MARK AUERBACH
The Laramie Project Opens Connecticut Repertory Theatre Season in Storrs
Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) at the UConn/Storrs campus, has announced that Brandy Burre, of HBO’s The Wire and the critically acclaimed documentary film Actress, and Josh Aaron McCabe of Shakespeare & Company will lead the ensemble cast of The Laramie Project (October 8-18). Helmed by CRT Artistic Director Vincent J. Cardinal, The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theatre Project details the reaction in the community of Laramie, Wyoming following the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepard.
Brandy Burre is best known for her performance as Theresa D’Agostino on HBO’s The Wire. She was recently named “Best Actress of 2014 “by Richard Brody in The New Yorker for her star turn in Robert Green’s critically acclaimed film, Actress. She can also be seen in DIPLO’s “Revolution” music video and opposite Jason Schwartzman and Jonathan Pryce in Alex Ross Perry’s film, Listen Up Philip. Burre is currently shooting the title role in the independent feature film, Poor Jane. Burre has performed extensively on regional theatre stages in roles including the title role in Hedda Gabler, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Gwendolyn in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Josh Aaron McCabe stars in The Laramie Project at Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
The cast also includes Josh Aaron McCabe, Lenox resident and a 10-year company member of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. McCabe has been seen onstage at Shakespeare & Company in Comedy of Errors, Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Mother Courage and Her Children (starring Olympia Dukakis) and the American Premiere of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
The Laramie Project is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable. In October 1998 Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was left to die, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Five weeks later, members of the Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie, and over the course of the next year, conducted more than 200 interviews with people of the town. From these interviews they wrote The Laramie Project, a riveting chronicle of the life of the town of Laramie in the year after the murder.
For details: 860-486-2113 or www.crt.uconn.edu
Caroline Goulding is soloist at Hartford Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Season Openings
Direct from a performance at Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium to launch the Patriots’ season, The Springfield Symphony Orchestra returns to its home turf at Springfield Symphony Hall for its opening concert on October 3. Maestro Kevin Rhodes, who has traversed the globe of late conducting at the Paris Opera Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet, and the Tokyo Jazz Festival conducts. The Opening Night features Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with holoist Phillipe Quint, and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. For program details: http://www.springfieldsymphony.org/concerts-events/calendar/event/10/03/2015/opening-night-gala-2
Phillipe Quint is guest violinist at the Springfield Symphony Orchestra opening concert. (Photo by Benjamin Brolet)
There’s a pre-concert reception at the Springfield Sheraton, a pre-concert Classical Conversations informance open to all ticketholders (Springfield Symphony Principal Bass Player Salvatore Macchia is the discussion leader), and a post-concert Champagne reception in Symphony Hall’s elegant Mahogany Room.
For details: 413-733-2291 or www.springfieldsymphony.org.
Downriver, The Hartford Symphony Orchestra opens its Bushnell season with a program, New Workd Visions, on October 1-4 at The Bushnell. Carolyn Kuan conducts, and Caroline Goulding is guest violinist. The program includes John Adams’ Shaker Loops, which will have projections and special effects by Christopher Gerson, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From The New World”.
For tickets: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org.
Tara Franklin in Berkshire Theatre Group’s The Homecoming.
Keep in Mind…
Magazine Dream, collage artist Michael Sjostedt’s latest series, is on display at J. Rich Men’s Clothing (153 Main Street, Northampton) through September 27. Magazine Dream is the first collection Sjostedt created to suit a particular space – a modern men’s clothing store. Sjostedt sourced the majority of his imagery and design elements from magazines and sewing pattern books from the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibit is open during store hours.
The Homecoming, Harold Pinter’s Tony Award winner, will be staged by Eric Hill at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre (October 1-25). In this taut tale of an American expatriate who brings his wife back to North London to meet his family. It’s tense drama with multi-layered language, and a perfect vehicle for Hill, whose stagings of Thoreau or Return to Walden and Poe have been theatre at its best. Rocco Sisto and Tara Franklin head the cast. For tickets: 413-997-4444 or www.berkshiretheatregroup.org.
Hamish Linklater
The Kurn Hattin Homes musicians, under the direction of Grammy nominee Lisa Bianconi, and finalists in the WGBY series Together in Song, perform two free concerts in Greater Springfield on September 25–at Baystate Health’s D’Amour Center for Cancer Care and at The Big E. They sing the national anthem at the Red Sox home game at Fenway Park the night before. For details. www.kurnhattin.org.
The Vandal, a new play by Hamish Linklater, gets a staged reading at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox on September 26. Set in Kingston, New York, The Vandal is a startling and bittersweet comedy about a woman and a boy who meet at a bus stop on a freezing cold night and the stories they tell to keep each other warm. No one, as it turns out, is exactly who they initially claim to be. The Vandal is a story about life, love, loss, and the power of Cool Ranch Doritos. For details: www.shakespeare.org.
She Loves Me, the charming Broadway musical which inspired the recent film “You’ve Got Mail” onstage at Broad Brook Opera House in Enfield through September 27. Written by the team who wrote Fiddler on The Roof, it stars radio personality Brad Shepard. For details: http://smplayers.homestead.com/index.html
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.
