Women’s Theatre Festival: Occupy the Stage Saturday, July 30–Sunday, July 31 Umstead Park United Church of Christ Staged readings are hardly the most glamorous side of live theater. Production values are thin—other than a clump of music stands to hold the actors’ scripts, there’s usually little or no set. Though the actors may have dressed […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inCulture
Theater Review: Three Shakespeare Plays Are Pared Down to a Ninety-Minute Game of Dramatic Chess in Henry VI
Henry VI: The War of the Roses★★★ Through Aug. 7 Stephenson Amphitheatre, Raleigh I wish I could just fast-forward through the rest of this election. So it’s understandable if Lucinda Danner Gainey, director of Bare Theatre and Raleigh Little Theatre’s coproduction of Shakespeare’s Henry VI, feels the same way about the War of the Roses. […]
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Paperhand Puppet Intervention’s The Beautiful Beast Makes Merry With Monsters of Myth and Memory
THE BEAUTIFUL BEAST Friday, Aug. 5–Sunday, Sept. 5, free–$15 Forest Theatre, Chapel Hill As monsters go, The Skrawk is a curious sight. It’s an overinflated emu with extra bitsa neck that telescopes from a couple of inches to a couple of feet, and inquisitive, intelligent eyes set above a yellow triangular beak. Its feathers are […]
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Theater Review: Honest Pint Theatre’s Uncut Hamlet Is Worth Its Daunting Girth
Hamlet★★★★ Through July 31 Leggett Theatre, William Peace University Something was rotten—or clearly amiss, at least—as I topped the second-floor staircase outside Leggett Theatre at Peace University last Saturday night. Aisles of chairs were set out for mourners as an exquisitely dressed party conversed, perhaps a bit too convivially, near a coffin draped with the […]
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I Wish You a Boat Saves Its Sympathy for Those in Steerage During a Fateful Shipwreck
I WISH YOU A BOAT Through Aug. 28Ward Theatre Company, Durham Brian Eno’s ambient Music for Airports might seem like a musical non sequitur, placed against the eerie slow-motion pantomime of a shipwreck in Ward Theatre Company’s I Wish You a Boat. On the main deck, the champagne-fueled flirtations of a wealthy young couple are […]
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Can the Women’s Theatre Festival Fix Local Stages’ Longstanding Gender Problem in a Month?
WOMEN’S THEATRE FESTIVAL: OCCUPY THE STAGE 8:30 a.m. July 30–8:30 a.m. July 31, $5 Umstead Park United Church of Christ, Raleigh At a North Raleigh restaurant, producer Ashley Popio is ticking off the milestones of an ambitious new theater festival launching this weekend. It all came together in a few months, after Popio reached out […]
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Embark on a Timely Voyage Into Immigration Issues in I Wish You a Boat
I WISH YOU A BOAT Saturday, July 9–Sunday, August 28, $25 Ward Theatre Company, Durham Director Wendy Ward clearly remembers the moment that sparked her company’s upcoming play, I Wish You a Boat. It was in a New York classroom in 2005. As one of Ward’s students traced her ancestors’ journeys to North America during […]
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The Insane Logistics of Producing the Short-Play Festival 10 by 10 in the Triangle
10 BY 10 IN THE TRIANGLE Friday, July 8–Sunday, July 24, $16-$18 The ArtsCenter, Carrboro Imagine a producer convincing a regional director to take on a script that neither of them has read for a show both already know will sell out. The director must also forfeit control in selecting the cast, which the producer […]
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Evaluating Bare Theatre’s Experiment in Free Public Shakespeare on the Eve of Its Final Show
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA Thursday, June 30, 8 p.m., free Mystery Brewing Public House, Hillsborough Setting a production outdoors is an act of theatrical bravery that places both actors and audiences at the tender mercies of wildlife, weather, and aviation. Bare Theatre raised those already elevated stakes by placing its current Shakespearean tour in conspicuously […]
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Theater Review: Patrick Torres Finds a Fresh Take on an American Classic, The Glass Menagerie, at Raleigh Little Theatre
The Glass Menagerie★★★★ Through June 26 Raleigh Little Theatre, Raleigh They’re conventions of theater criticism: no spoilers, and please, don’t give away the end. But my hand is forced when it comes to Raleigh Little Theatre’s production of The Glass Menagerie, since the conclusions artistic director Patrick Torres reaches are the most noteworthy element of […]