notanotherbookreview

Life scrolls ever more quickly. It's almost January 2025 yet I still recall the surprise of SKYSCRAPER (Urban Stages November 7-17, 2024), the freshness of this 1960s piece (book by Peter Stone, lyrics by Sammy Cahn and music by James Van Heusen.)  After many years of existing only in memory and writing, this  SKYSCRAPER  was the first live onstage revival, since its Broadway debut in 1965.  Multiple collaborators-- Regeneration Theatre , Combustion Collective and Nelda Yaw Buckman  wanted to produce this show, a short run in a small storefront theater on 30th St. Why? This was not a showcase for a bigger production. Economies of scale enriched the focus of this show, on target for its era and ours. Groups dancing seemed to defy our time and the small stage.   SKYSCRAPER was a successful musical with 248 performances, 5 Tony nominations, including "Best Musical." The ballad, "I'll only miss her when I think of her, " was a hit for Sina...

The Archbishop's Ceiling by Arthur Miller, presented by Regeneration Theatre, is a play rarely done and this was the first New York production.  I thought I knew Miller's work but never heard of this  play set in the 1970's in an unnamed Eastern European country, where government controls  information and the freedom of writers.  In this behind the "Iron Curtain" drama, Miller, who lived through the McCarthy era, had insights into the clash between governments' need to control information and writers' need for free speech. This reverberates in 2019's chaotic "fake news" environment. Our former Cold War enemy's divide and conquer tactics, that influenced our 2016 elections, is a propaganda model used in the former soviet bloc and now imported abroad. History does repeat itself, though never in the same form. Miller's play opens with Adrian and Maya having drinks in an elegant high ceilinged room in a bygone Imperial style. Maya ...

 “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” Regeneration Theatre, November 2017 "I think the play is interesting and, in some ways, ahead of it’s time. It tries to cover a lot of issues; perhaps too many. But that is so brave for the late 1970s. Some of the attitudes seems dated, but overall the themes of acceptance, and forgiveness make me feel we should have hope. These women are in a very traditional and conservative environment, and if the most religious and bigoted among them can accept this great change in someone she knows, then anybody can. Or at least I would like to believe so. And that is the main reason I wanted to explore this piece in an age of gender fluidity, fighting against prejudice and traditionalism."  --Barnaby Edwards (Producer) I love that this theatre's focus is on re-examining shows that were influential and even controversial in their times. Looking at them through a 2017 lens reveals a different perspective.  I had...

Regeneration Theatre's new production of Robert Patrick's classic 1974 play, "Kennedy's Children" benefits greatly from the hindsight of 2017, the perceptive direction of Erin Soler and the curatorial insight of producer Barnaby Edwards. In his note about the new production, Edwards writes that on November 9th, 2016, "I woke up that morning knowing that a play I had been thinking about for some time needed, urgently to be seen again." He had it right. This play is incredibly relevant for 2017. In the late 1970's when I landed in New York, I was a playwright produced elsewhere and eager to see new work. I submitted to workshops, went to readings and local shows. I saw "Kennedy's Children" in an early production and remember feeling annoyed by histrionic pathos, slow pacing and what seemed steriotyped characters. A few years junior to the characters, I had lived through some of the same experiences. To be fair to the playwright, I...