Fourteen years ago this summer, at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Robert Lopez thought his career might be over before it had started. The first public reading of "Avenue Q,…
The issue-driven local modern dance company TNMOT AZTRO performed the first installment of "Black Boy Jungle" last year at Town & Country Club. Part Two is now ready, and debuting at the sam…
"In my cabaret show," the legendary Chita Rivera reminisces, "I talk about seeing a poster for 'Bye Bye Birdie,' then a bus driving by with a sign on it for 'West Side Story,' and thinking "…
"Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres," wrote Shakespeare. In the summer, numerous Connecticut theater companies invoke the Bard of Avon at outdoor shows. Artfarm's Shakespear…
David Greig is known to Connecticut audiences as the writer of the National Theatre of Scotland's internationally touring production of the creepy, boozy odyssey "The Strange Undoing of Prud…
In "Anastasia " The Musical," a Russian princess takes a trip from St. Petersburg to Paris. Now the show itself is assured an adventurous journey of its own " leaping from Hartford Stage to …
We're already onto the third, and biggest, of the four prestigious "conference" workshop retreats at the bucolic Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Writers prepare their new projects with the as…
When Conrad Birdie sings "You've got to be sincere" to his adoring fans, he's not being sincere. The Elvis Presley-esque heartthrob is swiveling his hips and curling his lip in a cool, calcu…
Middletown's Wesleyan University has created the Hamilton Prize for Creativity, a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to be awarded to an "incoming student (beginning in the class of 2021) w…
You know something's gone a little wild in the world when both Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil pull into downtown Hartford. Make the most of the altered sensory perceptions. Blue Man Gro…
The 2016 International Festival of Arts & Ideas in downtown New Haven comes with plentiful musical accompaniment. After 21 years, Arts & Ideas has this whole festival thing down to a science…
The International Festival of Arts & Ideas has always boasted that the vast majority of its offerings are free. This year, that includes: >>Headline concerts on New Haven Green by George Cli…
"Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour" is about a group of rural Scottish schoolgirls who get a chance to run down the avenues of the big city of Edinburgh, on a weekend trip to a national singin…
"The Roar of the Greasepaint " The Smell of the Crowd." The very title of this 1964 cult musical by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse would seem to disparage theater audiences. But director…
"It's NOT my life by the way. Thanks for not asking that." Eleanor Bergstein explains how she went about turning her screenplay for the classic romance "Dirty Dancing" into a stage show. "I …
Connecticut-based (and beyond) dance and theater companies are on the move this summer. The Evjen Academy of Performing Arts Studio Showcase, offering "a spectrum of dance styles" June 3 and…
"Summer's lease hath all too short a date," according to a Shakespeare sonnet. The Bard of Avon is well represented on the summer theater schedule, but so are many contemporary playwrights a…
Jenn Thompson has plenty of reasons to feel good about directing "The Call" at TheaterWorks. It's about family issues that are close to her heart. It brings her back to Connecticut, where sh…
In 2002, the American Film Institute surveyed "a blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community" and declared Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" to be the funnie…
Whose Paris is it, anyway? Alfred Uhry, the playwright and screenwriter, has driven Miss Daisy, abetted the Robber Bridegroom, served Mystic Pizza and shaken up Angel Reapers. Now, at Long W…
"Anastasia" lives! The irresistible 20th-century legend of a young princess who escapes execution at the hands of Russian revolutionaries, then finds adventure and romance in Paris, has been…
The Westport Country Playhouse's 2016 season opens with a colorful blend of two modern plays about modern art. The shows have separate casts and are performed on different days. "Art," the i…
The Carlotta Festival of New Plays at Yale is nigh " May 6 through 14 at the university's Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St., New Haven. That means it's the end of the school year as well. The …
When the Irish dance sensation "Riverdance" first came to these shores 20 years ago, it played the vast concert stage at the Oakdale in Wallingford. It took several years of touring before t…
Dianne Wiest is waist-deep in work. The award-winning star of stage, screen and (soon) a sitcom, she's tackling the taxing, intractable role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days." The c…