posts about shows at Harlequin Productions
By MOLLY GILMORE There’s mystery and magic afoot at Harlequin Productions this season. The company’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol, opening November 29, is a mashup that finds Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved detective receiving a series of ghostly visitors, as Scrooge does in Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic. The combination of two …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS The Women by Clare Boothe Luce, now playing at Harlequin Productions, is a beautifully staged, lavish comedy or errors satirizing 1930s upper crust Manhattan socialites. The piece opened on Broadway in 1936 and is best known for the 1939 film starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Rosalind …
By MELINDA MINTON The Women is an American play, a comedy of manners by Clare Boothe Luce from 1936. It’s billed as a commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of various wealthy Manhattan socialites and up-and-comers, and of the gossip that propels and damages their relationships. While men frequently are the subject of …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Director Aaron Lamb and the cast and crew of Harlequin Productions’ Man of La Mancha took a calculated risk that is paying off marvelously in their production of the classical musical by Dale Wasserman with music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion. Lamb has updated …
By CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s two-part novel The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, first published in 1605 and 1615 — concurrent with Galileo, the King James Bible and Shakespeare — has been called the greatest novel ever, easily the most influential of the Spanish Golden Age. That novel inspired the 1965 …
By Billy Thomas As the weather continues to warm up, and the sun — that’s that bright thing in the sky, for those of us who have forgotten, due to its infrequent presence — begins to shine brighter, the promise of a long weekend is a reprieve from the slog. For readers who are looking …
By CHRISTIAN CARVAJAL On June 2, Harlequin Productions will offer one performance, the name of which all but dares critics to slam it. That show, concocted by Aaron Lamb, is entitled Miscast! (The exclamation mark is very much Harlequin’s.) Usually when actors are accused of having been miscast, it’s no compliment. Consider, for example, the …
THEATER REVIEW by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS Henrik Ibsen’s controversial classic A Doll’s House as presented at Harlequin Productions is stunning, and as relevant now as it was when it shocked theater-goers in 1879. Director Aaron Lamb has updated it with modern sets, costumes, music, and a highly stylized opening and closing that are …
By MELINDA MINTON Henry Ibsen wrote the play A Doll’s House as a daring portrait of a man who loves his wife as an equal. While that concept remains fresh in the #MeToo era, 150 years ago the thought of an equal partnership between man and wife was shocking. Ibsen himself said, as he was writing it …
By Billy Thomas Last Saturday, Harlequin Productions hosted its 2020 season announcement party. Over 200 subscribers, donors, sponsors and guests attended the event, flooding the theater’s lobby and mainstage space. They were greeted by Harlequin board members and staff, including the theater’s artistic director, Aaron Lamb, and managing director Hap Clemons. Attendees enjoyed live music, …