UNCLE VANYA: Round Two

Kate Paulsen (Elena) and Kevin Fennessy (Telegin) in Apollinaire's UNCLE VANYA

For the past two months, I've been in rehearsal and performance (we're entering the third of a four week run, that's been extended to five) for the remounting of Apollinaire Theatre Company's UNCLE VANYA.  The Craig Lucas adaptation of Chekhov's play was produced last winter, running from Dec.29 for a run that was extended through January 22, and starred John Kuntz as Vanya.

That production was important to me for many reasons: for one, it was my return to acting after seventeen years (aside from a dip in the waters as one of The Miseries in the ART/MIT/Chicago Opera Theatre collaboration "DEATH AND THE POWERS: THE ROBOTS' OPERA", at the Cutler Majestic in the spring of 2011).  Following a long career in theatre as an actor and award-winning director, in 1994 I was offered a job in casting with Carolyn Pickman (CP Casting) and followed it for a run that included my own Casting company and office, which was destroyed in a fire in 2002. (Though the company folded, I continue to "dabble" with some freelance clients and in consulting with colleagues).  My last stage appearance was as the Narrator in the New Repertory Theatre's HOLIDAY MEMORIES, the holiday season show of 1994 that combined two Truman Capote stories, The Thanksgiving Visitor and A Christmas Memory.  (Coincidentally, the New Rep is producing HOLIDAY MEMORIES once again this year, at their Watertown home in the Arsenal Center for the Arts).

But the winter 2011/12 production of UNCLE VANYA came at a very difficult time for me.  My Mom, Georgia Ravanis Fennessy, died on October 25, 2011, and her funeral was on Nov.2, just 9 days before I went into rehearsal.  (The auditions for UNCLE VANYA happened in late August 2011.  I read that John Kuntz was playing Vanya and called director Danielle Fauteux Jacques to set up an audition.  Casting was completed in early September and a rehearsal schedule went out shortly after.  If I hadn't already been cast, I doubt I would have followed the funeral with an audition search).

Telegin (Kevin Fennessy) and Nanny (Ann Carpenter) at tea with the samovar

The rehearsal period and performances were just what I needed to get through a very dark time.  The Theatre, capital T, picked me, wrapped its arms around me and carried me through.  Mom was always so proud of my career in the theatre, and enjoyed saying "Kevin's an actor".  She would beam with a mile-wide smile every time she told the anecdote of my returning home from school one day in the first grade, bursting with the announcement that "the teacher said I read with expression!".  Having the world of the play to immerse myself into, and finding connections to my family in the play, were what kept me going through a period that included my birthday (1/21) and Mom's (1/22).  (As I mentioned, UNCLE VANYA ran through Jan.22, with performances on both of our birthdays.  And with our birthdays so close to each other, that end-of-January time of year became "our" time to celebrate).

It's a year later, and here I am once again performing in UNCLE VANYA, as the anniversary of Mom's passing approaches.  The sadness and grief of October 2011 has gotten easier, as the happiest of memories fill my thoughts.  I miss her now and always, but it does get easier and the joys with which she lived her life daily have become more available to me.  She truly is with me, in my heart, and available whenever I need a reminder.

During the summer, we learned that John Kuntz had been offered a role in THE LILY'S REVENGE, in direct conflict with the planned revival of UNCLE VANYA.  Initially this was taken by the company as a huge blow: how would the show go on?  But this is theatre, and we all know from song and history that "the show MUST go on" ... and that of course it could, and should. We already knew we'd be recasting the roles of The Professor and Elena, as both of the actors in that original company had chosen not to continue in the revival.  I looked at the challenge before us and made a casting suggestion: Diego Arcienegas, a respected and talented actor who could be, and indeed is, the right fit.  Diego was auditioned, along with other appropriate and exciting possibilities, and was cast.  With Diego and two additional "new" actors to the company, Jack Schultz as The Professor and Kate Paulsen as Elena (who Danielle discovered through additional auditions), the rehearsal period became more involved, but also richer than a "mere remounting" would have been.  Our talented newcomers to the cast brought new energies and interpretations, which in turn offered us the opportunity to look at moments and relationships in a different light: not better, not drastically different, but "fresher" than just dusting off the sets and costumes and brushing up our Chekhov.

Diego Arcienegas (Vanya) and Kate Paulsen (Elena) in Apollinaire's UNCLE VANYA

Come see for yourself.  UNCLE VANYA continues Wednesday through Sunday evenings (Wed., Fri., Sun. at 7:30, Fri. and Sat. at 8).  As it's a revival from just last season, most of the area's critics weighed in with reviews on the first round, resulting in nominations from the IRNE and Elliot Norton's , including a win for Director Danielle Fauteux Jacques as Outstanding Director/Fringe Theater from the 2012 Elliot Norton Awards. We did receive a review from WBUR's Critic-At-Large Ed Siegel, which you can read here.  Tickets and additional info at www.apollinairetheatre.com

Coming Monday night, October 1, The StageSource Party!!!

"StageSource provides leadership and services to advance the art of theatre in the Greater Boston region.  Our mission is to unite theatre artists, theatre companies, and related organizations in vision and goals that inspire and empower our community to realize its greatest artistic potential.

I count the start of my career as June 14, 1976, the opening of MAYDAY! , a play about the 1971 May Day demonstrations in Washington DC.  A lifetime ago, but also, almost a decade before the arrival of StageSource, in 1985.
StageSource brought about a huge change in the theatre community, bringing the emerging scene together to support each other's growth and progress.  From the Annual Audition, which serves union and nonunion actors companies and productions alike, to the many workshops, seminars, newsletters and events, StageSource is at the center of our community.
And no event was as much fun as the annual party, an opportunity to socialize and scmooze, which has been on hiatus for a few years.  
But it's back!!! Celebrate the return of the  StageSource Party, Monday Oct. 1, at Oberon.  The party is a benefit for all the various programs that StageSource provides.

From the StageSource website:

"Enjoy an evening of fun, dancing, beveraging and high school hijinks theater style while supporting the services StageSource provides for the Greater Boston theater community.  Break out your poodle skirt, dust off your K-tel albums, put on your Members Only jacket, grab your best Doc Martens and make some magic.  StageSource will transform the Oberon into your high school gymnasium for an experience far superior to your prom featuring a photo booth, balloon popping, silent auction, light snacks, and a killer sound track so nostalgic we guarantee someone will be crying in a corner by the end of the night!"

Tickets are only $25, and are available here (or save a $4 service charge and go to the ART Box Office at the Loeb) or at the door.
There will also be raffles and silent auctions so bring some money and a generous spirit.
See you there!

The Fleeting Joys of August On The Fringe: R&J at Happy Medium, The Third Story at Titanic, and New Exhibition Room's ZOMBIE DOUBLE FEATURE

As summer winds down, the doors to the kingdom are left unlocked for the people to play in the palace ... or something like that.  In recent years, the spaces that are busy all season with resident companies become available, sometimes for lesser rates and mostly for limited runs, to the homeless theaters of the Boston Fringe.  Two or three week runs, some longer, have opened and are running and closing this week and next, at the BCA Plaza and Calderwood theaters, Boston Playwrights Theater, and at the Black Box at the Arsenal Center in Watertown, among others.
I've seen a few (R&J at the BCA, The Third Story in Watertown), I'm seeing one tonight  ("Zombie Double Feature", two one-act Zombie plays at BPT).

Romeo and Juliet, Happy Medium Theater, BCA Plaza Theater thru 8/25
From what one can read in all of the publicity material, Happy Medium knows that the real star of its production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is the director, Paula Plum.  And it really is a triumphant fringe production, rising far above its limitations and my expectations.
While it feels somewhat like the culmination of a master class in performing Shakespeare with one of Boston's most respected "actor/director/teacher"s, it succeeds in presenting a clear and direct "no frills" production.  The unit set, by Bryan Prywes, of three portals, the requisite balcony, an open plaza and darkened entryways, are aided by Daniel Chavez's lighting, to create a fluctuating environment for fluid scene changes.  Too often on the fringe, costume budgets and constraints make for an incomplete picture, but that's not the case here, as Jillian Clark's costumes are very much of a whole.  And though I think the physical production is nicely realized, I had some confusion as to where this production was set.  With its vaguely Middle Eastern setting, and the contrast of flowing linen and vests on the Montague side and a more tailored "European" look to the Capulets, and a black Romeo and white Juliet, it was difficult to place the production.  A woman, Kiki Samko, as the Prince and Chorus, added to the sense that this was happening during a culture clash in a world other than Shakespeare's Verona, and at another time, though it wasn't clear when.  Angie Jepson's fight choreography is fantastic, and, again, well realized, especially in the performances of Michael Underhill as Tybalt and Jesse Wood as Paris..
The performances were also clear and direct.  These mostly young actors presented intelligent and well motivated characters, without extraneous clutter.  Besides Underhill and Wood, some standouts include Joey Pelletier's very physical and often lyrical Mercutio, the comic relief and timing of Mikey DiLoreto's Benvolio, June Kfoury's Nurse, and the majestic "single Mom" of Sharon Squires as Lady Montague.

The Third Story, by Charles Busch, Titanic Theatre Company, at the Arsenal Center for the Arts Black Box Theater, Watertown, thru 8/19 only
The newest fringe theater on the scene, Titanic Theatre Company, is made up of some fine veterans of the local theater scene, presenting the local premiere of Charles Busch's The Third Story.  The script is another in a series of genre parody comedies from the author of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Sleeping Beauty, or Coma, and Psycho Beach Party (all of which I directed in their local premieres from 1993 to 1995).  But Charles is also the author of the more realistic Broadway comedy Tale of the Allergist's WIfe, which earned Tony  nominations, for Best Play ,and Best Actress for leading actress Linda Lavin.   The Third Story lies somewhere in between.
It's a comedy full of Charles' famous way with words, puns and the period vernacular of  Hollywood of the Golden Age, of hardened tarts and cigar chomping gangsters, chorus cuties and Grand Dames.  The three stories that intertwine to make the intricate plot concern a Science Fiction/Gangster screenplay being written as we watch, a redemptive fairy tale woven by a Mother for her child, and the relationship of a Mother/Son writing team, a broken partnership trying to be regained.
The Titanic company rises to the challenge presenting one of the funniest shows currently running, and ONLY running through this Sunday.
The proverbial "Worth The Price of Admission" Medal goes to Rick Park's entrances, as Queenie, the Charles Busch "Leading Lady" who he manages to put his own stamp on, and as that character's clone, Queenie 2. Not a small person to begin with, Rick brings new meaning to "larger than life" in his Grande characterization of this Grande Dame.  (His "sotto voce" asides are hysterically appropriate and wholly his own).  I don't think I've ever seen Alisha Jansky look quite as tall, long and lithe as here in her period pencil line skirts and lab coats. (Alisha famously created the role of Chicklet's best friend, Berdine the ultimate 60's nerd, in my '93 production of Psycho Beach Party and it's '95 revival).  Shelley Brown maintains a commanding presence as the Mother of the writing team and as a character in her screenplay, while Brett Milanowski is having almost too much fun with his creation of the sci-fi experiment gone wrong, though I can't imagine it being played any other way than gleefully. Erin Eva Butcher camps up the golddigging gun moll, all giltter and intent, while nicely underplaying the innocence of the heroine of the fairy tale.  Jordan Sobel does a great about face in his two roles, as the screenplay's gangster and the screenwriting son.  With the addition of eyeglasses, he changes pitch and tone, body language and characters as easily as changing out of his coat.
Congratulations to director Adam Zahler and the Titanic Theatre Company, and best wishes for a long and bright future.  While the production may not completely solve the transitions of the plays difficult tones and themes, the characters and camp carry the show for a two-hour ride.

Zombie Double Feature : Terror at BPT (written and directed by Dawn M. Simmons) and Midnight at the Last Night Cabaret (written and directed by A. Nora Long)
The Zombie Apocalypse continues, this weekend and next, as two original one-act Zombie plays are presented by New Exhibition Room at the Boston Playwrights' Theater.  The waiting areas begin to fill with couples, threesomes and small groups of theatregoers, as well as solos like me, while the front theater remains open and dark.  It doesn't appear very inviting.  And rather than enter, we all wait, slightly uneasy but just as ready for some chills and laughs as the Zombie genre intersects with Boston's fringe theatre.
And then it's 8:00 and the calmly patient audience is disrupted by characters darting through the lobby, and just as suddenly we're led into the back theater, where The Vicar will hold his revival meeting.
Part theme-event, part parody, the first half of the night, Terror at BPT, had us as captives in the theater where the Zombie Apocalypse has arrived.  
In the second play, Midnight at the Last Night Cabaret, we are again playing the role of audience members at an impromptu cabaret in the BPT as the Zombie Apocalypse explodes outside the theater.  
The lines between horror and camp, music and comedy blur as the "rules" of Zombie Culture are set up and broken.  Some wonderful moments of tension and suspense are played out, while we await the inevitable gore and gross-outs.  And the inevitable Michael Jackson flash mob dance number gets turned on it's severed head.
Both shows are basically theatrical excuses to allow the New Exhibitionists permission to get their Zombie on.  The plays conform to the Basic Rules of Zombie-Dom: the undead seek fresh human meat and blood, and once bitten by a zombie, one dies and returns as one of the flesh seekers.
Terrence Haddad seems limitless in his ability to disjoint his joints and struggle with his Inner Zombie.  Both the physical contortions he gets into and the verbal attempts he lets out combine to hysterical effect.   And his final moments in Terror at the BPT rival Boris Karloff's monster for unexpected pathos.  Greer Rooney performs another hysterical sketch with a "puppet", a prop that she wrestles with, giving it a life of it's own.  In fact, Zombie puppets are also a part of this Apocalypse!  
Every one, Hannah Husband, Lyndsay Allyn Cox, Bryan Daley, Terrance Haddad, Greer Rooney, Bob Mussett (and his ukelele), Melissa DeJesus, and Omar Robinson, brings a gleeful joy to playing with prosthetic body parts and innards, and the directors, A. Nora Long and Dawn M. Simmons, keep the pace flowing, though I felt that some bits meandered while getting to the point.  It would be nice, for example, to have the musicians accompany more of the Cabaret songs, which might move them along.  The addition of live musicians in such a rock-and-roll format was a great idea, and the pieces set to their soundtrack, "inadvertant" cabaret acts during which a zombie, attempting to perform a simple task, "becomes" the show, were nonverbal highlights, and I would have liked to see them more fully integrated into the Cabaret.  (A sign at the theater announced that the musicians for last night's show were Brendan and TJ.  I don't know how often they perform, or who the alternating musicians are or what their schedules are).  
But even as is, the 2 hour 15 minute show, with intermission, moves along leaving little time to question and plenty of time to laugh.

Commonwealth Shakespeare: Call To Action!

It's the show that gave Cole Porter's KISS ME KATE one of the greatest lyrical double-entendres in "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" ("If she says your behavior is heinous, Kick her right in the 'Coriolanus' ").
Steve Maler's Commonwealth Shakespeare Company presents CORIOLANUS, opening July 25 and running through August 12, 2012: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8pm; Sundays 7pm.  
And, as posted on their website and in a recent email, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company relies on the help of volunteers to continue the beloved tradition of bringing the bard's words to the masses on the Boston Common.

"Each night we need more than 15 volunteers to help in ushering, handing out playbills, and supporting souvenirs and concession sales. Besides being outdoors in the oldest city park in the United States and seeing a world-class production of Shakespeare for FREE, volunteering for CSC is a way to support one of Boston's leading arts institutions with your most priceless gift: your time! We offer great incentives for your help including VIP seating and discounts on merchandise."
If you would like to sign up, CLICK HERE

Midsummer Openings: Indoor and Outdoor

This week, two of Boston's Fringe Theaters are opening shows.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead/Han Muerto
Apollinaire in the Park, Mary O'Malley Park, Chelsea
From 2002 until 2010, Chelsea's Apollinaire Theatre Company had been taking on  the huge task of producing free outdoor summer theater performances, in both English and Spanish on alternating nights.  Some of the past productions have included Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba, Chekhov's The Seagull, Ionesco's Rhinoceros, Rostand's Cyrano De Bergerac, and Cocteau's The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower & Other Absurdities of Love.  But last year, cutbacks in funding caused the company to cancel what had become a summertime staple in Chelsea, serving a bilingual community with thought provoking and challenging plays in environmental stagings in the park, for free.  Thanks to the work of a fundraising committee bolstered by a successful online "kickstarter" campaign, the program is back this summer with Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (in Spanish, "Rosencrantz Y Guildenstern Han Muerto").  Performances run thru Saturday, July 28, with shows in English on Wed. Thurs. and Sat. nights, and in Spanish on Fri. and Sun.  All performances begin at 7:30, and audience members are encouraged to bring beach chairs, blankets, and coolers and picnic in the park.  Come early to get a good spot ... but travel lightly: as it's an environmental staging, the audience will pick up and move to another location for each new setting.
Free.

True Believers
Vagabond Theatre Group
At the Factory Theater at The Piano Factory, 791 Tremont St @Mass Ave.

Vagabond Theatre Group presents True Believers by local playwright Thom Dunn, it's third world premiere production since it was founded in the fall of 2009 by Artistic Director James Peter Solis.

True Believers "tells the story of aspiring comic book artists, psychotic fanboys, cybernetically enhanced humans and girls who dress like Princess Leia as their lives intertwine during a week at a comic book convention.  With character descriptions that include phrases like "Recently divorced. She took his entire Star Wars collection in the settlement. Yes, that includes his Han Solo in Carbonite coffee table. Not that he's bitter or anything." and "Seriously didn't mean to make Wolverine gay," this play is sure to entertain, engage and bring out your inner nerd!"  
Opening Thursday 7/12 at 7:30, thereafter performances are Wed. Thurs. at 7:30,  Fri. & Sat. at 8:00, and Sat. and Sun. July 15 at 2:00, through Sat. 7/22. 
$18/$15 students and seniors.  Tickets at Brown Paper Tickets

Judy At The Palace of St. George: Kathy St George IS Judy Garland

Dear Miss Garland at the Stoneham Theatre, (781) 279-2200,  till July 22 (for tickets, click here).

Kathy St. George in DEAR MISS GARLAND

By the time Kathy St George, implores us, as Judy Garland, to forget our troubles and, "come on! Get happy!", I did a quick reality check.  Troubles, I got plenty, but forget them? I already did.
DEAR MISS GARLAND is the new and improved version of a show Kathy St George and Scott Edmiston created as Kathy's love letter to Judy Garland.
The first act covers the history of Kathy and Judy, growing up as a fan.  Like many of us, Kathy first got to know Judy Garland from the annual network television broadcast (when the only networks were ABC, CBS, NBC and, later, PBS) of The Wizard of Oz.  (The rest of you had videotapes and discs to view anytime you wanted to: its how my niece, at 4, was able to recite the segment "The house began to pitch ...").  She followed Judy's career by seeing all of her films, and as a performer she was drawn to her material. Together with director Scott Edmiston, St. George has crafted a show that has a very intimate first act (which could just as easily play in a cabaret room), which deals personally with Kathy's connections to Judy Garland, with songs and stories, sometimes giving a glimpse of Judy's character in those anecdotes and songs.  But mostly it's Kathy, relating to us her love and passion for Judy and her material. As much as it is the cliche of all cliches, there's a segment that closes Act One that alone is "worth the price of admission", and I laughed throughout her whimsical, virtuosic performance.  It's a segment that everyone relates to, and ties the first act together well.
Act Two is mostly a recreation of some of the song performances captured on the recording JUDY AT CARNEGIE HALL.  St George's music director/pianist/accompanist Jim Rice, who was the sole musician for Act One, is joined by others to create a 7 piece orchestra to provide a bigger sound for the second act.  Kathy,in the unmistakable iconic wardrobe pieces that help her define her characterization, hits one song after another out of the park, with an easy, dead on impersonation of Garland's energy, emotion and drive.  She doesn't use any artificial makeup enhancements to look like Judy.  She plays the gestures, and finds the emotion in those gestures.    This is the chance to see a singer/actress at the top of her form in material she was made for.   I've only seen Tracy Bennett (the British actress playing Judy Garland on Broadway in "End of the Rainbow") in a segment on the 2012 Tony Awards broadcast, but based on the little I saw, I think Kathy's Judy could go up against hers and come out on top.  
As an encore, Kathy comes out wrapped in an oversized faux black mink, and says "What becomes a legend most?", which is the line from a series of ads for a fur line called Blackglama, featuring gorgeous icons, (Sophia Loren, Judy Garland, Diana Ross, Bette Davis, Ann Margret, Joan Rivers, Janet Jackson, and even Tommy Tune, etc.), dressed in Blackglama mink.
In this show, it's Kathy who becomes a legend most!

A Visit to the Plaza Theaters at the BCA, 6/29 & 30: Polaroid Stories and A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Plaza Theaters at the BCA

Polaroid Stories, thru 7/14

A Midsummer Night's Dream "a cappella" Opera, closed.

First a little history: when I returned to Boston after my training at York University in Toronto, in 1976, the small theater scene was extremely limited.  There were fewer theater companies and spaces, and mostly a non-equity landscape for actors.  I worked initially at the Boston Arts Group Theater, a Boylston Street walk-up that housed a small company, Boston Arts Group, and was used as a rental space.  That show was MAYDAY, a play about the May Day demonstrations in Washington DC in 1971.  Written by Michael Wikes and directed by Andy Golov, two BU students, with a cast that included BU acting students as well as other young adult performers, it was my first play outside of college, and the only time a show I was in a show that received a review by Elliot Norton (it was a slow summer ...).  I then auditioned for, was cast in,  and began rehearsals, all in one day, two plays with Maxine Klein and her Little Flags Theater company: FANSHEN by David Hare, adapted from the sweeping chronicle by William Hinton of the Chinese revolution as seen from the small village of Long Bow, and TANIA, Maxine's original play with music about Tamara Bunke, a woman revolutionary who worked in the Bolivian jungles with Che Guevara.  At the time, Little Flags worked out of a space at the BCA that eventually became Hammersley's Bistro.  Whenever I pass the restaurant, I'm reminded of singing songs of revolution and performing plays about communism in third world countries.  The National Theater was steadily decaying at the other end of the block, where eventually the Calderwood Pavilion took it's place.  In the center, next to the Cyclorama, was a space called the Ehrlich, now the Plaza Theater.  The Plaza Black Box wouldn't be created for at least another decade, and within a few years the Ehrlich became The New Ehrlich, with it's own company, as well as being a rental space.  I performed in a few shows, and in 1985 directed The Star Spangled Revue of 1942, a 40's "book revue", which featured among its cast of 8, Bobbie Steinbach as a Vera Lynn-inspired "Lila Darby", Christopher Tarjan (currently the resident director of Shear Madness) as "radio personality Allen Ray", and Margaret Ann Brady as a kind of cross between Ethel Merman and Kate Smith (her rendition of a 40s war song, Marching Through Berin, practically shook the roof off the old place).  

All these years later I took in two shows last weekend in the Plaza Theater and the Plaza Black Box.

POLAROID STORIES, by Naomi Iizuka, is being produced by three of Boston's current Fringe companies: Hearts and Daggers Productions, Boston Actors Theater and Happy Medium Theater Company, and provides the opportunity to get to know a bit about all three.  Co-directed by  Artistic Directors Joey C. Pelletier of Hearts and Daggers and Happy Medium's Elise Weiner Wulff, it has a cast of young actors representing all three companies as well as additional performers from the Boston theater scene.  The young ensemble portrays "street kids living on the edge in a desolate, urban landscape".  Written in 1997, the scenes and monologues could be happening at various times in recent history, and the production, while presented in a contemporary timeframe, wasn't specific enough to ground it in today.  I appreciated the opportunity to be exposed to the work of this cast, consisting mainly of actors I hadn't yet seen perform.  The production is sparse, and therefore relies on the actors to create the realities of these characters, who are given names and situations from Greek myths.  I was intently focused and their work kept me so, though I wasn't as engaged as another writer, Alan Chase, whose rave for the show can be found here.  At only $20 ($15 with a student ID), the show is very affordable and definitely worth checking out, to see the work of the next wave of Boston's actors, directors, and theater artists..

The room is not very well cooled, so be prepared on warmer nights: a few floor fans were brought in at intermission that made things much more comfortable.  On the Friday night I was there, we had just experienced a few very hot days, so don't worry that it's sweltering: just dress lightly, have a cold drink with you. and make use of the program to quietly fan yourself.

On Saturday night, I saw OperaHub's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the East Coast Premiere of a new opera, described by the company thus:

"GLEE meets La Scala in this innovative, genre-defying take on Shakespeare's beloved tale of love--and magic--in the woods. Melding opera, musical theater, and a cappella styles, this is A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for the twenty-first century".  

Composer Michael Ching's opera uses Shakespeare's text, but in place of an orchestra, there was what they're calling a "voicestra", a chorus of singers who, joined occasionally by a keyboard player and a vocal percussionist, provided the accompaniment.  This was a pretty straightforward "Dream", in mostly modern dress, which included a few children/fairies, and had the audience tossing beachballs onto the set when we first went into the woods and encountered Oberon and Titania.  I appreciated the concept and production more than the material.  The Globe's Jeffrey Gantz reviewed the piece, and his review can be seen here.

The Plaza Theater, unlike the Black Box, was quite nicely air-conditioned.

street kids living on the edge Polaroid Stories & A Midsummer Night's dream