Tag: Playmakers
The Fairest of Ladies
PlayMakers Repertory Company once again has produced a spectacular performance in their rendition of the classic My Fair Lady. It is clear that the cast was chosen carefully not only to portray each character perfectly, but also to display a unique chemistry between themselves. Mia Pinero performed splendidly in her PlayMakers debut, her voice alone… Read More ›
PlayMakers Rep’s De Profundis Is a Work-in-Progress That Might Just Be "Your Cup of Tea"
PlayMakers Repertory Company’s PRC2 series is hosting a new work this weekend: De Profundis, co-created by Brian Mertes and Jim Findlay, directed by Mertes, designed by Findlay, and performed by Nicole Villamil. This piece would be more aptly referred to as “performance art,” rather than a “play.” It chronicles a performer’s attempts to approach a… Read More ›
PlayMakers Repertory Company’s De Profundis Is Unquestionably a Work-in-Progress
1897. A Prison in Berkshire, England. Solitary Confinement. Oscar Wilde writes a letter — 80 pages over 80 days — to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. 1905. Oscar Wilde has been dead for five years. A former lover, Robbie Ross, has the letter published. He assigns it the title De Profundis (Latin for “From the… Read More ›
Brian Mertes and Jim Findlay Will Workshop De Profundis on Jan. 11-15 at PlayMakers Rep
On Jan. 11-15, PlayMakers Repertory Company will present a PRC2 workshop production of De Profundis, an original play co-conceived by director Brian Mertes and designer Jim Findlay and starring Nicole Villamil, in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre in the University of North Carolina’s Center for Dramatic Art. De Profundis, which is Latin for “from the… Read More ›
Tell The Tale of Sweeney Todd
“…The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” wails a corralled cast of characters to the crowd, breaking from the performance at various points. The haunting melody describes a murderous barber and his quest for vengeance, all the whilst compiling a body count of those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the barber’s chair of Sweeney Todd,… Read More ›
PlayMakers announces casting for ‘Sweeney Todd’
Broadway’s David St. Louis & Annie Golden to head Sondheim musical (Chapel Hill, N.C.—March 4, 2016) PlayMakers Repertory Company announces casting of the lead roles for its upcoming production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” to be presented March 30-April 23. David St. Louis will play bloodthirsty barber Sweeney Todd…. Read More ›
Strong Performances Can’t Save Rebeck’s Bland “Seminar” Script
Imagine the most intense teacher you’ve ever had, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Leonard (Ray Dooley), one of the main characters in Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar, onstage now as part of Playmakers Repertory Company’s season, is like. Rebeck’s brief-but-dense play is quick and to the point, performed with no intermission and inviting… Read More ›
Seminar Makes for a Very Enjoyable 90 Minutes of Entertainment at PlayMakers Repertory Company
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill creative writing students may enjoy this show and may recognize themselves and some of their instructors in Seminar. Adam Versényi, chair of UNC’s Department of Dramatic Art and dramaturg for this PlayMakers Repertory Company production, says, “[T]he question at the root of this seminar is not so much… Read More ›
Ray Dooley Stars as Leonard, the Ego-Shredding Writing Teacher, in Seminar by Theresa Rebeck
For the second mainstage production of its 2015-16 season, PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the hit 2011 Broadway dramatic comedy, Seminar, starring PRC mainstay — and arguably the best actor in the Triangle — Ray Dooley as Leonard, the no-nonsense mentor to a group of young writers, on Oct. 14-16, 18, 20-23, 25 and Oct…. Read More ›
“Disgraced” Bravely Tackles the Touchiest of Tough Topics
Religion. Politics. The ugly side of our deeply-ingrained cultures. These are topics that most people and far too many playwrights steer clear of. However, that is certainly not the case in Ayad Akhtar’s multi-layered, self-reflective Disgraced, onstage now through Playmakers Repertory Company under the skilled direction of Shishir Kurup. When the curtains open on Disgraced,… Read More ›
Racial and Culture Clashes Destroy a Dinner Party and More in Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” at PRC
The influence of Islamic art and culture is very much more prevalent in Western arts and culture than we may often realize, and this has been going on since before the Crusades began, when the Western and Islamic worlds began intercourse. PlayMakers Repertory Company’s 2015-16 main-stage season opener, Disgraced, was written by Ayad Akhtar, an… Read More ›
Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize Winner, “Disgraced,” Opens PRC’s 2015-16 Main-Stage Season Sept. 19th
PlayMakers Repertory Company will kick of its 40th main-stage season with Milwaukee, WI-born Pakistani-American playwright Ayad Akhtar’s award-winning 2012 Chicago, 2012 Off-Broadway, 2013 West End, and 2014 Broadway play, Disgraced. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s professional-theater-in-residence will preview the play on Sept. 16-18, officially open it on Sept. 19th, and then run… Read More ›
PlayMakers Will Present “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Into the Woods” in Rotating Repertory
Between Nov. 1st and Dec. 7th, PlayMakers Repertory Company will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Into the Woods in the Paul Green Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art. PlayMakers Rep first-time guest director Shana Cooper will direct English playwright and poet William Shakespeare’s marvelous, moonstruck comedy,… Read More ›
“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” a Russian Roulette of emotions
Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a hybrid outing, injecting the aura of Russian dramaturge, Anton Chekhov, within the realm of a comedic drama. Attendees of the 2013 Tony Award winner for Best Play, need not to be educated on Chekhov nor be a patron of the arts to enjoy this farcical tale of characters vastly different in behavior and thought, yet parallel to… Read More ›
PlayMakers’ “Love Alone” Is an Authentic Study of Loss and Grief
What happens when a loved one goes to the hospital for a routine medical procedure and doesn’t come out alive? That question is beautifully and thoroughly examined by Deborah Salem Smith in her play “Love Alone,” onstage now at PlayMakers Repertory Company.
Deborah Salem Smith’s “Love Alone” Asks, What Happens When a Routine Medical Procedure Goes Tragically Wrong
PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the regional premiere of Love Alone, Deborah Salem Smith’s powerful play about what happens to the patient’s family and the doctor’s family when a routine medical procedure goes tragically awry
PlayMakers Rep Makes a Splash with “The Tempest”
To misquote the hit ABC comedy, “Modern Family,” “Excuse me, [Julie Fishell ] could play Batman and be the right choice.” A great strength in the current PlayMakers Repertory Company production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest lies in the gender-blind casting of the sorcerer Prospero. With a mop of brilliant white hair and goatee, a… Read More ›
Magic Is Afoot in PlayMakers Repertory Company’s Twinbill of “The Tempest” and “Metamorphoses”
There is magic afoot at PlayMakers Repertory Company, which will stage a twinbill of incomparable English dramatist and poet William Shakespeare’s valedictory play, The Tempest (1610-11), and Chicago playwright and director and Northwestern University professor Mary Zimmerman’s 1998 play, Metamorphoses, based on David R. Slavitt’s 1994 free-verse translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid, a narrative… Read More ›
Music, Melodrama, and Murder Most Foul — PRC’s Youth Conservatory Performs “Sweeney Todd”
The PlayMakers Repertory Company Summer Youth Conservatory, under the direction of Tom Quaintance, will present a youth-theater production of the Tony Award®-winning 1979 Broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on July 17-21 in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art…. Read More ›
Rinde Eckert’s “And God Created Great Whales” Is a Haunting, Thrilling PlayMakers Theater Experience
Before “And God Created Great Whales” even begins, Nathan — the central character portrayed by the play’s creator and composer Rinde Eckert, sits at a piano, fiercely scribbling onto music paper, shifting and sorting, erasing and rewriting. Eckert ferociously portrays Nathan as a man determined to create an opera based on “Moby-Dick.” The problem is, he has a degenerative mental disease that slowly eats away at his memories and his ability to create.
Rinde Eckert and Nora Cole Will Reprise Their Roles in “And God Created Great Whales” at PlayMakers
PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the OBIE Award-winning musical drama “And God Created Great Whales,” created, written, and composed by Rinde Eckert, on Jan. 9-13 in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art. The New York Times has saluted Eckert as “an American loner — eccentric with touches of Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, and Tom Waits.”
David Ball’s New Version of Molière’s “Imaginary Invalid” Will Premiere Oct. 27th at PlayMakers Rep
PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the world premiere of David Ball’s adaptation of Molière’s 17th century comedy “The Imaginary Invalid,” on Oct. 24-28 and Oct. 30-Nov. 4 and Nov. 6-11 in the Paul Green Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art. This timely excoriation of unscrupulous elements of the health-care industry was commissioned by UNC’s professional-theater-in-residence.
As The Poet (Homer) in “An Iliad,” Ray Dooley Adds a New Laurel to His Acting Crown: Storyteller Supreme
Already one of the brightest stars in the PlayMakers Repertory Company firmament — and arguably the Triangle’s finest actor — Ray Dooley proves to be a Storyteller Supreme as The Poet (i.e., a distraught and disheveled Homer in modern dress) in the rousing PRC2 second-stage production of “An Iliad,” now sparkling on scenic designer scenic and costume designer Marion Williams’ minimalistic set in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.
PlayMakers Repertory Company Audience Favorite Ray Dooley Will Star as the Storyteller in “An Iliad”
PlayMakers Repertory Company mainstay and audience favorite — and, arguably, the Triangle’s finest actor — Ray Dooley will star as the storyteller in “An Iliad,” a 2012 OBIE Award-winning one-man one-act play by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, adapted from Robert Fagles’ 1990 translation of Homer’s Iliad, on Sept. 5-9 in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.
“Penelope,” a New Play Written and Performed by Ellen McLaughlin, Will Premiere at PlayMakers Rep
PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the world premiere of “Penelope,” a new one-woman show written and performed by Ellen McLaughlin and directed by Lisa Rothe, with music composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider for an onstage string quartet(!), on April 25-29 in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Things Go Happily Awry in “Noises Off” at PlayMakers
PlayMakers Repertory Company’s production of English playwright and screenwriter Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy Noises Off, now showing in the Paul Green Theater in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art, is an inside joke that pokes fun at a hapless fifth-rate theater company’s increasingly desperate attempts to get a sixth-rate… Read More ›
Michael Frayn’s Fast and Furious Backstage Sex Comedy “Noises Off” Sends the Sardines Flying
PlayMakers Repertory Company will conclude its 2011-12 main-stage season with “Noises Off,” English playwright Michael Frayn’s zany 1982 backstage comedy, performed at a breakneck pace with plenty of slapstick, including flying sardines, on April 4-22 in the Paul Green Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art.
PlayMakers’ Stellar Cast Juggles Truth and Illusion in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
The stellar four-person cast of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s professional-theater-in-residence explores the essential Truths and Illusions of life in Academia, at a backwater New England college, while two professors and their wives who get together for a nightcap after a faculty party hurl verbal hand grenades at each other.
PlayMakers Mainstays Ray Dooley and Julie Fishell Will Star in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
PlayMakers Repertory Company mainstays Ray Dooley and Julie Fishell will exchange verbal brickbats as George and Martha in PRC’s provocative production of prize-winning New York playwright Edward Albee’s epic R-rated 1962 Battle of the Sexes, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” on Nov. 30-Dec. 18 in the Paul Green Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill.
PlayMakers presents Wilde comedy classic “Earnest” | Mar 3-21
Hilarity takes the stage as PlayMakers Repertory Company concludes its 2009-10 mainstage season with Oscar Wilde’s comedy classic, “The Importance of Being Earnest” March 3-21.