Each of the six mainstage season productions will be directed by a woman. The 2020-21 season includes the longest-running music revue in Broadway history, a very Jane Austen Christmas production, and a coming-of-age soccer play.
Theater Preview
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Theater preview: ‘Things Went Horribly Wrong’
The first staging of New York City-based playwright Sarita Covington’s new work, “Things Went Horribly Wrong,” will be performed in Rochester this week. The production closes out The Avenue Blackbox Theatre’s inaugural season, and each performance is paired with a Long Table Conversation.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Geva announces 2019-20 season
The new season includes Tony Award-winning musical, “Once;” post-Vietnam hip-hop musical, “Vietgone;” and the world premiere of “Looks Like Pretty,” which is set in a Kodak lab. More than half of the productions are written by and will be directed by women, three plays are written by playwrights of color, and five will be led by directors of color.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
North Star Players celebrates Frederick Douglass’s legacy through multimedia production
Two hundred years have passed since trailblazing abolitionist and famous Rochesterian Frederick Douglass was born. And while his bicentennial is cause for celebration, it’s also a sobering reminder: It’s 2018 and mass incarceration of African Americans and police brutality are still national maladies; civil rights advocates from Black Lives Matter to professional athletes are still […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Blackfriars Theatre announces 2017-18 season
There’s always something interesting happening at Blackfriars Theatre. Artistic and Managing Director Danny Hoskins and Development Manager Mary Tiballi Hoffman, on Monday evening, announced the company’s 2017-18 season from folding chairs in the back of a red pickup truck — the leftover centerpiece from “Hands on a Hardbody” — previewing six main productions, a year-long […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Finding Home’ art program spotlights refugees
Amid news this last weekend of a second bomb threat to the Jewish Community Center of Greater Rochester — and the third case of anti-Semitic hostility in Rochester in recent weeks — Deborah Haber is pushing onward to finalize plans for a series of arts events that will be held this month at the JCC […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Black Wall Street comes alive in new play
Following the Civil War, African-Americans began to establish all-black townships in the Indian and Oklahoma Territories. One of those townships was Greenwood — located north of the tracks in Tulsa. Created in 1906 by O.W. Gurley, one of Tulsa’s earliest pioneers, and other black entrepreneurs who invested in property, Greenwood over time became a self-sufficient […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Desegregation hero is focus of new play
When we think about school desegregation in the US, the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education immediately springs to mind. But the roots of the movement stem from a lesser known lawsuit. Seven years earlier, Mendez v. Westminster School District was a landmark desegregation case that ended school segregation in California and had direct […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Immigration play highlights humanity in border conflict
This weekend, the Rochester Latino Theatre Company will present a production of “Elvira: The Immigration Play” at MuCCC (142 Atlantic Avenue). The play, written by actress and School of the Arts alumna Jessica Carmona, is based on the true story of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican immigrant and activist whose fight to return to the United […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Curtains up
Our top 10 picks for the 2015-16 theater season The 2015-16 theatrical season is all about fresh faces. New shows, theater companies, and directors abound, bringing a welcome energy to our local stages. It will be a busy season, but here are 10 productions that caught our attention. “James and the Giant Peach” (Rochester Association […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Same eggs, different spice
The Bronze Collective Theatre Festival is hoping to infuse different kinds of African-American arts — like theater, dance, and music — into Rochester’s theatrical scene this week. The festival brings together many accomplished local writers, actors, and other performers for “A Week’s Infusion of African-American Theatrical Arts.” The festival takes place at MuCCC from Tuesday, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“Children of a Lesser God”
When Mark Medoff’s “Children of a Lesser God” was produced on Broadway in the early 1980’s it won a Tony Award for Best Play, and was made into a movie soon afterward. It was also a pioneering work of theater, presenting current issues in the deaf community and the nascent movement for deaf rights and […]
