The recording session becomes a battle of wills with Ma Rainey and her agent and the recording engineer. Ma Rainey demands things her way out of respect for her status as a major blues artist and as an independent African-American woman.
The songs are terrific and enhanced by clever choreography as the four move across the stage in ever-varying configurations. They belt out 50’s and 60’s favorites including such well-known tunes as “It’s My Party,” “Mr. Sandman,” “Lollypop,”
For me the use of a pounding hypnotic rock score and the scream-singing was too much. I believe that lyrics and music should work together to enhance and further the story in a manner to be appreciated and understood. Rock music makes that difficult at best.
Treasure Island is about seamen, mutineers and treasure hunters each determined to get wealthy from the buried gold. Heroism, personal integrity and a boy’s actions are present in this classic legendary tale.
A water hole douses several of the players as the play mirrors a world of word scraps that lead to cold raw sex that Ophelia uses to cut a new path in life for herself. Raw emotions and vivid sensuality erupts once Ophelia rises from her watery grave to fulfill her carnal desires
Having to cope with both their present mourning and their collective past from the mother’s escape form the Khmer Rouge reign of terror in the 1980’s, Ra and Vuthy struggle to find their place in America.
Playwright Eric Simonson’s fascinating new work, Fake, rekindles the controversy and the impact of the discovery of the infamous “Piltdown Man” thought to be the missing link between ape and man.
Her haunting performance contains the truth of living and spilling out your stories on the ‘stoop’ (front steps of an apartment building). Dael deftly mixes poetry and realism into a portrait of Harlem’s forgotten people.
This is a major triumph for Berry and the folks at Griffin Theatre Company! Behan’s play is part Irish melodrama, part music hall musical, part political and cultural satire (of the British and the Irish) and part circus. This is not your sentimental, poetic Irish drama
The show opens to a darkened stage as two people talk and move about as if the lights were functioning. Then when the women turns on the record player—boom!—the lights go out—and in a clever twist, the stage lights come on—so we see when the character’s can’t.