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Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Opening Weekend of Carmen!
Friday, August 7, 2009
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Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Touring Shakespeare...methinks it doth ROCK!
The Theatre Company at Hubbard Hall kicks off its summer tradition on Thursday night, July 23, with the opening night of the Summer Outdoor Shakespeare Tour!A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Kevin McGuire
Join the adventures of four young lovers, a group of amateur actors and their interactions with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. Our story takes place in Midsummer and is a bewitching farce featuring Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius. But, "the course of true love never did run smooth" as their romantic intrigues are confused and complicated still further by entering the forest where Oberon, the King of the Fairies and his Queen, Titania, preside and where Puck is full of mischief and tricks!
We invite you to bring a picnic, blankets, folding chairs etc. to enjoy a beguiling evening of Shakespeare for the whole family! All performances being at 7:00pm. And they're FREE!
Thursday, July 23 - Hildene, Manchester, VT
Friday, July 24 - Subscriber's Gala
Saturday, July 25 - Crandall Park, Glens Falls, NY
Sunday, July 26 - Cambridge Guest Home, Cambridge, NY
**Monday, July 27 - Greenwich Commons, Greenwich, NY**
Tuesday, July 28 - Park McCullough House, North Bennington, VT
Wednesday, July 29 - Georgi Museum, Shushan, NY
Thursday, July 30 - Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
**Added performance!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
"Dance for a Dollar" honors National Dance Week
Here at Hubbard Hall we're in the midst of a week-long celebration of Dance. And yes, all week long you can boogie for a buck at any of our ongoing dance classes!
We're finding so many ways to celebrate. On Saturday we held our Dazzle With Dance kick-off event, a performance by faculty and friends in our studio which helped to raise the first $200 toward a sound system (our studio doesn't have one yet). Dance Collective member Katy Schonbeck presented an excerpt from her new work, Clouds Dancing, and faculty members Darcy May (Irish Step), Vicki Webberley (Cleopatra's Dance), and yours truly (Dances of India) presented works with our students. The evening was rounded out by the participation of our wonderful and daring audience who learned some Irish ceili and Middle Eastern dance moves, together with our faculty and friends. Then we relaxed and cooled off in the Visual Arts Studio while enjoying cake and punch and good company.
On display in the art studio are the winning entries from our first annual National Dance Week essay and poster contest, "What Dancing at Hubbard Hall Means to Me." First place was awarded to Susannah Throop, second place winners were Devlin Kennedy and Linnea Seegers, and honorable mention was given to Ajanta Deibel and James Young. The winners received gift certificates to the Village Store, a fine art print of a painting of the Hubbard Hall stage by Adriano Manocchia, and a very unique black "Hubbard Hall Dancer" cap -- only 5 were made in honor of our winners! We are proud of all the writers and illustrators and hope you enjoy seeing their work as much as we have.
National Dance Week celebrates the diversity, energy, and joy of dance for EVERYONE with events across the country. Find out more at www.nationaldanceweek.org!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Usually when a theater company produces a "neglected masterpiece," I tend to cringe. Too often that means they are producing a bad play by a great writer that would be better off ignored.
I am happy to say that Hubbard Hall’s production of Edward Albee’s rarely produced "Seascape" is well worth seeing.
Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, "Seascape" is not a great play, but it is a charming piece of well-performed theater that offers an interesting and good time. If you can wrap your head around the idea of Edward Albee writing a whimsical play, that play is "Seascape."
Its premise is simple even if the play isn’t. An older couple lounge on a beach where they are joined by a pair of lizards who have the ability to speak and to intellectualize. The lizard couple engage the human couple in discussions about being human and inquire about such things as emotions, mating, child-raising and monogamy.
Though the discussions are often very funny, the talk is never silly. For example, one character defines progress as "a set of assumptions." For some playwrights that thought would drive an entire play. In "Seascape," Albee uses it as a throwaway joke line.
Director Laura Heidinger does a great job in keeping the work focused and, for the most part, avoids the pitfall of making Albee’s writing seem too dense. However, she cannot do much to overcome the overwritten first 20 minutes of the play.
Despite very good work by Stephanie Moffett Hynds and Richard Howe as the older couple the opening is slow and tends towards Albee-like lecturing. It doesn’t help the performers that they are a decade too young to play Charlie and Nancy. At Hubbard Hall, they are a couple going through a mid-life crisis rather than a couple reflecting on an entire life spent together. It lessens their comparison to the more innocent still-learning lizard couple.
The age-factor diminishes the play rather than hurting, however, it as Howe and Hynds offer strong performances in catalyst roles. Besides, once the lizards arrive we stop noticing the humans. Costumed in sensational lizard suits designed by Karen Koziol, the pair infuse life into a stagnant situation. Who’d have thought the most endearing portrait of a compassionate caring couple seen so far this year would come from a pair of lizards?
Where Charlie and Nancy are dull and tired, Leslie and Sarah are energetic and alive. Doug Ryan infuses Leslie with a curious mind and a funny view of the world. Courtney King as Sarah is gentle, probing and wise. Together they are an amphibious Adam and Eve who are clearly ready to go to the next rung of the evolutionary ladder. The tastiness of "Seascape" is it questions whether, if given the choice, they should move up the ladder to become Charlie and Nancy.
"Seascape" is that kind of a play. It has you laugh yourself into a conundrum as director Heidinger keeps the balance between light and heavy from tipping too far to either side. This is a very smart, well-acted worked that is given superior technical support.
Interestingly, the work is the opening production for the company’s new black box theater. The new space is part of Hubbard Hall’s own evolution process as it starts to work more outside its traditional performing space.
Choosing "Seascape" for its first show offers awareness the company knows success is not about the past or the future but can be found by offering good work in the present. And this is good work.
I am happy to say that Hubbard Hall’s production of Edward Albee’s rarely produced "Seascape" is well worth seeing.
Despite winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, "Seascape" is not a great play, but it is a charming piece of well-performed theater that offers an interesting and good time. If you can wrap your head around the idea of Edward Albee writing a whimsical play, that play is "Seascape."
Its premise is simple even if the play isn’t. An older couple lounge on a beach where they are joined by a pair of lizards who have the ability to speak and to intellectualize. The lizard couple engage the human couple in discussions about being human and inquire about such things as emotions, mating, child-raising and monogamy.
Though the discussions are often very funny, the talk is never silly. For example, one character defines progress as "a set of assumptions." For some playwrights that thought would drive an entire play. In "Seascape," Albee uses it as a throwaway joke line.
Director Laura Heidinger does a great job in keeping the work focused and, for the most part, avoids the pitfall of making Albee’s writing seem too dense. However, she cannot do much to overcome the overwritten first 20 minutes of the play.
Despite very good work by Stephanie Moffett Hynds and Richard Howe as the older couple the opening is slow and tends towards Albee-like lecturing. It doesn’t help the performers that they are a decade too young to play Charlie and Nancy. At Hubbard Hall, they are a couple going through a mid-life crisis rather than a couple reflecting on an entire life spent together. It lessens their comparison to the more innocent still-learning lizard couple.
The age-factor diminishes the play rather than hurting, however, it as Howe and Hynds offer strong performances in catalyst roles. Besides, once the lizards arrive we stop noticing the humans. Costumed in sensational lizard suits designed by Karen Koziol, the pair infuse life into a stagnant situation. Who’d have thought the most endearing portrait of a compassionate caring couple seen so far this year would come from a pair of lizards?
Where Charlie and Nancy are dull and tired, Leslie and Sarah are energetic and alive. Doug Ryan infuses Leslie with a curious mind and a funny view of the world. Courtney King as Sarah is gentle, probing and wise. Together they are an amphibious Adam and Eve who are clearly ready to go to the next rung of the evolutionary ladder. The tastiness of "Seascape" is it questions whether, if given the choice, they should move up the ladder to become Charlie and Nancy.
"Seascape" is that kind of a play. It has you laugh yourself into a conundrum as director Heidinger keeps the balance between light and heavy from tipping too far to either side. This is a very smart, well-acted worked that is given superior technical support.
Interestingly, the work is the opening production for the company’s new black box theater. The new space is part of Hubbard Hall’s own evolution process as it starts to work more outside its traditional performing space.
Choosing "Seascape" for its first show offers awareness the company knows success is not about the past or the future but can be found by offering good work in the present. And this is good work.
Ciao bello! The cyclists are coming....
Get psyched for race weekend with this classic 70s film!
Film: Breaking Away
When: Friday, April 17 at 7:30pm
Where: Hubbard Hall
Cost: Free!
In this 1979 coming-of-age film, a small-town teen obsessed with the Italian cycling team vies for the affections of a college girl. Winner of an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, this film on the American Film Institute's list of America's 100 Most Inspiring Movies. Rated PG, 100 minutes. Free. Please consider making a donation to support Hubbard Hall's community art programs and Cambridge area Farm Team Cycling.
Information on the real-life April 18-19 2009 races and related events at Tour of the Battenkill.
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