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.
BWW Review: THE HAUNTING 2.0 Proves To Be Sophisticated Sequel
Dustin Tucker's THE HAUNTING 2.0, presented in the Studio Series at Portland Stage, proves to be a sophisticated and fascinating sequel to last season's inaugural Halloween event. Shaping six horror stories by Maine writers into an imaginative, often chilling dramatic sequence, Tucker's piece explores the psychological dimensions of terror with a combination of visceral fear and dark humor.
HAUNTING TOUR 2.0 Returns to Portland Stage
It's Baaaaack! Portland Stage announces the return of an original Studio Series Production Haunting Hour 2.0 curated by Dustin Tucker and featuring Maine authors: Joe Hill, Monica Wood, Callie Kimball, H.W. Longfellow, Ian Carlsen, and Rick Hautala.
A Special Dark Week Project Announced at Portland Stage
This winter, Portland Stage unveils the Dark Week Project, three staged readings of beloved playwright Sarah Ruhl's Dear Elizabeth while the Mainstage is 'dark', a technical term to signify that the theater is in a transition week between regularly scheduled productions. Dear Elizabeth will be performed by a rotating cast of Portland Stage Affiliate Artists and is directed by Todd Brian Backus.
BWW Review: THE HAUNTING HOUR Presents a Mercurial Look at the Macabre
In his directorial debut at Portland Stage, acclaimed actor Dustin Tucker has created an intriguing theatrical evening featuring a potpourri of horror tales by Maine authors, told with a mercurial blend of wit and terror. The brilliantly theatrical eighty-minute piece, which is based on six stories and short plays by John Cariani, Tess Gerritsen, Ike Hamill, Chris F. Holm, Callie Kimball and Stephen King, employs a wide variety of staging devices, and runs the gamut in tone and mood all combining for a sophisticated and satisfying experience.
BWW Reviews: Novelist Debuts as Playwright
Portland Stage closes its season with the world premiere of award-winning Maine novelist, Monica Wood's touching first play, Papermaker. Set during the papermill strike of 1989 in the fictional town of Abbott Falls, Maine, the work probes the perceptions, conflicts, and interactions of individuals on both sides of the painful controversy. Handling material already familiar to her readers from her memoir, When We Were the Kennedys, Wood brings to the stage a compassionate grasp of character, a poetic sense of metaphor, and just enough sharp wit and turn of phrase to add spice to this all-too-human drama about ordinary folks whose lives and identities are turned upside down by the bitter labor dispute.
Good Theater's NEXT FALL Closes
Good Theater will present the Maine premiere of the recent Broadway success NEXT FALL through February 19, at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland.
Good Theater Presents NEXT FALL, Opens 1/25
Good Theater will present the Maine premiere of the recent Broadway success NEXT FALL beginning January 25 and running through February 19, at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland.
Photo Flash: Good Theater’s NEXT FALL
Good Theater's production of NEXT FALL by Geoffrey Nauffts will be opening January 25 and playing through February 19, at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland.