I wrote about Westchester Broadway Theatre’s cinema-pub venture a while back — and they’ve just announced a new slate of films. To refresh your memory, tickets are $8 and you can order food and drinks (including “adult beverages”) to be served while you watch the movie. You can reserve prime… Read More →
With the arrival of October, the fall theatrical season gets under way in earnest across the Lower Hudson Valley. Several productions get their starts this weekend, a mix of laughter, love, pain and song that should satisfy most any theatrical taste. Outta Brownsville Elaine Del Valle brings an expanded version… Read More →
It’s a long way from Pleasantville to Detroit and Durham, N.C., but not too far for two Pleasantville natives, about to kick off performances in national tours of “West Side Story” and “Billy Elliot.” Broadway veteran Ali Ewoldt, 28, plays Maria in “West Side Story” when it opens Thursday at… Read More →
OK, this story isn’t exactly “theatrical,” but I was assigned to interview Alan Rabinowitz, one of the world’s top jaguar experts. Here’s the story. If most people were to encounter a jaguar in the wild, chances are they would be stunned into silence. But Alan Rabinowitz’s encounters with jaguars went… Read More →
Got word this morning that Monday’s screening of Orson Welles’ “Chimes at Midnight” at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville has been canceled, due to an issue with the rights. I was looking forward to seeing the film, and to meeting Chris Welles Feder, Welles’ eldest daughter, who was… Read More →
An exciting development for design students at Purchase College. From a press release that came my way today: “Celebrated scenic designers Santo Loquasto and Karl Eigsti will join the Conservatory of Theatre Arts in the School of the Arts at Purchase College, State University of New York, this year. Loquasto… Read More →
Nice to see a great review for Garrison’s Kurt Rhoads, in Dallas playing King Henry IV in a distilled version of the Shakespeare two-parter, told in one night. Kurt is, of course, a fixture each summer at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison where this summer he directed a bra-burning,... Read More →
Broadway World has a sneak peak from this weekend’s episode of “The Simpsons,” featuring the kids from “Glee.” “Glee” has its season premiere tonight on Fox.
“Zero Hour” is the first of the fall wave of works on local stages. Here’s a look at other openings this weekend, and a reading on Wednesday night. Oscar, Oscar, Oscar: Antrim Playhouse in Wesley Hills kicks of its 74th season with Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” the story of… Read More →
It’s all about the comb-over. That’s how actor-writer Jim Brochu transforms into Zero Mostel. Brochu brings his one-man show, “Zero Hour,” to SUNY Rockland’s Cultural Arts Center in Suffern on Saturday for a sold-out, one-night-only performance to aid Stony Point’s Penguin Rep theater. “When I am myself, I look nothing… Read More →
The Town of Rye has been celebrating its 350th anniversary this year, with story, song and exhibits. Next up is a trio of storytellers — Lou Del Bianco, Jonathan Kruk and Doug Carey — breathing life into men from Rye’s past in a free, three-part series called “HisStory.” First is… Read More →
Growing up, Chris Welles Feder had to share her father, Orson Welles, with the world. She also shared him with his extended family. Welles, the director and star of “Citizen Kane,” had three daughters with three different women:?Chris, the eldest, was born to Virginia Nicholson; Rebecca to actress Rita Hayworth,... Read More →
Nyack Village Theatre is looking to build a company for its 2010-11 season and will hold auditions Sept. 19 and 26 at 6 p.m. at its venue, upstairs at 94 Main St., Nyack. Prospective company members are asked to wear comfortable clothes and shoes “and bring something that makes noise.”... Read More →
A host of special events are worthy of circling dates this fall. Here’s a sampling. Mama LuPone — Caramoor’s Fall Festival is a two-weekend affair this year, bringing world-class talent to Katonah Sept. 24-26 and Oct. 2 and 3. Headliners include Broadway legend Patti LuPone, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, jazz guitarist… Read More →
Composer David Yazbek trusts his “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” collaborator Jeffrey Lane, but the New City resident wasn’t convinced Pedro Almodovar’s 1988 film “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” would make a good Broadway musical. Now one of the fall’s most-anticipated shows, directed by Bartlett Sher (“South Pacific”), “Women… Read More →
For weeks now, Tom Meehan’s immediate focus has been on a Little Tramp in California. Next, it will be on an oversized elf on Broadway A Suffern native and Tony-winner (“Annie,” “The Producers,” “Hairspray”) Meehan ended his summer in La Jolla, Calif., readying “Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin,” a… Read More →
These shows are open now on Broadway: “A Little Night Music” — Sondheim’s musical about a weekend in the country. Walter Kerr, 219 W. 48th. “American Idiot” — The Green Day album, now a Green Day musical. St. James, 246 W. 44th. “Billy Elliot: The Musical” — About a boy who… Read More →
The fall on Broadway will see 19 openings. Here’s a look at what to expect and when, in chronological order by opening night. (Mark Rylance, center, and David Hyde Pierce, right, lead the cast of “La Bete,” transferring from London to the Music Box for an Oct. 14 opening. Photo… Read More →
Here’s a look at what is planned at community theaters across the Lower Hudson Valley this fall. (For a look at professional theaters, click here.) Actors Conservatory Theatre: “Gypsy” runs weekends, Nov. 4 through 14. Directed by Arlene Wendt, musical director George Croom and choreographer Janice Paganelli, performances are at… Read More →
The drive is short, the parking is free (or reasonable), the tickets are affordable at a professional theater closer to home. Here’s a look at what is planned at professional theaters across the Lower Hudson Valley. (For a look at community theaters, click here.) Axial Theatre Company: The Pleasantville-based company… Read More →
She could be teaching Yalies how to perform in musicals or producing Emmy-winning television like the “9/11 Memorial from Ground Zero” or staging mammoth concerts, such as “Wall to Wall Sondheim.” Been there, done that. For the foreseeable future, Annette Jolles will be providing a stage for new works. Jolles… Read More →
Kyle Beltran remembers it like it was yesterday, even though it was nearly 10 years ago. He was 15 and he and his parents were meeting a family friend, actor Michael Boatman, for a post-show dinner at the Broadway haunt Angus McIndoe. “It was packed with people coming from their… Read More →
In “Next to Normal,” Jennifer Damiano earned a Tony nomination as Natalie, a disillusioned teen who can’t step out of the shadow that her brother’s long-ago death cast on their mother’s mind. At one point, Natalie sings: “Superboy and the Invisible Girl. Son of Steel and Daughter of Air. He’s… Read More →
Bill Tucker researched and wrote a play about the writing of the U.S. Constitution. But the play that has his attention these days isn’t based on 200-year-old U.S. history. It’s one based on his personal history, history he lived through. Tucker spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi and the first… Read More →
Purchase Repertory Theater, the producing company at the Conservatory for Theater and Film on Anderson Hill Road in Purchase, churns out a compelling and excellent season each year. Whenever I go — and II go less than I wish — I come away impressed with the level of talent on… Read More →
Pleasantville’s Jacob Burns Film Center today announced the second season of broadcasts of National Theatre Live. It’s the only place in Westchester to catch the shows, which are beamed live from London. I caught “London Assurance” last spring and was impressed by the quality of the production, and the technology… Read More →
I have been remiss in not writing about the wonderful night of theater presented at Rye Country Day School on Aug. 27. The staged reading of Lee Blessing’s “Eleemosynary” — with Tony-winner Frances Sternhagen, her daughter Sarah Carlin Beckwith and 2010 RCDS graduate Micole Himelfarb — was just magical: three… Read More →
Terry O’Brien and his Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival have just barely closed their 24th season at Boscobel, with wondrous productions of “Taming of the Shrew,” “Troilus and Cressida” and “The Bomb-itty of Errors.” But O’Brien has already announced two-thirds of the 25th season. When next they gather on that magnificent… Read More →
Choreographer Bill T. Jones thought something was up when people in his office stopped talking whenever he approached. The two-time Tony-winning choreographer (“Fela!” “Spring Awakening”) learned last week what all the silent treatment was about. Yesterday, organizers at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts made it official: Jones is… Read More →
