Frankenstein at The Strand Theatre
“Madness is that much closer to death”
“Madness is that much closer to death”
The current production at the Strand Theatre caused me to reflect on not who I am, but rather who I think I am. We all do it. Whether it is second guessing yourself, staying inside not because of COVID but for fear of being seen, or even trying to live up to what we think society wants us to be. Bottom line is we are far quicker to see the worth in someone else before we see it in ourselves.
When you force the eye to see something in a whole new light; that’s true beauty. A pile of junk is just a pile of junk until it isn’t anymore; looking differently upon something broken, disregarded, or damaged can transform trash into treasure. In the world premiere of D. W. Gregory’s Dirty Pictures, art, beauty, and truth find new lights and the backwoods yokels of wilderness-nowhere Colorado absorb new perspective on what those things mean to their lives.
Americans always seem ripe for a good feud. Feuds make great headlines and apparently even better entertainment. Ryan Murphy scored television ratings gold this season with his recounting of the on and off screen cat-fighting between iconic movie stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The current Broadway season features War Paint, a musical based on the corporate backstabbing between leading lady cosmetics pioneers Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. Nationally, the riffs and hate have become unveiled and brutally wide between Clinton and Trump supporters,
Water takes the boat people. Water catch ‘em. Water keep ‘em. A cautionary warning to those brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to strike out on a Government sanctioned expedition down the Colorado River through the uncharted “Big Canyon” (what we know now as The Grand Canyon) in 1869. Are you brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough, to join Cohesion Theatre Company as their close out their third season with Men on Boats,
What follows the “I am” will always come looking for you. “I am old.” Wrinkles will come looking for your face. “I am fit.” The exercises will stick to you like white on rice. “I am controversial.” The critic will have much to say in regards to your play. That last one follows soundly with Interrobang Theatre Company’s current production of Amina Henry’s Bully. An edgy 90-minute play that floats precariously around the subject of fitness,
Are you prepared to experience the mesmerizing wonder that awaits you inside a brand new cabinet of curiosities? Are you ready to undertake a most daring expedition to explore the excitements of an immersive theatrical endeavor that exists outside the bounds of time and space? Then step off with Submersive Productions and ready yourself for the most unusual and unique experience of a lifetime. In sentient residence at The Peale Center, one of Baltimore’s treasured historic buildings,
Nothing is ever easy when journeys are involved. Dare you take a journey most chimerical? Most fantastical? Up-worlders beware, darkness is happening: fantastical, phenomenal, hypnotizing darkness that crackles with the electrifying magic of #LondonBelow at Cohesion Theatre Company as they draw their second season to a close with the Baltimore premiere of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Directed by Brad Norris, this ambitious beast of a production ensnares the mind and engulfs the soul for a treacherous trek into a world unseen,
The mayhem never stops over at Cohesion Theatre Company and their latest mount to the stage is truly wondrous strange. Taking William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to task, Director Alice Stanely refocuses the driving forces of the plot’s actions and tunes them into the highly potent pathos of grief. Coping with loss is never easy, and the ways in which human beings express these feelings are nothing short of evocative, stirring, and daringly dramatic as witnessed in this production.
I am slain! Well, I’m not slain, thankfully, lest you’d be reading ye ole review by someone else! But you will be slain— with comic calamity and gripping tragedy all rolled into one amalgamation of a stage production currently parading itself on the boards of the St. Mary’s Community Center. Co-produced by Cohesion Theatre Company and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, The Complete Deaths of William Shakespeare— a devised work written by Alice Stanley (with a little help from Old Bill of the Bard)— is stirring up quite a ruckus,
Like Shakespeare, interview series can too come with surprises! In an unpredicted fourth installment of the three-part series “No Darkness But Ignorance: Shedding Light on Trans* Twelfth Night” the show’s two remaining actors (who had not yet previously been featured) sit down to discuss the opportunity to work on the project with TheatreBloom. Alice Stanley, the Co-Founder and Co-Producing Artistic Director of Cohesion Theatre Company, sits with actor Melanie Glickman to discuss working inside of Twelfth Night in the Trans* Voices Workshop Series production co-produced by Cohesion Theatre Company and Iron Crow Theatre.
Immortality is a faded portrait. Theatre is the art of capturing the ephemeral and transposing it— even just for a moment, an evening, a run of a show— into immortality. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we sit down with area Director Jonas David Grey to discuss his latest directorial work with Cohesion Theatre Company.
If you could give us a quick introduction for the readers that may be new to TheatreBloom or to your work,
It’s a little too fantastical to be true. A theatre company that sprouts up overnight on the side of Charm City where there’s no theatre, and then proceeds to do incredible work like the regional premier of 13 Dead Husbands. But it is true at Cohesion Theatre Company where they are launching the Tom Horan absurdist fairytale. Meet Deedee, the world’s most beautiful woman, and her 12 dead husbands,
In the conclusory installment of #weirdfrance, TheatreBloom readers are invited to meet the woman behind the— well, the woman. The world’s most beautiful, albeit unlucky, woman, Deedee as played by actress Casey Dutt. Cohesion Theatre Company is nearly ready to debut their production of 13 Dead Husbands but not before hearing what Casey has to say.
Give us the usual introduction if you would be so kind.
Casey Dutt: I am Cassandra,
Whet your appetite a little further on this curious cuisine of surrealist normalcy in an absurdist reality. In Part 2 of #weirdfrance, TheatreBloom continues its quest to learn about all the crazy things happening in the Cohesion Theatre Company production of 13 Dead Husbands. This time we’ve gathered the three leading men, Thomas Sinn, Bobby Henneburg, and Matthew Payne, to hear their take on #weirdfrance.
If you fellas can give us a quick introduction,
We’ll tell you a tale marvelous told. Of a beautiful girl like the stories of old. The most wondrous girl, and not just by chance…this story here happens inside of— Weird France? The Baltimore Area premier of Tom Horan’s 13 Dead Husbands is making waves…or perhaps corpses…over at Cohesion Theatre Company. As the second production of their inaugural season, this dark and humorous fairytale takes place in a “Paris of the imagination.” In a TheatreBloom exclusive 3-Part series entitled “Welcome to Weird France” we go behind the scenes with the designers and performers of this exciting new work,
The Strand Theatre is alive and well in Baltimore, presenting a newly furnished work written, created, and performed by Michelle Antoinette Nelson aka LOVE the poet. An hour-long explorative piece of theatre that confronts God in the modern world through the voices of eight individual characters where the ninth voice is meant to be that of the audience, Nelson’s new work brings a series of creative mediums together in one performance that is provocative and touching as well as poignant and relevant to anyone that ventures out to see it.