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News & Previews
An explosive comedy at FYT
Flint Youth Theatre's staged reading of boom will be performed Sunday, Aug. 1 at 6 p.m. In this explosive comedy about the end of the world written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Jo, a journalism student, and Jules, a marine biologist, meet in a subterranean biology lab when she responds to his online personal ad. But when a major global catastrophic event strikes the planet, their date takes on evolutionary significance and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. Will they survive? What's going on in the fish tank? And who is that woman, Barbara, pulling levers in the corner? The New York Times says, "Mr. Nachtrieb has a gift for darkly funny dialogue and an appealing way of approaching big themes sideways. boom winds up speaking, quietly and piquantly, to our enduring fascination with and need for myths about the beginning of life as well as its end." Continue..
Special Pre-Sale to Wharton Center eClub members begins Aug. 2
A special Wharton Center eClub Pre-Sale begins Monday, Aug. 2 for all attractions in 2010 (September – December), including Disney's Mary Poppins, ABBA Mania, Pat Metheny, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and many others (notable exception of 9 to 5: The Musical). Continue..
The show WILL go on after storm damages outdoor stage
After dodging a series of severe thunderstorms during their opening performances last week, a line of severe storms damaged the outdoor stage for the 10th Anniversary production of Shakespeare In The Park in Royal Oak Wednesday afternoon. Despite the damage, the outdoor theater was cleaned up in time for Wednesday night's performance of their daylight family show, The Commedia Tales of King Arthur, and the set will be fully repaired for this weekend's performances of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Continue..
HSRT opens special event for a limited run
The final opening for the Hope Summer Repertory Theatre is A Year with Frog and Toad based on Arnold Lobel's collection of children's stories on Monday, Aug. 2 at the Knickerbocker Theatre at 8 p.m. Book and lyrics are by Willie Reale and music is by Robert Reale. A Year with Frog and Toad is a special end-of-season event for the whole family. Nominated for three Tony Awards, including best Broadway musical, these two well-loved characters from Arnold Lobel's books will take you on a musical journey through the joy and sharing of the simple pleasures of friendship such as gardening, making cookies and sharing ice tea and sandwiches. Continue..
Governor’s Council encourages community participation at MBT's 'Feet for Seats' event
he second annual Feet for Seats 5K Fun Run/Walk to benefit Meadow Brook Theatre has been recognized as a quality physical activity event by the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness. The event will take place Sunday, Aug. 22. Check-in begins at 8 a.m. at Meadow Brook Theatre on the campus of Oakland University with the 5K run/walk to start at 9 a.m. Continue..
Encore LIVE! Season 2, Episode 1 now online: Water Works Theatre Company
Royal Oak's professional theater company celebrates its 10th anniversary of outdoor theater with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Hosts Barton Bund and Don Calamia spend an hour with Executive Director Ed Nahat, Managing Director Katja Thomakos and Artistic Director Jeff Thomakos in an engaging and philosophical talk about the history of the company, about Shakespeare, and struggles with Mother Nature. Continue..
UPCOMING AUDITIONS, JOB OPPORTUNITIES & CLASSES:
Click the link below for a list of Equity, non-Equity, film & video auditions, industry job openings and industry-related classes and workshops throughout the state. Updated 7/30/10 Continue..
Subscribe to our e-newsletter and take advantage of special ticket offers
Are you a subscriber of EncoreMichigan.com's FREE, twice-weekly e-newsletter, Curtain's Up? If not, you don't know what you're missing – including special discount ticket offers from many of the state's professional theaters made only to readers of Curtain's Up! So how can you subscribe? Click "continue" for full details! Continue..
MORE STORIES, NEWS BRIEFS & PREVIEWS:
Other Voices - News & Previews (posted 7/23/10)
Other Voices - News & Previews (posted 7/21/10)
Other Voices - News & Previews (posted 7/16/10)
Reviews
A drive to see 'Daisy' worth the trip
By D. A. Blackburn
This season, the organizers of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival have chosen to do something a little different. Last season, the festival took its first stab at musical theater, with a fine production of Side by Side by Sondheim. This year, they've opted to branch into straight non-Shakespearean plays, with a fine production of Driving Miss Daisy. Continue..
MSF's 'Errors' a unique, confused comedy
By D. A. Blackburn
Sitting for the Michigan Shakespeare Festival's production of The Comedy of Errors, one is immediately struck by Jeromy Hopgood's sets. The impression they leave is that of a church's Easter pageant — of flat desert tones, oddly mixed architectural styles, and a quality of construction scarcely better than cardboard. They are hardly an inspiring sight, and certainly not what one might expect from a festival of this caliber. Continue..
Water Works' Verona: Two gentlemen of the swingin’ ‘60s
By Martin F. Kohn
The Two Gentlemen of Verona may not be among Shakespeare's better plays, but you can see them from here. Motifs that the playwright would employ more successfully appear in this early effort: the woman who disguises herself as a man, the two best friends in love with the same woman, the banished hero, the ring betokening a lover's fidelity that shows up in the hands of another woman. Continue..
Murder opens the season in Eastpointe
By Donald V. Calamia
A comprehensive history of professional theater in Southeast Michigan has yet to be written, but one supposed fact certainly seems true: that blue collar towns are not supportive of the performing arts. And if you think about it, that COULD explain why efforts to produce live theater in the industrial neighborhoods of Detroit's east side and northeast suburbs have generally failed to build audiences and take root in those communities. But how, then, do you explain the anomaly known as Broadway Onstage Live Theatre, which has survived and thrived just north of the Detroit border in Eastpointe since 1994? Continue..
Run for your laughs, all the way to Tibbits
By Donald V. Calamia
At the conclusion of his curtain speech before the opening Thursday night performance of Run for Your Wife at Tibbits Summer Theatre, Artistic Director Charles Burr teased the audience by telling us this was the most fun he's had directing a show in quite some time. While grandiose statements such as that are usually nothing more than hyperbolic showmanship, I'm certainly inclined to believe him. Why? Because I probably laughed more during my two-hour visit with two-timing British cab driver John Smith than I have in quite some time! Continue..
Dixie does Saugatuck: Tupperware for adults only
By Bridgette M. Redman
After going to Dixie's Tupperware Party, you may never look at a child's sport and play ball the same way again. For that matter, you might never look at any Tupperware the same way again. While the second show in the Mason Street Warehouse summer season is a raucous, improv comedy, it is also just what the title says — a Tupperware party in which the hostess, Dixie Longate, demonstrates Tupperware, conducts raffles, leads party games, and yes, sells Tupperware. Taking her show around the country, Longate has become one of the top-selling Tupperware salespeople in the country. Continue..
A summer’s tale: ‘Tis a lovely season at Stratford
By Martin F. Kohn
In its better seasons, and this one certainly qualifies, Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival lives up to its name: It's Shakespearean and it's festive. From the glorious froth that is John Doyle's production of Kiss Me, Kate, to Gary Griffin's largely familiar but surprisingly gripping realization of Evita, to Des McAnuff's visually dazzling As You Like It, to Marti Maraden's lucid staging of The Winter's Tale, Stratford 2010 delivers big-time. And let us not forget this year's brochure cover boy, Christopher Plummer, mingling humor with humanity as Prospero in McAnuff's production of The Tempest. Continue..
MORE REVIEWS:
Read other reviews of Driving Miss Daisy - Michigan Shakespeare Festival (July 29, 2010)
Read other reviews of Five-Course Love - Williamston Theatre (updated July 24, 2010)
Read other reviews of Sordid Lives! It's a Drag! - The Ringwald (July 16, 2010)
Read other reviews of Thursdays at Go Comedy! - Go Comedy! Improv Theater (July 8, 2010)
Read other reviews of Boeing-Boeing - The Purple Rose Theatre Company (updated July 8, 2010)
Read other reviews of The Seafarer - Performance Network Theatre (updated July 2, 2010)
