As we have learned over the centuries, when it comes to burning witches, it doesn’t really matter if you have burned a real witch or just someone who, in your fevered, partisan, and paranoid imagination, could easily become a witch in the future. It is the burning that is the message.
For those of us who have observed Sharon Playhouse’s up and downs, it can be said that “Crazy for You” is Sharon Playhouse’s moment: here for good and at the top of its game.
The very 1960s appeal of the piece was maintained, with a very 2018 sensibility bringing it up-to-date in feel while leaving things as they were written more than 50 years ago.
The object of the selection of winners is not to single out the “best” in any category, but to reward the outstanding elements of the season, the work that is not possible to forget, that stands out, that exemplifies excellence.
Despite Sharon Playhouse’s ambition to do something different with a classic musical, it fails to dramatize what’s at the core of Meredith Willson’s text – a universal tale of fulfilling a dream.
As an enthusiastic admirer of Caryl Churchill’s works, at least I can say I’ve now seen FAR AWAY but regrettably I don't think the way Churchill intended.
“The play is about the struggles between those with grotesque wealth and the poor who are expected to work hard to keep them in the style to which they’ve become accustomed.”
-- Johnson Henshaw, artistic director of the Sharon Playhouse