I count as one of my prized theatrical experiences the month I spent in London as an undergrad, soaking up theater. One of the best destinations is National Theatre where I saw Ian McKellan in “Coriolanus.” Amazing.

You can experience a LIVE National Theatre production on Thursday afternoon in Pleasantville, when the Jacob Burns Film Center presents a live broadcast of “All’s Well that Ends Well” at 2 p.m.

This is a first for the Burns but not for the National, which produced a live broadcast of “Phedre” with Helen Mirren — seen by 50,000 people in 19 countries — last June. They call this broadcast enterprise “NT Live,” an effort to spread the reach of the National.

Thursday’s broadcast begins at 2 p.m., from the Olivier Theatre, the largest in the sprawling National campus on the bank of the Thames.

Anna Becker’s “Insights & Revelations Performance Series” officially takes up residence down-county at the Emelin Theatre on Oct. 1—after having lived in Mount Kisco and Pleasantville—with “Inside Shakespeare with The Shakespeare Society.”

Writes Becker: “The acclaimed Shakespeare Society gives us a behind the-scenes look at the process of taking Shakespeare from the page to the stage with Elisabeth Waterston (Classic Stage Company’s The Tempest opposite Mandy Patinkin and The Public Theater’s Much Ado About Nothing opposite Sam Waterston), Randy Harrison (Justin Taylor on Showtime’s “Queer As Folk”) and other notable Shakespearean actors in an open rehearsal of “Measure for Measure.”

“Commentary and discussion with Michael Sexton (pictured), The Shakespeare Society’s Artistic Director, and Shakespearean scholar Ruth Carpenter. A discussion and reception with the artists follows the program.

The show is at 8, the tickets are $25. The Emelin is at 153 Library Lane, Mamaroneck. 914-698-0098. www.emelin.org. Photo by Ellen Kelson

Auditions are Friday for Random Farms Kids Theater’s production of “13,” Jason Robert Brown’s musical about being, well, thirteen.

Read more of this entry »

Bello Nock is an exceptional performer, which is good news and bad news for the Big Apple Circus.

When the “comic daredevil” with the foot-high flat-top hairdo takes to the circus’ single ring in “Bello Is Back!”—the 32nd season production of the Big Apple Circus, now at the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack—the show zips along.

Here, he’s bungee-jumping from the top of the big top, scaring the daylights out of onlookers until he springs harmlessly back up.

Just putting the finishing touches on my review of “Bello Is Back,” the 32nd season of the Big Apple Circus, now performing at the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack….

Stay tuned….

Nyack’s Elliott Forrest, a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and WQXR host, can be heard on “Walkin’ Broadway,” an iPod journey through Broadway past and present, mixing a historical walk through the Theater District with anecdotes from James Naughton, the late great Ossie Davis and John Raitt, Stephen Schwartz and Hal Prince.

You’ve heard Marni Nixon even if you didn’t know it.

She sang for Natalie Wood in “West Side Story,” Deborah Kerr in “The King & I” and Audrey Hepburn in “My Fair Lady.”

Are you a huge fan of La LuPone? Is Pinchas Zuckerman all over your iPod? Can’t get enough Bill T. Jones?

Wiley Hausam hopes so, and he hopes you’ll want the chance to not only see these stars on stage, but mingle with them and others after they perform at Purchase College’s Performing Arts Center.

For a while there, Patti LuPone was having a nervous breakdown nightly, twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

In a performance that earned her Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards, LuPone was Mama Rose in “Gypsy” on Broadway.

Don’t say I didn’t give you enough notice: PMT Productions will present its 5th “Westchester Teen Idol” competition on Feb. 27, 2010.

If things seem a bit more dramatic in White Plains this weekend, there’s a reason. The New York State Theatre Education Association holds its annual educators’ conference  at Good Counsel Academy in White Plains through Sunday.

North Salem’s Linda Eder will take part in Town Hall’s three-day cabaret festival next month, but she’s not just showing up empty-handed: Eder has a new CD out Oct. 13, “Soundtrack.”

The Big Apple Circus is back in Rockland this week and renowned clown Bello Nock is back at the Big Apple Circus.

The show, aptly titled “Bello Is Back!,” runs 29 performances at the Palisades Center mall, from Thursday through Oct. 12, marking several firsts.

It’s the first time Rockland has been the first stop of the nonprofit circus’ season.

It’s the first time in two seasons the circus has been in West Nyack.

And it’s the first appearance here by Bello, the man Time magazine named “America’s Best Clown.”

Clown? Bello prefers “comic daredevil.”

Jeremy Quinn has big plans for the White Plains Performing Arts Center’s educational program.

The director — who has worked with Helen Hayes Youth Theater, Westchester Broadway Theater, Fox Lane High School and School of the Holy Child  — wants to go beyond the youth-theater mold of simply cranking out production after production. Read more of this entry »

The Armonk Players will present a staged reading of John R. Arco’s “Dead Men Don’t Itch,” directed by the author, on Oct. 7 at 8 p.m.