Nancy Grossman - Page 24

Bridge Repertory Theater opens its first full season, in collaboration with Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company of NYC, with an ambitious production of Stephen Jeffreys' play about the life of 17th century poet John Wilmot. The complex story is overweight, but the acting is topnotch, as are the costumes and staging. Bridge Rep remains a theater company to watch.

DRIVING MISS DAISY is a fitting capstone to the Gloucester Stage Company 2013 season. Benny Sato Ambush provides thoughtful, intelligent direction for the sublime acting talents of Lindsay Crouse, Johnny Lee Davenport, and Robert Pemberton.

Tony Award winner and Broadway star Faith Prince brought her cabaret-style act to Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport as part of Summer at Rockport 2013. With her Music Director Alex Rybeck on piano, they put on a dazzling program of classic show tunes, back stage stories, and Prince's "gracious with an edge" personality.

Director Lewis D. Wheeler and the Gloucester Stage Company mount playwright Kenneth Lonergan's THIS IS OUR YOUTH with a trio of talented actors displaying high energy and raw emotion. Jimi Stanton, Alex Pollock, and Amanda Collins are three privileged kids on Manhattan's Upper West Side trying to find themselves in a messed-up world on the brink of the Reagan era.

Elements Theatre Company in Orleans kicks off a year-long tribute to William Shakespeare with an accessible A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM performed by a resident ensemble at Paraclete House at Rock Harbor. Their professionalism and commitment to their craft are unmistakable in this very solid production of the popular comedy.

Titanic Theatre Company's production of Tony Award-winner Christopher Durang's WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM takes you on a wild ride into a post 9/11 world populated by a suspected terrorist, a minister who produces porno movies, and loony agents of a shadow government. It's bizarre, hilarious, and all-American, good fun.

Nearly thirty years after its world premiere at Gloucester Stage Company, Israel Horovitz's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play NORTH SHORE FISH presents a stark take on the local fish industry and remains relevant. Director Robert Walsh and the fine ensemble cast of seven women and two men inhabit the working class townies who struggle to perpetuate a dying way of life, the only life they've ever known, in this riveting production.

PAPER CITY PHOENIX aspires to show the world rising from the ashes of the explosion of an Internet overload in a future where law enforcement officials investigate misuse of information and disconnected people seek the security of community in a cult-like sect. Playwright Walt McGough tries to take the audience on a journey where no man has gone before, but I felt adrift in cyber space.

Hub Theatre Company of Boston presents the Boston premiere of LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE under the direction of Paula Plum. Music is evocative, but it turns out that clothing serves the same function for many women. Writers and sisters Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron convey the important connection between what we wear and who we are in musings about mothers, bras, cowboy boots, and high heels.

A new season of plays on the theme of "Writes of Passage" blooms at Gloucester Stage Company with the 2007 Tony Award-winning Best Musical SPRING AWAKENING. The groundbreaking rock musical about adolescent love in an era of repression resonates, thanks to sensitive direction by Eric C. Engel and a fresh-faced cast who virtually vibrate with energy and intensity.

The Cape Playhouse in Dennis Village is offering a bouquet of smiles for a summer's night with the world premiere of David Zippel's tribute show, THEY'RE PLAYING HIS SONGS: THE MUSIC OF MARVIN HAMLISCH, honoring both the man and his music. This bittersweet labor of love features the virtuoso piano accompaniment of Musical Director Christopher Marlowe, the talents of four singer/actors who all worked with Hamlisch during their careers, and entertaining video clips of the composer commenting on a range of subjects.

As a one-man show, the Boston premiere of playwright Bernard McMullan's JIMMY TITANIC sinks or swims on the talents of Tir Na Theatre Company's Producing Artistic Director Colin Hamell. Leave the lifeboats tethered, for it's full-steam ahead with his tour de force performance in New Repertory's black box theater. Whether he's characterizing good Belfast boy Jimmy Boylan or the tough talking Supreme Being, Hamell plays nearly two dozen men, women, and heavenly hosts with aplomb.

The Cabaret Series continues to bring local artists and new songs to contemporary audiences at the Central Square Theater. Boston-based triple threats Cheo Bourne, Jennifer Ellis, Brian Richard Robinson, and Kami Smith look and sound great, backed by a trio of talented musicians.

Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston celebrates its 45th anniversary season with Fosse-style high kicks, hip thrusts, and splayed hands in Director/Choreographer Gerry McIntyre's delightful production of the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. Sara Gettelfinger, Angie Schworer, and Rick Pessagno lead an ensemble of triple threat performers under the musical direction of Dan Rodriguez.

THESE SHINING LIVES tells the important story of a 1928 groundbreaking case which established legal precedents for labor safety standards still in effect decades later. Five factory workers, dubbed the 'Radium Girls,' sued their employer after contracting life-threatening radium poisoning while painting watch dials with the glow-in-the-dark substance. Playwright Melanie Marnich focuses on four of the thousands of women who entered the work force for the first time in the 1920s, rejoicing in the opportunity to make money before finding their lives forever changed by unanticipated camaraderie and unforeseen deleterious effects.

PIRATES OF PENZANCE at the American Repertory Theater's Loeb Drama Center is tantamount to a three-ring circus being held at a beach volleyball tournament. There are beach balls, kiddie pools, beach chairs, and a grass cocktail shack. The cast performs as roving troubadours, each proficiently playing an instrument. The singing voices are good across the board and the songs are delivered with brio. As an acting troupe, The Hypocrites fit nicely with the A.R.T. aesthetic, making a strong connection with the audience both physically and emotionally. Director Sean Graney's vision serves as an introduction to the great work of Gilbert and Sullivan, albeit equivalent to a 'Reader's Digest' abridgement, and one might hope that it would motivate the previously uninitiated to learn more about them.

Maurice Hines puts his passion for tap, his late brother Gregory, and classic Big Band music on display in TAPPIN' THRU LIFE: AN EVENING WITH MAURICE HINES. Backed by the Berklee College of Music Select Big Band, under the direction of drummer Sherrie Maricle, Hines tells his story, shows off his vocal chops, and delights the audience with his warm, relaxed presence. The program is stingy with his dancing, but The Manzari Brothers ratchet up the excitement and kick up a lot of dust in their turn in the spotlight.

From stem to stern, the crew of Lyric Stage Company's ON THE TOWN serves up a boatload of thrills. Leonard Bernstein's glorious score, book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and Jerome Robbins' idea fuse into a terrific voyage to end the season. Director Spiro Veloudos, Choreographer Ilyse Robbins, Music Director Jonathan Goldberg, a creative design team, and a shipshape ensemble put on one helluva show.

FROM DENMARK WITH LOVE: A 007/HAMLET MASH-UP may be your poison if you know your James Bond movies and the crux of the Shakespeare tragedy. At times difficult to follow, the two vehicles blend better than you might think, thanks to clear direction and an energetic, fun-loving ensemble. Daniel Jones has enough good looks to play both leading men and has his hands full with the Bond girls. Playwright John J. King fulfills his mission to provide mirth while helping to save the earth.

Zeitgeist Stage Company's production of Simon Stephens' play, inspired by the Columbine shooting, hits very close to home on the heels of the Newtown and Boston Marathon tragedies. Director David J. Miller and an outstanding cast of teens and young adults handle the material responsibly and realistically. PUNK ROCK is an important play with an articulate message that needs to be heard over and over and over again.