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Articles tagged with: William Brown

‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at American Players: Estwhile beauty meets beast, and he’s not kind

Jul 16, 2015 – 8:43 pm | 1,616 views
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Review: She is a fascinating character, indeed one of the iconic personas in all of theater, Blanche DuBois, the fallen Southern belle of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” The undying question is, Why? What’s so intriguing about this dame with the checkered past? Perhaps it’s her vulnerability, or her delusion, or her sheer refusal to go quietly into middle-aged oblivion. I think that’s the thing, her feisty pluck, that makes Tracy Michelle Arnold’s Blanche so compelling at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. ★★★★★

From al fresco staging of Williams’ ‘Streetcar,’ American Players promise summer of surprises

Jun 12, 2015 – 12:23 am | 1,056 views
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Preview: In her second summer as artistic director of American Players Theatre, Brenda Devita can claim her fingerprints alone on the scheme of eight widely ranging plays that will run in repertory well into the autumn. And DeVita embraces that authorship with pride, starting with the company’s first go at Tennessee Williams’ monumental tragedy “A Streetcar Named Desire.” “We’re taking it outdoors,” she says, referring to the starry-domed 1,148-seat Up-the-Hill Theatre.

Oscar Wilde’s ‘Earnest’ at American Players: Much ado about manners, wit and attire

Aug 6, 2014 – 6:29 pm | 4,861 views
John, aka Earnest (Matt Schwader) is smitten by Gwendolen (Cristina Panfilio). (Carissa Dixon)

Review: Perhaps it’s because theater companies and audiences have always taken to heart Oscar Wilde’s subtitle for “The Importance of Being Earnest” that this silly, precious comedy of manners has remained a repertory fixture since its premiere in the Victorian world of 1895. Wilde slyly dubbed his play “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People,” and its triviality is indeed embraced seriously in this summer’s amusing romp at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis. ★★★★

Role Playing: Karen Woditsch shapes vowels, flings arms to perfect portrait of Julia Child

Oct 16, 2013 – 5:42 pm | 8,875 views
Karen Janes Woditsch

Interview: “Terror is a good place to start,” Karen Janes Woditsch was saying about her beguiling performance as cooking icon Julia Child in “To Master the Art.” “And I started there. I added the ingredients of her character very slowly.”

On grand new stage, ‘To Master the Art’ still whips up Julia Child’s zeal for French cuisine

Oct 1, 2013 – 9:39 pm | 7,412 views
Julia Child (Karen Janes Woditsch) gets her first lesson from chef Bugnard (Terry Hamilton) in To Master the Art. (Giorgio Ventola)

Review: It is like properly prepared scrambled eggs, this rebuilt production of “To Master the Art,” the story of how a tall, kitchen-clueless Californian became the famous Julia Child: basic, sumptuous, irresistible. If this lovely play, written by William Brown and Doug Frew, possessed an intimate charm in its original 2010 staging at TimeLine Theatre that cannot be replicated in the Broadway Playhouse’s grander proscenium venue, its essential warmth and honesty remain undiminished. ★★★★

Theater 2013-14: Fantasy ‘Old Man, Old Moon’ opens Writers’ season; new home draws near

Sep 3, 2013 – 2:53 pm | 9,310 views
PigPen Theatre's 'The Old Man and the Old Moon,' an off-Broadway hit in 2012, is being re-mounted and re-thought with Stuart Carden at Writers' Theatre

Ninth in a series of season previews: As artistic director Michael Halberstam began putting together the 2013-14 season at Writers’ Theatre with associate artistic director Stuart Carden, one coincidence seemed too good to be true: Halberstam’s right-hand man had been the teacher, at Carnegie-Mellon University, of an eclectic group of seven buddies called the PigPen Theatre Co., who were the buzz of Greenwich Village for their folksy fable called “The Old Man and the Old Moon.” The charming off-Broadway saga now comes to Writers’.

Theater 2013-14: Irish world premiere tops lineup of 5 shows in Northlight’s 39th year

Aug 29, 2013 – 11:50 pm | 3,551 views
John Mahoney

Seventh in season preview series: Northlight Theatre’s marquee for 2013-14 promises a world premiere turn by actor John Mahoney, the company directing debut of Ron OJ Parson in a Midwest premiere and director Kimberly Senior’s inauguration in her new role as the 39-year-old company’s first artistic associate.

Confused identities and a flair for mendacity spark comic romp in ‘The Liar’ at Writers’

Jun 6, 2013 – 6:47 am | 16,580 views
Nate Burger, left, and LaShawn Banks in The Liar at Writers' Theatre credit Michael Brosilow

Review: Young, lusty, autobiographically creative Dorante embraces a simple code: The unimagined life is not worth living. From the tangled roots of that premise springs Pierre Corneille’s 1643 comedy “The Liar” – revamped and translated for today’s English-speaking audiences by David Ives, and now brought to the stage with a farcical flourish at Writers’ Theatre. ★★★★

‘Skylight’ at Court: In a battle of the sexes, slings and arrows and words, words, words

Jan 23, 2013 – 3:37 pm | 5,569 views
Laura Rook as Kyra and Philip Earl Johnson as Tom in Skylight by David Hare directed by William Brown at Court Theatre 2013 credit Michael Brosilow

Review: ★★★★

‘Wasteland’ at LifeLine: Alone in earthen cell, G.I. battles twin demons isolation and fear

Nov 1, 2012 – 4:55 pm | 6,189 views
Nate Burger as Joe in Susan Felder's Wasteland at TimeLine Theatre credit Lara Goetsch

Review: ★★★★

The New Season: Court Theatre maps journey from Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ to a Molière bonanza

Aug 15, 2012 – 4:02 pm | 4,815 views
WilsonAugust Jitney collage

Seventh in a series of season previews: What begins in September as an ambitious and far-flung season at Court Theatre, with August Wilson’s “Jitney,” ends next spring with nothing less than a prodigious Molière double-header, back to back productions of “The Misanthrope” and “Tartuffe.”

The New Season: Stark Vietnam prison drama, Beethoven riddle define spectrum at TimeLine

Aug 1, 2012 – 6:02 pm | 4,985 views
TimeLine lobby during world premiere production of My Kind of Town by John conroy 2012 credit Lara Goetsch

Second in a series of season previews: Playwright Susan Felder’s “Wasteland,” a world premiere about two American G.I.’s imprisoned in Vietnam isolation, plus three Chicago premieres make up TimeLine’s 2012-13 schedule; season opens Aug. 24 with a musical riddle.

Vivid characters and some great singing carry the day for ‘A Little Night Music’ at Writers’

May 12, 2012 – 9:47 am | 6,461 views
A Little Night Music Stephen Sondheim Writers' 2012  Brandon Dahlquist Count Malcom Shannon Cochran Desiree Arnfeldt Jonathan Fredrik Egerman  Michael Brosilow

Sondheim’s paean to love. 4 stars!