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larryland · 3 years

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REVIEW: "Seared" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

REVIEW: “Seared” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

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#&039;62 Center #62 Center for Theatre and Dance #Barbara Waldinger #David Weiner #Hannah Sullivan #Hoon Lee #Krysta Rodriguez #Michael Esper #Moritz Von Stuelpnagel #Nikos Stage #Palmer Hefferan #Seared #Theresa Rebeck #Tilly Grimes #Tim Mackabee #W. Tré Davis #Williamstown MA #Williamstown Theatre Festival #WTF

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theinterval-blog · 6 years

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Broadway's first all-female design team.

#Leigh Silverman #Mimi Lien #linda cho #Jen Schriever #Palmer Hefferan #Lucy MacKinnon #lifespan of a fact

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neverheardnothing · 5 years

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Love In Hate Nation - a new musical by Joe Iconis

Intro

Hey, y’all, wonder what our favorite Tony nominated composer is up to these days? Well, a lot. He has 3 upcoming musicals, but we’re gonna talk about one in particular, his next one. It’s called Love In Hate Nation, for which he is writing the music, lyrics, and book.

Here’s the description from Joe’s website:

A turbulent rock romance set in a 1960s Juvie Hall, Love in Hate Nation uses classic “bad girl” movies as the inspiration for the story of young people caught between eras of a changing America. Sixteen-year old Susannah Son is carted off to the National Reformatory for Girls to get her head put on straight. There she meets the aggressively incorrigible Sheila Nail, and a relationship forms which leads to an all-out “revolution in the institution” as they attempt to break out of the boxes society has created around them. Girl Group Wall of Sound harmonies are filtered through a punk rock spirit in this rebellious and romantic new musical.

The show will make its world premiere at Two River Theater in New Jersey (the place where BMC started!) and will run from November 9th to December 1st 2019.

TICKETS ARE CURRENTLY ON SALE! CHECK OUT THE LINK ABOVE!

Cast/Creatives

The cast will feature Sydney Farley (Gloria “Ya Ya” Meeks), Amina Faye (Susannah Son), Jasmine Forsberg (Brenda “Rat” Ratowski), Lauren Marcus (Miss Asp), Kelly McIntyre (Sheila Nail), Lena Skeele (Dorothy Donaldson), Emerson Smith (Kitty Minx), Ryan Vona (The Guy), and Tatiana Wechsler (Judith Ramone).

The rest of the creative/design team includes: scenic designer Meredith Reis, costume designer Karen Perry, lighting designer Jen Schriever, and sound designer Palmer Hefferan. Orchestrations and music supervision are by Charlie Rosen, with music direction by Geraldine Anello, and choreography by Mayte Natalio.

Although this is its world premiere, there actually was a previous production of this show in 2018 by Penn State’s musical theater program (where John Simpkins works), who originally commissioned Joe to write the show. The cast included Amina Faye, Katie Griffith, Talia Suskauer (a swing in BMC!), Lena Skeele, Jasmine Forsberg (cast member of Broadway Bounty Hunter), Morgan Hecker, MiKayla McKasey, Caleb Smith, and Kevin Dort. Amina, Lena, and Jasmine will be reprising their roles.

Press/Reviews

Jennifer Ashley Tepper wrote a review of the 2018 production on her Facebook, which has some information about the characters.

Review from The Theater Times

Review from Sun Gazette

Review from PSU Underground

About the initial development of LIHN

Songs

If you want to hear what we currently have from the shows, I’ve made a YouTube playlist of all the videos I’ve found. It contains some songs, scenes, and interviews.

Since there’s a lot of duplicates, I’ve linked my favorite of each version here:

I Hope

Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail

Revolution Song

I Was A Teenage Delinquent (this song was actually written way before the show was commissioned!)

Susannah’s Song

Generally Rebellious

Lovelier

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Revolution Song (which is my favorite). Featuring Rachel Lee, Alexandra Ferrara, and Danielle Gimbal at an Iconis and Family concert.

But if you only listen to one of these, listen to Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail. It’s an incredible song and an incredible performance which speaks for itself. Go, watch it. I beg you.

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Three Failed Escape Attempts of Sheila Nail sung by Talia Suskauer at the Be More Swing show.

Pictures

And now here’s some pictures from the 2018 Penn State production below the cut if you want to see what it looked it!

Amina Faye as Susannah Son

Amina Faye as Susannah Son and Talia Suskauer as Miss Asp

Katie Griffith as Sheila Nail and Amina Faye as Susannah Son

Talia Suskauer as Miss Asp and Lena Skeele as Dorothy

Morgan Hecker, Caleb Smith, Jasmine, Mikayla McKasy, Lena Skeele, and Katie Griffith

#joe iconis #love in hate nation #be more chill #lauren marcus #talia suskauer #do i feel like an ass spamming tags? yeah but i want people to know about this show #lihn #honestly this post is also 60% for me so i can reference it later #tfw i spent an hr writing this post instead of doing anything else i need to do #my posts #i still feel very bad for tagging the bmc tag rip #god id love to stop procrastinating #happy birthday joe im trying to get more people to talk about ur show #forgot to mention but I'm pretty sure lovelier generally rebellious and teenage delinquent aren't in the show?

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asiantheatre · 6 years

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Lifespan of a Fact becomes the first show in Broadway history to have an all female design team!

Featuring:

Set Design by Mimi Lien (Tony winner for Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812)

Costume Design by Linda Cho (Tony winner for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder)

Lighting Design by Jen Schriever (Eclipsed/COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES),

Sound Design by Palmer Hefferan (Sugar in Our Wounds/School Girls: the African Mean Girls Play),

Projection Design by Lucy Mackinnon (Six Degrees of Separation/Deaf West Spring Awakening)

The play opened on October 18 and will run for a 16-week limited engagement.

#lifespan of a fact #mimi lien #linda cho #set design #costume design #news

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untapdtreasure · 5 years

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Read Reviews for Something Clean

at Roundabout UndergroundBY

PLAYBILL STAFF || MAY 30, 2019

Selina Fillinger's new play, about the aftermath of a sex crime, opened May 29.

Christopher Livingston and Kathryn Erbe Joan Marcus

Roundabout celebrated the opening of Selina Fillinger's Something Clean in its Underground space May 29. Through the eyes of a wife and mother (played by Law & Order's Kathryn Erbe), the new play examines the aftermath of a sex crime—the guilt, the grief, and the ways we grapple with the unthinkable.

Margot Bordelon directs the world premiere, with a cast made up of Erbe (Oz), Daniel Jenkins (Oslo, Billy Elliot), and Christopher Livingston (Wilder Gone, Party People).

Read reviews for the production below.

The Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck)

New York Magazine / Vulture (Sara Holdren)

New York Stage Review (Elysa Gardner)

The New York Times (Ben Brantley)

Observer (Rex Reed)

Time Out (Raven Snook)

Something Clean began previews May 4 and is scheduled to play through June 30. The play was originally commissioned and developed through the Sideshow Theatre Company Freshness Initiative and was presented as part of the 2018 Roundabout Underground Reading Series.

The creative team for the Roundabout production is made up of Reid Thompson (sets), Valérie Thérèse Bart (costumes), Jiyoun Chang (lighting), and Palmer Hefferan (original compositions and sound).

(productions images below the cut)

#Kathryn Erbe

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amateur-theater-critic-blog · 5 years

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Do You Feel Anger?

Do You Feel Anger is an absurdist dark comedy play that revolves around an empathy therapist attempting to help a workplace, with charming figures like Nice Guy™, guy with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon, and a woman so used to their terrible behavior it’s sad. While beautiful and hilarious, it was disturbing and thought provoking

Do You Feel Anger is powerful and distinctly uncomfortable. The quintessential female experience I would never wish on anyone and yet nearly all have to go through at some point. It felt like a train-wreck from start to finish that I knew I couldn’t look away from or avoid. At some point the jokes only pulled nervous laughter from me. It asks the question “how do we change others without fundamentally changing ourselves at the same time?” And the play doesn’t leave any easy answers.

While the premise is beautiful and the style and idea nearly carry everything the whole way through, the play doesn’t have any plot. It’s just the life of a woman trying to do her job in a sexist environment, with some strange subplot about trying to connect with her mother on the side and yet losing her. So, without a plot it felt like a comedy skit that dragged on for too long. At one point I actually checked my watch for the time because I needed to know if it was close to the end.

The lighting is interesting. There are very abrupt lighting shifts between scenes, turning on all the white lights and then turning them off - nearly no fade, which, first time it happened, burned my eyes a bit. It worked for the vibe of the play, but it still happened, especially helping make the last part of the play, when there is a lot of play with the lighting, feel much more jarring. It’s very crisp, minimal lighting, perfectly suited for what is meant to be a work environment.

Sound is used pretty minimally as well, but when it’s there, it’s gorgeous. My favorite part of the sound design was when a bird was supposed to fly from house right to house left, and while there was no physical bird, you could hear the wings flapping from one side of speakers to the other, which I found gorgeous.

The acting is amazing. Playing Eva is Megan Hill from Eddie and Dave, and she is wonderful. All the other actors, as well, play their role fantastically and are used to their full potential by the director, Margot Bordelon. In the end, I feel like they were limited by the original play script more than anything. If there were a more overarching plot - more than the hints we get from the mother’s phone calls and slips in the character lines, it would be a much stronger production.

This is the kind of play I would see once, but would like to see more of.

Rating: 3.5/5

Tickets Available Through April 20th

https://www.vineyardtheatre.org/do-you-feel-anger/

Trigger Warning: At some point there are strobing lights on the whole stage, as well as a lot of vulgarity.

Cast and Creative

Sofia’s Mom/Janie -- Jeanne Sakata

Sofia -- Tiffany Villarin

Eva -- Megan Hill

Jon -- Greg Keller

Jordan -- Ugo Chukwu

Howie -- Justin Long

Old Man -- Tom Aulino

Writer -- Mara Nelson-Greenberg

Director -- Margot Bordelon

Set Designer -- Laura Jellinek

Costume Designer -- Emilio Soa

Lighting Designer -- Marie Yokoyama

Sound Designer -- Palmer Hefferan

#do you feel anger #play #theater #review #3.5/5 #it was okay #but could be better #amateur theater critic

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trascapades · 3 years

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🎭🙌🏿#ArtIsAWeapon

BRAVA playwright @jjbioh and the outstanding cast of the @publictheaterny's #ShakespeareInThePark #MerryWives! The reimagining of this classic tale - infusing West African and Black American dialect, music, culture and costuming, set in #Harlem - is spectacular!! Shout out to the costume and set designers @dedeayitedesign & (@beowulfboritt), and director (@saheemscene)!!

Y'all, GO!!! Try to get a ticket for the September 2 "BlackTheaterNight" performance (see details below). If you can't, the production is running through September 18. https://publictheater.org/productions/season/2021/sitp/merry-wives/

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Reposted from @broadwayblack It's Black Theater Night for ‘Merry Wives’ & tickets are FREE.99! Reserve your tickets right now for FREE SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK! This awesome adaptation of a Shakespearean classic by Jocelyn Bioh (@jjbioh) and directed by Saheem Ali (@saheemscene) boasts an all-Black cast! Find the Link in Bio ...You really can't miss this!

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Reposted from @publictheaterny

MERRY WIVES

Adapted by Jocelyn Bioh (@jjbioh)

Directed by Saheem Ali (@saheemscene)

With: Abena (@abenadryl), Shola Adewusi (@shola_a_adewusi), Gbenga Akinnagbe (@gbengaakinnagbe), Pascale Armand (@pascale_armand), MaYaa Boateng (@mayaaboateng), Phillip James Brannon (@phillipjamesbrannon), Brandon E. Burton (@sir_brandon_e), Joshua Echebiri (@joshuaechebiri), Branden Lindsay (@brandenlindsay_), Ebony Marshall-Oliver (@ebonym_o), Jarvis D. Matthews (@jarvisd_matthews), Jacob Ming-Trent (@jmingsdynasty), Jennifer Mogbock (@comosoy_101), Julian Rozzell Jr. (@jrozjr), Kyle Scatliffe (@sirblackalot), David Ryan Smith (@davidryansmith), and Susan Kelechi Watson (@susankelechiwatson)

Scenic Design: Beowulf Boritt (@beowulfboritt)

Costume Design: Dede Ayite (@dedeayitedesign)

Lighting Design: Jiyoun Chang (@jiyounchangjiji)

Co-Sound Design: Kai Harada (@haradasound)

Co-Sound Design: Palmer Hefferan (@palmzhefferan)

Original Music: Michael Thurber (@michaelthurber)

Original Drum Compositions: Farai Malianga (@maliangafaraim)

Fight Direction: Rocío Mendez (@rociomendezactor)

Choreographer: Darrell Grand Moultrie (@darrellmoultrie)

#FreeShakespeareinThePark #BlackGirlTheaterGeeks #DelacorteTheater #FreeInNYC #TraScapades

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newyorktheater · 5 years

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Raul Esparza as a temperamental chef in “Seared”

Theresa Rebeck’s slight but savory comedy about running a restaurant stars Raúl Esparza as Harry, a hilariously mercurial chef-owner of a hole-in-the-wall eatery that’s become the latest foodie destination. A blurb in New York Magazine has praised Harry’s ginger lemongrass scallops dish, so now the customers are flocking to the place and clamoring for the dish.

But Harry refuses to make it anymore.

“I’m not feeling the scallops,” he says.

This infuriates his business partner Mike (Dave Mason) who works alongside him and believes it makes sense to give the customers what they want, so that the place has a chance of making a profit, rather than barely breaking even.

Caught in the middle is Rodney (W. Tré Davis), the waiter who must mediate between the hungry (unseen) diners and the obsessive culinary artist. Rodney is Harry and Mike’s sole employee – until Mike hires a high-powered restaurant consultant, Emily (Krysta Rodriguez), without telling Harry.

“Seared” was inspired by Rebeck’s favorite neighborhood restaurant in Park Slope, which, though innovative and delicious, shut down, unable to make a go of it.

That’s not what happens in “Seared.” Actually, not too much happens. There is some character development, a climax of sorts near the end and a couple of turns in the plot – one of which, given the hostility of Esparza’s character towards Rodriguez’s at the outset, should be predictable to anybody who’s ever seen a modern American comedy. There’s also a clear underlying theme of the tension between art and commerce. But plot, theme, and even character are not the specialties of the house. Two things count as the main draws. There is the rapid-fire dialogue, largely comic bickering, handled masterfully by the four actors, who are also adept at physical comedy. And then there is an unusual treat — the ballet of meal preparation that occurs right before our eyes (and our noses), using real food in Tim Mackabee’s working kitchen of a set. Esparza either had a day job that we didn’t know about, or he spent a lot time training with a real chef for this role. It is a surprisingly mesmerizing experience to witness the long wordless scene at the top of Act II in which Esparza meticulously prepares and cooks a wild salmon dish.

It’s hard to argue that “Seared” makes for a meaty play, but it is certainly an appetizing one.

click on any photograph by Joan Marcus to see it enlarged.

W. Tre Davis

Raúl Esparza

David Mason and Raul Esparza

Raul Esparza and Krysta Rodriguez

Raul Esparza David Mason Krysta Rodriguez W. Tre Davis

Seared

MCC Theater

Written by Theresa Rebeck

irection by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel, set design by Tim Mackabee, costume design by Tilly Grimes, lighting design by David J. Weiner, sound design by Palmer Hefferan, prop supervision by Andrew Diaz, a

Cast: W. Tré Davis, Raúl Esparza, David Mason, and Krysta Rodriguez.

Running time: 2 hours and 15 minutes including one intermission.

Tickets: $56-$96

Seared is on stage through December 1, 2019

Seared Review: Raúl Esparza is Cooking, in Theresa Rebeck’s Restaurant Comedy Theresa Rebeck’s slight but savory comedy about running a restaurant stars Raúl Esparza as Harry, a hilariously mercurial chef-owner of a hole-in-the-wall eatery that’s become the latest foodie destination.

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larryland · 3 years

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REVIEW: "Dangerous House" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

REVIEW: “Dangerous House” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

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theinterval-blog · 6 years

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Jennifer Ikeda, Susan Soon He Stanton, and Palmer Hefferan (x)

#jennifer ikeda #susan soon he stanton #palmer hefferan

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larryland · 3 years

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REVIEW: "Tell Me I'm Not Crazy" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

REVIEW: “Tell Me I’m Not Crazy” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

by Barbara Waldinger Gun control, stay-at-home fathers, working mothers, breast feeding, immigration, fear of “the other,” white rage, forced retirement, a young child acting out, home invasions. These are only a few of the contemporary hot-button issues raised in Sharon Rothstein’s world premiere comedy, Tell Me I’m Not Crazy, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel at the Williamstown Theatre…

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#Alexander Woodward #Barbara Waldinger #Edgerton Foundation New Play Award #Isabella Byrd #Jane Kaczmarek #Jereme Kyle Lewis #Mark Blum #Mark Feuerstein #Moritz Von Stuelpnagel #Nicole Villamil #Nikos Stage #Palmer Hefferan #Sharon Rothstein #TELL ME I&039;M NOT CRAZY #Tilly Grimes #Williamstown MA #Williamstown Theatre Festival #WTF

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larryland · 3 years

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REVIEW: "If I Forget" at Barrington Stage

REVIEW: “If I Forget” at Barrington Stage

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larryland · 5 years

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REVIEW: "Tell Me I'm Not Crazy" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

REVIEW: “Tell Me I’m Not Crazy” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival

by Barbara Waldinger

Gun control, stay-at-home fathers, working mothers, breast feeding, immigration, fear of “the other,” white rage, forced retirement, a young child acting out, home invasions. These are only a few of the contemporary hot-button issues raised in Sharon Rothstein’s world premiere comedy, Tell Me I’m Not Crazy, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel at the Williamstown Theatre…

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#Alexander Woodward #Barbara Waldinger #Edgerton Foundation New Play Award #Isabella Byrd #Jane Kaczmarek #Jereme Kyle Lewis #Mark Blum #Mark Feuerstein #Moritz Von Stuelpnagel #Nicole Villamil #Nikos Stage #Palmer Hefferan #Sharon Rothstein #TELL ME I&039;M NOT CRAZY #Tilly Grimes #Williamstown MA #Williamstown Theatre Festival #WTF

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larryland · 5 years

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"Grand Horizons" Opens on the WTF Main Stage

“Grand Horizons” Opens on the WTF Main Stage

Williamstown. MA (July 17, 2019) – Williamstown Theatre Festival(Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director) announces the beginning of performances of the second Main Stage production of the 2019 season, the world premiere of Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl, directed by Leigh Silverman, and featuring Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Priscilla Lopez, Maulik Pancholy, Ashley Park, Thomas Sadoski, Jamey Sheridan, and…

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#Ashley Park #Bess Wohl #Clint Ramos #GRAND HORIZONS #Jamey Sheridan #Jen Schriever #Jesse Tyler Ferguson #JoBeth Williams #Leigh Silverman #main stage #Mandy Greenfield #Maulik Pancholy #Palmer Hefferan #Priscilla Lopez #Thomas Sadoski #Williamstown MA #Williamstown Theatre Festival #WTF

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larryland · 6 years

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by Barbara Waldinger

South Africa is the ONLY African country where gay marriage is legal. At the same time, the common South African practice of “corrective rape,”—purportedly intended to turn lesbians straight—goes unprosecuted.

This is the background of the taut and powerful drama, Dangerous House by Jen Silverman, the fourth and final Nikos Stage production of the Williamstown Theatre Festival‘s 2018 season. Silverman has spent several summers at the Festival, where her play The Roommate was performed in 2017 after a 2016 reading there. In 2010, while living in Japan, she watched the televised broadcast of the World Cup in South Africa, accompanied by her expat South African friends. Questioning what it meant to her friends to leave their country and separate themselves from all they’ve known, having to create a new existence while resisting the magnet-like pull of home, Silverman found her first inspiration for Dangerous House. The second is based on the work of Cape Town resident Ndumie Funda, who runs “Luleki Sizwe”— a safe house for queer women who have been raped or are victims of violence.

Director Saheem Ali, a gay man who left his home in Kenya where homosexuality is taboo, to become a United States citizen, suffers the guilt of abandoning the human rights struggle within his country. Because of his strong identification with this play, Ali has been working with Silverman for the past two years “reimagining and restructuring it.” Despite Silverman’s anxiety about telling a story that takes place in a country and culture to which she doesn’t belong, Ali assured her that her work was respectful and authentic.

Dangerous House focuses on the relationship between Pretty Mbane (Samira Wiley) and her ex-lover Noxolo (Alfie Fuller), a female football star who chooses to leave South Africa in order to take advantage of a student scholarship in London, where her sexual orientation is accepted and she is safe. When Noxolo is suddenly unable to contact Mbane, who seems to have disappeared, she decides to risk going back to Cape Town to find her. Refusing to be dissuaded by her gay friend Marcel (Phillip James Brannon), she returns home during the excitement of the World Cup hosted there. Through her brother Sicelo (Atandwa Kani), she meets Gregory (Michael Braun), an American journalist in Cape Town, who promises to help find Mbane, and to write her story.

This five-person ensemble is first-rate. Wiley, recently nominated for an Emmy for her performance in The Handmaid’s Tale, has the most challenging role because she is alone during much of her stage time. In poetic monologues, delivered directly to the audience, she personifies the heroic Mbane, who stubbornly and recklessly insists on standing up for injustice. Wiley explores her humanity while at the same time finding the hidden and welcome humor in her situation.

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Fuller, whose scenes are highly charged, communicates the emotional cost of the terrible choice Noxolo is forced to make. Her relationship to Marcel, her closest friend and employer at a London bar, moves from easy camaraderie to deadly serious threats as Brannon, in a touching performance, begs her to stay, reminding her of the horrors they have both faced in South Africa. His anguish is tangible, as he sees that his exhortations have no effect on her.

Kani, as Noxolo’s brother Sicelo, morphs effortlessly from a lovable charmer, as he serves as tour guide for Gregory (offering him beautiful women), to a frightening homophobe, urging his sister to marry a man and have children. Braun’s Gregory, having finally stumbled upon a promising story about the underbelly of South African society, is drawn in by Noxolo’s search for Mbane, and is willing to risk everything to land this story. The actor reveals a combination of kindness, fearlessness and ambition, as he tries to navigate these complex waters.

Director Ali has selected a design team to match his intense directing style. The most astonishing element of the physical production is Dane Laffrey’s set. Despite Silverman’s suggestion that “the set must be suggestive and spare,” the stage is dominated up by an enormous dark cube, one edge facing the audience, extending from floor to ceiling. The only visible onstage furniture is a movable bar in the stage left corner, and a table and two chairs in the stage right corner. In a striking lighting design by Lap Chi Chu, the proscenium is ringed with bright lights above and on the sides that are illuminated between scenes. During these breaks Sound designer Palmer Hefferan offers Rap music, the cheers and celebrations of World Cup aficionados, and loud, ominous rumblings. When the cube is finally pried open, it reveals Pretty Mbane’s brightly-colored lodging occupying center stage, which is odd because so few of the scenes take place there. But the centrality of her room’s position reflects the life-and-death struggle faced by South Africa’s LBGT community.

Dangerous House grips the audience from start to finish. Soon Williams College students will return to the campus and the lights of the Williamstown Theatre Festival will be dark until next summer. Catch this production before it’s too late.

DANGEROUS HOUSE runs from August 8—19. Tickets may be purchased online at wtfestival.org or call 413-458-3253.

Williamstown Theatre Festival presents DANGEROUS HOUSE by Jen Silverman. Directed by Saheem Ali. Cast: Samira Wiley (Pretty Mbane), Alfie Fuller (Noxolo), Phillip James Brannon (Marcel), Atandwa Kani (Sicelo), Michael Braun (Gregory). Scenic Design: Dane Laffrey; Costume Design: Dede Ayite; Lighting Design: Lap Chi Chu; Sound Design: Palmer Hefferan; Dialect Coach: Barbara Rubin; Production Stage Manager: Ellen Goldberg.

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission. Williamstown Theatre Festival, Nikos Stage, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown, MA., from August 8; closing August 19. https://wtfestival.org/

REVIEW: “Dangerous House” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival by Barbara Waldinger South Africa is the ONLY African country where gay marriage is legal. At the same time, the common South African practice of “corrective rape,”—purportedly intended to turn lesbians straight—goes unprosecuted.

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larryland · 7 years

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by Macey Levin

There is an upbeat, hilarious, very contemporary show which is a valuable experience for both young and older audiences at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage in Pittsfield, MA. Speech and Debate which premiered off-Broadway in 2007 was one of the first plays written by Stephen Karam who won a Tony Award last year for Humans.

The play opens with Howie (Austin Davidson,) a student at a Salem, Oregon high school, corresponding via e-mail with an older man setting up a date to meet in a park. The messages are on screens in projections designed by Alex Basco Koch at the rear of Reid Thompson’s finely designed utilitarian set.

We then meet Solomon (Ben Getz,) a reporter for the high school newspaper, writing a story about Salem’s mayor having illicit relations with several teen-age boys. His teacher/advisor (Edelen McWilliams) attempts to dissuade and then refuses to allow him to write the story. Being determined, he locates Howie for an interview that blossoms into a tenuous friendship.

Diwata (Betsy Hogg) takes over the stage as she chatters in her initial podcast about her disappointment at not being cast in last year’s school play The Crucible (she wanted to play and identifies with Mary Warren, one of the accused in the Salem, MA witch trials;) she has also been passed over for this year’s musical Once Upon a Mattress. The fact that she has little talent is not part of her conversation. She focuses on Mr. Healy, the drama teacher and her suspicions about his sexual leanings.

Howie and Solomon are persuaded by Diwata, who has named herself president, to join the school’s fledgling Speech and Debate club. In order to receive approval for this new activity they have to present it to the school board. She coaches the boys in the various categories of declarative speeches, oral interpretation, Lincoln-Douglas debates, group interpretation et al, (these activities are also the titles of the various scenes in the play)

Their presentation to the board takes the form of a musical Diwata has written centered on a time traveler, a young gay Abraham Lincoln and a feisty Mary Warren. The song and the choreography by Tim Pare are the hilarious highlight of this funky play.

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Despite the comic aspects of the work, there is also a dark undertone. As they become friendlier they reveal intimate secrets of their lives. They reflect on what it is like to be an adolescent who does not conform to the stereotypical image, to be rejected by their peers and to become loners and defensive. The mundane tone of the high school environment and the restrictions imposed on their growth as individuals are also dramatized.

The three young actors are priceless. They capture the swagger and vulnerability of adolescent character traits while they cavort through their various machinations. In addition to creating the personae they are obviously engaging musical performers, though their characters are poor performers. This is difficult to pull off, but they do it with great aplomb. McWilliams competently plays Solomon’s teacher and a reporter.

Director Jessica Holt maintains a rapid pace that propels the show forward without becoming maudlin or didactic. There is so much freedom on the stage that the scenes ripple with energy, even through the quieter moments. She, along with Karam, has captured the conflicted world of the teenager. Nikki Delhomme’s costumes fortify the character’s attitudes and place in life while Burke brown’s lights enhance the brightness and delight of the production.

The show is an utter joy.

Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam; Directed by Jessica Holt; Cast: Austin Davidson (Howie) Ben Getz (Solomon) Edelen McWilliams (Teacher/Reporter) Betsy Hogg (Diwata); Music direction; Dan Pardo; Choreographer: Tim Pare; Scene design: Reid Thompson; Costume design: Nikki Delhomme; Lighting design: Burke Brown; Sound design: Palmer Hefferan; Projection design: Alex Basco Koch; Stage Manager: Paul Vella; Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission ; Barrington Stage Co., St. Germain Stage, Linden St., Pittsfield, MA ; From 7/13/17; closing 7/29/17

REVIEW: “Speech and Debate” at Barrington Stage by Macey Levin There is an upbeat, hilarious, very contemporary show which is a valuable experience for both young and older audiences at Barrington Stage Company’s St.

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