by Mark G. Auerbach
2016: The Year in Review, Part I
It’s been a great year for the arts, and over the next three weeks, we’ll recap the news, and best of the plays, musicals, and performances.
Goodspeed’s Festival of New Musicals. Photo by Diane Sobolewski.
Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Hollywood made Western New England theatres a resource for new product. Goodspeed Musicals’ acclaimed production of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn opened on Broadway this fall, and another Goodspeed Musical, Come From Away, which workshopped at their Festival of New Musicals opens on Broadway in the Spring. Hartford Stage began the New Year by sending a new work, The Body of an American, off-Broadway; their production of Anastasia is also Broadway-bound. Berkshire Theatre Group’s production of Fiorello transferred Off-Broadway to rave reviews, and another BTG production, The Stone Witch, is expected to move to the Big Apple next year.
Important theatre actors came to our area to work. Acclaimed actor Richard Dreyfuss played Einstein in TheaterWorks premiere of Mark St. Germain’s Relativity. Judd Hirsch returned to the stage in the world premiere of The Stone Witch at Berkshire Theatre Group. Michael Raymond-James leapt from TV to theatre to play Brick in Berkshire Theatre Group’s Cat on A Hot Tin Roof.
Austin Scott Lombardi in Berkshire Theatre Group’s Fiorello. Photo by Alexander Hill.
Professional theatre took notice of our area theatre education programs. Three artists, nominated for four Tony Awards, David Korins for his Hamilton sets, Justin Townsend for his lighting designs for American Psycho and The Humans, and Ben Stanton for his lighting of Spring Awakening, are all UMass Theatre graduates. UConn Theatre graduate Jackie Burns, who replaced Idina Menzel in Wicked on Broadway, again replaced Menzel in If/Then, and starred in that show’s national tour. Area theatres have robust education programs, and area kids learn theatre at Shakespeare and Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage, Hartford Stage and more. Austin Lombardi, a local, who played the title role in Berkshire Theatre Group’s Fiorello, got his early experience in local theatre.
Michael Wartella
A fine example of a local actor who made the springboard from area theatre to Broadway is Michael Wartella, raised around theatre programs at Barrington Stage and Berkshire Theatre Group, who had a featured role in Wicked on Broadway and in last season’s Tuck Everlasting. His breakthrough performance was in this fall’s Chasing Rainbows at Goodspeed, where he played a singing, dancing, and drumming Mickey Rooney. If Chasing Rainbows has an afterlife, and it should, Wartella has the star quality to light up many marquees in days to come. He’s someone to watch.
We took notice of our finest, with the launch of the Berkshire Theatre Awards, mostly the brainchild of longtime arts writer Larry Murray. And, some major international talent lives here. Darko Tresnjak of Hartford Stage and Rob Ruggiero of Hartford’s TheaterWorks, in demand at theatres nationally, live here. Kevin Rhodes, acclaimed conductor at the Paris Opera Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet, and Stuttgart Ballet, as well as Springfield Symphony, lives here.
Kristen van Ginhoven of WAM
All eyes were on the innovative WAM Theatre in the Berkshires this year. WAM was co-founded in 2010 by Kristen van Ginhoven to create professional theatrical events for everyone, with a focus on women theatre artists and/or stories of women and girls. WAM also has a philanthropic mission, and donates a portion of the proceeds from its theatrical events to organizations that benefit women and girls.. This year, WAM collaborated with Berkshire Theatre Group to produce the American premiere of the Canadian play The Bakelite Masterpiece. Shortly after, the WMass chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals named WAM “An Outstanding Philanthropy Corporation” on National Philanthropy Day.
There were comings and goings this year. Broadway star Terrence Mann took on the artistic leadership of Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s popular summer Nutmeg Series. Daniel Elihu Kramer took the helm at Chester Theatre, and Allyn Burrows became the new aritstic director at Shakespeare & Company. Roberta Marvin was named head of the UMass Department of Music and Dance. Rus Peotter’s about to retire from WGBY, leaving a legacy of two outstanding series, Connecting Point and Together in Song. Steve Coombs, longtime Box-Office Manager of the UMass Fine Arts Center, retired. New Century Theatre and the Berkshire Choral Festival in Sheffield have lost their longtime homes, and will be moving to new digs.
Next week, we recap the best in plays, musicals, direction and design, and the following week, we select the best performances of the year.
Plan Ahead
The 12th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, produced by Goodspeed Musicals’ Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, kicks off its much-anticipated three-day festival of brand-new works on January 13, 2017 at The Goodspeed in East Haddam, CT, with a staged reading of the intriguing new musical Picnic at Hanging Rock by Daniel Zaitchik based on the novel by Joan Lindsay. On January 14, attend the debut of the musical satire ZM by Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, creators of the Tony Award-winning Urinetown. The final day of the festival features Row, Daniel Goldstein and Dawn Landes’ new musical based on “A Pearl in the Storm” by Tori Murden McClure. Several events featuring special guests Cirque Theatricals, award-winning designer Ken Billington, Broadway producer and author Jack Viertel, and many others. Goodspeed Musicals has been an incubator for dozens of new musicals, including the current Broadway hit, Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, and the new musical Come From Away, which opens on Broadway early next year. . For details: 860.873.8668 or www.goodspeed.org.
Keep in Mind…
It’s A Wonderful Life: A Radio Play at Shakespeare and Company. Photo by Enrico Spada.
It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, the beloved holiday classic adapted from the 1946 film, returns to Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, MA on December 16-18. Directed by Jenna Ware and featuring Jonathan Croy, Jennie M. Jadow, David Joseph, Sarah Jeanette Taylor, and Ryan Winkles, the production is an American version of A Christmas Carol. For details: 413-637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org.
Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares continues its fifth season with a performance by Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days, featuring Adam O’Farrill, trumpet, compositions Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, tenor saxophone, Walter Stinson, bass, and Zack O’Farrill, drums on December 17, at Gateway City Arts,, Holyoke, MA. For details: www.jazzshares.org..
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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.
