theater

The Palace Theatre Brings Art To Kids, And Vice-Versa

Person: Deborah Schachter — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

In addition to staging plays and concerts, The Palace Theater runs educational and cultural programs to engage community in the performing arts. Rebecca Gosselin is 12. She has participated in the Palace’s youth theatre programs for four years.

Channeling Granny D: North Carolina Actress Portrays New Hampshire Activist

Brady Carlson — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 22:46:27 +0000

This week marks what would have been the 103rd birthday of Doris Haddock, better known by the name Granny D.

She made national headlines in the late 1990’s for walking across the country, 3200 miles, to highlight the issue of campaign finance reform, just ahead of her 90^th birthday.

Doris Haddock died in 2010 at age 100, but you might be able to hear her voice at a birthday party in her honor in Keene.

Rochester Opera House

Deborah Schachter — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 04:00:00 +0000

The Rochester Opera House is a historic theater located in the Rochester city hall. It has been a center of community and community entertainment for more than a century. Now it is leased and operated as a non-profit, bringing a variety of shows and performance opportunities to the community. Shay Willard started acting there as a sixth grader; he is now a graduate student in film production and is directing a play at the opera house.

The Definition of Truth

Virginia Prescott — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:39:42 +0000

On Friday "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" begins a nine performance run at the loft..and a panel discussion on Sunday. We were curious to find out how the producers and performers would acknowledge or treat the controversy, and how they think truth is defined for works of theater.

Word of Mouth 05.26.2012

Virginia Prescott — Sat, 26 May 2012 03:00:00 +0000

Part 1: Trophy Wives/Old Lady Style

In those gin-soaked days of yesteryear, a beautiful woman on the arm was an executive’s secret weapon for landing the deal. A young knock-out by your side signaled power, style, and proof that you had it all. Just ask all those Mad Men...That was then.

Theatre…NO MORE!

Virginia Prescott — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:25:03 +0000

American stage productions are increasingly becoming financially insensitive for many.

London Smash 'Two Guvnors' Comes To Broadway

Jeff Lunden — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:54:00 +0000

If you weren't a college theater major, you can be forgiven for not knowing much about commedia dell'arte, the 500-year-old theatrical tradition that Carlo Goldoni used for his comedy The Servant of Two Masters in 1743. Contemporary playwright Richard Bean has adapted that play into the decidedly British laugh riot One Man, Two Guvnors -- and he says all you really need to know about commedia is ... well, it's funny.

"Commedia dell'arte," Bean says, "is very physical comedy, and there's a lot of clowning in it. ... You won't find much irony in this play.

Encore! Encore! Applauding The Literal Showstopper

Bob Mondello — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:35:00 +0000

Earlier this month, tenor Juan Diego Florez made headlines when he sang the aria "Una furtiva lagrima" in the Donizetti opera L'elisir D'Amore at the Metropolitan Opera — not once, but twice.

The audience responded so enthusiastically that after well over a minute of applause and shouts of "Encore!" he sang the whole thing again — all five minutes of it.

Letting someone re-sing an aria is rare at the Met; there have been only three encores in the past 18 years, because the company has had a policy forbidding them.

Finding Theater at an Alstead Machine Shop

Melanie Plenda — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:01:34 +0000

Triple M Tool and Die has been a sometimes-working, unassuming, hard- to- find machine shop in Alstead for more than 50 years. At least that’s what it is during the day.

A Fruitful Collaboration Still Yielding Broadway Hits

Jeff Lunden — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:27:00 +0000

Since they made their debut in 1971, it's been rare for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to not have a show on Broadway. But now they're ramping it up, with the opening of Evita following fast on the heels of Jesus Christ Superstar.

"It's actually just a coincidence as far as I can tell, because the two shows came from totally different sources," Rice says.

Hollywood, Hunger Games, and How Small Screens Survive

Virginia Prescott — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:30:26 +0000

We turn to Garen Daly, our resident film industry expert, for an update on Hollywood happenings.

That's All, Folks: Kevin Smith On Leaving Filmmaking

NPR Staff — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:49:00 +0000

When 21-year-old Kevin Smith decided he wanted to be a filmmaker, his sister gave him some advice: "Don't say you want to be a filmmaker; just be one." So he did. He made his first film, Clerks, on a shoestring, shooting at the convenience store where he worked.

Smith has gone on to have a long and quirky career; his films, including Chasing Amy and Dogma, bear his unmistakable imprimatur — the black humor, the verbose slacker genius characters.

'A Salesman' Lives On In Philip Seymour Hoffman

Tom Vitale — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:54:00 +0000

When Philip Seymour Hoffman took the stage on March 15 in the new revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, he became the fifth actor in 63 years to walk the boards of Broadway in the shoes of the blustery, beleaguered salesman, Willy Loman. In the last six decades, each incarnation of the play has resonated with a new generation of theatergoers.

There are lines in Arthur Miller's 1949 masterpiece that sound like they could have come right out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Miller knew plenty about the characters on Wall Street.

Et tu, Macbeth?

Virginia Prescott — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:07:17 +0000

The Shakespeare classic gets rebooted to highlight Macbeth's decidedly modern themes.

'Carrie' Creators Resurrect A Legendary Flop

Jeff Lunden — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Broadway history is littered with flop musicals — but if some shows are bombs, then Carrie, based on Stephen King's best-selling 1974 novel, was kind of a nuclear bomb.

The story of a teenager with telekinetic powers who wreaks bloody havoc on her small Maine town had already been successfully adapted as a film starring Sissy Spacek in 1976. But as a musical?

Frank Rich was theater critic for The New York Times when the show opened in April 1988.