by Mark G. Auerbach
Melissa Etheridge
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Announces Season Additions
Great Barrington’s Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center has some stellar season additions. Whoopi Goldberg will headline the Mahaiwe Gala on July 29, and the theatre will also present Melissa Etheridge, Ani DiFranco, The Wailers, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Air Supply, and Paul Taylor Dance Company; as well as fall engagements by Chris Botti, Postmodern Jukebox, and Arlo Guthrie.
The Mahaiwe will celebrate its eleventh consecutive season of performances by Paul Taylor Dance Company on July 6-7. Their program will include “Gossamer Gallants” (2011), “Company B” (1991), and the New England premiere of “Concertiana” (2018). Tickets are $10 to $95. CBT Architects and Greylock Federal Credit Union are sponsors of the Paul Taylor Dance Company engagement at the Mahaiwe.
Marin Mazie and Jason Daniely
And, Broadway fans..Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley will perform their concert, Broadway and Beyond on June 24. She’s from Broadway’s Ragtime, Kiss Me, Kate, and Passion. He’s from Candide, Curtains, and Next to Normal, where he played husband to Mazzie. They’re married offstage.
For details: 413-528-0100 or www.mahaiwe.org
Hartford Symphony Announces Talcott Mountain Summer Music Festival
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra has announced its programming for the 2018 Talcott Mountain Music Festival, June 29-July 27 at Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center in Simsbury, CT. The season opens with Celebrate America!, the annual red white and blue tradition with fireworks after the concert on June 29. Rain date is June 30. Brass Transit – The Musical Legacy of Chicago, performs rain or shine on July 6. Doc Severinsen celebrates his 60 years in show business with the Hartford Symphony Pops, rain or shine on July 13. Music from Hollywood takes center stage on July 20, rain or shine, when Adam Boyles conducts music from the movies from Chicago, The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Amadeus and more. The season winds up with REWIND: Celebrating The Music of the 80s on July 27, with a rain date of July 28. For details: www.hartfordsymphony.org.
Terrence Mann
Of Note
Terrence Mann, Artistic Director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s Nutmeg Summer Series, has been nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical. He’s been starring Off-Broadway in the title role of Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Nicholas Paleologos is joining Berkshire Theatre Group as Executive Director. Paleologos served for 14 years as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where his primary focus was education and the arts. He’s a Tony Award-winning producer, whose credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Todd Rosenthal, Tony Award winning set designer from Longmeadow, is designing sets for the upcoming Broadway production of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, which begins previews on Broadway on June 29. Armie Hammer, Kate Bornstein, Tom Skerritt and Josh Charles star. For details: https://2st.com/shows/current-production/straight-white-men
Keep in Mind
Encore! An Evening to Celebrate High School Musicals features ten-minute encore performances from this year’s Berkshire County high school musicals, with excerpts from Fame, Shrek, The Addams Family, Godspell, and Little Shop of Horrors among them. At press time, the following high schools are onboard: Bart Charter School, Drury, Hoosac Regional, Mt. Everett, Lee Middle and High School, Lenox Memorial High School, and Pittsfield High School. Proceeds benefit BTG PLAYS!, Berkshire Theatre Group’s year-round education program. Travis Daly directs the event at The Colonial Theatre on May 4. The night before, May 3, some of these students perform music and theatre in High School Student Cabaret at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge. For details: 413-997-4444 or www.berkshiretheatregroup.org.
The Tattooed Man Tells All, Peter Wortsman’s gripping solo theatre piece about the Holocaust, plays Silverthrone Theatre Company’s Pushkin Studio of Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center of Greenfield on May 3-6. Wortsman developed the piece after interviewing witnesses to and survivors of the Holocaust. Ellen Kaplan directs Keith Langsdale in this tour-de-force performance. For details: 413-768-7514 orwww.silverthornetheater.org
As You Like It, Shakespeare’s popular comedy, play Connecticut Repertory Theatre in Storrs through April 29. Kristin Wold, a member of Shakespeare and Company, directs, and the production stars two of her Shakespeare and Company colleagues, Jonathan Croy and John Hadden. For details: 860-486-2113 or www.crt.uconn.edu.
Two Boys Kissing has its New England premiere at The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, when the Hartford Gay Men’s Chorus performs May 4-6. Based on the Lambda Literary Award winning young adult novel by David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing features a score by Joshua Shank. For details: http://www.hgmc.org/home.html
Alison Larkin. Photo by Sabine von Falken
Alison Larkin, comedienne and author of The English American, brings her new show Alison Larkin LIVE to Shakespeare and Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on May 4-5, under the auspices of WAM Theatee. Larkin will talk about her adoption by British parents, her reunion with her American birth mother, culture conflict, parenting teenagers, life in the Berkshires, and how to brew that perfect cup of tea. For details: 413-637-3353 or http://www.wamtheatre.com/alison-larkin-live/
Jay Campbell
Hartford Symphony Orchestra performs an all Shostakovich program on May 4-6 at The Bushnell in Hartford. The program features the composer’s Tahiti Trot “Tea For Two”, Cello Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major with soloist Jay Campbell, and Symphony No. 5 in D minor. Carolyn Kuan conducts. 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 for 89.5fm/WSKB.
