For me, today is the start of summer. Forget the calendar. Last weekend we celebrated Memorial Day, usually considered the opening day of summer. But for those of us of a certain age, Memorial Day is still May 30.
True, technically the summer season arrives June 21. For many of us, it begins when summer theater companies start producing.
That’s now. Berkshire Theatre Group opened “The Elephant Man” on Friday and on Tuesday Barrington Stage Company opens a week-long run of “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground“. “N/A the Play” runs on the Pittsfield theater’s smaller stage June 4-22.
That sounds like summer to me.
“The Elephant Man” is the story of John Merrick, a man with a grotesquely misshapen body. Rescued from being on display as a circus freak, he becomes the darling of Victorian-age British society.
“Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground” is a one- person show about our 34th President. He might have been the last person in that office that people voted for, rather than voting against his opponent.
In case you are unaware of Eisenhower, he was the five star general who led the Allied Army in World War II. He was elected president in 1954. During his farewell address he warned of a military-industrial complex that might consume future budgets. In 2024 the U.S. spent $997 billion dollars on defense. Maybe he was right.
“N/A the Play”” is a political drama about a conflict between a Speaker of the House and a popular new radical member of the House. Both characters are females so you can expect social issues as well as political drama. It plays June 4-22.
There’s good stuff, locally as well. Black Theatre Troupe of Upstate NY is closing its 2024-2025 season with “Equinox”. Running Thursday through Sunday at Capital Repertory Theater in Albany, it tells of the fight for survival by five abused women during the Second Civil War in Liberia.
On a lighter note, “At the Wedding” plays at Sand Lake Center for the Arts. It’s a light-hearted farce concerning a former lover of the bride showing up at the ex’s wedding. Twist is the bride and past lover are both women and the groom is a man. The humor comes from the jilted lover’s taste for liquor that makes her sharp observations even more biting. It plays June 4-22.
Another comedy playing locally is “The Angel Next Door” at Curtain Call Theatre in Latham. Adapted from a farce written by Hungarian-born playwright Ferenc Molnar, it deals with two writer-producers trying to get an actor to be in their play that they adapted from a best-selling novel.
Things looks good until it’s discovered the leading lady is having an affair with another actor. This infuriates the love-smitten author of the book, who based his novel about his secret love for the flirty actress. It plays June 12-29
As for musicals, Opera Saratoga offers its Broadway selection on June 21. “She Loves Me” has been a popular Broadway play, musical and film. It is the source material for the hit film “You’ve Got Mail”. It runs in repertoire with the comic opera, “La Vie Parisienne” until June 29.
In Chatham, Mac-Haydn Theatre opens their season with the revue “It’s a Grand Night For Singing” on June 5. Two weeks later on June 19 it opens “Guys and Dolls.” The next evening, further north, Fort Salem Theatre offers “Kinky Boots” on June 20.
Back to the Berkshires. Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA opens their season with “The Victim” on June 19. The world premiere uses three monologues to explore if a victim is really a victim. Three diverse women speak to their past in subjects like racism and the Holocaust to explore a sense of victimhood that connects the three women.
As we enter true summer, the choices get bigger. The Disney musical “Beauty and the Beast” is at Proctors June 25- July 3. Adding to the bounty, the Lerner and Lowe Classic, “Camelot,” plays at Barrington Stage June 25-July 19.
Believe it or not, in July it gets even busier.
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
