The New York Times‘ Ben Brantley visited Shakespeare & Company this week to weigh in on Twelfth Night and The Dreamer Examines His Pillow. What follows are just a couple of the wonderful things he had to say:
“Even theatergoers who caught the Public Theater’s star-powered “Twelfth Night” in Central Park this summer should consider revisiting the play in Lenox, though there’s not a celebrity in sight. Mr. Croy and company have ingeniously made this comedy of lost and found identities a vicarious voyage into the light…” Read the full review
And also, regarding John Douglas Thompson:
“Repertory is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? It allows an actor like Mr. Thompson the relief of moving from the in-the-moment passion of Othello to the recollected passion of Dreamer. And it allows theatergoers the treat of seeing an admirable performer confidently shift keys from blazing fury to quiet contemplation…” Read the full review
And did you see the fantastic New York Times article about Tina Packer earlier this month?
The reviews are in for J.T. Rogers’ White People, directed by Anna Brownsted, a “provocative and funny” (The Arts Fuse) account of three ordinary Americans as they deal their own prejudices and guilt, and the consequences of their actions. These three “absorbing, ultimately wrenching stories” (The Valley Advocate) are being told in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre through next Friday, September 4th only.
White People features Jason Asprey (also playing Hamlet), Michael Hammond (playing Iago in Othello) and Dana Harrison. Buy tickets now.
Check out our interview with the playwright J.T. Rogers right here:
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J. T. Rogers’ White People, directed by Anna Brownsted and featuring Jason Asprey, Michael Hammond and Dana Harrison begins previews tonight! It’s an intimate portrait of the lives of three ordinary Americans: a young professor teaching in a New York City college, a fading homecoming queen living an increasingly suffocating life in North Carolina, and a high-powered attorney from Brooklyn running a firm in St. Louis. Through intimate and heart-wrenching confessions, these three very human beings wrestle with their own guilt, prejudice, and the consequences they and their children must bear for their actions.
Check out the photos below, and purchase tickets now! (Act fast—only eleven performances!)
Wordplay: A New Play by William Shakespeare is the newest offering in the Always Free! Bankside Festival this summer. A zany mix of Waiting for Guffman antics and Waiting for Godot absurdity, this world premiere work plays Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays in the Rose Footprint Theatre through September 6. Written by Wolfe Coleman and Tom O’Keefe. Directed by Bill Barclay. Costumes by Jim Day. Photos by Danny Kurtz.
“No summer drama festival in America is more consistently satisfying than Shakespeare & Company, and ‘Twelfth Night’ is a prime example of what makes it so good.”
So says Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal in his review of Twelfth Night published this weekend. Additionally, he says:
No tricky directorial concepts are sprayed over the text—Mr. Croy is content to let Shakespeare be Shakespeare—and the actors respond by giving of their best, with results that are not merely funny but also emotionally true. Ms. Janson [as Viola], for instance, is at once heartfelt and touchingly clueless, an innocent flung willy-nilly into the midst of roiling comic chaos.
Read the full review at WSJ.com. But we’ve got more to share! Following the magnificent review in last week’s Berkshire Eagle, the Albany Times Union followed suit:
“the best thing worth seeing in the Berkshires yet this season…Randolph’s cast is beyond impressive. They inhabit this play, making the bare Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre come alive.“
Read the full review at the Albany Times Union website. We hope you’ll join us this August as Shakespeare & Company rounds out its summer season—everything wraps up September 7 with the Studio Festival of Plays!
The Berkshire Eagle yesterday published their review of The Dreamer Examines His Pillow.
They’ve located that power surge some of you may have felt over the weekend in Lenox. It came from Shakespeare & Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on Kemble Street where John Patrick Shanley’s “The Dreamer Examines His Pillow” opened Saturday night.
For 90 or so intermissionless minutes, Shakespeare & Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre crackles with the pain and promise of love; life — intense, vibrant, gushing, knowing, unknowing.
Read the full review at the Berkshire Eagle online. Written by John Patrick Shanley and directed by Company member Tod Randolph in her directorial debut, Dreamer plays through September 6 in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. It features John Douglas Thompson, Miriam Hyman and Bowman Wright. Buy tickets now.
