Month: June 2010

Daryl Roth, Stacy Shane, Martian Entertainment present THE TEMPERAMENTALS by Jon Marans at the New World Stages, New York. “Temperamental” was an American slang word for homosexual in the 40’s and 50’s. THE TEMPERAMENTALS by Jon Marans is a play about the men who formed the Mattachine Society in 1950, in Los Angeles. It was one of the earliest homophile organizations in the United States, probably second only to Chicago’s short-lived Society for Human rights,1924. As you can see, well before the turning point of the Stonewall Riots in New York, the GLBT community. This play is then a type…

Company B Belvoir and Black Swan Theatre Company present THE SAPPHIRES at the York Theatre, Seymour Centre, Sydney. THE SAPPPHIRES by Tony Briggs and Directed by Wesley Enoch won two Helpmann Awards for Best New Australian Work and Best Play in 2005. This is a revival production that began in January as part of the Perth International Arts Festival and since has toured to several venues in Victoria and after this season here in Sydney, travels internationally to South Korea for a short season. There are plans to make a film of this work. After the success of BRAN NUE…

David Stone, James L. Nederlander, Barbara Whitman, Patrick Catullo, Second Stage Theatre, Carole Rothman, and Ellen Richard present NEXT TO NORMAL at the Booth Theater, Broadway. This is a six character musical. It is an intimate, dramatic, almost naturalistic psycho-drama. It was nominated in 2009 for eleven Tony Awards. It won three: Best Original Score. Best Orchestration. Best performance by a Leading Lady. This work won, controversially, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010. This is a musical about a woman, Diana (Alice Ripley), suffering from bipolar disorder, uncoiled from the death of her very young son and an inability…

NORTH ATLANTIC by James Strahs. A Wooster Group production, presented by the Baryshnikov Arts Centre, at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre’s Jerome Robbins Theatre. NORTH ATLANTIC by James Strahs is a satirical dash through an American military experience. It is set in the waning years of the Cold War on an American aircraft carrier where the military strategies/jargon of the crew, both male and female, are infused /confused with the breathless innuendo of the hard core gobbledegook of officialdom and the sexual undertowings of the underlings on duty. With the urge of sex winning the battle for attention with this crew.…

A WHITE BOX THEATRE Production in association with B Sharp present BANG by Jonathan Gavin at the Downstairs Theatre. BANG by Jonathan Gavin is a really good night at the theatre. A new Australian play. The first act of this play presents a collection of characters and spins a ‘web’ of connection for them all, to a fate at a railway station platform, where just before the interval break, there is a BANG, which is a suicide terrorist bomb explosion. The second act continues the unravelling connection of these characters. It is, on the whole, a very moving and human…

Sydney Theatre Company presents the Residents in ORESTEIA by Aeschylus. In a new adaptation by Tom Wright at the Wharf 1. Tom Wright has adapted the Aeschylus ORESTEIA. He is also the Director. It is, “…of course a trilogy. This production isn’t. It’s a version mainly of the first two plays in the trilogy, AGAMEMNON and CHOEPHORI (the Libation Bearers), with a dues ex machina at the end. Apollo’s speech of conclusion is based on his words in Aeschylus’ third play, EUMENIDES, but fundamentally this version isn’t an attempt to present the whole catastrophe. It’s an attempt at a distillation,…