The International Festival of Arts & Ideas usually waits until February or March to announce its full schedule, but two theater events are being ballyhooed early, both courtesy of the National Theatre of Scotland.
The bigger deal is the American premiere of “Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour” at the New Haven festival. The raucous play-with-music about “singing, sex and sambuca” was adapted by Lee Hall (who did the scripts for both the movie and musical versions of “Billy Elliot”) from a book by Alan Warner. It was a hit at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in the same city where the show happens to be set. “Our Ladies” is about a convent school choir from a small seaside town cutting loose on a road trip to a big city choral competition.
The NTS is also bringing back one of its signature shows, “The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart,” the lively yet intimate, folklore-based adventure that was performed in and around large audiences at New Haven’s Russian Lady pub at Arts & Ideas in 2012.
The 2016 fest happens June 11-25. Tickets for the National Theatre of Scotland shows are already on sale, at artidea.org.
Playhouse On Bookstore
If you’re shopping at the Barnes and Noble stores in Manchester, West Hartford and Canton on Saturday, Dec. 12, tell the cashier the magic voucher ID number “11673621” with a dramatic flourish and behold! —10 percent to 20 percent of what you spend will be donated to West Hartford’s much-deserving Playhouse on Park theater. You can also use the number online Dec. 12-17. And if you want to just hand the theater some money directly, Playhouse on Park supporters will be gift-wrapping books for tips at those aforementioned three B&N stores Saturday, Dec. 12, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Cabaret Consciousness-Raising
Best place to find politic theater in the winter months? The Yale Cabaret, run by students at the Yale School of Drama, ended its fall semester Dec. 5 with an update of Aeschylus’ “The Oresteia,” retitled “Boris Yeltsin.” (The Yale School of Drama is doing a whole other “Oresteia,” using the Ted Hughes translation, Dec. 12-18.) The opening show of the Cabaret’s spring semester, running Jan. 14-16, will be Josh Wilder’s “Salt Pepper Ketchup,” about a South Philadelphia neighborhood that has become a small-business battle zone due to gentrification. The rest of the YaleCab season will be decided over the winter break. Details at yalecabaret.org.
‘Bullets!’ Off Broadway
Last year’s Yale Rep world premiere of “These Paper Bullets!” went so well that its perpetrators (including playwright Rolin Jones, director Jackson Gay and actor Adam O’Byrne, who were Yale School of Drama classmates in the early ’00s) formed their own theater company, New Neighborhood. “These Paper Bullets!” was revived for a Los Angeles run, and now it’s at the Atlantic Theater Company in the Chelsea section of New York City, currently in previews, with Dec. 15 scheduled as opening night. “These Paper Bullets” recasts Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” as ’60s Beatlemania, with fab original pop songs by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Most of the folks involved with the show at Yale are still with it, the main exceptions being Justin Kirk and Nicole Parker as Ben and Bea, the “TPB” version of Benedick and Beatrice in “Much Ado.” Details at atlantictheater.org. Jackson Gay continues to direct regularly at the Rep; she did “Elevada” there last season and is staging the world premiere of Jen Silverman’s “The Moors” there Jan. 29 to Feb. 20.
Victor Maog And Egg Nog
Victor Maog, director of the current Connecticut Repertory Theatre production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” (closing Dec. 13 at UConn’s Nafe Katter Theatre) was featured in the October issue of American Theatre magazine as one of “20 Theatre Workers You Should Know.” Maog, the artistic director of the New York-based Second Generation Productions, is cited for infusing his projects with cultural diversity, and for “winning the hearts and minds of audiences 18-40 years of age.” CRT’s “Twelfth Night” reportedly has a special Christmassy feel, with the denizens of Illyria belting out carols. Featured players include Andrew Ramcharan Guilarte as Malvolio, and, as jolly Sir Toby, UConn alum Richard Ruiz, who appeared in “My Fair Lady” and “Man of La Mancha” at the theater, has also done a couple of shows at Yale Rep and has a long Off Broadway resume. Details at crt.uconn.edu.
