Theater News

This week the Long Wharf’s world premiere of Heidi Schreck’s The Consultant opens officially on Wednesday, January 15. See our preview here. This week as well the Yale Cabaret resumes its 46th season with Have I None, a daunting play by British playwright Edward Bond from 2000. Set in 2077, the play darkly imagines a dystopia in which memory, and therefore history, has been erased. Jessica Holt, 2nd-year YSD director and Artistic Director for the Yale Summer Cabaret, 2014, will stage the claustrophobic play with stress on Bond's sense of the absurd. January 16-18.

Next week, on January 23, from 5:30 to 8:30, celebrated local theater troupe A Broken Umbrella Theatre will host a fundraiser at the Eli Whitney Museum and unveil details about their latest venture. As usual, the project is an original play based on historical figures, facts, and locales of New Haven. If You Build It, the new play, focuses on inventor A. C. Gilbert to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his most famous creation: the Erector Set. Director Ruben Ortiz, playwright Charlie Alexander, and cast members will present an excerpt of the work in progress.

The build up of the production will be complemented by an evening of treats and toys: Small Kitchen Big Taste will be serving “architectural food,” including slider and mashed potato stations to build-your-own-cupcakes, Thimble Island Brewery will feature locally crafted beers, and ABU's Chrissy Gardner and the Moody Food Trio will provide musical accompaniment. Guests are invited to try their hand at the engineering feat of Erector Set construction along with ABU’s crew of welders, carpenters and electricians.

A Broken Umbrella Theatre has presented site specific works in New Haven for the last five years and enjoyed perhaps their greatest triumph at last year’s Arts and Ideas Festival with Freewheelers. Come out, sneak a peak at their next production, become a patron, and have fun.

For more information, please visit www.abrokenumbrella.org, or contact Rachel Alderman at: 203.823.7988 or rachel@abrokenumbrella.org

Next week as well will see the 10th show of the season at the Yale Cabaret: 3rd-year YSD actress Elia Monte-Brown’s original play, The Defendant, about the rigors of public school in New York (where Monte-Brown taught); the play aims to recreate some of the anxieties of today’s student, and to question the values of public education in America, using all 1st year actors in the YSD program. January 23-25.

And on the last week of the month, January 31st, previews begin for the Yale Repertory Theatre’s next production: The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, a world premiere from Whiting-Award winning playwright, and recent YSD graduate, Meg Miroshnik. Miroshnik's play, directed by two-time OBIE-Award-winning director Rachel Chavkin, who previously directed an Off-Broadway production of the celebrated musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, is set in 2005 as a twenty-year-old girl named Annie returns to her native Russia. Underneath the glamor of a Post-Soviet Moscow bedecked with high ticket consumer goods, Annie discovers a land of enchantment straight out of a fairytale, with evil stepmothers, wicked witches, and ravenous bears.

The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls opens officially on February 7, and runs til February 22.

We Like Bikes

At last weekend’s Art Walk in Westville, one of the main attractions was A Broken Umbrella Theatre’s performance of their latest theatrical outing, Head Over Wheels.  And there are two more opportunities to see the show: Sat., May 19th, at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Situated outdoors at 446A Blake Street, beside the purling waters of the West River, the performance space consists of bleachers on the grass facing a friendly and fun-looking bike shop.  The sun shines, the breeze breezes, and young children, parents, and other audience members are welcomed by the voice of a lively DJ (Matthew Gafney), introducing The Pierre Lallement Annual Community Bicycle Ride.

Clint (Ryan Gardner), the proprietor of the shop, is what might be described—putting it mildly—as a bike enthusiast.  With his outgoing manner he makes bike-riding seem more natural than walking, and his bike buddies more than concur: a mild-mannered “paper boy”—a full-grown man (Lou Mangini) who delivers papers via bike as a family business—a pizza-delivery guy (Jason Wells) complete with a stack of pizza boxes, and a preening bicyclist-athlete (Ruben Ortiz) happily regale us with their love of bicycling.

With a catchy tune, they invite all the kids to take part in a drawing to see who will be the Grand Marshal of, with syncopated movements, “The Pierre Lallement Annual Community Bicycle Ride When the Entire Community Communes to Celebrate New Haven’s Rich History and Its Innovative Inventions Including the Bicycle…and Picnic.” When the winner is announced, the problems begin: Clint’s twin brother Flint (Ian Alderman) receives the honor, but there’s a major hitch: as he confides to us (and to the children particularly), Flint can’t ride a bike!

If you have small children and take them to live performances, you won’t want to miss this: the play not only involves a bit of New Haven history, it also works within a child’s perspective, as the best kids’ shows do.  The company, particularly Ian Alderman, have a natural skill in eliciting responses from kids—getting them to participate in the lottery, and also—one of the more charming bits— to shout unscripted encouragement to Flint as he tries desperately to overcome his fear of bikes and his awkward uncertainty about how to ride the darn thing.

Some of the kids were so demonstrative about how he should go about this task that they clearly and proudly have mastered, there’s no doubt he would’ve gotten the hang of it.  Fortunately, for the dramatic aspects of the show, he gets aid from another quarter: La La Lallement (Michelle Ortiz), descendent of the legendary Pierre himself, arrives with an air of fairy-godmother magic, to—with song and dance moves—get Flint up to speed.

But it’s not so simple, which requires Flint to come clean about his fear of bicycling.  A judicious plot point, since it’s important, we realize, that Flint own up to the facts.  Played as an engaging man-child by Alderman, Flint’s predicament stretches into all kinds of areas where kids might worry about not knowing how to do what everyone else seems to grasp already.  So, there is instruction amidst all the fun.

The music (provided by Chrissy Gardner) keeps things lively, and the comic patter gets laughs—particularly from Antonio (Ruben Ortiz), who speaks in an unplaceable accent, picked up, he tells us, from all the places he’s biked through, and who offers to transport on his back on his bike the entire audience because his thighs are so strong.  There are also sight gags, like Alderman trying to mount a bicycle, inventively finding every way to do it except the right way, and, later, his choices in protective attire.

Children generally enjoy watching adults being silly, and they won’t be disappointed here.  And because the goal—riding a bike—is one they are familiar with or will be, the play, while fanciful, is also real enough.

Engaging and interactive, Head Over Wheels is another appealing offering from A Broken Umbrella Theatre.

Head Over Wheels

May 12 and May 19, 2012

Conceived and developed by A Broken Umbrella Theatre

Directed by Rachel Alderman

Story Development Team: Ian Alderman, Rachel Alderman, Chrissy Gardner, Ryan Gardner, Michelle Ortiz, Ruben Ortiz, and Jason Wells; Music: Chrissy Gardner; Choreographer: Robin Levine; Design Team: Janie Alexander, Jacy Barber, Ryan Gardner, and Laura Miracle Tamarkin; Stage Manager: Micah Stieglitz