Jul 11

Theatre@First Presents “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”

Bare Bones 11: Picasso at the Lupin Agile

Presented by Theatre@First

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Thursday, July 25th at 8pm
Picasso at the Lapin Agile will be presented at Unity Somerville, 6 William Street, Somerville, MA 02144
Suggested Donation $5 – General Admission – No reservations required

About the Play:
Written by Steve Martin and directed by Santiago Rivas

What if the greatest scientific mind of the 20th century met the greatest artist at a bar in Paris before they became famous? Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a comic drama about a meeting of the minds as this hypothetical question is answered. In a Parisian bar in 1904, Albert Einstein is introduced to Pablo Picasso. They, along with the local patrons, discuss the creativity process in their respective roles in science and art. With brushstrokes and equations, a bond between the icons is forged as they approached the new century.

Cast

Michael DeFillippi playing Freddy
Jason Merrill playing Gaston/Sagot/Charles Dabernow Schmendiman/Visitor
Kitty Drexel playing Germaine
Daniel Gonzalez playing Albert Einstein
Andrea Aptecker playing Suzanne/Countess/Admirer
Carlos Nogueras playing Pablo Picasso

Bare Bones: Staged Readings at Theatre@First offers directors, casts and audiences the chance to explore a wide variety of plays in a spare, intense setting.

Jun 25

Sometimes A Snuggle is Just A Snuggle: “The Baltimore Waltz”

The Baltimore Waltz

presented by Theatre@First
by Paula Vogel
directed by Kamela Dolinova

June 20 – 29, 2013
Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA
Theatre@First Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

Warning: This production contains graphic but hilarious simulations of sexual acts, and bastardizations of European clichés.

(Somerville) As a playwright, Paula Vogel has the unique opportunity to dedicate herself to exploring and understanding her brother Carl’s end of life circumstances. Carl tragically died of AIDS. Rather than use the written word to metaphorically weep bitterly and openly, Vogel instead channeled her uncommon sense of humor and tender affections for Carl into The Baltimore Waltz, an ode to love, loss and healing.

In the context of the play, Anna has contracted Acquired Toilet Disease (ATD). In “real life,” outside the context of Anna’s fictional imagination, Carl has contracted AIDS. By narrating a character living with a pretend disease created for comic relief, playwright Paula Vogel examines the urgency of life through the lens of incurable disease.While her characters “dance” through a trippy, Noir-influenced trip to Europe, life as we know it continues with its disastrous choreography. Continue reading

May 12

We’re All Seagulls Here: THE NINA VARIATIONS

We're all seagulls here. All the best people are.

We’re all seagulls here. All the best people are. Photo courtesy of Brown Bos Theatre Project Facebook Page.

Presented by Brown Box Theatre Project
by Stephen Dietz
Directed by Kyler Taustin

Davis Square Theatre
Somerville, MA
May 9-12 & 16-19, 2013

Ocean City Center for the Arts
502 94th St
Ocean City, MD
Maryland: June 8-11
Brown Box Theatre Project Facebook Page

Review by Kitty Drexel

The Nina Variations is a strange little nugget of show presented for the approval of Anton Chekhov devotees. The plot re-imagines the last scene of The Seagull 42 different ways. It manifests on stage all possible and impossible permutations of the final scene. Three different actresses playing Nina and one actor as Boris Trigorin examine all aspects of the couple’s “love story” (Is this how people in love treat each other? Really? Ok, fine.). The result is a live fanfiction demonstration wrapped in a buttery layer of honed acting technique. Continue reading

Mar 18

“Lysistrata”: Adorably Filthy

The lovely ladies of Lysistrata refusing to get sexy. Photo Credit: Theatre@First.

The lovely ladies of Lysistrata refusing to get sexy. Photo Credit: Theatre@First.

Presented by Theatre@First

Written by Aristophanes
Directed by John Deschene
Choreographed by Alex Nemiroski

Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA
Theatre@First Facebook Page

Review by Gillan Daniels

(Somerville) Comedies, especially those that depend on references contemporary to when they’re written, don’t often age well.  Plays survive on the universal quality of their themes, like mortality, revenge, and hope, most of which belong to the sphere of drama. For a long shelf life, they must be built on ideas that resonate down the ages. It certainly says something about the nature of humor that Lysistrata, produced in 411 B.C.E. and one of Aristophanes few surviving plays, continues to be well remembered and celebrated for its bawdiness. Continue reading

Feb 04

Irish Nationalism and Irish Charm: “The Irish and How They Got That Way”

Gregg Hammer, Janice Landry, Jon Dykstra, Meredith Beck, Andrew Crowe and Irene Molloy

Gregg Hammer, Janice Landry, Jon Dykstra, Meredith Beck,
Andrew Crowe and Irene Molloy

Frank McCourt’s The Irish and How They Got That Way

Directed by Danielle Paccione Colombo

Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm Street
Somerville, MA
January 24 – March 17, 2013
Frank McCourt’s Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville) Frank McCourt’s The Irish and How They Got That Way is a musical revue that’s less about the Irish than what goes into being Irish American.  Lots of drinking and tragic songs, it says. The fare is light, airy, and mainly interested in adding to the mystique of the Emerald Isle.

The Irish and How They Got That Way is infectious in its charm.  It’s funny, sweet, and, at least for the first half of the show, sad.  Stirring versions of “Danny Boy,” “Fields of Athenry,” and “Mrs. McGrath” can be difficult to endure without a twinge of feeling.  The show never makes the mistake of taking itself too seriously, though, with a cast all too happy to lapse into “Give My Regards to Broadway” as well as the comic, “Finnegan’s Wake.”  Storytelling and scraps of history keep the action moving between numbers. Continue reading

Dec 31

Embracing the Flaws: TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

Stratton McCrady Photography; the cast getting funky with Shakespeare.

Stratton McCrady Photography; the cast getting funky with Shakespeare.

presented by Actors Shakespeare Project

Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm Street,
Somerville, MA
December 12th, 2012 – January 6th, 2012
Actors Shakespeare Project Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Somerville) Because Shakespeare has become the standard by which Western theatre is judged, we often forget that the man first had to feel his way in the dark, just like every other art school wannabe.  Two Gentlemen of Verona, believed by some to be the Bard’s first play, shows frustrating snatches of his future brilliance.  All his trademark comedic pieces are there (cross-dressing women, inconstant lovers and the amazing power of the wilderness to right all wrongs), but this script reads like the man was working on deadline.  Themes are picked up and discarded, wordplay only sporadically catches fire and a plot point in the final act makes you want to bang Shakespeare’s head against the floorboards and scream, “Rewrite!” Continue reading

Nov 09

Bare Bones Staged Reading: Julie Johnson

Written by Wendy Hammond
Directed by Becca Kidwell

ONE NIGHT ONLY! Thursday, November 15th at 8pm

Julie Johnson will be presented at Unity Somerville
6 William Street
Somerville, MA 02144
presented by Theatre@First
Theatre@First Facebook Page

Suggested Donation $5 – General Admission – No reservations required

Julie is on the verge of a breakdown. She loves her children but feels the need for a change. Her husband is abusive and she wants to be more than just a wife and mother. Her friend Claire’s life isn’t much better and they struggle through their difficulties. Julie grows as she takes computer classes, which uproots not only her own life but the lives of the people around her.

Please note: This performance contains adult language and volatile domestic scenes.

The Director: Becca Kidwell has directed ten plays so far with her favorites being: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Marla’s Devotion. She has worked in almost every aspect of theatre in the past eighteen years. Most recently she served as an assistant stage manager for Happy Medium Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet. She was nominated for an EMACT award for best props design for Walpole Footlighters. She thanks her husband and in-laws for their constant and unwavering love and support.

Bare Bones: Staged Readings at Theatre@First offers directors, casts and audiences the chance to explore a wide variety of plays in a spare, intense setting.

 

Oct 15

The Boston Babydolls and “The Wrathskellar”

Photo credit: The Boston Babydolls

presented by The Boston Babydolls
October 28, 2012 to October 5, 2012
The Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm Street, Somerville, MA

The Boston Babydolls Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville) The Boston Babydolls are out for an immersive burlesque experience. The striptease doesn’t begin when the women take the stage but when the audience find the door.

Theater-goers are greeted by a street musician at the mouth of a misty alleyway and directed to the stairs. There, they may be met by Herr Bücher (Scratch, narrator and director) who is dressed with all the subtlety of Alice Cooper. Which ever guide is doing the greeting, one will be directed down the stairs to The Wrathskellar. Continue reading

Sep 14

Bent, Not Broken

BENT
Presented by Theatre@First
A Play by Martin Sherman
Directed by Nick Bennett-Zendzian

Theatre@First Facebook Page

Performances: Friday, September 14 – Saturday, September 22
Unity Somerville, 6 William Street at College Ave.
TICKETS – $15 for adults, $12 for students/seniors. Group discounts available.

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Somerville) When the stakes grow to dizzying heights, Theatre@First’s production of Bent has the power to draw its audience as tightly as a bowstring. The air crackles expectantly as viewers wait for the other shoe to drop.  As its characters are fenced in with barbed wire and SS guards, they are left with nothing but the hope that things can’t get any worse.  It certainly will, especially when that backdrop is the Holocaust and the principal characters are homosexual. Continue reading

Apr 01

rogerandtom: Pardon My Fourth Wall

 

Stephen Radochia and Anna Waldron, Photo by Diane Libby.

rogerandtom by Julien Schwab, Simple Machine Theatre, Davis Square Theatre, 3/30/12-4/7/12, http://www.simplemachinetheatre.com/productions.html. (one spoiler–marked)

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

(Somerville, MA) Julien Schwab takes the idea of a play within a play to a new level.  Exploring drama and its tools, rogerandtom pulls, tears, twists, and turns its melodramatic plot cleverly until its end. Continue reading