theater

If durability defines the worth of a play, “The Elephant Man” by Bernard Pomerance is, at the very least, a good play, and possibly a great one.

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.

Capital Region Festival of Theatre was created in 2024 in order to showcase the level of enthusiasm and participation in theatre throughout the capital region.Started by local theatre participants, the Capital Region Festival of Theatre unites, celebrates and promotes the enormous depth of theatrical opportunities in the Capital Region.

Some plays are like novels. They are complex, wide in scope and epic in nature. Others, like “Mary Jane,” playing through Sunday at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, are more like poems. They are gentle, mood evoking and intensely personal.

From a desperate existence in a Victorian freak show to his days as the toast of London high society, the life of John Merrick, the Elephant Man, has fascinated the world for well over a century. Though his disfigurement brought notoriety, it was his unblemished inner humanity that most astonished everyone he knew. Berkshire Theatre Group presents Bernard Pomerance’s Tony Award-winning drama, “The Elephant Man,” May 28 - June 15 at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, MA.

“Things I Know to Be True,” playing at Curtain Call Theatre in Latham, which closes Sunday, is one of those plays that has you leaving the theater wanting to contact people you think should see the play.

Capital Region - In email and text conversations with local arts leaders there is confusion and anger about the proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts from the 2026 budget.

In the world of theater those May flowers brought on by April showers are starting to bloom. Locally this month there is available a bouquet made up of comedies, musicals and dramas.

As we here at WAMC celebrate the 25th Anniversary of The Roundtable, a little American musical is celebrating 10 years since it premiered in New York City – and quickly became a once-in-a-generation success in terms of reviews, ticket sales, fan enthusiasm, and awards recognition.“Hamilton” opened off-Broadway at The Public Theatre on January 20, 2015 and played there through May 3. It opened on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in early August of 2015, where it is still running. “Hamilton” won 11 Tony Awards, a 2016 Grammy Award for its cast recording, and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It has played – and is playing – all over the world. A pro-tape of the production’s original cast streams on Disney+ and was a pandemic sensation.But before all of that - “The Hamilton Mixtape” was a work-in-progress, put up in a black-box staged-reading, presented by New York Stage and Film and Vassar College in the summer of 2013. And I did get to be there - in the room where it was starting to happen.

It can be very misleading to describe any play as “a comedy about unhappy people.” No one likes to laugh at other people’s troubles.