Review: ANGELS IN AMERICA in the New Millennium at Portland Stage
Portland Stage joins forces with the Dramatic Repertory Company to revive Tony Kushner’s multiple award-winning 1991 drama, ANGELS IN AMERICA, in a production that Artistic Director Anita Stewart proudly calls “all Maine-made.” The company has shouldered the huge task of presenting the sprawling seven-hour epic in two parts, the first of which “Millennium Approaches” proves its ability to create a powerful emotional impact long after its premiere.
Review: TURANDOT at Belk Theater
Yes, a grand opera was inserted at Belk Theater as the clock or calendar was winding down! Around the world, Callas, Nilsson, and Sutherland are among the divas who have graced the powerhouse role of TURANDOT, and Franco Zeffirelli's production at the Met is as revered for its stateliness and splendor as the Notre Dame Cathedral. Grand? Monumental.
BWW Review: Portland Stage Celebrates 50th Season with Monica Wood's SAINT DAD
Portland Stage opens its fiftieth season with a warm, witty, insightful new play by one of Maine’s most original voices, Monica Wood, in a stylish production directed by Sally Wood. Portland Stage’s commitment to new work has been an enduring one, and surely one of the theatre’s brightest new endeavors has been to nurture the playwrighting talents of Monica Wood. Her latest work, SAINT DAD, is a polished and poignant play about the intersection of people from two very different worlds brought together by the sale of a family camp in rural Maine and the journey they take individually and collectively to reach some transformative epiphanies.
Portland Stage Company Presents HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED By August Wilson
Portland Stage Company will present How I Learned What I Learned by August Wilson to Maine. Heralded as a tour de force, this one-man play tells the story of Wilson's journey from a young, struggling poet in the Hill District of Pittsburgh to becoming one of the most celebrated and respected playwrights of our time.
Review: SWEET GOATS & BLUBERRY SEÑORITAS: Poetic Sensibility & Lingering Sweetness
The premiere of Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia’s SWEET GOATS and BLUBERRY SEÑORITAS at Portland Stage heralds the magical debut of a haunting new dramatic voice. Poet Blanco and his collaborator Garcia have created a delicate, sad-sweet memory play, inhabited by six memorable and widely disparate characters, whose shards of reminiscence come together in the cold winter landscape of a small Maine town.
BWW Critic's Choices: Best of Maine 2022
After three seemingly endless years, Maine's theatrical landscape has truly begun to come to life again after the pandemic. I am thrilled to be able to pen this article, having experienced a 2022 that saw the remarkable 'comebacks' of Maine's theatres. While the year was not without continued challenges, these brave, resilient companies managed to produce first-class live theatre for grateful audiences.
These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2022, grouped by theatre company and show.
Review: The Ever-Elusive SHERLOCK HOLMES at Portland Stage
For its second offering of the season Portland Stage regales its audience with Steven Dietz’s adaptation of William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original play, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. The play, a re-imagined period piece, offers a low-key, witty take on the familiar characters and material with enough twists and turns to satisfy Conan Doyle fans.
BWW Review: Portland Stage Presents New Chamber Opera About Psychoanalysis Pioneer: SABINA
Portland Stage closes its 2021-2022 season with a new play with music that is really a chamber opera, SABINA, about the pioneer in psychoanalysis, the muse and lover of Carl Jung and colleague of Sigmund Freud, Sabina Spielrein. Sabina’s story from Jung’s catatonic patient to medical student and respected doctor in the turbulent years leading up to WWII is a fascinating one, filled with history and hope.