Reviews
TheatreWorks Has a Hit With Noirish ‘Mauritius’
Stamp collecting hardly seems gripping enough to be the basis of a play—unless, of course, we’re talking about the crown jewel of stamp-collecting at the heart of TheatreWorks New Milford’s latest offering, Theresa Rebeck’s spellbinding “Mauritius.” Presented under the direction...
Clever use of deception delivers genuine entertainment in ‘Mauritius’
Mauritius, an attention-grabbing two-act drama now playing at TheatreWorks New Milford, is an intriguing and entertaining look at the timeless human effort to achieve instant wealth and legitimacy — and the depth of deception that often accompanies such endeavors. Created...
TheaterWorks competition spells ‘F-U-N’
Yes, there are still excellent spellers, in spite of spell check and dictionary online. You can meet some of them in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin at TheatreWorks in New Milford. If...
TheatreWorks’ ‘Spelling Bee’ Is a Hilarious H-I-T
How do you spell hit? The answer is spelled out in TheatreWorks New Milford’s side-splitting production of the musical comedy “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” With TheatreWorks veteran Beth Bonnabeau at the helm, an extraordinary all-adult cast portraying...
‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ transforms the angst of adolescence into pure entertainment
A hardy group of theatergoers braved a snowstorm last Friday evening to attend the opening night of ‘The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee’ at TheatreWorks in New Milford. They were rewarded with a high-energy and thoroughly entertaining musical comedy...
‘Spelling Bee’ delights with words, words, words, and F-U-N
William Finn was onto something when he created the music and lyrics for "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" -- a show known as "Spelling Bee" for those of us who like to cut to the chase. His musical was...
Ayckbourn’s ‘Season’s Greetings’ Does Very Well in New Milford
NEW MILFORD — The prolific Alan Ayckbourn, often touted as the British Neil Simon, has written an unbelievable number of plays, generally situational farces populated by characters whose human complexity makes them more real, and more memorable than the general...
TheatreWorks Stages Spirited and Hilarious Holiday Comedy
December 'tis the season when even the nastiest of killjoys experiences a seasonal change of heart, when hearty refrains of "season's greetings" roll easily past the lips. And it's usually a time of year when theaters prepare themselves to either...
Christmas is chaos in New Milford comedy
You might not expect to hear Santa shouting "Ho, Ho, Ho -- Schadenfreude for all!" as he circles over the rooftops on Christmas Eve, unless you've unfortunately been invited to drop by for a holiday drink at the home of...
Rolling in the Aisles with Ayckbourn: Season’s Greetings at New Milford’s TheatreWorks
Playwrights aren’t usually as prolific as Alan Ayckbourn. Nor are many of them as successful at the box office. Witness the comedies that seem to tumble out of the Brit’s output of over seventy plays, including Absurd Person Singular (1975), the popular...
The Thugs Steal the Show in New Milford’ “Kiss Me Kate”
Kiss Me Kate is frequently lauded as one of the all time great American musicals. The reason for this is simply the fact that Cole Porter wrote the words and music for the 18 numbers that mate the show. Porter was...
A Comical ‘Kate’
You don't have to "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," as the memorable song in the musical "Kiss Me, Kate" suggests, to enjoy the TheatreWorks New Milford production. With music and lyrics by the legendary Cole Porter and book by Bella and...
‘Kate’ at TheatreWorks in New Milford
"Send in the clowns!" is what wise directors cry when their show – even a classic one – is looking listless. Luckily, Bradford Blake, the director of "Kiss Me, Kate" at TheatreWorks in New Milford, has Mark Feltch and Jeff...
‘Doubt’ Is a Winner
There aren't many local theaters brave enough to stage a play that became an Academy Award-nominated film starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman only a year ago. But TheatreWorks New Milford never shies away from a challenge, and any...
TheatreWorks leaves no ‘Doubt’ about it…the show’s a hit
It's not surprising that John Patrick Shanley's drama "Doubt" won the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize. It's a great play. What makes it so outstanding is that important universal themes are woven throughout the play. "Doubt" deals with issues from...
Fine acting in New Milford ‘Doubt’
John Patrick Shanley's award-winning drama "Doubt," now at TheatreWorks in New Milford, is a chilling example of morality gone mad. What is it about righteousness that causes the heart to go cold, and moral certainty to blind the mind to...
John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” at New Milford TheatreWorks
Doubt is a somber four-character play about the conflict between the principal of a Catholic school in the Bronx and a young priest assigned to her parish. The drama opens with a sermon in which the priest extols the lack of...
‘Fourth Wall,’ A Departure For Its Playwright, Still Handled Well By TheatreWorks New Milford
NEW MILFORD — A.R.Gurney, chronicler of the decline of the American WASP, probably best known for the frequently produced Love Letters and the man-woman-dog love triangle Sylvia, is probably the most accessible and likeable play-writing today. From The Dining Room...
‘All the World’s a Stage’ TheatreWorks Brilliantly ‘Redecorates’, With ‘The Fourth Wall’
Anyone familiar with theater knows of the "fourth wall," that imaginary barrier at the front of the stage through which viewers watch the onstage action. It is the boundary between reality and the imagined world of the playwright, the line...
‘Fourth Wall’ serves as spoof of theater, politics
So what do playwrights do in their spare time? If Roxbury's A.R. Gurney is a prime example, they write more plays. Not plays necessarily meant for Broadway, but works in which the playwright (Gurney) can have fun using his skills...
A.R. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall at New Milford’s TheatreWorks
There is more to playwright A. R. Gurney than meets the eye. Some critics view him as a dramatist who has a flair for depicting characters who inhabit a genteel, waspish world. Yet signs of a widened sensibility are also...