MARK AUERBACH
Barrington Stage Offers Veils
The Berkshires theatre scene isn’t just a summer thing any more. Berkshire Theatre Group’s production of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming plays in Stockbridge until it’s time for A Christmas Carol. WAM plans a fall production of Holy Laughter in Pittsfield, and Barrington Stage extends its satisfying season with the area premiere of Tom Coash’s Veils through October 18.
“Veils is an important play for our audiences to see. It deals with acceptance and discrimination – two subjects that are consistently on the front page nowadays. The fact that the subjects of this play are two young Muslim women will hopefully expand our understanding of these issues to an even greater degree,” said Artistic Director Julianne Boyd.
Wendy Wasserstein, author of Third at TheaterWorks
Veils is set in 2010, when Intisar, an African American Muslim student, arrives in Cairo for a year abroad. She hopes finally to be understood. She’s quickly enlisted by her exuberant Egyptian roommate, Samar, to help create a blog debating the practice of wearing veils, but when the Arab Spring intervenes, revolution threatens to overtake their friendship.
Conor Hamill stars in Third at TheaterWorks.
Coash shared some thoughts on Veils, “A veil. A scarf. A simple piece of cloth. In Arabic, hijab…abaya…burka. To western eyes, often a sign of the suppression of women’s rights. A sign of danger to our security and way of life. Certainly to our peace of mind”.
The production stars Hend Ayoub and Donnetta Lavinia Grays.
For details: 413-236-8888 or www.barringtonstageco.org.
Kate Levy stars in Third at TheaterWorks
Third Opens TheaterWorks 30th Hartford Season
TheaterWorks opens its 30th Anniversary season with Wendy Wasserstein’s Third, staged by the theatre’s Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero through November 8. A timely and witty play, Third tells the story of college professor Laurie Jameson whose well-ordered life as a wife, mother and daughter is thrown into disarray when she accuses a student, a seemingly stereotypical jock nicknamed ‘Third’, of plagiarism. In the wake of her accusation, she is forced to question her aggressively feminist ideology, assumptions and family relations.
Kate Levy, stars as Jameson and Conor Hamill, a recent Hartt School graduate, plays “Third”.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the first woman playwright to win a Tony Award for The Heidi Chronicles, Wendy Wasserstein was a Broadway luminary. She was a daughter of the 1950s, an artist that came of age during the freewheeling 1970s, a power woman in the 1980s, and a single mother at the turn of the century. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Wasserstein is best known for her award-winning plays The Heidi Chronicles (revived on Broadway last season) and The Sisters Rosensweig.
TheaterWorks was launched thirty years ago, and survived against all odds, competing for audiences with The Bushnell’s Broadway series, Hartford Stage’s decades long track record, Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and StageWest in Springfield. The theatre found its niche, presenting off-Broadway hits and cutting edge plays in a variety of spaces, until it developed its theatre in a building on Pearl Street in downtown Hartford.
Artistic Director Rob Ruggiero, who just directed the immensely satisfying production of La Cage Aux Folles at Goodspeed Musicals, has been with TheaterWorks for 22 years.
For details: 860.527.7838 or www.theaterworkshartford.org.
Keep in Mind…
Audra McDonald, the multi-award-winning actress and singer, takes to the stage of Great Barrington’s Mahawe Theatre to headline their 10th Anniversary Gala on October 11. McDonald is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry. With a record six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and a long list of other accolades to her name, she is among today’s most highly regarded performers. She returns to Broadway this season in Shuffle Along opposite Brian Stokes Mitchell, her co-star in Ragtime. For details: 413-528-0100 or
www.mahaiwe.org
An Iliad, the OBIE winning play by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, which chronicales the Greek classic by Homer, plays Shakespeare and Company in Lenox through November 1. Michael F. Toomey stars in the solo piece. Jonathan Epstein directs, and Gregory Boocer provides the music. Chester Theatre Company mounted a production of this a couple of years ago, and it’s simply riveting theatre. For details: 413-637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org.
Ian Harvie, transgender comic, co-star on RV’s series Transparent, and opening act for Margaret Cgo, brings his stand-up, Come Out Laughing, to The Mark Twain House in Hartford on October 9 as a benefit for True Colors. programs to support sexual and gender minority youth. Harvie has been seen on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore, CNN Newsroom, PBS’s Roadtrip Nation, and ABC’s Comics Unleashed. Fo details: 860- 247-0998 or www.MarkTwainHouse.org.
Tuesdays With Morrie opens the 7th season at West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park (through October 18). Adapted for the stage by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie chronicles the relationship between a professor and his student over the span of several years. Mitch, a successful journalist whose life is dedicated to his work, reconnects with Morrie, a former professor who is facing life with Lou Gehrig’s disease. For details: 860-523-5900 x10 or www.playhouseonpark.org.
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
