The NY Times had a fairly comprehensive article the other day about summertime offerings from 30 theatres and festivals from all over the country (plus the 2 big fests in Canada).
Here are some highlights:
LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE - “After the Quake” (July 24-Aug. 26), an adaptation by the director Frank Galati of two short stories by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, written after a 1995 earthquakeMARK TAPER FORUM - David Henry Hwang’s “Yellow Face” (through July 1), his first new full-length play in more than a decade. This drama revolves around an artist with a familiar name — David Henry Hwang — who mistakenly casts a white actor in the role of an Asian.
WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE - In “Being Alive!”, Stephen Sondheim’s songs are mixed with Shakespeare’s poetry and then performed as jazz, soul, R&B and other African-American musical idioms. That’s right: hip-hop Sondheim.
ARENA STAGE - In his new play, “33 Variations” (Aug. 24-Sept. 30), Moisés Kaufman (“The Laramie Project”) weaves together [a story] involving a contemporary musicologist examining the mystery behind Beethoven’s obsession with this fairly ordinary piece of music.There are tons more right here.SHAKESPEARE IN WASHINGTON - Synetic Theater’s acclaimed and wordless production of “Hamlet...The Rest Is Silence” at the Kennedy Center (May 31-June 17)
BERKSHIRE THEATER FESTIVAL - “My Pal George,” the latest play by Rick Cleveland (“My Buddy Bill”) to explore his obsession with hanging out with American presidents. It imagines him jogging on the beach with George W. Bush, Ann Coulter and David Hasselhoff, talking about — what else? — reality television.
THE PLAYWRIGHTS CENTER - Carlyle Brown’s “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been,” a fictional account of the demons faced by Langston Hughes the night before he was to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee
LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL - “Fables de La Fontaine,” a collaboration between the avant-garde titan Robert Wilson and the Comédie-Française, which stages the allegorical stories of the 17th-century writer La Fontaine at the company’s home in Paris. For those looking for something besides the usual name-brand theater, there is a series of Spanish-language productions that looks interesting.
THE PRETENTIOUS FESTIVAL - embracing the black-turtleneck-wearing aesthete inside us all
SPOLETO FESTIVAL U.S.A. - the Dutch company Dood Paard, for instance, which will be making its American debut at this Charleston institution with a postmodern take on “Medea”
