A busy and exciting week of theater ahead
When it comes to theater and opera this might be the busiest week of the summer.
Opera Saratoga opens two works in two different venues. Williamstown Theatre Festival, Shakespeare & Company and Barrington Stage Company also open new works in the Berkshires.
Meanwhile, Berkshire Theatre Group, Barrington Stage and Park Playhouse continue to perform three totally different types of musicals. And Adirondack Theater Festival finds a fresh look at a classic story.
Tonight and Saturday afternoon Opera Saratoga offers the intimate opera “Sky on Swings” at the Egg in Albany. It’s a unique work about a sensitive and serious ailment.
The opera tells the story of two women — one in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s, the other is at the very beginning of the disease. As the two women bond the full impact of the disease is revealed, hopefully in an uplifting manner.
If this sounds serious, the second opera the company opens is the total opposite. “The Barber of Seville” opens at Proctors on Friday evening and plays again Sunday afternoon.
It’s a hilarious story about a love triangle filled with deception, schemes and other comedy devices. It’s the work that made famous the name of the hilarious barber, Figaro. It’s one of Rossini’s most beloved works.
At Barrington Stage Company a new play “ABCD” opened last night and runs through July 23. Based on a true real school cheating incident in the early 2000’s the play examines the pressure to perform well on standardized tests.
One is an underserved school on the edge of being shut down. The other is an elite exclusive high school. The pressure for success is different in each school, but daunting nonetheless. It’s a story of the inequities in our society by it is equally a story about the pressures teachers and students live with on a daily basis.
Again there is lightness to counter the dark material. “Much Ado About Nothing” opens at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA on Friday and runs in repertory through Aug. 14.
The work is best known for its love-hate relationship between the strongwilled Beatrice and the equally thick-headed Benedick. The constantly bickering couple have to be tricked into realizing they really love each other.
“Man of God” opening at Williamstown Theatre Festival is an unusual play about female empowerment.
The play is being defined as a mystery-comedy by the company. It‘s about four teenage girls who find a camera in their bathroom. When they discover it was placed there by their pastor they are conflicted by their faith in God, authority and doing the right thing.
Their problem is the four agreeing on the right thing as a proper punishment. It opens tonight and continues in the Nikos Theater through July 22.
Perhaps the most intriguing opening of the week is at Adirondack Theatre Festival at the Charles Wood Theatre in Glens Falls where they are offering a stage adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”
In the extremely athletic work five virtuosic actors become goblins, spiders, wolves, elves, eagles and residents of Middle Earth to save their homeland. It appears to be one of the more imaginative offerings of the summer. It plays Thursdays to Sundays tonight through July 17.
Not only are there exciting opening throughout the week but at the Berkshires “Aunt’ Misbehavin’ continues its popular run through Saturday, at Barrington Stage.
The romantic musical “Once” just opened at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Produced by by the Berkshire Theatre Group it continues until July 16. This is the work to see if you just want to be captured by music and how it calms the lives of a charming couple.
There’s a lot opening and more to come. But please don’t overlook the joyful musical, “Head Over Heels” offered by Park Playhouse in Washington Park in Albany There are free tickets available, as well as paid reserved seats. It continues through July 23.