Category: News

INTIMATE APPAREL already has a lot going for it, with a script by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, but what drew Dawn Loveland Navarro to direct it was the fully developed female lead characters. Esther (played by Darlene Hope) is a “fully 3D female character,” Navarro said, something you don’t often get to see on stage. Esther is a turn-of-the-century African-American seamstress who earns her living by creating lingerie for other women to attract their men – something Esther hasn’t had in her own life. She loves creating the intimate apparel for the other women, but longs for a… read more

Sharon McNight stars at Seven Angels Theatre in the show she wrote about Sophie Tucker, Connecticut’s own Red Hot Mama, who enjoyed fame from her Burlesque days to Broadway and beyond. We asked her to discuss the star and this role of a lifetime. CTAC: How were you first drawn to write this show about Sophie Tucker? SM: The man who first signed me to a recording contract had a dream that he saw me playing her on the Broadway stage.    I believe in omens and dreams Interview continues here   read more

West Hartford native Andrea Grody, who is the musical director of the Broadway hit, The Band’s Visit, will be a guest on the radio program “On Broadway” on Sunday, February 18, 2018 from 5:30-6:30pm. The show airs on the Trinity College radio station, WRTC-FM, 89.3. It can also be heard via live streaming at WRTCFM.com. “I’m very happy to have Andrea back on my show,” stated long-time host Stuart Brown. “In February 2012 Andrea came on to talk about Strange Faces, a musical she wrote as part of her senior thesis at Princeton University.” On the February 18th program Ms.… read more

A glorious production of “Evita” is onstage at the Westport Playhouse this weekend, thanks to a collaboration the Playhouse has with BMA, the Broadway Method Academy in Fairfield. BMA is a studio program that trains young students for careers in theater, by bringing them together with artists, actors, and other theater folk to learn techniques and to experience productions. In the case of “Evita,” a large student chorus provided singing and dancing and staging under the direction of Connor Deane [New Canaan will recognize the name of Kitchens by Deane – yes, related]! Music direction was by J Scott Handley.… read more

The Connecticut Chapter of the League of Professional Theatre Women will host a panel discussion and reception as part of the Second Women Playwrights Initiative at Ivoryton Playhouse. Laura Copland, director of new play development at the Playhouse, will moderate a panel comprised of the playwrights and directors participating in the initiative readings next month. The panel will be held at 4 pm Saturday, March 3 and will be followed by a reception at 5:30. There is no charge to attend the panel and reception for members of the LPTW. Non members may attend with a $5 cash donation at… read more

by David Rosenberg Who speaks for America? Poets or politicians? Or both? After a year of gigantic hurricanes, global warming warnings, terrorism, species extinctions, mass shootings and threats of atomic annihilation, to whom do we turn for solace and hope? One of the great American poets is Woody Guthrie, subject of a raved-about tribute, “Woody Sez,” now at the Westport Country Playhouse. Inheriting the mantle of Walt Whitman, who was dubbed “the bard of democracy,” Guthrie remained ever-hopeful. “Woody Sez,” a fully-staged work that combines biography, history and music, stars award-winning David M. Lutken as the legendary folk singer. According… read more

by Bonnie Goldberg While some people catch a cold or the flu with great annoyance, Dorothy Stanley caught the acting “bug” with tremendous joy when she was four years old and it is still actively in her system.  She performed “Oh, You Beautiful Doll” as part of a dance recital, as a soloist, and her fate was sealed.  Now she is busy cruising the streets of West Hartford,  her hometown, reacquainting herself with the places she grew up visiting, as she prepares for a new role, that of Clairee, the mayor’s wife, in that sentimental Southern saga “Steel Magnolias” coming… read more

BY BONNIE GOLDBERG If the thought of snow boarding, skiing and skating are just chilly reminders of winter, ones you might prefer to ignore, then plan to warm up the winter month of January with a toasty and inviting weekend of theatrical magic. This year for the luckiest 13th time, Goodspeed Musicals is offering its annual Festival of New Musicals, produced by the Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, and you are invited to unwrap your plaid scarves and take off your fuzzy mittens to enjoy all the fun and festivities. From Friday, January 12 to Sunday, January… read more

As with the plays I wrote about last month, I’ve often been asked to reveal my favorite musical among the thousands of shows I’ve seen over 40-plus years of theater-going in Connecticut. (Add another decade when I was a theater-obsessed boy catching musicals in New York.) The answer was always easy: A Chorus Line, only recently supplanted — or supplemented, as I prefer to say — by Hamilton. But when it comes to specifically Connecticut-produced musicals, it gets trickier to come up with a singular sensation. Or even 10 of them. Yes, I missed a few of the great ones… read more

by Tim Leininger After 19 years, with Bill Raymond stepping down from the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in Hartford Stage’s production of “A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas,” running through Dec. 30, the company has looked inward, to the show’s own Mr. Marvel, Michael Preston, 59, of Hartford, as its new Christmas curmudgeon. I had the opportunity to sit down with the Ohio native who also is an acting teacher at Trinity College, and discuss his life, training, career, and taking over the role of Scrooge. Q: Where are you originally from? A: I was born in Granville,… read more