If there isn’t a right way to do things then you have to invent one. Iron Crow Theatre is doing exactly that with their current production of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9. Directed by Dr. Natka Bianchini, this work of Churchill’s examines a lot of things but askes a great deal from the audience in order to exist as anything other than a preachy drama with a lot of confusion. That said,
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,
Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Marilyn Monroe was Jell-o on springs. Harsh mantras that plague the warped minds of frustrated teenage girls in Wendy MacLeod’s Schoolgirl Figure, like those just mentioned, are what fuels this black comedic drama forward at Cohesion Theatre Company this season. Refusing to be weighed-in as an ‘issues play’ under the sharp and succinct visionary approach of Director Jonas David Grey, though MacLeod’s work does address eating disorders,
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,
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,
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,
Everyone should be needed by someone and need someone; be loved by someone and love someone. We all need someone to touch our bones when we are dead. The elusively fantastical play, The Pillow Book, which has only been produced once before in New York, makes its regional premier as a co-production with Cohesion Theatre Company and Strand Theatre Company here in Baltimore. Written by Anna Moench and Directed by Jonas David Grey,
What is language if not an act of faith? Take a leap into the language of the theatre and you’ll find yourself pleasantly pleased with Silver Spring Stage’s current production of Julia Cho’s The Language Archive. Directed by Joseph Coracle, this tender tale of words and love finds the soft spot of your heart and whispers the language of true understanding. A carefully crafted touching drama with an exceptional cast guiding the story through an ocean of linguistics,
“But whate’er I be, nor I, nor any man that but man is, with nothing shall be pleased till he be eased with being nothing.” A profoundly Zen quote to come from the tongue of Shakespeare. Uttered by the title character of Richard II, which is now playing at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company under the direction of Kevin J. Costa, the quote brings to mind a different way of viewing life and of viewing Shakespeare’s tragic histories.
What can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground? Shakespearean essence in its purest sense; we are the stuff that dust is made of and our legacy is little more than our fragile mortal coil. An innovative new way of experiencing Shakespearean tragedy is striking up discourse on the stage of Chesapeake Shakespeare Company as the 2014 season progresses. The rarely performed Richard II is reinventing the meaning of tragedy under the skillful direction of Kevin J.