Tag: Matthew Penn

The evening has something for everyone and someone for everything.

WAM Theatre has announced a Berkshire County tour of “FRACTURED DREAMS,” a collaborative devised production between WAM’s new Elder Ensemble and its Teen Ensemble.

The 10 10-minute plays, divided by one intermission, feature 10 playwrights who, each with remarkable economy, illuminate some aspect of life—in the everyday, in the home or in the news—as we are living it, like it or not, in this 2019 winter of discontent.

The play that ends the first half of the program, 'Pipeline' written by Michael Brady and directed by Julianne Boyd, is utterly moving and effective as three exuberant protestors on the edge of a mountain forest in south Berkshire County are confronted by an actual moment of disaster.

This production, featuring so much talent, is about the best it can be in a world where our expectations of people in power is so often betrayed these days.

For much of what works, thanks goes to the director, Matthew Penn, who has taken the play to a higher plane than the script calls for.

“Remnants” was first produced for radio in 1992 and is based on 20 years of playwright Henry 'Hank' Greenspan’s conversations with Holocaust survivors.

This is the way I like to begin spring. New plays that speak volumes in mere minutes. Fine performances that grow characters quickly and definitively.

Tina Packer is moving in the role of Joan of Arc's mother, Isabelle, a role for which she was seemingly destined. There is an honesty in her acting. Her performance in this play is nothing short of brilliant.

Shakespeare & Company is known for its revelatory clarity of dense speech as well as for its comic abilities. It was made for this play.