by Mark G. Auerbach
What’s New At The Zoo?
Berkshire Theatre Group presents Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo (Zoo story) through August 26 at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, MA. Eric Hill stages Albee’s breakthrough play with a dream cast: David Adkins, Joey Collins, and Tara Franklin.
Tara Franklin
Albee wrote The Zoo Story in 1959, and it put him on the map. He won The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Awards for subsequent plays like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, A Delicate Balance, and The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? He went back to the drawing board in 2004 to write a prequel to The Zoo Story, called Homelife.
Eric Hill, former Artistic Director at StageWest, is one of the masters at staging contemporary theatre, and his production of The Homecoming a couple of years ago, which incidentally co-starred Joey Collins and Tara Franklin, was one of the finest evenings of theatre I’ve experienced in the thirty-plus years I’ve watched Eric Hill at work. David Adkins, a staple of Berkshire theatre productions, starred in last season’s Bakelite Masterpiece and in his solo play about Thoreau, which Hill staged.
Director Eric Hill says, “I was inspired by the opportunity to work on The Zoo Story again after many years, and to explore the new Albee one-act that is the first half of this evening (Homelife), to create Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo (Zoo Story). This new piece not only provides a brilliant backstory to The Zoo Story, but it also stands alone as a vintage piece of Albee, with all the gender tension of his great plays.”
So consider me chomping at the bit to see this production. I’ve been excited about its promise, since it was announced. For details: 413-997-4444 or www.berkshiretheatregroup.org.
Christiane Noll
CT Critics Circle Award Winners Announced
Several regional theatres in our coverage area scored bigtime in the Connecticut Critics Circles Awards, which honor ecellence in Connecticut Theatres for the 2016-17 season.. Among the winners:
TheaterWorks Hartford’s Next to Normal, which won accolades for actors Christiane Noll, Maya Keleher; director Rob Ruggiero, and lighting designer John Lasiter.
Hartford Stage took home awards for Vanessa R. Butler’s performance in Queens for A Year; Darko Tresnjak’s set design for The Comedy of Errors, and actors Mia Dillon in Cloud Nine, Cleavant Derricks in The Piano Lesson, and James Lecesne for The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey. Jane Shaw’s sound design and Fabio Tobini’s costumes for The Comedy of Errors were honored.
Rhett Guter, who currently stars in Goodspeed’s Oklahoma!, won an award for his performance in Bye Bye Birdie.
For details: http://ctcritics.org/.
Keep in Mind…
Arts Beat Radio welcomes Goodspeed Musical’s Elisa Hale on Friday, July 21 from 8AM-9AM. live on 89.5FM/WSKB. Mark G. Auerbach and Elisa Hale will talk about Goodspeed’s more than half century committment to the musical theatre, from Annie, Man of La Mancha and Shenandoah to Come From Away and Holiday Inn. Tune in live on the airwaves, on Comcast ch. 15, www.wskb.org or at www.westfieldtv.org
The 22nd Annual Bel Canto Opera, sponsored by The Blandford Historical Society, on July 22 at The White Church in Blandford, MA. Eve Queler, founder of Opera Orchestra of New York, directs. For details: 413-848-0108 or https://23belcantoopera.eventbrite.com
Monica Jakuc Leverett
Intimate Apparel, written by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage and winner of the 2004 Steinberg New Play Award, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award runs at Shakespeare and Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre through August 13. Intimate Apparel, explores the strength of the human spirit through the story of Esther, an African-American seamstress in Manhattan in 1905, when social and class lines were distinctly drawn. For details: 413-637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org.
Babe in Toyland. Pianist Monica Jakuc Leverett performs classical music on both grand and toy pianos, including works by Kaeza Fearn (A Day in the Life of a Toy Piano), Claude Debussy, Octavio Pinto and others on July 23 at North Hall Arts Festival in Huntington, MA. For details: 413-667-5543 www.northhallhuntington.org
Chapatti, Christian O’Reilly’s warm and gentle story about a man who can’t be without his dog, Chapatti, who meets another lost soul, is next at Silverthorne Theatre with performances through July 29 at The Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center (formerly The Arts Block) in downtown Greenfield, MA. Jeannine Haas directs. For details: www.silverthornetheater.org.
Teri Hansen sings Broadway at the Talcott Mountain Music Festival.
Sean MacLaughlin sings Broadway at the Talcott Mountain Music Festival.
Posh Picnic, the annual Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative’s 4th annual summer party takes place at Tanglewood on July 23. The event includes a gourmet picnic on the Tanglewood lawn, a silent auction, a bloody mary bar from Berkshire Mountain Distillers and shed tickets for the Boston Symphony Orchestra matinee. Proceeds benefit BFMC’s education programs. For details:413-528.4223 or www.berkshirefilm.org.
Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s Talcott Mountain Music Festival wraps up its season with Broadway A to Z on July 28 in Simsbury, CT. Raindate is July 29,. Adam Boyle conducts a program with showstoppers from Chicago, Les Miserables, The Phantom of The Opera, Wicked and more. Broadway performers Marie Danvers, Teri Hansen and Sean MacLaughlin make the music. MacLaughlin played The Bushnell in the national tour of Evita a couple of seasons back. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.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. Mark produces and hosts ArtsBeat Radio on 89.5fm/WSKB Radio.
