reading ye ole review by someone else! But you will be slain— with comic calamity and gripping tragedy all rolled into one amalgamation of a stage production currently parading itself on the boards of the St. Mary’s Community Center. Co-produced by Cohesion Theatre Company and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, The Complete Deaths of William Shakespeare— a devised work written by Alice Stanley (with a little help from Old Bill of the Bard)— is stirring up quite a ruckus,
For such as we are made of, such we be! Cohesion Theatre Company is cutting right to the core of Shakespeare’s words in their co-production of Twelfth Night alongside Iron Crow Theatre. Appearing as the second staged production in the Trans* Voices Workshop Series, Twelfth Night— Directed by Phil Vannoorbeeck and Assistant Directed by Sarah Maher— is shaking up the gender dynamics of the production to show one hugely important detail of existence as we know it: everyone wants to live their life authentically.
Like Shakespeare, interview series can too come with surprises! In an unpredicted fourth installment of the three-part series “No Darkness But Ignorance: Shedding Light on Trans* Twelfth Night” the show’s two remaining actors (who had not yet previously been featured) sit down to discuss the opportunity to work on the project with TheatreBloom. Alice Stanley, the Co-Founder and Co-Producing Artistic Director of Cohesion Theatre Company, sits with actor Melanie Glickman to discuss working inside of Twelfth Night in the Trans* Voices Workshop Series production co-produced by Cohesion Theatre Company and Iron Crow Theatre.
In the third installment of a series of interviews with the cast and directors of Twelfth Night, a co-production between Cohesion Theatre Company and Iron Crow Theatre appearing in the Trans* Voices Workshop Series, TheatreBloom sits down with actors Logan Davidson, Jane Jongeward, Danielle Vitullo, and Dana Woodson to hear about their experience with the production.
If you could give us an introduction of who you are and who you’re playing in the show as well as a little bit of your performance background from the area that would be a great start.
Following up the successful interview with Director Phil Vannoorbeeck and Assistant Director Sarah Maher, TheatreBloom sits down with four of the ten actors involved with the Trans* Voices Workshop Series production of Twelfth Night to have them shed further light on the experience.
If you could give us a brief introduction to who you are, who you are in the show, and what work you’ve done in the area, we’ll get started.
“Oh time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.” More appropriate Shakespearean words have never been found to suit the current situation of gender fluidity in the 21st century. As the knot of the rigid gender binary breaks apart into an open an accepting existence that genders— much like plays— come in a great many varieties, time proves to be the ultimate salve and knot-worker when it comes to undoing the limited thinking that has been applied to the notion since people began identifying their genders.
Lords and ladies, sinners and saints, draw close your ear and may to it the Folger Theatre bring pleasure with their presentation of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Production of Pericles. Neither comedy nor tragedy nor history but well containing aspects of all, this exceptional production is a delightful incarnation of the way Shakespeare intended his work to be experienced. Seen, heard, felt, and absorbed, this mythical tale, as Directed by Joseph Haj,
Brave Spirits’ bold, ambitious, brilliant Henri IV continues its exploration of gender with Part II. Shakespeare often sadly limited the roles that women can play, both in their interactions with men and with each other. Brave Spirits asks, why can’t a woman be a Chief Justice or a drunken sot, a warrior or a tailor? Where Shakespeare occasionally explores ways for women to be women, Brave Spirits explores ways for women to be people,
Brave Spirits Theatre are brave spirits indeed. Henri IV is a vast, sprawling, powerful epic of a play. It ranges from intimate love scenes to political intrigue, battles of swords to battles of wits, comedy and tragedy and honor and cowardice. It takes an ambitious theater troupe to portray 67 characters with a dozen actors, and set a variety of different acting challenges. Brave Spirits has both ambition and the skill to achieve it.
“One man in his time plays many parts,” declares Melancholy Jacques, and that definitely describes Richard Pilcher’s magnificent performance(s) in Annapolis Shakespeare Company‘s production of As You Like It. A mere eight actors pull off four pairs of lovers, two courts of lords, and an array of miscellaneous country bumpkins. Pilcher plays four separate roles, each strong, distinct, and imbued with life. His Jacques is pitch perfect: melancholy without being glum,
Ne’er so bethump’d with words has this critic found herself when staring down an amalgamation of a Shakespearean remount dipped in Pythonian humor and sprayed liberally with truncation across the Greenbelt Arts Center’s intimate black box stage, than she has in this very moment in attempting to report upon The Life and Death of King John as presented by The Rude Mechanicals. A history most boring upended ass over tea-kettle by Director Alan Duda,
Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona is, by turns, hilarious and horrifying, and it’s hard to know which of these is more daunting to a director approaching the play. Annapolis Shakespeare Company‘s Sally Boyett conquers both with flying colors. Her 1920’s-inspired Two Gents is sharp, incisive, fearless, and polished.
Proteus and Valentine (Patrick Truler and Joel Ottenheimer) are young friends on the verge of manhood. Proteus loves Julia (Amy Pastoor),
In the modern dieting trends where slimming down is all the rage even the world of the theatre could not be spared from the ravages of this new craze. Shakespeare gives us a smorgasbord of poetry and imagery; beautiful and powerful and in the new diet-approved rendition of Bard-Light: tragedies in under an hour, The BOOM Theatre Company is rendering down Macbeth to its purest essence; a powerhouse of moving and monumental scenes.
Shakespeare’s gone wild! It’s exactly like it sounds— crazy women, 37 plays, and a whole lot of vomiting! What could make for a better evening of hysterical gut-busting entertainment than the Fells Point Corner Theatre’s production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)? Which, they are totally proud to present? Directed by Howard Berkowitz, this laugh-a-minute comedy will crack your funny bone wide open and unearth the Bard like you’ve never seen him before.
Theatres all across the Washington DC and Baltimore metropolitan area are popping up like daisies in the spring time. Musical theatre companies, companies devoted to the classics, new edgy fringe-based companies; every city has a few dozen devoted to each if not more. But Silver Spring, a cozy suburb on the outskirts of the nation’s capitol proper, has a company that is truly unique. It’s almost 13 years old and was founded by Artistic Director Kevin Kearney,