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“Oliver” doesn’t get “standing O” at Porthouse
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
I had one of my greatest experiences in the theatre when, on June 30, 1960, I attended the opening of “Oliver!” at the New Theatre in London, England. I was seated 3rd row center!
Peter Coe’s direction, Malcolm Clare’s choreography, and a cast consisting of Ron Moody (Fagin) Georgia Brown (Nancy) and Davy Jones (Artful Dodger) brought …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association and Cleveland Critics Circle)
The Stratford Festival of Canada, whose present artistic director is Atoni Cimolino, started on July 13, 1953, when Sir Alec Guiness walked onto a stage located in a large tent and spoke the first lines of what has become the internationally-recognized celebration of theatre. Now housed in five theatres, offering plays and other entertainment from late April to November, Stratford is …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
It probably will come as shock to many to know that when the play, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” a script by Dale Wasserman, based on Kent Kesey’s novel of the same name, opened on Broadway in 1963, in spite of a cast that included Kirk Douglas, Gene Wilder, William Daniels, Ed Ames and Joan Tetzel, it was basically a flop, …more…
ARCADIA a well-constructed play which makes for a long echoing sit at MAMAI
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Czech born Thomas Stoppard is a Jewish British playwright who escaped from his birth country in 1939, just before the Nazi occupation. Living, in England, he has gained a reputation as one of modern English language’s greatest playwrights. The recipient of an Academy Award and four Tony Awards, it …more…
“Young Frankenstein” should delight Beck audiences, but . . .
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
On a November Saturday afternoon in 2007, I anxiously entered the Hilton Theatre in New York. I love exaggerated, well-conceived and performed farce. I was going to see “Young Frankenstein” by the king of farce and parody, Mel Brooks. Yes, “Young Frankenstein,” officially known as “The New Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein,” was the …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle
Part concert, part history lesson, and a lot of rock ‘n roll– that’s “Million Dollar Quartet”, now on stage at the Ohio Theatre in PlayhouseSquare.
The second largest entertainment center in the United States is playing host to
Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Well, in reality, four performers portraying those icons of rock and roll, in a stage show …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
There was “Star Trek.” Then “Star Wars.” Then there were the werewolves and vampires. Then “Hunger Games.” Now there is “Starmites.”
On the surface, “Starmites” is a farcical musical about Eleanor, a shy, awkward, teenage girl who escapes from the real world through an obsession with sci-fi comic books. Her walls are covered with space age drawings. Her bedspread and stuffed animals follow …more…
A satisfying “My Fair Lady” opens the Porthouse 2014 season
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Last year’s Porthouse production of “South Pacific” joined the beautiful and gifted Kayce Cummings (Green) as Nellie Forbush with suave and talented Greg Violand as Emile DeBecque, with Terri Kent, the theatre’s artistic director. The result was “an evening of fine entertainment.” This year the trio joined forces for a pleasing “My Fair …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Every once in a while a theatrical production results in a “what is going on?” and “why is time and energy being wasted on this?” reaction. Such is the case with “A Map of Virtue” now on stage at convergence continuum.
I thought maybe it was just my limited insight into the world of the obtuse, so I went on an internet search …more…
Roy Berko
(Member: Cleveland Critics Circle, American Theatre Critics Association)
Actors know that sometimes, what happens at rehearsals and backstage during a production, is a bigger event than what happens on-stage during a performance. This idea come to English playwright, Michael Frayn, who, while watching from the wings, experienced the goings on during a staging of his play, “The Two of Us.” He declared, “It was funnier from behind than from in …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
George Bernard Shaw, considered by many to be the premiere English playwright of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, had very set opinions, which he expressed in his writing. A member of the Fabian Society, which was an utopian movement dedicated to establishing a socialist society, he attacked the English education system, organized religion, the blindness of the upper classes in …more…
Cleveland Foundation Centennial Meeting highlighted by Céspedes choreography and Colin Powell speech
Roy Berko
In the last century, the Cleveland Foundation, the first community foundation in the world, has given $1.78 billion dollars in grants to enrich the lives of young and old through working for sustaining a vibrant local economy, developing human potential, reimagining Cleveland, pioneering housing options, and preserving the arts. What better way is there to celebrate these achievements …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)
Ed Falco, who teaches writing and literature in Virginia Tech’s MFA program, may best be known for his being the uncle of Edie Falco, who played the role of Carmela Soprano on the Sopranos. He is also noted for his work with artists and actors through exploring the healing power of drama.
Falco’s “Possum Dreams” is now getting its world’s premiere at …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Eric Coble, a Cleveland Heights-based writer, is the author of the Alexandra Trilogy. Each play showcases Alex/Alexa/Alexandra at different ages and stages of her life.
The series starts with “A Girl’s Guide to Coffee,” which was staged by Actors’ Summit in their 2012 season. The plot finds twenty-two year old Alex, a college grad, working as a barista. Alex’s plan is to have …more…
“Seminar” gets an A at Beck Center for the Arts
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Theatre Critics)
When a student pays $5000 for a ten-week educational seminar, s/he doesn’t expect to be verbally attacked, viciously belittled, diminished, called names, and have a sexual liaison with the instructor. But that’s exactly what happens in Pulitzer Prize nominee Theresa Rebeck’s provocative comedy, “Seminar,” now on stage at Beck Center.
“Seminar,” which takes place …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
During the great depression of the 1930s the U. S. government attempted to stir up the economy by creating various works projects. One of the organizations developed was the Federal Theatre Project. It hired directors, actors and technicians to produce theatrical productions that charged low to no-cost for admission. Many of these were new scripts, and employed out-of-work and emerging artists to …more…
“We’ve come a long way baby”—no, not quite…””Ancestra”” @ CPT
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association & Cleveland Critics Circle)
Watching Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Ancestra” is both an enlightening and a depressing experience. Depressing in that the play adds yet another layer to the still on-going tale of the fight for women’s equality in what was and in many ways still is a conservative white man’s world. In spite of progress, such …more…
Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program’s Ciara Renée makes it big on Broadway
Roy Berko
(Member: Cleveland Critics Circle, American Theatre Critics Association)
On April 1, Ciara Renée strutted on stage at the Music Box Theatre on West 45th Street as The Leading Player in PIPPIN. She became one of seventeen Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre Program graduates to appear in a Broadway, Off-Broadway or National Touring company during the 2013-2014 season.
Yes, tiny Baldwin Wallace …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association and Cleveland Critics Circle)
The Cleveland area has a full schedule of summer theatre entertainment. Here are some of the upcoming stagings:
THEATRE OFFERINGS
PORTHOUSE THEATRE Kent State University’s summer theatre, performed on the grounds of Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, will present
•MY FAIR LADY, June 18-28 (two-piano musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s PYGMALION),
•STARMITES, July 3-19 (musical adventure fantasy in which humans and heroes …more…
Roy Berko
Some musicals are filled with flash, glitter, large production numbers and massive choruses. “The Bridges of Madison County” is not one of these. It is a well-conceived, tender, and low-keyed experience. It is a “little” musical, much in the realm of “She Loves Me.
Adapted from the novel “The Bridges of Madison County,” by Robert James Waller, is a story based on the author’s desire to expand on his belief …more…
“Bathroom Humor” flushes at Blank Canvas
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Before the lights went up on Blank Canvas’s production of “Bathroom Humor,” the couple sitting to my right and I carried on an animated conversation about which they thought were their favorite Guest Artist Theatres in the area. A Guest Artist Theatre is “a theatre which has an agreement with Equity, whose productions normally include one or …more…
What could be better than having Audra McDonald singing for an hour and-a-half? How about McDonald channeling the singing style and interpretative abilities of the late, great Billie Holiday? McDonald doesn’t portray Holiday, she slips into Holiday’s persona and becomes the jazz singer, with a blues soul.
Holiday, the granddaughter of a slave, endured much success in her life, but also was the victim of overt racism, poor choice in mates, …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Every once in a while a play comes along that, without histrionics, searching for laughs or mystery plot twists, resonates with the human connection. “Kin,” now on stage at Dobama Theatre, is such a script.
Bathsheba Doran, the play’s author, has a wonderful sense of language selection, creates scenes that are clear in their intent, puts forth interactions that allow for understanding of …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
PlayhouseSquare and Baldwin Wallace’s renowned music theatre program and the school’s arts management program, have come together for seven consecutive years to present an opportunity for the students to interact with professional theatrical figures in a real world unique way.
The theatre students get an opportunity to work in the second largest arts complex in the country. The arts management students get to …more…
Roy Berko
(Member, American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
Each year, Ensemble Theatre selects a classic play to be part of their season offerings. Last year it was “The Iceman Cometh,” which was recognized by the Cleveland Critics Circle for “Superior Achievement for a Non-Musical Production.” This year’s choice is Eugene O’Neill’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning, “Beyond the Horizon,” the author’s first full-length work.
A review of the first staging of “Beyond …more…
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