Hartford Stage’s current offering, August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” may be set in the 1930s, but the theater lobby is in the here and now. Special displays on some of the tables outside the auditorium have racks of voter registration forms and reminders that Election Day, Nov. 8, is nigh. A “Register to Vote” poster features a photo of actor John Ort holding a small American flag in Hartford Stage’s 2006 production of Tennessee Williams’ “Summer and Smoke.”
Patriotic impulses come easily to the theater: Last year, Hartford Stage staged “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years,” in which the two title characters recalled the first time they were allowed to vote, following the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. “The Piano Lesson” discusses slavery and Jim Crow laws. For voting information in Connecticut, visit sots.ct.gov.
Woman Of ‘La Mancha’
“Man of La Mancha,” the venerable musical that had its premiere at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1965, is getting a gender-switching workshop in Toronto thanks to frequent Goodspeed director Gordon Greenberg (“Holiday Inn,” “Band Geeks,” “Pirates!,” “The Baker’s Wife”). This version of the impossible-dream show based on Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” has an all-female cast and is set in a women’s prison.
Lamos In Good Company
Mark Lamos, the artistic director of Westport Country Playhouse (not to mention artistic director of Hartford Stage from 1980-97) was presented with The Acting Company’s John Houseman Award at a gala held at New York’s Metropolitan Club Oct. 17. The event was hosted by Stephen DeRosa (“Anything Goes” at Goodspeed, “These Paper Bullets!” at Yale Rep). Lamos has directed shows for The Acting Company regularly for decades, including Constance Congdon’s 1986 adaptation of the Mark Twain/Charles Dudley Warner novel “The Gilded Age,” which was co-produced with Hartford Stage. The Westport Playhouse is closing out its 2016 season with the Lamos-directed “Camelot.”
Community Theater On The Air
I am a longtime fan of the popular British soap opera “The Archers.” Broadcast by the BBC since 1951, the show (which airs six 13-minute episodes a week) is easily available as a podcast. An old espisode of “The Archers” inspired Frank Marcus’ 1964 play “The Killing of Sister George,” which the Long Wharf Theatre revived in 2012 starring Kathleen Turner.
Every year, the small farming village of Ambridge (where title characters from “The Archers” have a farm) put on a community theater show. These are always a hoot, whether the choice is a Shakespearean revue, a well-known comedy (recent “Archers” stagings of “Calendar Girls” and “Blithe Spirit” were recorded in their entirety and aired as BBC radio drama specials) or, as seems to be the case this year, a “holiday panto.” The planned Ambridge production of “Cinderella” has just survived the casting process and is heading into rehearsals. The show-within-a-show is good for weeks of mirth-filled subplots. This is my favorite time of the Ambridge year.
The Sounds Of ‘Polkadots’
“Polkadots — The Cool Kids Musical” was given a concert staging in New York last week in honor of the release of the show’s soundtrack album. One of the show’s creators, Douglas Lyons, grew up in New Haven, where he attended Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School and Hill Regional Career High School. “Polkadots,” a musical which teaches children about segregation and other civil rights themes, was produced at the Ivoryton Playhouse earlier this year. The album can be bought through Amazon or iTunes.
‘Sagittarius’ Rising
Wesleyan and Yale School of Drama grad MJ Kaufman’s forest-set drama “Sagittarius Ponderosa” was staged at the YSD’s Carlotta Festival in 2013. The play is getting its off-Broadway debut this month, with an all-Asian cast, through Nov. 19 at the 3LD space on Greenwich Street in New York City, thanks to the National Asian American Theater Company. Details at naatco.org.
Trick Or Treat
What’s your costume for Halloween? A “Hamilton” costume is as close as Etsy, or you can trick up an old-school “Aristocrat” or “Colonial Man” outfit easily found at a pop-up Halloween store. If you’re a “Finding Neverland” or “Peter and the Starcatcher” fan, Peter Pan costumes come in “sassy” and “sexy” versions as well as the more classic lost-boy variety. There’s a whole line of “Rocky Horror” outfits out there, from Dr. Frank N. Furter to Riff Raff to Magenta to Columbia. Just don’t Google “Cats Halloween”: not only do the costumes out there not reflect the new revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/T.S. Eliot hit, you’ll be inundated with images of real kitties looking uncomfortable in witches’ hats and devils’ horns.
Wells, Welles And Twain
Capitol Classics has added some local content to its “broadcast” of “The War of the Worlds” at the Mark Twain House & Museum Oct. 28 to 30. Besides the golden-age-of-radio-style staging of the Howard Koch adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel (the basis for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre crowd-thrilling broadcast/sociology experiment of 1938), Capitol Classics is presenting its own radio version of the Mark Twain short story “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut.” Shows are 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28 and 29, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 30. 860-247-0998, marktwainhouse.org.
