We've got issues.
You can be in. You can be out. That goes for all of us, wherever we are. Every community, no matter how open, has its own rules and its own method of communication. Billy’s family is no different. Continue reading
John Oldman is either a “caveman, a liar or a nut.” A tenure-track professor quite suddenly announces his departure from the university where he has comfortably taught for 10 years. His fellow professors insist on the ritual of cheese, crackers and a proper going away, only to have their party ruined when John works up the courage to tell them the truth. He is 14,000 years old. He never ages, never dies and has been adrift in the world since the late Paleolithic age, learning about himself as the world comes to understand its own history. Continue reading
“Why Star Trek?” asks Christina Allaback, an adjunct theater professor at the University of Oregon. “Why not Star Trek?” Continue reading
If you’d been living in a swamp since you were seven, you might not be too concerned with personal hygiene either. Still, while he’s not the handsomest of guys, with his green skin, bulbous nose and trumpeting ears, Shrek has plenty of odoriferous humor and heart, and he’ll need both to save Duloc’s fairy tale creatures, rescue the princess and cope with his new sentimental feelings of … love? Continue reading
Movies are grand, but theater is alive — something to remember as the 2013-2014 season settles into its groove. When we recline in our cozy seats before the big screen, we are supplicating before a product, a bit of prefabricated horseplay that, despite our various responses, is as inflexible and immutable as a ride on a roller coaster. Continue reading
At the North Crawford Mask & Wig Club, Central Connecticut’s finest community theater, Tom Newton is waxing philosophical on love, pure and complicated. “The way I see it,” he notes, “love and theater have a lot in common. They’re both seductive. They both make promises they can’t always keep. And they’re both chock-full of attractive people who are maybe just a little too addicted to drama.” Continue reading
Czech-born playwright Tom Stoppard was knighted as a British subject in 1997, a gesture of literary pomp that, while entirely deserved, nonetheless must have struck Sir Tom as a delicious twist of irony. Continue reading
Brian Haimbach waited, watched and learned. His first year as the lead theater faculty at Lane Community College slipped by as Haimbach got to know the college and the community. Now, he’s ready to bust out some change. Haimbach’s vision encompasses transfer degrees, acting competitions, community connections and the revamping of a vibrant old theater department. Continue reading
“Even if he was a communist, why would he have cards printed up?” the writer asks, hearing that General George Marshall has just been accused by Joseph McCarthy of being a card-carrying communist. It’s just another day at the office — the crazy, neurotic, hysterical office for Lucus (Zachary Twardowski) as he tries to make it as a comedy writer for a major comedian against the pressures of lowering network standards and Cold War propaganda. Continue reading
The Knights Who Say “Ni.” The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog and the Gorge of Eternal Peril. A three-headed giant, a sorcerer named Tim and that petulant French sentry who threatens to “fart in your general direction” before vowing to “taunt you a second time.” Continue reading