The Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University has announced its 2106-17 season. It opens Sept. 9 with two performances (at 5:30 and 6:30 p.m.) of the dance/movement troupe Bandaloop, which uses buildings, bridges, billboards and other outdoor structures for its ascending-and-plunging artistry.
On Sept. 16 and 17, the Quick Center presents the Southern African troupe Third World Bunfight with the U.S. premiere of director Brett Bailey’s radical reworking of Verdi’s opera “Macbeth.” Following the Fairfield engagement, “Macbeth” goes to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and then to France.
Other season highlights include humorist P.J. O’Rourke giving a talk with a “Caution Before Voting!” theme Sept. 22; the Vertigo Dance Company Nov. 4; Pilobolus’ new show “Shadowland” Feb. 4; the movement troupe Diavolo’s “Architecture in Motion” Feb. 12; the Yale-founded So Percussion ensemble’s conceptual music concert “A Gun Show” March 2; Adele Myers & Dancers with “The Dancing Room” March 7 to 9; and Christine Jones’ interactive performance piece Theater for One (which involves one performer and one audience member sharing a very intimate performance space) March 22 to 24. Also: the Russian National Ballet’s “Cinderella” March 29; and the story-based performance “War Stories — A Veterans Project” March 31 and April 1.
The center’s Family Fun series consists of a stage version of “Where the Wild Things Are” Nov. 20, the history-themed “Rock the Presidents” Jan. 22 and a puppet-based “The Little Prince” April 23. The Quick Center also has lots of lectures and classical concerts, and will continue to screen the New York Metropolitan Opera’s “Live in HD” broadcasts. Details (including subscription deals) at 203-254-4010, quickcenter.com
Reasons To Subscribe
Inundated with subscription deals for Connecticut theaters? So subscribe already. The 2016-17 starts this week at The Bushnell with the national tour of “If/Then.” Most other theaters start up in September or October.
Match the Connecticut theater with its marketing slogan:
1. Theater so close you can feel it.
2. Theater Worth Smiling About.
3. The best theater. Period.
4. Daring artists. Bold choices. Adventurous audiences.
5. Don’t miss a moment.
(Answers: 1. TheaterWorks. 2. Westport Country Playhouse. 3. Hartford Stage. 4. Yale Repertory Theatre. 5. Long Wharf Theatre)
They Did ‘The Butler’
Westport Country Playhouse has announced a cool cast for its forthcoming production of Joe Orton’s hip ’60s farce “What the Butler Saw,” which will be slamming its doors Aug. 23 through Sept. 10.
Robert Stanton will be the lascivious psychiatrist Dr. Prentice, with Sarah Manton (the hapless audience plant from Broadway’s “One Man, Two Guvnors”) as the object of his revolting affections, Geraldine Barclay. Patricia Kalember plays the doctor’s wife. The crusading Dr. Rance is played by the eminent actor Paxton Whitehead.
Chris Ghaffari—Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet” at Hartford Stage this past season — will play the blackmailing hooligan Nicholas Beckett. There is no casting announcement regarding a central part in the show: Winston Churchill’s penis.
This is a fine cast for an Orton play, the theater’s biggest coup was getting John Tillinger to direct.
WCP Artistic Director Mark Lamos told me he had already put “What the Butler Saw” on the 2016-17 when Tillinger noticed the choice and asked if a director had been chosen yet. Who could say no to Tillinger, who was single handedly responsible for the major Joe Orton revival off-Broadway in the 1980s, with well-received productions of “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” in 1981, “Loot” in 1986 and “What the Butler Saw” in 1989? The director had a strong presence in the Connecticut theater realm, as a consultant and frequent director at the Long Wharf Theatre from the mid-1970s through the late 1990s.
Tillinger also directed “What the Butler Saw” in October 2014 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, with Manton and Whitehead in the same roles they’ll play at Westport. Whitehead and Manton both appeared in “Bedroom Farce” at WCP last year.
Comic Book Theater
There were apparently some theatrical moments at the San Diego Comic-Con last week. There was a panel discussion devoted to “Once More With Feeling,” the musical theater episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” (I once saw that episode staged live at Yale.) At another panel, members of the cast of the superhero series “Arrow” sang the song “You’ll Be Back” from “Hamilton” in its entirety.
In other pop culture crossovers, it was exciting for those of us who are both theater junkies and comic book geeks to see the sinister song-and-dance routine “I’m Looney” fully orchestrated and choreographed in the new full-length animated adaptation of the classic Batman graphic novel “The Killing Joke.” The lyrics come from Alan Moore’s original for the comic. The score is by Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion and Lolita Ritmanis.
“The Killing Joke” was released on video July 26 after a night of special cinema screenings July 25. At the Regal Cinemas showing I caught in Waterbury, the audience seemed spellbound by “Looney,” but booed and jeered at the scene (not found in the graphic novel) where Batgirl and Batman have sex.
Pre-Show Announcement Of The Week
“We do not use microphones. It is not because we can’t afford them. It is because we don’t like what they do to the human voice. … If you can’t hear, move up closer!”
— Director Michael Nowicki at Capital Classics’ Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival’s outdoor production of “Othello.”
