I must confess that I never really paid all that much attention to the American Repertory Theater, and not simply because the organization really didn't do all that many musicals. There was just something about the show choices that never really appealed to me. It was always Henry IV, Part II or a revival of The King Stag. I do have to say that, whenever I did make it across the Charles to the Loeb Drama Center, I was almost invariably impressed by what I saw. The productions were usually innovative and interesting, and featured extremely talented performers.
But the A.R.T. just wasn't generating a lot of excitement in the Boston area, at least not among my circle of theater cronies. And the A.R.T. rarely originated a production that moved to Broadway, as the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago so frequently does. Not that this is necessarily the goal for a regional theater, but, rightly or wrongly, the A.R.T. was never really on my radar.
Diane Paulus has single-handedly changed that. Paulus recently shot to fame as the director of the current hit Broadway revival of Hair. (Read my review.) Shortly after I saw the Central Park production (read my review), I heard that Paulus would be taking over as A.R.T. artistic director. Suddenly, I became a bit more interested in what the A.R.T. was doing.
I recently interviewed Paulus for an article in artscope, a local arts magazine. That article comes out in September, and focuses on the A.R.T.'s upcoming season, as well as Paulus's vision for the future of the organization. I threw in a few questions about Hair, and recently posted that portion of my interview in these pages.
But I did also want to give my readers a heads-up about three shows that the A.R.T. is doing this fall, all under the rubric of Shakespeare Exploded. First up is The Donkey Show, which takes the basic plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and sets the action in a 1970s disco. I may be a tad biased here, as three of my Boston Conservatory students are in the cast. But there was something about the way Paulus described the show to me that was infectious, and has me eagerly anticipating the show. If the name sounds familiar, The Donkey Show ran for six years Off-Broadway. I had heard of the show, but never got around to seeing it in New York. The show runs at the A.R.T.'s Zero Arrow Theater (renamed Club Oberon for the run of the show) in Harvard Square from August 21st through January 2nd.
Next up is Sleep No More, an experiential theatrical event based on Macbeth, and told in the style of a Hitchcock thriller. The show was developed by noted British theater troupe Punchdrunk. The production takes place in a renovated school in Brookline, Mass., and guides the audience through four stories of the school, not unlike the ambulatory action in the 1980s Off-Broadway show Tamara. Sleep No More runs from October to January. Finally, there's Best of Both Worlds, which infuses The Winter's Tale with the sounds of gospel music and R&B. The show will also feature a rotating roster of choirs and choruses from the Boston community. This holiday-themed show will run at the Loeb Drama Center from November to January.
It's not clear to me whether these productions are actual musicals per se, although they all seem to feature quite a bit of music, particularly The Donkey Show and Best of Both Worlds. But, hey, I'm open-minded, and I do make the occasional foray into non-musical theater. (Just to keep up appearances, you know.) But, musicals or not, each of these three productions seems fascinating in its own way, and the Shakespeare Exploded festival makes me quite eager and hopeful to see what the remainder of Paulus's tenure at the A.R.T. will bring.
The Donkey Show sounds good. I know you're a musical fan so can you check out this post?
http://encorentertainmnt.blogspot.com/2009/08/iconic-musical-scenes.html
Posted by: Encore Entertainment | August 21, 2009 at 03:32 PM