by Mark G. Auerbach
Ramsey Kurdi. Photo by Evan Kurdi
Panopera Brings “Sweeney Todd” to Northampton’s Academy of Music
Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd! Stephen Sondheim’s and Hugh Wheeler’s landmark musical thriller, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, turns 40 this year. It’s a frequent visitor to Broadway, where its original production won 8 Tony Awards, including “Best Musical”. It’s at home in the opera house, on the concert stage, in big theatres, and small venues, like a small pie shop in New York, where it ran last year. It’s been a movie, and it’s one of thpse shows that calls for innovation.
Panopera, a WMass based opera company, performs the musical on January 25 and 27 at Northampton’s Academy of Music Theatre. Katherine Saik, a Panopera principal organizer and singer in their La Boheme and Le Nozze di Figaro, will direct the production. Saik is a Lecturer of Music in Voice at Smith College, and a performing arts teacher and stage director for the Hatfield, MA Public Schools. Scott Bailey, a collaborative pianist at Westfield State University and music director at the Episcopal Church of the Atonement in Westfield, conducts.
Ramsey Kurdi plays Sweeney Todd, a barber bent on revenge. Janna Baty plays Mrs. Lovett, his accomplice.
For details: https://www.panopera.org/season
Lynette R. Freeman. Photo by Kait Rankins
“The Mountaintop” at The Majestic
The Mountaintop, an historical drama by Katori Hall, is onstage at West Springfield’s Majestic Theater through February 10. Hall’s drama, an award-winning hit in London and New York, depicts the last night in the life o Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, just after hi “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis. Set in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis, Tennessee, The Mountaintop is an exchange between Dr. King and an hotel chambermaid.
According to the Majestic’s Producing Director Danny Eaton, “Toward the end of the play, Dr. King says, ‘I am just a man. I am just a man.’ He adds that all he wanted was to be a minister at a small church, and he wonders who will carry the baton after he’s gone. Katori Hall has gifted us with a remarkable portrait of both the man as well as the icon. And, of course, the message is as relevant today as it ever was.”
The Mountaintop premiered in London where it won several theater awards and critical acclaim prior to its Broadway run in 2011. It has since been produced in leading American theatres, including Hartford’s Theaterworks, a production that received stunning notices from The New York Times.
Jamil Mangan, who starred in the TheaterWorks production, will portray Dr. King, and Lynnette R. Freeman, star of Berkshire Theatre Group’s Lost Lake, will play Camae. Gilbert McCauley will direct the play,
For details: 413-747-7797 or www.majestictheater.com
The Makanda Project
And All That Jazz…
Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares continues its season with a performance by The Makanda Project on January 26 at Gateway City Arts, 92 Race St., Holyoke, MA. The program features: Joe Ford, Jason Robinson, Charlie Kohlhase, Kurtis Rivers, Sean Berry, reeds; Eddie Allen , Bill Lowe, Ku-umba Frank Lacy, Jerry Sabatini, brass; John Kordalewski, piano, arrangements; John Lockwood, bass and Yoron Israel, drums. Special guest is guitarist and composer Michael Gregory. For details: http://jazzshares.org/
The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis comprises 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players today, and they’re headed to The Bushnell in Hartford on February 7. Led by Wynton Marsalis, Jazz at Lincoln Center Managing and Artistic Director, this remarkably versatile orchestra performs a vast repertoire ranging from original compositions and Jazz at Lincoln Center-commissioned works to rare historic compositions and masterworks by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Thelonious Monk, Mary Lou Williams, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and many others. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
Trevor Domer
Keep in Mind
Arts Beat Radio airs every Friday at 8AM, on 89.5fm/WSKB. On January 25, TheaterWorks’ Rob Ruggiero chats with Mark G. Auerbach about A Doll’s House, Part 2 and the upcoming renovations at the Hartford theatre, and Paul Dennis from the UMass/Amherst Dance Department talks about the Reflect/Respond: A Limón Dance Legacy Concert. Start your weekend with ArtsBeat Radio. Tune in live on the airwaves, on Comcast ch. 15, or www.wskb.org
Murder For Two, the whodunnit musical plays West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park through February 3. With book and music by Joe Kinosian and book and lyrics by Kellen Blair, everyone’s a suspect in this musical, where one actor investigates the crime, the other plays all of the suspects. And they both do this while playing the piano! Kyle Metzger directs. Trevor Dorner and John Grieco co-star. For details: 860-523-5900 x10 or www.playhouseonpark.org
Tanya O’Debra as Emily Dickinson. Photo by Molly Broxton
Shakespeare & Company presents its annual Winter Studio Festival of Plays on January 19-20. This weekend of staged readings will showcase emerging and established The Winter Studio Festival titles include Longing, a new play by local playwright Lee Kalcheim ; Luna Gale, by Rebecca Gilman; Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana;; Mariel, by Melinda Lopez; and Never Not Once by Carey Crim. Each reading will be followed by a talkback with the artists. For details: www.shakespeare.org
Shut UP, Emily Dickinson plays The Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton on January 19. Tanya O’Debra’s pseudo-historical, quasi-biographical, hysterically existential, sadomasochistic psycho-romance about America’s most brilliant and annoying poetess, The Belle of Amherst. The show features original music by Andrew Moreyellow. For details: https://www.aomtheatre.com/
—
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.
