Articles tagged with: American Theater Company
‘Bruise Easy’ at American Theater: Miserable siblings recall childhood with Mommy dearest
Review: There’s a critical difference between a play that is intensely provocative and one that is essentially an unfinished puzzle. Dan LeFranc’s “Bruise Easy,” now in its world premiere run at American Theater Company, falls into the latter category. It is a tale fraught with sex and monosyllables, signifying we know not what. ★★
Theater 2015-16: Remembering PJ Paparelli, American Theater Co. maps ‘Legacy Season’
22nd in a series of season previews: Two world premieres lead off an American Theater Company season dedicated to the memory of PJ Paparelli, the ensemble’s visionary artistic director who died last May after an automobile accident in Scotland. Thomas Bradshaw’s new play “Fulfillment,” about a successful African-American lawyer whose world gets flipped on its head, opens the season. It will be followed by the premiere of “Bruise Easy,” Dan LeFranc’s play about an adult brother and sister whose meeting at their childhood home offers a chance to iron out old issues.
Theater 2015-16: With premieres, A Red Orchid takes pursuit of life on the edge to new realms
21st in a series of season previews: A Red Orchid Theatre opens its 23rd season with Brett Neveu’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” one of two world premieres during 2015-16. It burrows into layers of conflict within a family gathered for Thanksgiving dinner. “It’s brutal and hilarious,” says artistic director Kirsten Fitzgerald, “and it’s the kind of play this company identifies with. We absolutely explore the poetry of life on the edge.”
New York Aisle: In Kimberly Senior’s Broadway view of ‘Disgraced,’ a man’s long fall is crushing
Review: Before hitting Broadway, Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” bounded from its starting point at American Theater Company in Chicago to a run at Lincoln Center in New York. All three stagings have been the work of Chicago-based director Kimberly Senior, and the sequence has displayed a steady sharpening of her perspective, an ever firmer grasp on the conflict and torment that push the play and pull its anti-heroic protagonist toward inexorable ruin. The latest incarnation, at New York’s Lyceum Theatre, is nothing short of devastating. ★★★★★
Theater 2013-14: Fantasy ‘Old Man, Old Moon’ opens Writers’ season; new home draws near
Ninth in a series of season previews: As artistic director Michael Halberstam began putting together the 2013-14 season at Writers’ Theatre with associate artistic director Stuart Carden, one coincidence seemed too good to be true: Halberstam’s right-hand man had been the teacher, at Carnegie-Mellon University, of an eclectic group of seven buddies called the PigPen Theatre Co., who were the buzz of Greenwich Village for their folksy fable called “The Old Man and the Old Moon.” The charming off-Broadway saga now comes to Writers’.
ATC and About Face hang fresh ‘Rent’ sign on a production of street-level intimacy, energy
Musical classic, new again. 4 stars!
‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ and a wonderful night when ATC revisits ‘radio’ parable of faith
Capra’s film as oldie broadcast. 4 stars!
Role Playing: Sadieh Rifai zips among seven characters in one-woman ‘Amish Project’
Interview: Actor Sadieh Rifai thought Jessica’s Dickey’s play “The Amish Project,” at American Theater Company, would be a pretty straight-forward one-woman show. The plays is based on the 2006 shooting of 10 school girls in Pennsylvania. Rifai would be switching among seven characters, but she didn’t see that as a big deal. She was in for a big surprise.
After slaughter and heartbreak, radiant grace
Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project,” echoes of a massacre at ATC. 5 stars!
