Monday, June 5, 2017
"Motown the Musical" is an ensemble drama roiling with temptations, miracles and all those other fantastic Detroit groups of the 1960s and '70s. The central characters in the musical are Ber…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:56AMMany aspects of the 2017 International Festival of Arts & Ideas will seem familiar — well-known bands playing for thousands of people on the New Haven Green, world-premiere music and theat…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:00AMFriday, June 2, 2017
Tina Landau says she got involved with the new musical "Deathless" "roughly six months ago. I forget." She laughs. "In this show, time has no meaning." "Deathless" is a new musical at Goodsp…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 11:35AMWednesday, May 24, 2017
It's good to be "The King & I." The Rodgers and Hammerstein classic that introduced the songs "I Whistle a Happy Tune," "Getting to Know You," "I Have Dreamed" and "Shall We Dance?" was give…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 10:01AMFriday, May 19, 2017
Rodgers and Hammerstein are busier in Connecticut now than they were 60 or 70 years ago, when their musicals routinely had out-of-town try-outs at the Shubert in New Haven. Tours of "Cindere…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:00AMThursday, May 11, 2017
Darko Tresnjak is looking forward to taking a break this summer. Hartford Stage's much-lauded artistic director spent the winter crafting his knockabout version of Shakespeare's "Comedy of E…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:51PMFriday, May 5, 2017
"Anastasia" is on the move again. The producers of the Broadway musical, which had its world premiere at Hartford Stage a year ago, announced plans Friday for the show to be seen internation…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 01:09PMCome on along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway. Shuffle off to Buffalo while you're at it. Mostly, enjoy the serendipity of hearing dozens of performers sing "We're in the Money" at a c…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:00AMThursday, May 4, 2017
You never know who's going to walk into your restaurant. "The Most Beautiful Room in New York," a new musical premiering at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven through May 28, has some fasci…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:00AMTuesday, May 2, 2017
Anastasia didn't get much recognition from the Tony Award nominating committees Tuesday morning. But her grandmother did all right. Mary Beth Peil was nominated for Best Featured Actress in …
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 11:11AMMonday, May 1, 2017
"The whole point of communication," Alan Alda muses, "is not about what you have to say. It's about how you say it." The celebrated actor, writer, director, science advocate and activist sha…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 11:57AMThursday, April 27, 2017
"It's kind of a crazy story." No, it's actually very much like the story of the musical you're starring in. "Thoroughly Modern Millie," which opens Goodspeed Musicals' 2017 season, is the st…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 05:11PMSomebody left a light on at Infinity Hall in Hartford. Moths are circling. George Dawes Green, (pictured) who founded the groundbreaking live storytelling series "The Moth," is a special gue…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:58PMTommy Tune walks among the gods. He's that tall. And he dances so well. I've watched Tommy Tune pace the back of theater on opening night of a show he worked on. I've seen him command the st…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:58PMThe May 6 Connecticut Forum event at The Bushnell will feature Alan Alda instead of the previously announced film director and producer Rob Reiner. The other scheduled guest in the forum, fi…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:00AMMonday, April 24, 2017
In its yearlong journey from Hartford to Broadway, "Anastasia" has found itself. When this sweet-natured musical of self-discovery premiered a year ago at Hartford Stage, it was just as lush…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 08:00PMThursday, April 20, 2017
Connecticut has welcomed some remarkable tours of the iconic 1990s New York starving-artist rock musical "Rent" over the years. When the first national tour played The Bushnell in 1998, it s…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 01:41PMLadies and gentlemen, two circuses cross paths in Hartford the same week — one, a new, modern vision of what a circus must have been like 114 years ago; the other among the final performan…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:38AMTuesday, April 18, 2017
When the Tony Award nominations are announced May 3, Connecticut will rejoice. So many Broadway shows this season had world premieres, readings or workshops in the state that some warm refle…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 04:11PMYou think you know Shrek? Big green guy. Enchanted. Talks to a donkey. The musical theater version of the DreamWorks fairytale movie isn't all that ancient or distant — its Broadway produc…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 11:50AMThursday, April 13, 2017
The sun will come out the day after April 23, apparently, when the latest national tour of "Annie" has a single performance at the Garde Arts Center in New London, and the same tomorrow-lovi…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:03AMIt's Jeanine Tesori season in Connecticut. Three of the composer's musicals happen to be at local theaters this spring, offering a convenient career retrospective of a versatile artist that'…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:03AMWednesday, April 12, 2017
HartBeat Ensemble is holding a Women's Theater Festival, charmingly titled "WTF!," for three consecutive weekends April 21 through May 6. Of course, you could say that HartBeat Ensemble has …
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:47PMAsked to describe "Islands: The Lost History of the Treaty That Changed the World" — a grand-scale, multidisciplinary project that's taken five years to create, taken him to Indonesia on r…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 12:46PMThursday, April 6, 2017
What's next for "Next to Normal"? Yet another week of performances. TheaterWorks' production of modern pop/rock musical "Next to Normal" has extended its run a second time. The show, by Tom …
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 01:24PMWednesday, April 5, 2017
The Canadian circus theater troupe Cirque Eloize brought its freewheeling Wild West-themed show "Saloon" to Foxwoods Resort Casino last year and has returned with something much more moderni…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 10:28AMMonday, April 3, 2017
There's nothing "absolute" about "The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey." James Lecesne's one-man show makes a series of interesting choices. It tells a tragic story, but in broad comic …
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 03:04PMFriday, March 31, 2017
Rob Ruggiero regularly directs musicals at the Goodspeed and The Muny in St. Louis. Why would he see the need to bring one to the small-staged, low-ceiling, acoustically complicated TheaterW…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 03:24PMThursday, March 30, 2017
Carol Burnett is all ears. Including the one she liked to tug at the end of her popular TV variety show. The legendary comedian shares stories and video clips from her six decades on stage a…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 10:05AMIt sings "Leave, Leave" but happily it doesn't. "Once — The Musical" has been in Connecticut four times, and here comes a fifth. The show is based on the 2007 John Carney film that won a b…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:34AMThe host: "For this next routine, we'll need a location, a style of performance and, hmmm, the name of an established Hartford comedy ensemble." The crowd: "Spotlight Cinemas! Improv Comedy!…
SOURCE: Hartford Courant at 09:30AM 
