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Poetry reading at Local Sprouts Café

As the chills continue to creep in, we can look forward to a new monthly reading series at Local Sprouts Café (649 Congress St., 207.899.3529),...
By webteam | November 30, 2010

Smart acting

When Neil Simon penned Fools , writes director Celeste Green in the program notes to her Lyric Music Theater production of the 1981 comedy, he was playing to lose: He was hoping not to make us laugh and cry, but to hose his investors and flout his ex-w
Lyric's clever cast in Fools
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | June 25, 2010

Coming back to life

The season at Maine State Music Theatre opens with the beautiful music of Always...Patsy Cline , Ted Swindley's feel-good celebration of the remarkable singer (Jenny Lee Stern) and her charms both on and off the stage.
MSMT rolls out a wonderful Patsy Cline
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | June 18, 2010

With feeling

From the darkness, a hand strikes chalk against a spot-lit blackboard: July 1981 , it writes, and then, 16 .
Mad Horse's latest show has exceptional heart
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | June 11, 2010

Choosing teams

Remember how not too long ago, people were celebrating the United States’ entrance into a “post-racial” era?
West Side Story’s powerful reminder of peril
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 28, 2010

More Bard, another park

Just as fiddleheads and lilacs sprung early this year, so have the urban-pastoral pleasures of al fresco Shakespeare.
Acorn takes Shakespeare to the Riverbank
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 21, 2010

Organic farce

The Thomaskirche church, in Leipzig, is a hub of musical influence in Germany’s booming Baroque arts scene.
PSC’s fugue-ish Bach at Leipzig
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 14, 2010

An Irish classic

Matriarch Juno is the only one of the Boyles who brings in any coin: Her husband Jack is a drunken boor who, to avoid working, feigns aches in his legs.
The strong ensemble of Juno and the Paycock
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 14, 2010

The race is on

Around 7 pm last Saturday at the St. Lawrence, a sealed envelope was sliced open and its contents, handwritten on three slips of paper, were revealed to a full house: “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
Running through Acorn’s 24-Hour Play Festival
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 07, 2010

In search of light

Many of us here in Maine are guilty of having at one time or another harangued the forces of spring to hurry it up already, are guilty of cold-month mopery or worse. Imagine, then, living in the Arctic, where the winter is far darker for far longer, and
USM’s dreamlike Inuit storytelling
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 30, 2010

New voices

For nearly a decade now, Maine playwrights have had a fine friend and benefactor in Acorn Productions.
Acorn’s latest Maine Playwrights Festival
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 23, 2010

Cooking the books

Tax season got you feeling screwed? How about a little schadenfreude: Chances are Jon (Christian F. Luening) has it a lot worse and more embarrassing than you in Love, Sex & the IRS , the 1979 comedy by William Van Zandt and Jane Milmore.
How long until Love, Sex & the IRS collide?
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 16, 2010

Love Potion #3

More people love Taylor than is good for harmony.
The Maiden’s Prayer at Mad Horse
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 26, 2010

Lovely luxury

"In matters of great importance," observes young Gwendolyn, "style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."
Good Theater's rich, colorful Earnest
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 19, 2010

Sins of the father

On a rainy afternoon, Hally, short for Harold, (Michael Littig) comes home from school as usual to his wealthy parents' tea room in apartheid-era South Africa.
Visiting the son in 'Master Harold'
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 12, 2010

Seeing is believing

Emperor Fredrick has a wardrobe problem.
The Emperor visits the Children's Theatre
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 05, 2010

Ending violence

V-Day is once more upon us, and for those not partial to Hallmark-driven capitalism, the V now also popularly stands for "Vagina" or "Victory," thanks to Eve Ensler's famous monologues about violence against women.
It's much more of a struggle than we might think
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 12, 2010

We heart these people

We all know Portland is a busy, exciting place to live. It takes a lot of people's amazing energy to keep it going, though. Who's doing the moving and the shaking?
Meet Portland's most influential
By JEFF INGLIS | February 12, 2010

Campy send-up

The Mystery of Irma Vep . Portland Stage Company's excellent, giddy production, directed by Christopher Grabowski, stars Tom Ford (who portrayed some dozens of characters in PSC's superlative I Am My Own Wife ) and Steven Strafford.
Irma Vep mocks show biz
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 05, 2010

Ordinary people

Born and raised in South Berwick, the writer Sarah Orne Jewett spent her life noticing the lives of ordinary Maine people. Her esteemed 1896 The Country of the Pointed Firs is a series of wise, gentle sketches of the aging folks of several small mari
Pontine's latest Jewett adaptation
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 05, 2010

Finding her voice

"There is a balm in Gilead," an old African-American spiritual has it, and sure enough, Percy Talbott (Kelly Caufield) finds that balm.
An ex-con, a village, an opera
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 29, 2010

Hedonism at its best

In 1888, a 15-year-old French kid and a couple of his buddies wrote a script, modeling its gross and laughable anti-hero on a school teacher whom they had it in for.
Absurdist mirth and wonder in Ubu Roi
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 29, 2010

Open lines

In our hyper-connected day and age, a woman laments in Dead Man's Cell Phone , there exist only three sanctuaries from the ringing: the theater, the church, and the toilet — and even these havens are ring-less only in principle.
What if the dead could talk?
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 22, 2010

Greater Tuna in the Texas two-step

Our first introductions to Tuna come over the airwaves on the Wheelis Struvis Report , as hosts Wheelis (Barrasso) and Struvis (Donovan) announce the winning student-essay contest entry ("Human Rights: Why Bother?") and weatherman Harold Dean (Donovan
Greater Tuna parodies the Lone Star State
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 15, 2010

Food on stage

Maine is home to a nationally renowned locavore culinary scene, the oldest organic farming association in the nation (MOFGA), and a plenitude of farms that has increased by nearly 1000 in the past five years — and yet economic pressure to develop acrea
Locavores + thespians = understanding
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 08, 2010

Into new worlds

The New Year opens with a duo of two-man, many-character comedies.
Theatrical journeys for the year ahead
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 01, 2010

Big starts

I kick off my highlights of 2009 with praise for a theater company that has just finished its inaugural season: The Legacy Theater Company, founded by former City Theater artistic director Steve Burnette.
2009 was full of newness + energy
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | December 25, 2009

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