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09/19/2024 12:00 AMComedy & Terror: The Legacy Theatre in Branford is starting the Halloween season with the off-Broadway comedy DRACULA: A Comedy of Terrors, based on you-know-what. The plot revolves around a meek English real estate agent, Count Dracul, and the famed female vampire hunter, Jean Van Helsing. It runs through Sunday, Sept. 29. For tickets, contact LegacyTheatreCT.org
Another Scottish Influence: No Love Songs, the new show at Goodspeed Chester, has, like the current main stage show, Maggie, a Scottish influence. Kyle Falconer developed the idea for the show and the songs; he’s the lead singer for the Scottish indie band The View. The show is about new parents navigating a temporary long-distance relationship and post-partum depression. It runs from Friday, Sept. 27 to Sunday, Oct. 20. Tickets are available through Goodspeed.org.
Retirement: Semina De Laurentis, who founded Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury 35 years ago, has announced that she will retire from her role as artistic director in June 2025. During those years, she has created a mainstage series of plays and musicals, expansive youth and educational programs, including a summer youth theatre program, and the theatre’s Halo Awards honoring high school theatre achievement from over 90 Connecticut public and private school districts.
Charlie Brown: The popular Peanuts gang is on stage at Sharon Playhouse through Sunday, Sept. 29 in the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Sharon Playhouse has had an excellent season; it should be well worth the trip to see this show, featuring many Broadway regulars. Visit SharonPlayhouse.org for information and tickets.
Seven Angels Season: This year, Seven Angles Theatre in Waterbury will present a three-show season that begins with Unchained Melodies – the Doo Wop Musical from Nov. 1 to 24, followed by Connecticut playwright Jacques Lamarre’s new comedy The Wedding Binder from March 14 to April 6, and Sister Act – the Musical from April 24 to May 18. In addition, Last Call for Christmas as Earlen’s Diner will run from Dec. 6 to 22. For tickets visit SevenAngelsTheatre.org.
Horses and Teen Girls: Yale Rep presents the world premiere of falcon girls as its season opening, which was developed with support for the Yale Binger Center for New Theatre. The play, set in Falcon, Colorado, in the 1990s, revolves around six girls on a horse judging team trying to make it to nationals. It’s billed as both funny and brutally honest. It runs from Thursday, Oct. 10 through Saturday, Nov. 2. For tickets, contact YaleRep.org.
A Major Loss: The death of James Earl Jones is a major loss for the American theater. As a Connecticut theatergoer, I had the good fortune to see him as Othello at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, as Thurgood Marshall at Westport Country Playhouse, and numerous times at Yale Rep, including the world premieres of Fences and A Lesson from Aloes as well as Shakespeare’s Timons of Athens and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.
NYC Notes: Walden, which TheaterWorks Hartford produced along the Connecticut River during the Covid years, will open the fall season of off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre. The TheaterWorks production showed just how much an unconventional setting can add to a play. Walden is about estranged twin sisters raised by an astronaut father to be NASA scientists. It will be interesting to see how the play holds up in a conventional theater. It begins performances in October. The 2024 class of the Theatre Hall of Fame included actors Elizabeth Ashley, Boyd Gaines, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Donna Murphy; actor/playwright Charles Busch; playwright David Rabe; composer William Finn, and posthumously producer Todd Haimes (Roundabout Theatre Company). The musical The Notebook, based on the novel and film, will close in December.
On the Horizon: Among the new musicals getting productions outside of New York, with hopes of futures in the Big Apple, are Bull Durham, being produced this month by Theatre Raleigh starring Carmen Cusack, Nik Walker, and John Behlmann. It had an original outing in 2014. Karen Ziemba is starring in a second production of the Prelude to a Kiss musical, this time in Milwaukee. This summer, The Story Goes On; The Songs of Maltby and Shire was on stage in New Hampshire. La Jolla Playhouse in California will produce the new musical 3 Summers of Lincoln in February, starring Brian Stokes Mitchell. The musical version of My Best Friend’s Wedding closes the Ogunquit (Maine) Playhouse season starring Krystal Joy Brown, Matt Doyle, and Telly Leung.
Karen Isaacs is an East Haven resident. To check out her reviews for New York and Connecticut shows, visit 2ontheaisle.wordpress.com. She’s a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle, New York’s Outer Critics Circle, the League of Professional Theater Women, and the American Theatre Critics Association.