Boris Akunin’s rendition of Hamlet, Hamlet. A Version, is probably the most intriguing version of Hamlet I have ever seen. The retelling focuses on political corruption and thirst for power.

Khris Lewin and Joy Hermalyn in Hamlet, A Version. Photo by Jeremy Daniel.

The story of Hamlet is told in such a way that themes of political corruption and maneuvering are highlighted. The key word here is character motivation. Akunin highlights and creates new motivations for the characters, making every character much stronger and more interesting than originally written. Instead of happenstance and accident, choices are made.

Polonious (Alan I. Ross) thirsts and plots for the throne with the help of Laertes (Michael Sweeney Hammond); Gertrude (Joy Hermalyn) is a spiteful accomplice in her husband’s murder, but she also desires to protect Hamlet. Claudius (James Phillip Gates) will keep the throne at any cost. Hamlet (Matt Weiss) seeks revenge for his father’s murder. Horatio (Khris Lewin) is a loyal mastermind and confidant of nearly all the others. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Owen Scott and Michael Propster) are pawns in everyone’s game and comic relief. Ophelia (Clair Brownell) doesn’t do anything except go crazy after her father’s death and to die, giving Laertes one more reason to blame Hamlet.

The cast moves swiftly on a bare stage in front of a string curtain that allows for symbolic moments of who is in front of the curtain and who is behind. The projections onto the string curtain are symbolic and sometimes feel nebulous. It seems to create a sort of subliminal messaging for the audience, even though the audience will see themselves projected onto the curtain as well. The backdrop however does not distract from the incredible actors, it adds to nearly every scene. Heather Klar’s colorful costume design is worth noting because they force use to pay attention to the people, and not their surroundings – which is not often the case with politics.

On the whole, the cast is so easy to watch that we are swept into their characters immediately. Though none of the actors are weak, Joy Hermalyn as Gertrude and Khris Lewin as Horatio stand out above the rest, and the scene between them, in which one cunningly manipulates the other to the edge of their comfortable lies, is masterful. Matt Weiss plays Hamlet with un-athletic drunkenness that is both concerning and comedic, which to me is an achievement. Each of them weaves Akunin’s words into Shakespeare’s language with such ease that there are only a few moments where I can tell them apart.

Hamlet. A Version is politically relevant, entertaining and intriguing. The production is cohesive and cast is exceptional. Overall, Akunin’s reworking of an well-known story is riveting.

Hamlet. A Version: Red Lab in assoc. with Roust Theatre Company, Theatre at St. Clement’s, 423 W. 46^th St. Closes May 7th.

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Virginia Jimenez

Virginia Jimenez is a writer, dancer and teaching artist in New York City. She teaches for various companies focusing on dancing for musical theatre, ballroom dancing, theatrical skills and story building. Bringing arts education to students in NYC is incredibly rewarding for her because she is passionate about arts integration and using the arts to facilitate an emotional education. As a writer, Virginia believes in the power of words and stories to challenge and encourage audiences to seek growth and modes of expression. She likes tequila and ice cream - though not necessarily together. www.vmjimenez.com

Cabaret

My View: Barrington Stage Co. on 42nd Street Oct. 30 For Its Gala at Green Room 42

Published

6 hours ago

September 28, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

The evening of cocktails, dinner, and cabaret show headlined by Billy Stritch celebrates the inaugural season of newly appointed Artistic Director Alan Paul and Managing Director Lynsey Shade.

Proceeds from the Gala will benefit the Julianne Boyd New Works Fund.

Mary Ann and Bruno Quinson are presenting the event which is sponsored in part by Rhoda Levitt. Eda Sorokoff is Chair with Violet Eagan & Rosita Sarnoff Co-Chairs

Since its inception in 1995, Barrington Stage (BSC) has produced 41 new works, 21 of which have moved on to New York and major regional theatres around the country.

BSC believes that new work is the heart and soul of theatre. If theatre is to thrive and create meaningful and new experiences for audiences, then it is vital to support playwrights and their visions of the world we live in.

BSC’s New Works Fund takes a two-pronged approach – PlayWorks supports the creation of new plays while our acclaimed Musical Theatre Lab develops new musicals. In both of these programs, BSC seeks artists whose unique voices speak to our audiences with relevant new plays and musicals. BSC hopes our new work will ask questions of the world we live in – questions that may not have answers but will begin a dialogue between the artists and our audiences.

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

JULIANNE BOYD & BILLY STRITCH

ALAN PAUL & RHODA LEVITT

MARY ANN QUINSON

ALAN PAUL & WILLIAM FINN

MARY ANN QUINSON & JULIANNE BOYD

BILLY STRITCH

EDA SORKOFF & BILLY STRITCH

BILLY STRTICH & STEPHEN SOROKOFF

MARY ANN QUINSON, JULIANNE BOYD, MARITA GLODT, EDA SOROKOFF

Cabaret

My View: A Cult Following At Birdland For The Hilarity of CASHINO

Published

1 month ago

August 29, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

I had no idea what I was walking into, but boy, oh, boy….am I glad we went. Birdland was packed last night for a return engagement of CASHINO which stars Susie Mosher and John Boswell. These two have, literally, built a cult following as Pepper Cole and Johnny Niagara with this unexpected piece of hilarity and music. It is so fresh, so funny, so crazy and so original that all I can say is, “You had to be there.” Thank you for such a memorable evening and Congratulations! I hope these photos give you some idea of what fun this evening was.

SUSIE MOSHER & JOHN BOSWELL

SUSIE MOSHER

JOHN BOSWELL & SUSIE MOSHER

SUSIE MOSHER & JOHN BOSWELL

SUSIE MOSHER

JOHN BOSWELL

SCOTT COULTER

EDA SOROKOFF & TOM D’ANGORA

Cabaret

My View: Mr. Finn’s Cabaret Audience Enthralled by Hugh Panaro Debut at Barrington Stage Co.

Published

1 month ago

August 22, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

It was an absolute thrill to see Hugh Panaro make his Barrington Stage Company Cabaret Series debut at Mr. Finn’s. The accomplished actor has one of the finest voices in the current landscape of performers you will find on Broadway or anywhere else in the world. Hugh has a unique and interesting career of achievements and experiences, and the young man originally from Philadelphia, is a gifted storyteller with a voice that just never ceases to amaze in color, range, power, simplicity and feelings that explode in warmth, rage, romance, humor and plenty of musical performance thrills. No adornments. Just pure and communicative. To be a part of this special evening, in such an intimate setting, with Musical Director/Arranger Joseph Thalken on the piano and Brian Holtz on Bass, it felt like they were all breathing together and us, too, along with them. The musical program was a feast and although Mr. Panaro has been in countless Broadway shows, as well as in Canada and London’s West End, and done symphony concerts all over the world, this show which he conceived with his director Richard Jay-Alexander is brand new and only the third time he’s performed it. It is very, very special.

Talking about very special……..In 2012 Board member Eda and I were with Bill Finn and Julie Boyd (founder,artistic director BSC) for the Grand Opening of Mr. Finn’s Cabaret. Tonight at this truly spectacular performance by Hugh Panaro, (and also Sunday’s opening night of William Finn’s NEW BRAIN) we were honored to be with Barrington’s new Artistic Director Alan Paul and again with Julie Boyd and Bill Finn.

HUGH PANARO

EDA SOROKOFF, ALAN PAUL, JULIANNE BOYD

JOSEPH THALKEN & HUGH PANARO

HUGH PANARO

STANDING OVATION

ALAN PAUL, EDA SOROKOFF, HUGH PANARO,JULIANNE BOYD

ALAN PAUL & HUGH PANARO

Columns

My View: William Finn Attends Opening Night of NEW BRAIN at Barrington Stage Company

Published

1 month ago

August 21, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

Last night Barrington Stage Company (BSC) in association with Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) presented William Finn’s 1998 musical A NEW BRAIN on Barrington’s Boyd-Quinson mainstage. Check out the opening night photos and after party below. A NEW BRAIN will play through September 10, 2023.

A New Brain features Adam Chanler-Berat (Broadway: Next to Normal, Peter and the Starcatcher; HBO Max: “Gossip Girl”; WTF: Animal Crackers) as Gordon, three-time Tony Award nominee Mary Testa (Broadway: Oklahoma!, 42nd Street; Off-Broadway: Bill Finn’s In Trousers; BSC: Sleepless Variations; WTF: Most Happy in Concert) as Mimi, Tally Sessions (Broadway: Company, Anastasia, Bill Finn’s Falsettos) as Dr. Jafar / Dad, Demond Green (Broadway: Sister Act; BSC: Funked Up Fairy Tales, Bill Finn’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) as The Minister, Dorcas Leung (Broadway: Miss Saigon; National Tour: Hamilton; BSC: Into the Woods) as Rhoda, Andy Grotelueschen (Broadway: The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, Tootsie) as Mr. Bungee, Salome B. Smith (Broadway: 1776) as Lisa, and Justine Horihata Rappaport (National Tour: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella) as Nancy, Darrell Purcell, Jr. (Signature Theatre: The Scottsboro Boys; Temple Theatre: Hairspray) as Roger, and Eliseo Roman (BSC: Fall Springs; Broadway: In The Heights, On Your Feet!) as Richard. Understudies are Ross Griffin, Courtney Balan and Jamen Nanthakumar.

In A New Brain, Gordon can’t get past his writer’s block when a medical emergency forces him to reassess if his songs (or lack thereof) are more important than his family, his friends, or his partner. He needs to navigate a mean nurse, shelves of books and a bossy frog to get to the heart of his music.

A New Brain features music and lyrics by BSC Associate Artist William Finn (BSC: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Royal Family of Broadway), book by Finn and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner James Lapine (Broadway: Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George), and direction by BSC Associate Artist Joe Calarco (BSC: Waiting for Godot, Into the Woods, Ragtime), with music direction by Vadim Feichtner (BSC: The Royal Family of Broadway; Broadway: Falsettos, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and choreography by Chloe O. Davis (Paradise Square).

A New Brain was originally presented in 1998 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, where it won the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. The largely autobiographical musical is about Finn’s life-threatening experience surviving a neurological brain condition.

For a 2015 production of A New Brain at New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center, Jesse Green, writing for New York Magazine, said, “What makes A New Brain so satisfying is that its almost relentless humor and cynicism are used to promote a very serious and often sad inquiry into key human questions. What do we make of our time here? What do we make of our abilities? Finn’s answer is the obvious one, but no less generous for that. If your brain is wired for it, you make music.”

A New Brain features scenic design by Paige Hathaway, costume design by Debra Kim Sivigny, lighting design by Jason Lyons, and sound design by Ken Travis. Production Stage Manager is John Godbout. Assistant Stage Manager is Leslie Sears.

The Boyd-Quinson Stage season opened with the legendary Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret, directed by BSC Artistic Director Alan Paul. It also includes Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky (now-August 5), directed by Candis C. Jones, and Steinberg Playwright Award winner Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play English (September 27-October 15).

The St. Germain Stage season at Barrington Stage Company opened with The Happiest Man on Earth by Mark St. Germain, based on Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku’s extraordinary 2020 memoir of the same name, published when Jaku was 100 years old, starring Kenneth Tigar and directed by Ron Lagomarsino. The St. Germain season continued with Mike Lew’s tiny father, a co-world premiere play produced by Chautauqua Theater Company and BSC, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel. The season concludes with a revival of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer (August 1-27), directed by Julianne Boyd and starring BSC Associate Artists Christopher Innvar, Mark H. Dold and Gretchen Egolf.

BSC casting is by McCorkle Casting (Pat McCorkle, CSA; Rebecca Weiss, CSA).

TICKET INFORMATION

For tickets to A New Brain or the BSC Season, please call the BSC Box Office at 413-236-8888 or visit www.BarringtonStageCo.org/Tickets.

ABOUT BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Alan Paul and Managing Director Meredith Lynsey Schade, is an award-winning theatre located in Pittsfield, MA, in the heart of the Berkshires. Co-founded in 1995 by Julianne Boyd, BSC’s mission is to produce top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to engage our community with vibrant, inclusive educational outreach programs. Alan Paul succeeded Ms. Boyd as the company’s Artistic Director in 2022.

BSC attracts over 60,000 patrons annually and has gained national recognition for its superior-quality productions and comprehensive educational programming, including the award-winning Playwright Mentoring Project, the Musical Theatre Conservatory, Youth Theatre, KidsAct! and other initiatives. The company has become integral to the economic revitalization of downtown Pittsfield.

BSC’s reputation for excellence began with a smash revival of Cabaret that moved to Boston in 1997 for an extended run. The theatre’s prominence grew with the world premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin (BSC 2004; Broadway 2005-2008, winner of two Tony Awards). Other notable productions include the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son (BSC 2016; Broadway 2018); Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session (BSC 2009; Off-Broadway 2010-2012); Leonard Bernstein, Comden & Green’s On the Town (BSC 2013; Broadway 2014, four Tony Award nominations); Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, starring Aaron Tveit (2017); and West Side Story in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’ centenaries (2018).

BSC develops and commissions new work with two programs: PlayWorks, which supports the creation of new plays, and the Musical Theatre Lab, which develops new musicals. Since 1995, BSC has produced 45 new works, 22 of which have moved to New York and major US regional theatres.

ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

For seven decades, the Tony Award-recognized Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theater artists together in the Berkshires to create a thrilling summer festival of diverse, world premiere plays and musicals, bold new revivals, and a rich array of accompanying cultural events.

Artists are drawn to Williamstown Theatre Festival to make great theater in an environment conducive to artistic risk-taking. Matthew Broderick, Audra McDonald, Dominique Morisseau, Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Stroman, Uma Thurman, and Blair Underwood are just a few of the luminous theater artists who have worked at the Festival. Many others, including Sterling K. Brown, Ty Burrell, Charlie Day, Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Brie Larson, Chris Pine, and George C. Wolfe, began their careers at the Festival.

Productions and artists shaped at the Festival fill theaters in New York City and around the world. Recently, Williamstown Theatre Festival was represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, Grand Horizons, The Rose Tattoo, The Visit, Fool for Love, The Elephant Man, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Solider, and Lempicka, to name just a few. Cost of Living, which was developed and premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival, was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and made its Broadway debut last fall.

WILLIAM FINN & ALAN PAUL, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR BSC

WILLIAM FINN & MARY TESTA

JULIANNE BOYD, FOUNDER/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHRISTOPHER INNVAR

BRANDEN HULDEEN & JOE CALARCO

ROBERT CREIGHTON, EDA SOROFOFF, BOARD EMERITUS, CHRISTOPHER INNVAR

WILLIAM FINN & JOE CALARCO, DIRECTOR

VADIM FEICHTNER, MUSIC DIRECTOR & STEPHEN SOROKOFF

A NEW BRAIN…Tally Sessions, Justine Horihata Rappaport, Andy Grotelueschen, Darrell Purcell, Adam Chanler-Berat, Mary Testa, Dorcas Leung, Salome Smith, Eliseo Roman, Demond Green

ADAM CHANLER-BERAT

MARY TESTA

ANDY GROTELUESCHEN

DARRELL PURCELL

ELISEO ROMAN’

TALLY SESSIONS & JUSTIN HORIHATA RAPPAPORT

A NEW BRAIN

JENNY GERSTEN, WTF & ALAN PAUL, BSC

ALAN PAUL

SYDELLE BLATT, BOARD EMERITUS & WILLIAM FINN

JULIANNE BOYD & WILLIAM FINN

ARTHUR SALVADORE & WILLIAM FINN

Cabaret

My View: If You Remember Being in Studio 54 in the Seventies…You Really Weren’t There….Ann Hampton Callaway

Published

2 months ago

August 11, 2023

Stephen Sorokoff

To paraphrase that well used line….If you remember being in Studio 54 in the seventies… then you really weren’t there! However if you were in 54 Below last night for “Ann Hampton Callaway Sings the Seventies” you will definitely remember being there!

The exuberance of the audience reminded me of a High School reunion, the love and camaraderie that Ann created in the room with her extraordinary musicianship and wit started from the minute she took the stage and asked us all to join in ‘Sing, Sing A Song”.

It was a reunion of baby boomers who grew up with the music of the seventies and the gathering of an audience who cherish the opportunity to be at an Ann Hampton Callaway performance.

The Diva’s song list contained some of the greatest hits of the 1970’s, and the folks who filled the seats at 54 Below got a chance to relive the soundtrack of their lives sung by this Tony Award nominee, Broadway star and platinum selling singer/songwriter.

What a wonderful treat to have Billy Stritch as Ann’s music director for this show. BIlly, can authentically bring you musically into any era. His extraordinary ability to recreate the sounds of any style of music was especially evident with the songs of the seventies. Stritch grew up with that music, and it’s organic to him. Some of the duets and harmonies with Ann were especially genuine to the genre.

“Sing, Sing a Song” “Come in From The Rain, “I Will Survive” “New York State Of Mind……and so much more….got the picture?

The Disco Ball got plenty of activity last night but the music was LIVE with Billy, Tim Horner on drums and Martin Wind on bass helping Ann gloriously recreate it.

Ann Hampton Callaway has got the “Secret O’ Life”. Thanks Ann for reminding us of “The Way We Were” in such a masterful and intimate way.

BTW getting a shout out from Ann during “You’ve Got A Friend” was a personal thrill for this baby boomer!