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Loney's Show Notes

FOR GLENN LONEY'S MOST RECENT ARTICLES SEE: COLUMNISTS

Look Where it Comes Again! Shakespeare & More in Oregonian Ashland!
Not about Harvey Milk: Ghost Light The Aftermath of the Murder of Mayor Moscone; Four Venues in Two Weeks: Tracy Letts' August, Osage County Finds Its Groove!; Julia Caesar Returns to Haunt Brutus: A Great Woman Has Power Beyond the Grave; All Hands on Deck! Cornish Pirates Board the Good Ship Shakespeare!; Deaf Signing in Henry IV, Part 2: Odd Effect When Only Prince Hal & Poins Do It; Get Well Quick Card for Ashland's Ailing Imaginary Invalid?; American Theatre Critics Do Their Thing: How Do I Get My Reviews on the Internet?

San Francisco and Nevada
Wagner's RING West of the Rockies: Leland Stanford as Wotan?; SF Symphony Almost 100: Tilson Thomas, Yuja Wang, & Swan Lake!; Double Bill at UC/Berkeley's Zellerbach: Afghan Music & Dawsn Upshaw in Crumb's Winds; ACT SF Premieres Musical Version of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City; Piper's Opera House in Virginia City: More Preservation Needed Now!

Time was, when May 31 arrived, The Season was at an end. Not Now.
Reality Challenged Male Has Affair with Fantasy Girl friend in Love Song!, Angry Old Brooklyn Commie Wants Out of Life: Tony Kushner's Latest…, Alzheimers Is No Fun: A Disoriented Julia at 59E59…, Banned Belarus Free Theatre at La MaMa: State Terror & Harold Pinter., Molière's Misanthrope Transmuted into School for Lies, by David Ives…, The Ex First Lady of New York City--Donna Hanover--Is in Picked at the Vineyard!, The Soul Leaves The Body in Tremendous Farts: Hannoch Levin's Winter Wedding!, Lynn Nottage's Newest: Blacks in the Movies--Do Meet Vera Stark., Down at the Public Theatre: Knickerbocker, in Which Bob Dishy Returns!, Target Tempest Not in a Tea pot, but at HERE, in a Candle lit Victorian Theatre!, Derek Jacobi's Lear at BAM: Every Inch a King!, Irish Villains Foiled Again by Irish Heroes: The Shaughraun, at Irish Rep!, George Bernard Shaw Sings Again! Candida Transmuted into A Minister's Wife., Newsical the Musical Brings You Recycled TV Newscasts & More…, Lucky Guy: This Hilarious Show Is The Book of Mormon for Country & Western!, Improve Your Yiddish with Fiddler on the Roof Sound Alike: Hershele Ostropolyer, Rally Round Herne's Oak! Charming Mannes College Falstaff at the Kaye Theatre., Kurt Weill & Lotte Lenya: Together Again on [Upper] Broadway in September Songs., Boys Made of Cheese May Have Some Survival Problems…, Karen Kandel Deserves a Tony©™ for Her Remarkable Role in Peter & Wendy!, Avant Garde Down in the Vaults at 14 Wall Street: Monk Parrots' Gay Rodeo By Laws, First It Was the Jersey Boys, But Now, It's Jersey Girls: Loose Screws…, Tovah Feldshuh, David Dinkins, & Scott Siegel Help Town Hall Celebrate Ninety Years!, Town Hall Celebrates Broadway Musicals of 1982 with the Mark Stuart Dance Theatre!, Linda Eder Almost Back on Broadway--Two Blocks Away, at Town Hall, in Concert!

Troubled Humanity On Stage at the Humana Festival
Adam Rapp Is Inspired by Jean Genet’s The Maids for The Edge of Our Bodies, A Devil at Noon Is Not Quite the Same Thing as The Noonday Witch, Bob Is Destined for FAME: He Sees Himself Right-Up-There on Mount-Rushmore!, Store-bought Bright & New: Living Now in the 1950s—Maple & Vine!, Gun-Control for Edith: Do Not Shoot Your Father’s New Squeeze!, Elemeno Pea Is Really L-M-N-O-P! The Rich Are Not Like Us!, The End, the Interns’-Show, Needs a Stronger-Conclusion…, Three Ten-Minute Plays in More Than Ten-Minutes!

Last Minute Flurry of Openings of New Productions: both of Musicals & so called "Straight" Plays
Descent into Dementia: The Other Place…, Watch Your Language! Motherfucker with Two ** on a Broadway Marquee!, WarHorse: Passion for a Puppet Horse: Bring Joey Back Home!, HIGH: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, High, High in the Sky, Bye & Bye…, Jerusalem Trivia Answer: William Blake Wrote Jerusalem!, David Greenspan Brings Ancient Greece to Montauk: Go Back To Where You Are…, Michael Frayn's Benefactors: Next Door Neighbors Can Devour You!, John Guare's Absurdist Black Comedy House of Blue Leaves: Edie Falco Goes Bananas!, Born Yesterday: Yesterday's Play Still Potent for Today's Electorate!, Still Beats The Normal Heart: 35 Million Deaths from AIDS & Counting…, Another Motion Picture Becomes Another Broadway Musical! Catch Me If You Can!, Grimm Fairytales Made Hilarious by Roald Dahl & Elizabeth Swados: Revolting Rhymes!, We Wistfully Wonder Why Wonderland Got the Green Light?, Disney Gives Broadway Yet Another Musical: Sister Act--with Alan Menken Music!, Warner Brothers Gets into the Act with Baby It's You!, Donna Murphy Escapes the Holocaust! The People in the Picture Make Yiddish Films!, Tomorrow Morning: Young Lovers, Young Marrieds, Older Break Ups, with Healing!, Mary Poppins! Eat Your Heart Out! HARRY POTTER FLIES!, Trees Still Grow in Brooklyn, But Better in Park Slope Than in Williamsburg., Anything Goes: Sutton Foster Brings Back Art Deco America & Atlantic Crossings!, Opera at the Juilliard School: Ravel's Spanish Hour & Puccini's Gianni Schichi!, Opera at the Manhattan School of Music: Manuel de Falla's Amor Brujo & Vida Breve., Opera at the David H. Koch Memorial Theatre: Séance on a Wet Afternoon…, Monodramatics! John Leguizamo Once Again Makes Real Life Funny!, Bad Day in the Classroom! Alcoholic Scots School Teacher Strikes Out!, Holocaust Inspired Czech Puppetry Animates Mr. M, Based on Ladislav Fuchs' Novel., Boom Town: Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hills! Cirque Mechanics Set Off Dynamite!

April is the cruelest month; March is cruel too.
Rick Elice's PETER & THE STARCATCHER, Caridad Svich's EN ELTIEMPO DE LAS MARIPOSAS, David Lindsay Abaire's GOOD PEOPLE, Thomas Kilroy's MY SCANDALOUS LIFE, Clifford Chase's WINKIE, Robin Rice Lichtig's PLAY NICE!, Bathsheba Doran's KIN, Rajiv Joseph's BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO, David West Read's THE DREAM OF THE BURNING BOY, Old Plays in Revival:, Jason Miller's THAT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON, Tom Stoppard's ARCADIA, Abe Burrows' CACTUS FLOWER, Wm. Shakespeare's THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, Lewis Theobald's Adaptation of Cardenio--DOUBLE FALSEHOOD, PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT, THE BOOK OF MORMON, SPIDER MAN, TURN OFF THE DARK, Scott Siegel's Broadway by the Year Series, THE MUSICALS OF 1932, , At The Metropolitan Opera, Pete Tchaikovsky's THE QUEEN OF SPADES, Gaetano Donizetti's THE ELIXIR OF LOVE, Zorn, Schoenberg, & Feldman's MONODRAMAS, David Almond's SKELLIG, Theatre Rites & Arthur Pita's MISCHIEF, Tom Judson's CANNED HAM, Disney Takes a New Look at the Peter Pan Legend--With a Starcatcher!

Denver: The Colorado New Play Summit
Flying out of Snow in Manhattan to Snow in Mile High Denver might seem an exercise in Futility. From Bad Weather to more Bad Weather? Why not do what some well heeled New Yorkers & Oldsters do? Fly off to Sunny Florida! But then you’d miss the Sixth Annual Colorado New Play Summit.

February, 2011 Roundup
No More Uncle Wiggley in Connecticut: Blood from a Stone…, "Pete" Gurney Recycles Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, with The Last Wasp in Black Tie!, African Americans Celebrate Passover in Virginia Plantation Ruins: Shalom!, Shalom! South Bronx 1940s Teens Don’t Understand Mr. Hirsch, Who Died Yesterday., Rooting Through Rubbish To Find Key To Dead Father: Disposable Cameras—In Your Image., Don’t Vote for Either of These Presidential Candidates: The Body Politic., Beheading for a Billionaire Brunch: Food Prepping for the Man Who Ate Michael Rockefeller!, Madmen on the Loose: Compulsion & Diary of a Madman: Mandy Patinkin & Geoffrey Rush!, At the New City: More Than You Need To Know About Sex Among the Younger Generation., Which Is Which: The Wicked Witch or The Witch of Edmonton?, Single Ladies Join Forces in David Mamet’s Boston Marriage at Juilliard Drama., Molly Sweeney: There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See…, Timon! Do Not Waste Your Wealth: No Bail Outs for Dishonest Athenian Movers & Shakers!, All Singing, All Dancing New American Musical in Dubai Reprised: The Road to Qatar!, Bartered Bride Not Battered! James Levine on Juilliard Podium!, John Adams on Carnegie Podium, Conducting Juilliard Orchestra!, Good Advice from a Burning Bush: Free My People & Make a VideOpera: Mosheh!, Spalding Gray Recycled: Zach Helm Is Now Interviewing the Audience!, Around the World in 80 Days Reduced to 60 Minutes: Colin Quinn’s Long Short Story.

January, 2011 Roundup
What To Do About Gruesome Playground Injuries? Close Down the Playground?; Look! Up in the Sky! It’s The Starry Messenger! Galileo Galilei Revisited; Other Desert Cities: Ronald Reagan Is Alive But Unwell in Palm Springs!; You Conned Me Out of My ScreenPlay, But You Didn’t Win the Oscar, Did You?; Ellen Stewart Honored: Ma Yi Theatre’s Flipzoids on an Anaheim Beach…; A Small Fire: Who Will Help You When You Lose Almost All Your Senses, One by One?; The Archduke of Austria Was Assassinated in Sarajevo: Now, Trouble in Two Kitchens!; All Fall Down Dead in David Belasco’s Haunted Apartment Above His Namesake Theatre!; Despising Polite Social Lies & Artifice, Truth Telling Misanthrope Ends with No Friends!; Battle Snow Drifts to BAM in Brooklyn: See Alan Rickman as Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman!; The Three Sisters Dream of Moscow: But Not of Moscow, Idaho!; Fly Off to the American Airlines Theatre: See Brian Bedford as the Imperious Lady Bracknell!; The New York Idea: What’s The Big Idea, New Yorkers? Why All These Divorces?; Venal Publisher Wants Only To Make Money from His Newspapers: Facts & Truth Be Damned!; Olympia Dukakis Larger Than Life Where the Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Anymore!; Menotti, Ward, & Floyd Show Their Operatic Powers in Mannes’ Sinners & Saints.; As a Stand Up Comic, Rigoletto Wouldn’t Make It in Prime Time: Too Bitter, Too Negative…; Watch Out! Give a Shout! There Are MIMES in Room 17B!

December, 2010 Roundup
Edna O'Brien's HAUNTED, Inspector Sands' IF THAT'S ALL THERE IS, Isabel Allende's LA CASA DE LOS ESPIRITUS, Will Eno's MIDDLETOWN, Craig Wright's MISTAKES WERE MADE, Making Music at New York Theatre Workshop: Burkhardt, Duffy, & Malloy's THREE PIANOS, Giacomo Puccini's LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST, Claude Debussy's PELLEAS ET MELISANDE, Lee Hoiby's SUMMER & SMOKE, Claudio Monteverdi's RITORNO DI ULISSE IN PATRIA, Avant Garde Theatre Lives Again at Ellen Stewart's LaMaMa E.T.C. John Kelly's PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE, Ildiko Nemeth's MAPPING MOBIUS, At the Park Avenue Armory: Peter Greenaway's THE LAST SUPPER, Across the River & into BAM: Gardarsson, Farr, & Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, Victorious at the New Victory: Mayumana's MOMENTUM.

November, 2010 Roundup
THE RIDE Will Take You for a Ride Around Midtown You Won't Soon Forget!, Vince Lombardi Wants Winners! Big City Reporters, Beware!, John Guare Strikes Again! A Free Man of Color Is a Louisiana Hayride Through Drama Lit!, The Last Castrato Sings Again! Why Aren't the Monks Still Castrating for the Vatican Choir?, G-d Speaks To Those Who Will Listen--But Neil LaBute Warns Us of the Consequences…, Charles Busch Takes the Veil: A Superior Mother Superior at St. Veronica's Convent!, Pee Wee Herman Lives Again--But Only for a Limited Run at the Steve Sondheim Theatre., In The Wake--Not of the Red Witch--But of Recent Political Disasters: Unearned Empathy?, What Do You Mean: Grand dad was a Commie Spy? After the Revolution & Then Some…, What Can Be More Boring Than a Family Reunion Dinner? A Dysfunctional Family Buffet…, Orphaned Welsh Demon Twins Drive Godmother to Distraction & Death: Don't Drink the Punch!, Lingua Franca: Teaching British--not American--English To Italians in Firenze…, Al in a Tallis: But Don't Forget That He's the Money Lender, Not the Merchant of Venice!, Watch Out for That White Horse! Trouble Down at the Mill Race for Rosmer in Rosmersholm., That Wasn't Vanessa Redgrave We Saw? Maureen Anderman Played Miss Daisy?, Three Weeks of ReHab in Mt. Siniai's Klingenstein Pavilion: Déjá Vu with Wings., Tony Kushner's "Gay Fantasia" Is Nothing Like Walt Disney's Fantasia…, Get the DVD of Pedro Almodóvar's Women Fully To Appreciate the New Musical Version!, Sing Along with Genocidal Andrew Jackson: Free Up the Frontier for Real Americans!, ELF--Will Ferrell, Where Are You, Now That We Need You?, You Threw the Wrong Baby in the Fire, Azucena! How Could a Mother Make Such a Mistake?, Open Casket for Bernstein's Quiet Place: Sex Angst of Dysfunctional Suburban Family., You Idiot! Why Dress Like Drusilla? Nero's Men Will Kill You: Heroes Never Wear Heels…, That Guy Who Looked Like Charlie Chaplin--Was He Twins or Something? No: He's Raoul!, BAM Books a Show from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Ping Chong's Throne of Blood!, Do Not Squirm at the Squirm Burpee Circus: Do Have a Great Time!, Scott Siegel's Broadway Unplugged: Vintage Songs Uncorked by Experts!

Annual Munich Festival at the Bavarian State Opera, Plus Powerful Productions at the Second Tier Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Figaro in a White Box!, Tosca, Fresh from the Metropolitan!, Colorful Watering Cans for L'Elisir d'Amore!, Meanwhile, Across Town at the Gärtnerplatz Theater, Bert Brecht & Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.

Two Wolfgang Wagner Sisters--Eva & Katharina--Give the Bayreuth Festival a New Look & New Directions…
HUGE LAB RATS ENGULF ELSA & LOHENGRIN IN NEW BAYREUTH STAGING! Genetic Engineering Gone Wrong & Plucked Swans? / GERMAN HISTORY: 1870 TO POST WORLD WAR II SOCIO POLITICALLY REPRISED IN BAYREUTH PARSIFAL! Or an Opera about a Big Bed in the Middle of Haus Wahnfried? / A SECOND LOOK AT KATHARINA WAGNER'S DIE MEISTERSINGER From the Show Notes Archives: / What Really Happened in Nuremberg? / Hans Sachs: Painter & Poet Versus Sixtus Beckmesser: Avant garde Artist! / Katharina Wagner's Bayreuth Beckmesser Bombshell! / Theoretic Bases for This Wagner Innovation? / What Looked Different in Meistersinger 2010? / Two Wagner Song Contests--Quasi Comic vs. Religio Tragic: Basic Prize Concept: The Winner Is Supposed To Get the Girl! / Wagnerian Opera for Kids: Find the Pink Flamingo! / WHAT TIME'S THE NEXT SWAN? / AGAIN, ECHOES FROM THE LONEY BAYREUTH ARCHIVES: / BACKGROUND: / The Great Opera Debate: Who Will Be the Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival? / Is There a Katharina Campaign? / The Other Wagner Candidates: / Should the Bayreuth Season Be Longer? / Could Bayreuth Become an International Opera Festival City? / The Wagner Family Inheritance & The Gremium: / Is the Bayreuth Festival Sexist? Only Two Women Have Staged Wagner in His Festspielhaus / Is Katharina Wagner's Meistersinger Her Meisterstück? / What's Blowing in the Bayreuth Festival Winds: Is the Wind Vane Beginning To Turn?

Fragments of the Shattered Statue of Liberty Rise Up Out of Lake Constance for Bregenz Aida!
Festive Opening of the Bregenz Festival 2010 / DIE PASSAGIERIN: Honeymoon on an Ocean-Liner Becomes a Horror-Story! / Mieczyslaw Weinberg [1919-1996]: A Great Modern Composer, Virtually Unknown in the West! / STATUE OF LIBERTY SMASHED INTO FRAGMENTS--POSSIBLY BY TERRORISTS--FOR BREGENZ-FESTIVAL AIDA PRODUCTION! / Not Only Performing-Arts in Bregenz: Also Art in Kunsthaus-Bregenz & Antony Gormley's Iron-Men in the Alps! / French-Revolution To Take Center-Stage on Lake-Constance: Giordano's André Chénier To Rise Out of Bodensee-Waves in Festival 2011!

The Obergammau Passion Play 2010
Jesus' Last Week on Earth--the Passion of the Christ--Is Recreated in the Bavarian Alps Every Ten Years! / A New Look for Oberammergau: Passion-Play 2000 With New Sets & Costumes / Robert Wilson's Oberammergau Installation: A New Vision of The Stations of the Cross.

Denver, the Mile High Culture City!
Two World-Premieres for Colorado New Play Summit!, Show Tickets Start at $18, Amazing Versatile Ensemble at Denver Theatre Center, Artistic-Director Kent Thompson Innovates, Young American Playwrights in the Spotlight, Laika & Yuri Gargarin adrift in Outer-Space!, Will Prayer Save a Marriage & a Family When Dad Is a NASA Astronaut?, Can Tang Make a Difference even in a Pie?, Why Did Those Two Old Bachelor Rancher-Brothers Never Marry?, Should Small-Children Be Taken-Away from Dim-Witted Parents?, Do Incompetents Deserve Food-Stamps: Won’t they Squander the Tax-Payers’ Subsidies?, Free-Rides on 16th Street Mall Buses, Denver’s Post-Post-Modernist Art-Museum: the Daniel Libeskind Addition, Allen True’s Art-Deco Murals, Frank Ghery’s Stunning Denver Public-Library, Get High a Mile High: Denver Medical Marijuana!

December, 2010 Roundup
Edna O'Brien's HAUNTED, Inspector Sands' IF THAT'S ALL THERE IS, Isabel Allende's LA CASA DE LOS ESPIRITUS, Will Eno's MIDDLETOWN, Craig Wright's MISTAKES WERE MADE, Making Music at New York Theatre Workshop: Burkhardt, Duffy, & Malloy's THREE PIANOS, Giacomo Puccini's LA FANCIULLA DEL WEST, Claude Debussy's PELLEAS ET MELISANDE, Lee Hoiby's SUMMER & SMOKE, Claudio Monteverdi's RITORNO DI ULISSE IN PATRIA; Avant Garde Theatre Lives Again at Ellen Stewart's LaMaMa E.T.C.: John Kelly's PASS THE BLUTWURST, BITTE, Ildiko Nemeth's MAPPING MOBIUS; At the Park Avenue Armory: Peter Greenaway's THE LAST SUPPER, Across the River & into BAM: Gardarsson, Farr, & Kafka's METAMORPHOSIS, Victorious at the New Victory: Mayumana's MOMENTUM.

November, 2010 Roundup
THE RIDE Will Take You for a Ride Around Midtown You Won't Soon Forget!, Vince Lombardi Wants Winners! Big City Reporters, Beware!, John Guare Strikes Again! A Free Man of Color Is a Louisiana Hayride Through Drama Lit!, The Last Castrato Sings Again! Why Aren't the Monks Still Castrating for the Vatican Choir?, G-d Speaks To Those Who Will Listen--But Neil LaBute Warns Us of the Consequences…, Charles Busch Takes the Veil: A Superior Mother Superior at St. Veronica's Convent!, Pee Wee Herman Lives Again--But Only for a Limited Run at the Steve Sondheim Theatre., In The Wake--Not of the Red Witch--But of Recent Political Disasters: Unearned Empathy?, What Do You Mean: Grand dad was a Commie Spy? After the Revolution & Then Some…, What Can Be More Boring Than a Family Reunion Dinner? A Dysfunctional Family Buffet…, Orphaned Welsh Demon Twins Drive Godmother to Distraction & Death: Don't Drink the Punch!, Lingua Franca: Teaching British--not American--English To Italians in Firenze…, Al in a Tallis: But Don't Forget That He's the Money Lender, Not the Merchant of Venice!, Watch Out for That White Horse! Trouble Down at the Mill Race for Rosmer in Rosmersholm., That Wasn't Vanessa Redgrave We Saw? Maureen Anderman Played Miss Daisy?, Three Weeks of ReHab in Mt. Siniai's Klingenstein Pavilion: Déjá Vu with Wings., Tony Kushner's "Gay Fantasia" Is Nothing Like Walt Disney's Fantasia…, Get the DVD of Pedro Almodóvar's Women Fully To Appreciate the New Musical Version!, Sing Along with Genocidal Andrew Jackson: Free Up the Frontier for Real Americans!, ELF--Will Ferrell, Where Are You, Now That We Need You?, You Threw the Wrong Baby in the Fire, Azucena! How Could a Mother Make Such a Mistake?, Open Casket for Bernstein's Quiet Place: Sex Angst of Dysfunctional Suburban Family., You Idiot! Why Dress Like Drusilla? Nero's Men Will Kill You: Heroes Never Wear Heels…, That Guy Who Looked Like Charlie Chaplin--Was He Twins or Something? No: He's Raoul!, BAM Books a Show from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Ping Chong's Throne of Blood!, Do Not Squirm at the Squirm Burpee Circus: Do Have a Great Time!, Scott Siegel's Broadway Unplugged: Vintage Songs Uncorked by Experts!

Annual Munich Festival at the Bavarian State Opera, Plus Powerful Productions at the Second Tier Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Figaro in a White Box!, Tosca, Fresh from the Metropolitan!, Colorful Watering Cans for L'Elisir d'Amore!, Meanwhile, Across Town at the Gärtnerplatz Theater, Bert Brecht & Kurt Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.

Two Wolfgang Wagner Sisters--Eva & Katharina--Give the Bayreuth Festival a New Look & New Directions…
HUGE LAB RATS ENGULF ELSA & LOHENGRIN IN NEW BAYREUTH STAGING! Genetic Engineering Gone Wrong & Plucked Swans? / GERMAN HISTORY: 1870 TO POST WORLD WAR II SOCIO POLITICALLY REPRISED IN BAYREUTH PARSIFAL! Or an Opera about a Big Bed in the Middle of Haus Wahnfried? / A SECOND LOOK AT KATHARINA WAGNER'S DIE MEISTERSINGER From the Show Notes Archives: / What Really Happened in Nuremberg? / Hans Sachs: Painter & Poet Versus Sixtus Beckmesser: Avant garde Artist! / Katharina Wagner's Bayreuth Beckmesser Bombshell! / Theoretic Bases for This Wagner Innovation? / What Looked Different in Meistersinger 2010? / Two Wagner Song Contests--Quasi Comic vs. Religio Tragic: Basic Prize Concept: The Winner Is Supposed To Get the Girl! / Wagnerian Opera for Kids: Find the Pink Flamingo! / WHAT TIME'S THE NEXT SWAN? / AGAIN, ECHOES FROM THE LONEY BAYREUTH ARCHIVES: / BACKGROUND: / The Great Opera Debate: Who Will Be the Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival? / Is There a Katharina Campaign? / The Other Wagner Candidates: / Should the Bayreuth Season Be Longer? / Could Bayreuth Become an International Opera Festival City? / The Wagner Family Inheritance & The Gremium: / Is the Bayreuth Festival Sexist? Only Two Women Have Staged Wagner in His Festspielhaus / Is Katharina Wagner's Meistersinger Her Meisterstück? / What's Blowing in the Bayreuth Festival Winds: Is the Wind Vane Beginning To Turn?

Fragments of the Shattered Statue of Liberty Rise Up Out of Lake Constance for Bregenz Aida!
Festive Opening of the Bregenz Festival 2010 / DIE PASSAGIERIN: Honeymoon on an Ocean-Liner Becomes a Horror-Story! / Mieczyslaw Weinberg [1919-1996]: A Great Modern Composer, Virtually Unknown in the West! / STATUE OF LIBERTY SMASHED INTO FRAGMENTS--POSSIBLY BY TERRORISTS--FOR BREGENZ-FESTIVAL AIDA PRODUCTION! / Not Only Performing-Arts in Bregenz: Also Art in Kunsthaus-Bregenz & Antony Gormley's Iron-Men in the Alps! / French-Revolution To Take Center-Stage on Lake-Constance: Giordano's André Chénier To Rise Out of Bodensee-Waves in Festival 2011!

The Obergammau Passion Play 2010
Jesus' Last Week on Earth--the Passion of the Christ--Is Recreated in the Bavarian Alps Every Ten Years! / A New Look for Oberammergau: Passion-Play 2000 With New Sets & Costumes / Robert Wilson's Oberammergau Installation: A New Vision of The Stations of the Cross.

Denver, the Mile High Culture City!
Two World-Premieres for Colorado New Play Summit!, Show Tickets Start at $18, Amazing Versatile Ensemble at Denver Theatre Center, Artistic-Director Kent Thompson Innovates, Young American Playwrights in the Spotlight, Laika & Yuri Gargarin adrift in Outer-Space!, Will Prayer Save a Marriage & a Family When Dad Is a NASA Astronaut?, Can Tang Make a Difference even in a Pie?, Why Did Those Two Old Bachelor Rancher-Brothers Never Marry?, Should Small-Children Be Taken-Away from Dim-Witted Parents?, Do Incompetents Deserve Food-Stamps: Won’t they Squander the Tax-Payers’ Subsidies?, Free-Rides on 16th Street Mall Buses, Denver’s Post-Post-Modernist Art-Museum: the Daniel Libeskind Addition, Allen True’s Art-Deco Murals, Frank Ghery’s Stunning Denver Public-Library, Get High a Mile High: Denver Medical Marijuana!

February Show Notes
David Mamet's Simplistic Race: Oleanna Recycled?, Laura Linney Is Wounded War Zone Photographer in Time Stands Still, Hot Audition for Ives' Venus in Fur, Audience Enters Martin Luther King jr's Motel Room #306 at 59E59, "Minor" Blow Job & Fan with a Mind of Its Own: Sam Shepard's Two Hander from Dublin's Abbey Theatre, Rough Sketch Needs Firmer Hand, Orphan Boy Marries in Horton Foote's Tri Partite Texas Saga, Sweet Marcus at the Public: Brother, Sister Plays, Very Likable As You Like It at BAM, Fabulous Art Deco Apartment for Dynamic Cast in Present Laughter, Offstage Plane Crash in City Center Basement Pearl: Shaw's Misalliance, Chicago's Maureen Watkins' Other Play Mint Fresh, Liev Schreiber IS Eddie Carbone: Miller on the Bridge, Not Much Nutcracker or Klezmer in Klezmer Nutcracker, Twenty Two Years of Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic!, Replaying A Little Night Music Graced by Angela Lansbury, Oscar Wilde Sings! Ernest in Love at Irish Rep, Charming Finian's Rainbow: Sudden Crock of Death on Broadway, Flahooley aka Jollyanna Rains Dolls at Theatre for the New City, Look Where It Comes Again! NY G&S Players Repeat Mikado Pinafore & Ruddigore, Grand Opera & Grand Spectacle at the Met: Boccanegra Stifellio & Turandot, Odysseus Ulysses Returns to Ithaca & Pénélope at Manhattan School, Rossini's Barber in Bleecker Basement with Amato Survivors, "Porn Flakes" for Accidental Pervert Goffman, Belgian Teens Go Wild at Duke, Gayest Christmas Pageant Ever Set in West Hollywood not in Greenwich Village!, Webmaster of NYTheatre Wire.com Shows Acting Skills in Dual Role at New City!

Shinn sketch of David Belasco

Belasco's Stuyvesant Theatre: From Tiffany treasures to Roman Catholic Confessionals.
The irrepressible Glenn Loney, still recovering from a dangerous fall, scales perilous hights to report on the renovation of Belasco's Stuyvesant Theatre history and the dangers of restoring it.

Back to work in October
James Bond & Wolverine Together on Broadway!/Carrie Fisher Tells All & More!/Jude Is a Law Unto Himself!/Iraqui Aftermath: Damaged People & Ruined Lives!/Impressive Irish Drama Revivals: John Millington Synge's Playboy & Lennox Robinson's Is Life Worth Living?/Broadway's Contemporary Aristocrats Multi Star in The Royal Family/Murder the Protestants! Mexico City Troupe Musically Recreates Religious Horrors in Anjou/Robert Lepage's Ex Machina Marathon: Not Liposuction but Lipsynch.

Brain Hemorrhages and Performing Arts Reportage
Photographing Golden-Gate-Bridge w/Trick-Lens/Disastrous-Fall on Historic-Gun-Emplacement/Subdural-Hematomas: Can you have a History of Brain-Hemorrhages: How many of them before you Definitively-Die?/Wonderful Anne Hathaway in Central-Park Twelfth-Night!/Sir James Galway & Hundreds of Flautists Break Guinness-Book-of-Records Mass-Concert-Record!/Music-Critics of North-America: Last-Conference at the OK-Corral: From Print-Reviews to Internet-Blogs?

"San Francisco, Open Your GoldenGates!,"or: "I lost my Balance in San Francisco!"
A Regretful-Report on the Perils of Photographing The Golden-Gate-Bridge From a Cliff on Land’s-End, When One Is Over Eighty-Years-Old, But Still Feels Seventeen Inside…

 
Poster for Broadway's revival of "Hair"

The Season Ends with a Bang, Revivals hit the Broadway Stage and the Outer Critics Circle's Nominations and Awards for 2008-2009 Season
Season's-End Now New Season's-Beginning, Geyser of Vomit in God of Carnage!, Neil LaBute's Now OK with Women in reasons to be pretty, Torture can be Fun in Chris Durang's New Crazy-Family-Drama: Why Torture Is Wrong, Sigmund Freud & Olympia Dukakis in Craig Lucas' Singing Forest at the Public, Jane Fonda Back on Broadway To Pursue Beethoven-Research in Bonn-Archives: 33 Variations, Tovah [Golda Meier] Feldshuh Plays a Righteous-Gentile in Irena's Vow, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Impressionism, White-Haired Jane Alexander Escapes Old-Folks-Home in Chasing Manet, Born-Again-Christian vs. Catholics in Savannah-Disputations, Only a Shadow of Dr. Martin Luther King in The Good Negro, Inked-Baby Needs Focus, Fired Wall-Streeter Joins The Dishwashers, Wordy Play on Words/John Cullum in Heroes, George Orwell's 1984 a Warning for Our Times!, The Cambria: Fugitive-Slave Frederick Douglass Escapes to Ireland!, Baghdadi-Bath at LaMaMa, Luv's Murray Schisgal Writes New Plays in Yiddish for Folksbiene!, Godot: Don't Wait Too Long To See It!, Mary Stuart Lives Again!, August Wilson Finds His Shining-Man & Song: Joe Turner's Come & Gone, Thornton Wilder's Our Town Revisited way down on Barrow-Street, Lusty Old Norman Delights Three-Times in Norman Conquests, Geoffrey Rush Goes Out with Comedic-Style in Ionesco's Exit the King, Angela Lansbury in Verey-High-Spirits in Blithe-Spirit!, DH Lawrence at the Mint: Widow Holroyd no Lady Chatterley, Desire may be Under the Elms, but there are Tons of Rocks Hanging-Up-Above!, Anti-Semitic French-Police Eager To Help Gestapo Round-Up Jews in Arthur-Miller's Incident at Vichy, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Accent on Youth/ Lack of Chemistry onstage in The Philanthropist, Wild Black Kid on Rampage: Zooman & the Sign, Pearl of a Play at Pearl: Molière's Tartuffe, Mini-Shakespeare-Fest: Hamlet, Henry V, & Merchant of Venice, Movies-into-Musicals: Billy Elliott: The Musical & Shrek: The Musical, Native-American Genocide: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, next to normal a Musical-Revelation, The Subway-Car To Nowhere: Happiness at Lincoln-Center/Manhattan's Toxic-Assets Dumped on New-Jersey: The Toxic Avenger Fights Back!, Rock of Ages Rocks!, Rooms More than Mere-Musical!, Dolly Parton's 9 To 5 Not as much Fun as her Horse-Opera Dinner-Theatres, Only Gisela May Could Be Lola Blau: Maybe She Was!, Hair Revival Lets Sunshine In on Broadway!, ¡Aqui se habla Español! West Side Story Returns!, Lack of Chemistry onstage in Guys & Dolls, Pickle-Family-Circus' Lorenzo Pisoni: A Childhood of Humor Abuse, Frank Blacker Amazing in Southern Gothic Novel: But Only on Wednesdays!, Audience Very Much Awake for Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk with Me!, Urban Indian Uneasy Off the Reservation, Nights at the Opera: Rusalka, Fledermaus, & Falstaff, Passionate St. Matthew at BAM, Cirque du Soleil returns to Randall's-Island with Kooza, New Victory's New-Victories: Black Violin, Rock ‘n Roll Penguin, & Queen of Colors, Wooster Group's La Didone in DUMBO, Peter Harvey, Karinska, & George Balanchine in Dresden at the Semper-Oper, Nominations & Winners: Outer-Critics-Circle Awards at Sardi's!
The Powel Crosley Theatre on Sarasota Bay.

Under the Sun of Sarasota
Great American Newspapers Are Dying: How Can Arts-Journalists & Theatre-Critics Survive?, American Theatre-Critics Confer in Circusy-Sarasota, Keeping Cool with Theatre-Ghosts, Downtown & Strung-Out Sarasota, Prodigious Performing- ts in Sarasota, The Ringling-Complex: Celebrating The Greatest Show on Earth, The John & Mabel Ringling Museum of Art/Howard Tibbals’ Amazing Miniature Howard Bros. Circus!, The Ringling Circus-Museum/Historic Asolo Opera-House & the olo-Rep, Florida-Studio-Theatre in Three Venues, Golden Apple’s Dinners & Musicals, The Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Van Wezel Hall: The Color Purple Overwhelms…

Lyn Nottage's ruined, Lisa Loomer's distracted and Broadway's without Mr. Schoenfeld
In Memoriam: Gerald Schoenfeld/Louis de Rougement Is Shipwrecked!/Cynthia Nixon is Distracted/Becky Shaw Not Quite Shavian/Third Story Not about Upper-Floor Burglars/Geo. W. Bush Should Impersonate Will Ferrell!/Candide Revelations about Voltaire’s Sex-Life/New-York-Governor Cornbury Cross-Dresses!/Behind the Wheel To Silver-Lake/Watch-Out for White-People!/Leaves of Glass, Not Grass!/Eight from Edinburgh/Gore Vidal & Tim McVeigh in Terre Haute/Dublin’s Gate-Theatre Gay-Duo/Fresh Kills Both a Dump & a Metaphor!/Mercedes Ruehl Rules in American Plan/Irish Aristocrats Unable To Function on Their Own/Look Where It Comes Again: Hedda Gabler Returns!/Redemption & Renewal: Magical Winter’s Tale at BAM/Chekhov-Revisited: Cherry Orchard also at BAM/Uncle Vanya in a Russki Country-Barn!/Some Target-Margin Blocks on The Camino-Real/Bill Prosser on Tennessee Williams’ Late Plays/Closed by Popular-Demand: Story of My Life/This Beautiful City: Born-Again in Colorado-Springs!/Immense Revolving-Set for Met’s New Trovatore Nothing To Crow About!/Hampson’s Ageing Onegin/Mark Morris Outshines & Overshadows Gluck’s Orfeo/Anna's Lucia at the Movies!/Two-Hander Search for the Golden-Fleece: Jason & the Argonauts/Wales-Week in NYC: Lonesome Valley & Clymau: Prince-of-Wales Executes Adulterous-Wife!/A Play of One’s Own: Virginia Woolf & SITI’s Freshwater/Magic of Shaolin: Kung-Fu & a Lost-Son/Lansky of the Jewish-Mafia/Rosemary Harris as the Pink-Lady/Clytemnestra Cries Out from the Ukraine!

What's on in the cold weather?
Tovah Feldshuh Saves Polish-Jews!/Moses on Steroids!/Craig Lucas Offers Prayer/Chris Noth in Farragut North/Foster-Brother in Dust/Ken Russell’s Mindgame Set Shrinks!/Saturn Returns [Three Times] at Lincoln Center’s Newhouse/Bare Wood-Frame for New House Under Construction/Mamet Returns Twice in Same Season: Buffalo-Speed/Druid Irish Cripple from Galway-Innishmaan!/Rabe’s Streamers Once Again/Dynamic Kevin T. Carroll in Home/Set-Devastation in Sarah Kane’s Blasted/Hallie & Horton Foote Move To Booth/Trio of Outstanding Young Billy Elliots!/Shrek Has Clever Lindsay-Abaire Lyrics/Let’s Get Road-Show Really on the Road!/Irish-Espionage in Improbable Frequency/Hoofer-Letters: Vaudeville-Man/Israel Bashevis Singer Sings: Moshe Yassur’s Gimpel Tam/Doubts about JP Shanley’s Musical, Romantic Poetry/Glittering Mock-Ziegfeld Schlock in Pal Joey/1950s Family-Values Live Again in White Christmas!/Tons of Shredded-Paper in Snowshow/Irish Rep’s Christmas in Wales/Crystal-Meth Perils in New Victory’s Cranked/Brilliant Lepage Faust Staging at Met/Renée Fleming in Christian Lacroix Gowns as Massenet’s Thaïs/Delightful Art-Deco La Rondine/Euro-Trash Don Giovanni/Visual Splendors of Queen of Spades/Abstractly Asian-Influenced Tristan und Isolde with Linda Watson/Met-Opera Ticket-Lottery: $25 for Orchestra-Seats!/Mortier Deserts City Opera/Five Hoppers Inspire Impressive New American Opera: Later the Same Evening/Wal-Mart Walton Patroness of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet/Mike Daisey Worried About Nuclear-Holocaust: If You See Something…/Williamsburgher Danny Hoch Mocks Newly-Arrived Gentrifiers!/Pina Bausch Channels Bollywood in Bamboo Blues at BAM/Liza Survives the Palace/Hieronymus Bosch Soars at Minetta Lane/Subversion & Perversion in Weimar Girls/Snooping in Thornton Wilder’s Correspondence/42nd Street Theatres Revisited by Mary Henderson & Alexis Greene: What Theatre-Goers Have Lost.

If I ever see another vontz, it'll be too soon!
Why The Disconnect & Delay in Show-Notes Reports, STRANGE BED-FELLOWS: Between the Sheets with Gregor Samsa & Franz Kafka, THE ANGEL IN THE ARK, Or A Dream of Hay-Fever Transmuted Into A Revelation…, THE DREAM THAT SAVED MY LIFE, Changing Dream-Channels at Mid-Night From Bad to Worse, DREAMING THE FUTURE OR WISH-FULLTHINKING?, Imperfect Mental-Telepathy From the Sierra Foothills to El Salvador, A NEW WAY TO REPORT ON PRODUCTIONS PAST & PRESENT, Old Musicals in Revival, Other Entertainments/Other Venues, A Very Mixed-Bag, Puppets at La MaMa: "KO'OLAU" & "THE DOLL SISTERS, " Moments-Musicaux, Annual Arts Awards & Prizes, THE THEATRE HALL OF FAME, THE THEATRE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AWARDS, THE BRENDAN GILL PRIZE. A vonz, by the way, is a bedbug.

 

Off-Season Premieres and Things
The Season Should Have Closed on 31 May, 2008: Why Are They Still Premiering Plays On & Off-Broadway? / The Summer Bookshelf: Vintage Theatre-Images Illuminated with Insightful Texts! / Aside from That, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

End of Season Wrapup
Brilliant Soldaten in Park Avenue Armory Drill-Hall/Will the Season Never End?/Loney Mother-Memoirs in Progress/Paper-Mill Playhouse Saved/Tony-Winning Theatre Forced to Close in Minneapolis, City of Falling-Bridges!/Outstanding New Plays by Neil LaBute, Annie Baker, Edward Albee & Others/John Lithgow, the Loving-Monologist/Brits Off-Broadway Hits at 59E59/End of Season at the New Victory/Jonathan Miller Celebrates Cimarosa at BAM/Fantastic Basil Twist Puppetry: Arias with a Twist/Toy-Theatre Fest in DUMBO/Cirque Dreams on Broadway No Threat to Julie Taymor or Cirque du Soleil.

Roundup of theater in Washington DC and Arlington,VA Area
Metro-DC Now a Theatre-Destination!/Arlington-Incubator Stimulates Creation of New Arts-Groups/American Theatre Critics Explore DC & Suburbs/New Arts-Centers & Theatres for Michael Kahn’s Shakespeare Company, Wooly-Mammoth, & Others/Historic Ford’s Theatre Closed but Lincoln’s Death-House Open/Backstage Tours of the National-Theatre & the JFK Center/Closed Kennedy Memorial-Services for Tim Russert/World-Class.

Reflections as Awards Time, 2008
When You Die, Don’t Forget To Turn Off Your Cell-Phone!, Notes from the Political-Theatre: Could Condi Rice Be Both Our First Woman-President & Our First Black-President?, Dysfunctional Irishmen Way Down in DUMBO, Die Entführung: Middle-East Hostage-Taking in Mozart’s Time!, Caryl Churchill Times-Two: Top Girls & Drunk Enough, Linda Lavin & Jane Houdyshell Riotous in New-Old Paul Rudnick Farce, Ellen Burstyn Dying in Little Flower, Julie White Frantic in Liz Flahive’s From Up Here, LBJ Furious with Martin Luther King in Conscientious-Objector, Lawrence Fishburne IS Thurgood!, Marian Seldes Debuts at the Met-Opera at 79!, Something You Did: Parole for a Former Anti-Vietnam Activist-Terrorist?, Is A Catered Affair Really Necessary for a Happy-Marriage?, Hilarious Mike Daisey Indicts Regional-Theatre & Other Dramatic-Failures!, The Fifth-Column: Papa Writes a Play!, Fargo’s McDormand as Odets’ Country-Girl, Lovely Laura Linney’s Liaisons, Non-Violent MK Ghandi Is Backed by Giant-Puppets!, Some Enchanted-Evenings at Vivian Beaumont’s South Pacific!, Dynamic Patti LuPone in Gypsy!, Mark Rylance Is the Perfect Clown in Boeing Boeing!, Candide Makes a Come-back at Lincoln Center, John Turturro Is Fantastic Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame!, Carmelite-Nuns Break Vow of Silence at Hunter-College!, Alan Cumming & Diane Wiest Challenge Chekhov, Tristan Has a Virus!, Stew Brews-Up a Musical-Stew in Passing Strange!

March comes in like a Lion
Orlando without Disney: Shakespeare Theatre's Harriett Lake Festival of New Plays/Ambulatory Shakespeare in Boston/Down Mamet-Lane in November/Take 39 Hilarious Steps to the American-Airlines Theatre: No In-Flight-Meals/New Jerusalem: Spinoza on Trial/Iraquis Betrayed by US Authorities/Ernest Hemingway Season: Jazz-Age, Maddening-Truth, The Fifth-Column/Almost an Evening Almost an Evening/Secrets of a Soccer-Mom: Whatever Became of the Little-League!/Smashed-Fruitcakes & Broken-Dreams in Paradise-Park/"The Scottish Play" Moves from BAM To Broadway/Fionna Shaw On the Rocks with Happy-Days/All-African-American Cat on a Hot Tin-Roof/Little-Sheba Makes a Come-Back!/Beth Henley's Crimes on Stage Again!/Expressionism-in-Music: Elmer Rice's Adding-Machine Sings!/Depressive-Mom & Dead-Son Sing in Next To Normal/Seafood Sings in Disney's Little Mermaid!/Gene O'Neill Sings Again in Take Me Along/Dynamic-Digital-Designs Upstage Sunday in the Park with George/Grim Peter Grimes at the Met/Food-Fest in Met's New Hansel & Gretel/Live-Horses in Manon Lescaut, But No Horse-Opera!/Marvelous Walküre at Met as Prelude to Complete RING/Raging-Riots In Liberty City/Black-haired Rapunzel at New Victory!/The Creation Premieres on West 57th Street!/Challenging Panels at CUNY's Martin Segal Theatre-Center! By Glenn Loney.

A New Beginning for the Year 2008
Tom Stoppard Rocks Broadway, Met Opera's War and Peace, More Troops Onstage Than Bush Iraq-Surge, August, Osage County Has Three Sisters, No Chekhov, Trumpery, Charles Darwin and the Other Discoverer of Evolution, Philo Farnsworth vs. General David Sarnoff, Yellow Face is Asian-Blackface, Placido Domingo in Good Voice in Gluck's Tauride, Richard Wagner Onstage in Doris To Darlene, Lonely Lessons from Julia Cho's Piano-Teacher, Raymond Chandler Meets Mother-Goose in City That Cried Wolf, Mark Twain's Is He Dead?‚ Norbert Leo Butz in Skirts, Lincoln-Center Cymbeline a Majestic Pageant, Audience-Flags for Richard III, Wooster-Groupies Miming Manipulated-Videos of Burton's Hamlet, Constant-Couple, Gem of Restoration-Comedy at Pearl, Dashing Devilish Dick Dudgeon at Irish Rep, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma Now in Soho, Summer in Salzburg, The Seafarer Invokes Devil, Shite, and Drink, Kathleen Chalfant as Always-Wrong DECIDER in Hard Heart, Mikhail Baryshnikov in Sam Beckett's Shorts, Crime and Punishment with Multi-Doors, Edward Albee Puts a Front-Story on The Zoo Story, Pan-Asian Joy Luck Club Returns, Eve Best Outstanding in Pinter's Homecoming Revival, Chas. Mee and You on Queens Boulevard, Stagehands' Strike Nearly Steals Grinch's Christmas, Lukas Foss and Griffelkin Live at Manhattan School of Music, Charlie Chaplin's Grandson at BAM, Three Legendary Women Go Through Tan Dun's Gate, Puppet-Fest at Theatre for the New City, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppeteers Imagine Dante's Inferno in Guantanamo, Schnitzler's La Ronde Adapted by Werner Schwab and Re-Adapted for Elegant Clemento Solo Velez Staging, Sarah Jones Wins Brendan Gill Prize for Bridge and Tunnel, Under the Radar Festival at Public-Theatre.

Rebooting & Getting-Started for the NYC Season 2007-2008
Red-Necks & Trailer-Trash on Parade/Sibling-Squabbles in Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate/Three Dramas of Desperate Irish Lives/Cherry-trees in Russia, Coffee-trees in Guatemala/Sir Ian McKellen's Mad Lear at BAM/Cell-Phones & Plasma TV-Panels for Moliere's Misanthrope!/Roller-skates on Broadway: Xanadu!/Sam Walton's Severed-Head: No Wal-Mart Endorsement for Walmartopia!/Toni Morrison's Beloved Becomes an Opera/Remembering Beverly Sills/LaMaMa Celebrates 46 Off-Broadway Seasons/90th Anniversary for Manhattan School of Music.


The Bayreuth Festival 2007
Katharina Wagner: First Woman To Stage a Richard Wagner Opera in Bayreuth Festspielhaus Since Her Great-Grandmother, Cosima Liszt-Von Buelow-Wagner; Is Die Meistersinger Katharina Wagner's Meisterstueck? Will Katharina Wagner Be the Next Intendant of the Famed Bayreuther Festspiele? Why Is the Bayreuth Festival So Special for Opera-Lovers? Two Wagnerian Song-Contests: Die Meistersinger & Tannhauser, Philippe Arlaud's Tannheuser Triumphantly Returns: From Storage & From Rome! Second-Time-Round for Tankred Dorst & Ursula Ehler's Ring, Tradition vs. Experimentation or Archiving vs. Renewing: Are Wagner's Operas In Danger? Are They Really Old, Tired, Boring, & Too Long? Bayreuth Fest Facts & Fictions

Britain and Britten in Bregenz Festival 2007
Festival-Time in Austrian-Vorarlberg, Britten & Britain Onstage in Bregenz, Haunting DEATH IN VENICE, All-Seeing Eyes in Bodensee TOSCA, Innovative Bregenz-Festival Technology, AIDA Waiting in the Wings, Other Unusual Austrian Festivals, Celebrating the Genius of Angelika Kauffmann, Joseph Beuys Inspires Cy Twombly & Matthew Barney & Douglas Gordon To Make MYTHOS.

Festival Season in Munich 2007
World-Premiere for Alice in Wonderland! Enchanting Alcina, Resplendent Rosenkavalier, Enormously-Moving Norma, Leaping Le Corsaire, Messy Merry Wives of Windsor, Bernstein's Candide in Concert-Illustrated by Loriot, Cinderella for School-kids!

John Neumeier's Hamburg Ballet Festival!
From Bayreuth to Hamburg: Thanks to John Neumeier, The 33rd Annual Hamburger Ballet-Days! A New Vision of the Old Cinderella Fable, The Last Days of Nijinsky, Balanchine's Jewels Sparkle in Hafenstadt-Hamburg, Overseas-Travel-Advisory!
The Constant Wife at the Spoleto Festival. Photo by Shane McCarthy, 2006.

Spoleto/Charleston: Performing-Arts from Both Home & Abroad!
In Memoriam Menotti/Merlin's Magic Island: World-Upside-Down!/Mahagonny: City-of-Nets in Charleston/What Is Hell Like: Faustus, The Last Night/Art-Deco Elegance: Dublin Gate's Constant Wife/Intermezzi & Concerti: From Yiddish Folk-Poetry to Accordion-Minimalism/Will Grey-Panther Audiences Ever Die Out?/Or Are They Infinitely-Renewable?
The Taming of the Shrew at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. Photo by T Charles Erickson.

A Tale of Two Shakespeare Cities
Tom Stoppard Is On the Razzle in Ashland/Taming the Shrew in the Rogue River Trattoria/Prospero Frees His Slaves in America's First Elizabethan Theatre/Romeo & Juliet in the Generation-Gap!/Saroyan Revisited: Tracy's Tiger/Is This As You Like It?/Thornton Wilder's American-Version of the Original-Version of On the Razzle/Cedar City's Candid Candida/Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor Sings!/Twelfth-Night Gender-Confusions in Ottoman-Illyria/Coriolanus in the Land of Canyons/Neil Simon Has a Festival in Southern Utah!/Shakespeare Festivals Here & There.
Welcome to Las Vegas sign.

Sin City Revealed
What Stays in Vegas, Cirque du Soleil's KA & O & LOVE, Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS, Lloyd Webber's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Monty Python's SPAMALOT, Franco Dragone's LE RÊVE, Clint Holmes' JAM, Liberace's Rhinestone-World, New Plays Sundance-Workshopped, American Theatre Critics on the Move & on the Spot, The Road Not Taken: The Shows Not Seen.

 

''Tune in to Radio Golf!'' to ''L'Italiana in Londra'' and more
Tune-in to Radio Golf!/Frank Langella as Tricky-Dick Nixon/Audra & The Rainmaker at Studio 54/Legal-Blonde in Harvard Law-School/Mark Morris Dancers Illuminate Orfeo/Creationists Inherit the Wind/Abused Children in Coram Boy/Lotte Lenya Lives Again: LoveMusik/When Queens Collide: Elizabeth & Pirate-Queen Grace!/Essential Self-Defense a Knockout!/Harrower's Harrowing Blackbird/Feckin' IRA's: Defender of the Faith/Vanessa & Joan Think Magically!/Jewish Boy Lusts for Orthodox Virgins!/Misbegotten Moon/"The Scottish Play" w/Italian-Puppets/Shock-headed Oliver Twist/Met's Monumental Puccini Triad/Wrong Reasons: Dad a Monk, Mum a Nun!/Pilar Rioja Returns to Repertorio/Mary Poppins Revisited!/Jiulliard, Mannes, & Manhattan School of Music Offer Spring Operas: Figaro, Finta Giardiniera, & L'Italiana in Londra. By Glenn Loney.

 

''Talk Radio'' to "The Barber of Seville" and more
Tom Stoppard: Marathon-Runner!/Exits & Entrances: Athol Fugard Evokes A Forgotten Life in the South-Afrikaans-Theater/New Terrence McNally “Dish'' on NYC Gay Men/Lincoln Assassinated! Acting Careers in Crisis: Our Leading Lady/Forgetting Everything in a Fugue-state/Philip Seymour Hoffman Goes Boating/Liev Schreiber's Bro' Pablo as Twins in Dying City/Pablo Schreiber's Brother Liev as an Anti-Limbaugh in Talk Radio/Mom's Bullet Deposes King Hedley II/Masculinity-Tests in Tea & Sympathy/Barrie's Mary Rose: The Lady Vanishes!/Shaw's Widowers' Houses in Charleston & Harlem/Hall's Ballsy All-Male Shrew & 12th Night at BAM/Kevin Kline Climbs Mount Lear!/Can You Believe This: Jewish Allegorical-Satire Concealed in Shakespeare's Dream: All Bard's Plays & Sonnets Conceived by Black Marrano Jewess!/CURTAINS: Stage-Murders in Beantown to Make a Killing on Broadway/Musik-Theater at the Met: Sher's Barber, Schenck's Meistersinger, & Voigt's Helena/Swimming to Minetta Lane with Spalding Gray/Lifeboat: Nazis Blitz London & Torpedo Kiddie-Ship!/Dynamic BE at Union Square No Snow-show/Vincent Sardi Remembered at Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. By Glenn Loney.

From Patrick Marber's "Howard Katz" to the Met and more
Chris Durang Seriously Adrift/Middle-Eastern Hustler at NY Theatre Workshop/Howard Katz Self-Destructs!/Bad-Dad Frank Lloyd Wright/Williamsburg Hustler at the Cort/Spanish Play No Play/Marcel Proust Re-cycled!/6969 at 59E59/Trio of Female-Abuse Dramas: Do Women Search for Losers & Abusers?/Malta & Venice: Two Jews by Murray Abraham/Art-Nouveau Fashion-Show at Madras House!/All Fall Dead in Journey's End/Tennessee Williams' Bird Sings Again/Friel's Gaelic-as-English Translations/Exchanging Souls wih a Kiss!/Rent in Washington Heights!/Gutenberg--From Wine-press To Printing-press!/Audience Blood-bath in Evil Dead!/John Neumeier's Death in Venice at BAM/New Regime at Met Opera/Peter Gelb Wants Opera-as-Theatre/Heartbreaking Eugene Onegin/Dynamic Simon Boccanegra/Magical Anna Netrebko in Puritani/Julie Taymor's Met Flute: Mozart Meets The Lion King!/Marta Eggert & Two New Performance-spaces at Manhattan School/Gerard Mortier to City Opera--Salzburg & Paris Come to Lincoln Center?/Billy Forsythe at BAM: Iraq War Is Bad/Alice Aloft at New Victory/Falun Gong Saluted at Radio City Music Hall/Richard Foreman's New Ontological-Hysteric Cult-Work at St. Mark's/Jeff Denman's Cabaret Showcase: Jazz Turns. By Glenn Loney.

End of 2006: A Look Ahead--A Look Behind
Chimney-Sweep Season: Check out Chenoweth's Ella in Apple Tree & Bert in Mary Poppins!/Julie Taymor's Magical Zauberflöte!/Dr. Charcot & Female-Hysteria: Marat/Sade Revisited!/Russian Intellectuals Foment Utopian Revolution at Lincoln Center!/New York Gays Vanish at City Center: Regrets Only!/Stand-Up for The Vertical Hour?/Closeted-Gay Korean Dad in Durango/American Pilot Crashes in Muslim-Territory!/No Dust in Clean House!/Blowing Your Own Horn in Company!/Voysey Patriarch an Enron-Crook!/Post-Modernist Hedda Smashes Løvborg's Laptop!/O'Neill's Ape in Close-Quarters!/Suddenly, Blythe Danner as Mrs. Venables!/Brodie & Nixon Both in Their Primes?/Is Lane Right for Butley?/Standing Still in the Station: Two Trains Running/Magical Russki Twelfth Night!/Stop The Grinch!/Christine Ebersole Outstanding as Double-Beales!/Frank Wedekind Sings Again—Post-Lulu!/Dylan & Tharp Don't Click!/Tower Records Closes: Also High Fidelity!/Woody Allen Strikes-Out at 59E59!/Judy Garland Lives Again in Irish Rep's St. Louis World's Fair Musical!/Les Mis Revival Miserable/Ed Harris Salvages Wrecks/Martha Clarke Creates Kaos Down on East Fourth.
Cyrano de Bergerac. See: Festival Time North & West: Shakespeare and Shaw.

2006 Festival-Time North & West: Shakespeare & Shaw!
Shakespeare Festivals North by Northwest: Stratford-Canada & Ashland-Oregon, Bernard Shaw Celebrated in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Toronto Lord of the Rings Sings!, Arms & the Man: Chocolate-Time!, Colm Feore's Curious Coriolanus, Nightmare-Gothic Duchess of Malfi, Bryan Bedford's Foppish London Assurance, Colm Feore's Creepy Fagin in Oliver!, Much Ado Benedick Old Enough To Be Beatrice's Dad, Marvelous Marco as Oregon Cyrano, OSF's Bus Stop: Greyhound Doesn't Stop in Ashland Anymore, Merry Wives Reduced To Broad Buffoonery, Betrayals in Milan: Two-Timer in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Arthur Miller's Crucible Witch-hunts Still Resonate, High Society: Cole Porter & Philip Barry No Blend, Magic Fire in Peronista Argentina, Ashland Earnest Better than BAM Redgrave Import, Anne Frank in Ashland, Portland: New Theatre, New Season, Back in NYC: LaBute's Some Girl(s) at the Lortel Is Some Play, Kotis' Pig Farm More Bloody Fun than Inishmore!, Greenberg's House in Town Set on Millionaire's Row, Frank Wedekind Sings at the Atlantic, Central Park Woods Come To Dunsinane in Delacorte Macbeth. By Glenn Loney.

 
Theresa Rebeck's "The Scene."

Humana Festival at 30
Humana Festival's 30th Birthday!, Lee Blessing Wins Big: Steinberg, ACTA Award & $25,000!, Jane Martin Takes On Bushie-Spying, Small-town Men in Fine 18th Century French Finery: Fund-raising Is a Drag!, Outside the Box with Joseph Cornell, Natural Selection: Theme-Park Ethnics, Rebeck's Scene: Self-destructive Loser, Actor Implodes, WW II Vet Finally Returns'in 1949!, Three Mailboxes in Suburbia: Sovereignty, Low: Rha Goddess in Psychotic Rapper Monodrama, New Museum-Hotel Crammed with Contemporary Artworks!, Louisville Slugger Mini-Bats Seized at Airport! By Glenn Loney.
Poster for Mozart Year at La Scala

IATC to Torino
As a member of the European Theatre Union--composed of city, state, and federally-subsidized theatres from all over the European Union--the Teatro Stabile and the City of Turin invited theatre notables and delegates from many lands. They also generously extended this hospitality to IATC: the International Association of Theatre Critics. This made it possible for several Americans--including Glenn Loney and his professorial colleague, the playwright Mario Fratti--to share in the productions, Pinter-papers, and general festivities. By Glenn Loney.

Peer Gynt to Joe Orton and More
Robert Wilson's Fantastic Peer Gynt, Hitler in New York, God Committee: Have a Heart, 18th Century Comedy Marries Oscar Wilde at Public Theatre, Stephen Lang as Gung-ho Marine Officer, Julia Roberts Shines in Three Days of Rain, Condi Rice Look-Alike in Stuff Happens, Awake & Sing, Ye Who Dwell in the Bronx, Carl Orff in Alice Tully, Get Well with Lisa Kron, Mr. Sloane Not So Entertaining, Casting-Call for Show-People, Blood & Gore in Inishmore, Blanchett's Glacial, Regal Hedda, Dreadful Dad in Festen, Why Not Publish Joe Orton's Letters?, Amy Irving & Elizabeth Bishop in Brazil, Assembly-Line Trio-logue at Cherry Lane, Threepenny Opera: Shock & Awful, Fragments of Sophocles at CSC, Ring of Fire: Johnny Cash on the Line, Sandra Bernhard Sings Again, Sidd: Buddha Sings, Lifelong Learning with Marta Eggerth at 93, Flamenco in Bernarda Alba's Casa, George M. Cohan, Not Cohen, Landscape of the Guare, Jackie Bouvier [Kennedy-Onassis] on Stage in Grey Gardens, 60 Years of Tonys. By Glenn Loney.

From Pajama Games to Heddatrons
Garcia Lorca Returns from the Dead/Co-op Board Overthrown/Ibsen Deconstructed/Almost Maine Almost Made It/Apartment 3A Is Haunted!/Handel's Hercules in San Quentin Prison/Down the Rabbit Hole/Elective Affinities in Red Light Winter/Buried Alive in Fake Scots Gothic Drama/Dark at the Top of the Stairs in Barefoot in the Park/Rose Franken Recalls WW II GI Homecomings: Soldier's Wife/Mrs. Warren Returns/Brilliant Quijote Stage-Spectacle at Repertorio Español/Harry Connick, Jr. Takes Off Pajama-Top/Seven Hip-Hoppers Against Thebes: Aeschylus Made Relevant To Semi-Illiterates/Richard Foreman Bonds Boring Videos with Ontological Fantasies/Not Easy Being Gay in LDS Utah: Mormon Boy's Confessions/Foul-mouthed Lenny Bruce Lives Again/Susan Sontag's Modern Parsifal/All's VERY Well That Ends Well.

Odd Couples, Seascapes, Women in White and more
Clyde Griffiths Sings /Bill Dudley's Revolving Concave Projection-Shells Make Magic for Woman in White/Little Dog Laughed: Can Hollywood Make an Honest Film About Gays? Don't Ask!/Chris Durang Reincarnates Miss Witherspoon/Dog Sees G-d: Is Charlie Brown Gay? Brokeback Mountain at Columbine High?/Chita Rivera a Dynamic Dancing Dervish/Rosemary Harris in The Other Side, Laying Out Corpses: Why?/Lane & Broderick OK as Odd Couple/Albee's Seascape: Odd Couple of Giant Talking-Lizards Refute Intelligent Design!/Bus-Ticket to Bountiful for Lois Smith, and Perhaps a Tony as well?/Nighthawks & Big-Band Sound at 59E59!/Bravura Gabriel Byrne in O'Neill's Poet/Didi & Gogo: You're wasting your time Waiting for Godot: He's not coming!/Celebrating Harold Pinter at the Atlantic/Judy Kaye Punishes Vocal-Folds as Florence Foster Jenkins/Oprah's Color of Purple Is Riot of Colors, But Short on White/Aussie Duo Terrific in Overpass-Dropped Stones/Synge Sings in Riders to the Sea at Manhattan School of Music. By Glenn Loney.

Ellen Karas as "Hilda"

Jersey Boys to Hilda and More
Johann Sebastian Bach Wins Leipzig Organ-Audition!, Brilliant Patti Lupone Makes Both Vocal & Instrumental Sondheim Music, Soldier's Play Even Better Second Time Around!, Frankie Valli Sings Again!, Tourette's Syndrome as Musical Inspiration!, Dawn Powell's Posthumous World Premiere!, Magical Ping Chong Cathay!, Meryl Streep's Daughter Mamie as Precocious 4-Year-Old!, No Zagat-Rating for 5-Course Love, Miracle in Central Park: Not at Public Theatre, Beowulf Sings & Sings, Wendy Wasserstein on Third!, Blood-soaked Labyrinthine Massacre, Very French Servant-Problems: Hilda & Trapped, Flee from Manic Flight Reaction, Other Ayckbourns Better Than Absurd Person Singular, Look-Alike Bobby in RFK, Hispanic Stereotypes in Latinologues, Celebrating Goldfadden & Yiddish Theatre, Charlie Chaplin's Grandson Outstanding Mime in Bright Abyss!, Lavish Maoist Ballet: Raise the Red Lantern, Isabelle Huppert in Two-Hour Stupor of Depression: 4.48 Psychose, Boisterous All-Male Winter's Tale, Mouse Queen Meets Lion King, Give Me Shelter, Little Prince Flies into Lincoln Center. By Glenn Loney.

 

 

 


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