This weekend, the “glamorously witty” Tony Award winner, TV and film actor Laura Benanti will perform her one-woman show (which includes longtime musical director and collaborator Todd Almond) at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA. Theater Mirror’s Mike Hoban spoke with Laura to learn more about her and what audiences can expect at ‘An Evening with Laura Benanti’. The show spans two nights and limited tickets were still available at press time. For tickets and information, go to: https://theumbrellaarts.org/performing-arts/concerts
Peter J. Fogel, the actor and standup comedian is coming to town to perform Steve Solomon’s “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish, I’m Home for Holidays!”, a role he’s enacted, in one form or another, from South Florida to Trinity Rep in Providence. The one-man show will run from December 8 through the 19th at the Arlington Regent Theater. Theater Mirror spoke to Peter from his home in Florida.
Theater Mirror: Tell us a little bit about the show.
Peter: The character I play is on his way home for the holidays and ends up stuck at Atlanta-Hatfield Airport, with relatives complaining and freaking out over the telephone. I play 25 different characters in about two hours. I think it’s a show that a lot of people can relate to. Generational boomers love it because they have to take care of their elderly parents. The play takes family dysfunction and makes people laugh about it.
The tour of Cirque Dreams’ Holidaze will make a stop at the Boch Center the weekend of December 10-12. The Broadway-style musical, inspired by the ‘Nutcracker’ ballet, is infused with over 20 contemporary circus artists and features over 300 costumes as ballerinas, snowmen, penguins, reindeer, ethereal aerialists, gingerbread people, carolers and colossal ornaments fly, balance, and juggle around a Christmas-themed storyline. The show also features Broadway singers performing renditions of holiday classics as well as original music.
Theater Mirror had the chance to speak with aerialist Hana Bible, the lead in the show, who is making her debut with Cirque Dreams as Clara, the young girl from the story of the ‘Nutcracker’.
THEATER MIRROR: When did you first get involved in performing?
HANA: I’ve been a performer since I was very young, and the story is actually pretty ironic. I started as a dancer, and the reason I started dancing was because I wanted to play the role of Clara in the Nutcracker. I started dancing ballet when I was six, but when I was old enough to play the role (typically around age 12) I wasn’t cast because I tended to play the parts that usually went to boys because I was athletic and could tumble and leap. I was actually cast as the Nutcracker instead, because at my dance studio the role called for an athletic performer. So from the time I was 11 until the age of 18 I was the Nutcracker. Eventually I aged out of the opportunity, but I was in love with dancing by that point, so I just kept going. I moved to LA (from San Francisco) to go to college, and after I graduated, I went back to dancing because it was my first love. I was doing hip-hop and modern dance but it was for the love – it was mostly unpaid. Then I got a few professional dancing jobs, got an agent and began auditioning for TV shows and commercials and musical theater. A few years in, I realized I needed to expand my horizons as a performer, and I began to get into the circus arts, primarily the aerial silks.
(This interview originally appeared in the Jewish Journal)
When Igor Golyak, founder and artistic director of Needham’s Arlekin Players Theatre, was researching “The Merchant of Venice,” he was smacked in the face by the discovery that Jews have been on the move throughout the span of their existence.
Their constant migration reminded him of his own family, which emigrated in 2004 from Ukraine.
Then, on July 1, Brighton Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed. Golyak attended a meeting with other Jewish refugees and he remembers someone asking, “Where do we go now?”
“My family came here to escape antisemitism. What I suddenly understood is that there is no escaping antisemitism,” Golyak said.
Guy Ben-Aharon and his family left their home country of Israel and moved to Boston when he was nine. After a gap year in Spain before college, he returned to study at Emerson, and while there, founded the Israeli Stage Company. The Return by Hanna Eady and Edward Mast, a human story of the desires of a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a Jewish Israeli, marks the last play of the company’s final season. With two of Boston’s best actors – Nael Nacer and Philana Mia – in the lead roles and Ben-Aharon directing, The Return promises to be another groundbreaking and thought provoking production. Family, friends, and fans may be reassured to know that Ben-Aharon is not leaving Boston, nor his life as a theater artist behind, but is creating a new venture that promises a bold return.
On a snowy Sunday morning, I sat down with Sara Porkalob, storyteller and creator of the Dragon Cycle, being
presented at the American Repertory Theater Oberon Theater until April 7. We had an inspirational and rambling chat where we
talked about importance of a loving family, our shared Filipino-American
heritage, the process of writing, and about creating the type of theater that
reflects your values. She may have also given me tips on where to find the
perfect lip color.
(Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass in ‘Happy Hour’)
By Mike Hoban
‘Happy Hour’ – Presented by Celebrity Series of Boston and Monica Bill Barnes & Company, March 12-16, District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue in Boston’s Seaport. All performances at 6 p.m. with a Friday 8:30 PM show added to accommodate additional demandTickets available at www.celebrityseries.org.
Celebrity
Series of Boston will bring back Monica Bill Barnes & Company to Boston with their two-woman dance/comedy piece, Happy
Hour, an immersive show that promises to “blend cringe-worthy humor with
socially awkward empathy in an after-work get-together.” Part office
party, part dance show, and part karaoke event, performers Monica Bill Barnes
and Anna Bass, dressed in men’s suits, crash an office party playing two utterly
feckless would-be alpha males who attempt to seduce
their way through the office happy hour. The performance is preceded by a 30
minute pre-show warmup hosted by Robbie Saenz de Viteri, who serves as
MC for the event. Happy Hour features
a potpourri of American dance styles – jazz, theater dance, tap and a bit of
ballet and modern for good measure – along with a massive dose of broad
physical humor. Theater Mirror caught up with Barnes
and Saenz de Viteri by phone as they prepared for the upcoming
performance March 12-16 at District Hall in the Seaport.
“Broadway @ the Huntington” series – Performance by Chita Rivera and hosted by Seth Rudetsky. Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston, October 13, at 5 and 8 p.m. Produced by Mark Cortale Productions.
By all accounts, you can call him Mr. Broadway. A multi-hyphenate, who always enjoys what he does, Seth Rudetsky will be spinning his magic in “Broadway @ the Huntington,” when he acts as host and music director for the ten-time Tony nominee and three time Tony Award-winning actress, singer, dancer Chita Rivera, who will perform hits from her vast musical theater repertoire Saturday, at the Calderwood Pavilion, in two shows, at 5 and 8 p.m.
