On Tuesday and Wednesday, May 3 and 4, various parts of the state are participating in 36-hour charity events where non-profit organizations ask en masse for donations, with incentives and prizes for the organizations who raise the most.
In Greater New Haven and the Lower Naugatuck Valley, it’s the “Great Give,” which begins 8 a.m. on Tuesday, May 3 and ends at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 4. In Greater Waterbury and Litchfield Hills it’s “Give Local,” starting and ending an hour earlier (7 p.m.) on the same days. For more details on the “Give” drives are available at thegreatgive.org and givelocalccf.org.
In honor of “Give Local,” the Waterbury-based educational theater troupe Shakesperience is holding a free 36-hour “Shakespeare-a-thon” of performances, readings, workshops, discussions and more at the Shakesperience space, 117 Bank St., Waterbury. From midnight to 4 a.m., you can participate in an open reading of all Shakespeare’s sonnets. Writers other than the bard are represented as well, with children’s productions of Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper” and Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” Details at shakesperienceproductions.org. When not indulging in free Shakespeare antics, please give generously to a deserving non-profit arts organization.
Dream Director
Tina Packer, the founder of the landmark Berkshires theater Shakespeare & Company, will direct “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for the Elm Shakespeare Company — in Edgerton Park in New Haven. The majority of Elm Shakespeare shows over the company’s first two decades were directed by its founding artistic director, James Andreassi.
The new ESC leader, Rebecca Goodheart, is taking more of a producer-like role as she settles in, though she has considerable directing experience herself. Goodheart and Andreassi both studied with Packer, and Packer performed her one-woman show “Women of Will” last month at Southern Connecticut State University (where Elm Shakespeare is now officially a “theater in residence”) as a fundraiser for the company.
King Ferdinand And King Richard
The Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, a summer program through which an ensemble acting company is formed to create outdoor public presentations of two Shakespeare plays, will be doing “Love’s Labour’s Lost” and “Richard III” this year. The performances are held from July 31 to Aug. 7 on the grounds of the old American Shakespeare Festival Theater. Details at shakespeareacademystratford.org.
R.I.P.
Madeleine Sherwood, who died April 23 at the age of 93, was a Yale School of Drama grad. Her imdb.com biography notes that she was “a frequent guest of composer Richard Rodgers and wife Dorothy at their grand Fairfield County, Connecticut estate, Rockmeadow. She was in the original cast of “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” which world-premiered at New Haven’s Shubert in 1965. She was in the Broadway premieres of several Tennessee Williams plays. She also played the Mother Superior to Sally Field’s “Flying Nun” on that singular ’60s sitcom.
Hi, Chita
With new productions of “Bye Bye Birdie” at the Goodspeed June 24 through Sept. 4 and “West Side Story” at Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s Nutmeg Summer Series July 7 to 17, you might wonder what Chita Rivera — who was in the original Broadway casts of both those shows — is up to. The legendary singer/dancer, now 83 years old, just wrapped up a two-week engagement of her cabaret act at New York’s Cafe Carlyle.
On Nov. 20, her solo concert event “Chita: A Legendary Celebration,” will be at the Ridgefield Playhouse.
‘We Will Become A Screaming Horde!’
Audiences are used to signs in theater lobbies alerting them to the use of strobe lights, gunshots or cigarette smoke in the show they’re about to see. The lobby posters at The Bushnell for the national tour of “Matilda” (which runs through Sunday) warn of attitudes and accents. “In Matilda Wormwood’s world,” a fancy placard reads, “there are some awful adults who refer to children not so endearingly as ‘maggots.’ The adults don’t fare much better, with the children calling them ‘assorted fools,’ ‘idiots’ and ‘nincompoops.’ And they all speak lightning-fast with British accents.
“If you’d like to enhance your appreciation of Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin’s award-winning book and lyrics, please review the lyrics provided here before the curtain goes up.”
Underneath the sign is a box of papers containing the lyrics for the “Matilda” songs “Miracle,” “School Song,” “Bruce,” “When I Grow Up” and “Revolting Children.”
Of course, if none of this perturbs you, or (like so many of the adults in “Matilda”) you hate reading, you can buy a “CHILDREN ARE MAGGOTS” T-shirt from the merchandise booth.
‘Once’ Below
Members of the current tour of “Once,” which played New Haven’s Shubert Theatre in January, created a fun five-minute mockumentary, “The Understudies of ‘Once,'” about the anxieties “swing performers” on tours experience when they are suddenly summoned to take over a role. “The Understudies of ‘Once’” can be found on YouTube.
Llama Drama
Ever on the lookout for where the next rock musicals will emerge: The new album by the British pop band High Llamas (who’ve made a long career out of duplicating the feel of “Pet Sounds”-era Beach Boys) is actually the soundtrack for a play by High Llamas head honcho Sean O’Hagan. “Here Come the Rattling Trees” is being staged in London in late May.
Not Coming To A Theater Near You
With New London’s Garde Arts Center being the only big “presentation house” that hasn’t yet announced its 2016-17 “Broadway” series yet, we can safely start wondering which nationally touring musicals aren’t coming to Connecticut next season.
National tours of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “The Bridges of Madison County,” “Cabaret” (the Roundabout Theatre Company revival, starring Randy Harrison), “Bullets Over Broadway” and “Buddy — The Buddy Holly Story” aren’t currently announced for Connecticut stages.
One musical that has already been in Connecticut twice, and shows no signs of diminishing in popularity, is “Book of Mormon.” It will return to The Bushnell Feb. 14 to 19 outside of the regular Broadway subscription season.
