Author: Stuart Brown

EAST HADDAM — Theater, film and television actor Jennifer Cody, will be the m.c. of the 29th annual Connecticut Critics Circle Awards June 3, at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, this year’s hosting theater. The 7 p.m. event, which is free and open to the public, honors outstanding work by the state’s professional theater during the 2018-19 season. Among the honorees will be Tony Award-winning set designer Michael Yeargan who will be the recipient of this years’s Tom Killen Award, which pays tribute to longtime excellence and service on behalf of Connecticut theater. Cody will be starring in… read more

by Frank Rizzo William Castle is best known as the director and producer of a series of B-horror films of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s who upped his reputation in the late ‘60s as producer of the classic Rosemary’s Baby. Orson Welles is best known as the wunderkind stage and film director-producer-writer-actor and film auteur of what is arguably the greatest film of all time, Citizen Kane. stony creek theater.jpg But what both men had in common—master of middlebrow suspense and imperfect genius of the stage and screen—was a little summer theater in the hamlet of Stony Creek on 128… read more

Playhouse on Park Executive Director Tracy Flater and Co-Artistic Directors Sean Harris and Darlene Zoller have announced their 2019-2020 Season. Season Eleven opens with NUNSENSE, by Dan Goggin. Revel in the madness of this hilariously funny musical comedy, featuring a troupe of dancing, singing nuns. NUNSENSE follows the crazy antics of five nuns from the Little Sisters of Hoboken convent. When their cook, Sister Julia, Child of God, accidentally serves some tainted soup, poisoning 52 of the sisters, the five surviving nuns must band together to raise funds for their burials. Directed by Playhouse co-founder and co-artistic founder Darlene Zoller.… read more

The Palace Theater in Waterbury has announced their 2019-2020 Webster Broadway Subscription series. The well-rounded “dream season” offers theater goers the first play at a Connecticut venue of Chazz Palminteri’s semi-autobiographical story, A Bronx Tale; a week-long engagement of the new production of Cameron Mackintosh’s Les Misérables; the clever and hilarious farce, The Play That Goes Wrong; the moving backstory of Peter Pan in Finding Neverland and the iconic George and Ira Gershwin music and glorious dancing of An American in Paris. A season that guarantees patrons the thrill and enjoyment that only a live theatrical experience offers. A BRONX… read more

This month a new online, 24/7 Broadway music radio station – “Sounds of Broadway” (www.SoundsofBroadway.com) – went live. “Sounds of Broadway” offers the most wide-ranging listing of music from the Off-Broadway, Broadway, and London stages. Thousands of songs from hundreds of cast recordings are in rotation. In addition, every night from 8:00 – 10:00 PM EST is an all-request time slot. Listeners can search the extensive database and select the songs they want to hear. “Everyone has their favorite songs they want to hear and this will give listeners the opportunity to do so,” said Stuart Brown, founder of the… read more

The Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s (CRT) 2019 Nutmeg Summer Series at Storrs has pared down their schedule of musicals for this summer. Artistic Director Terrence Mann said, “We’re making a few changes this summer. Our audiences repeatedly tell us, ‘it’s just too hard to have time to see everything you offer in the summer’ or ‘we wish that the shows would run longer.’” In order to allow for the longer performance runs, CRT is offering two shows this summer, each running for an additional week longer than they have in the past. An additional change is the 7pm curtain on weeknight… read more

By Brad Durrell, Reprinted from The Connecticut Post, Sunday, February 24, 2019 Dolly Curtis still remembers when actress Carol Channing sang her a song. Curtis and the late Leo Meyer were co-hosting their weekly radio show “Backstage Buzz” on WPKN and talking to Channing by phone in California. “She asked if she could sing ‘Hello, Dolly!’ to me, and then she did it on the air,” says Curtis, a longtime arts enthusiast from Easton. Channing, who died in January at age 97, is one of many theater luminaries Curtis and Meyer interviewed on the show. Meyer knew Channing from his… read more

How Presidents have been portrayed in Off-Broadway and Broadway musicals and plays is the theme of an exhibit now showing at the Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury, CT during the month of February. The display will feature Playbills, LPs and CDs from the collection of Dr. Stuart Brown, Director of Student Services at the Waterbury Campus of the University of Connecticut and President of the CT Critics Circle. “I’ve been attending Off-Broadway and Broadway productions for over 45 years,” said Brown, who has hosted the radio program “On Broadway,” which airs every Sunday night from 5:30-6:30pm on WRTC-FM, 89.3, at… read more

You asked, we answered. How to get a play in front of the right people and get it produced is one of the most often asked questions we have hear from members of the CT Chapter of the League of Professional Theatre Women. Co-Founder Mary Miko has assembled a panel of experts to discuss the topic and answer questions during a panel discussion Thursday, Feb. 7, from 2 to 4 pm at the Klein Memorial Auditorium, 910 Fairfield Ave., Bridgeport (Snow date is Friday, Feb. 8). Klein Education Director and Chapter Member Maureen Hamill will moderate the panel, which will… read more