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04/27/2017 12:01 AMPulitzer for Drama: A play that I raved about in my column, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This is a terrific play about working class people and the problems they have faced since 2001, and features wonderful performances. You can read my entire review at 2ontheaisle.wordpress.com. But I did make an error about tickets. While the show is running at Studio 54 in New York City, it is not a Roundabout production. Tickets, and I urge you to get them, are available at telecharge.
Imaginative Circus: Circus 1903-The Golden Age of Circus is at the Bushnell Friday, April 27, to Sunday, April 30. While this is described as a turn-of-the-century circus, there is an exciting twist: The animals are puppets created by the award-winning puppeteers who made the stage production of War Horse so amazing. So in addition to strong men, contortionists, high wire acts, and more, you’ll see the largest-ever performing African elephant and her baby. For tickets, visit bushnell.org or call 860-987-5900.
Care Givers: Mary Jane, which runs at Yale Rep from Friday, April 28, to Saturday, May 28, is a play about a mother caring for her chronically ill young son and building a community of women from various backgrounds. It’s written by Amy Herzog, whose plays include 4000 Miles, Belleville, and more. Kathleen Chalfant heads the cast. For tickets, visit yalerep.org or call 203-432-1234.
Writers: West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park is presenting The Last Train to Nibroc through Sunday, May 14. The play takes place in 1940 when a train going from California to New York City is carrying the bodies of writers Nathaniel West and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Also on board is a young woman and a young pilot who plans to be a writer. Soon the two find they have much in common in this romantic comedy. For tickets, visit playhouseonpark.org or call 860-523-5900x10.
Semi-Autobiographical Play: Ivoryton Playhouse is presenting Neil Simon’s comedy Biloxi Blues through Sunday, May 14. The comedy follows Eugene Morris Jerome as he struggles through Army basic training near Biloxi, Mississippi in 1943. The play is the second of Simon’s Eugene Trilogy that included Brighton Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound. For tickets, visit ivorytonplayhouse.org or call 860-767-7318.
Yale’s Carlotta Festival: Yale Drama School’s 12th annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays runs from Friday, May 5 to Saturday, May 13. Three full productions of new plays by graduating playwrights are performed in repertory. They plays include The Hour of Great Mercy by Miranda Rose Hall about Ed, a Jesuit priest who returns to an isolated Alaskan community to reconcile with his family. Everything that Never Happened by Sarah B. Mantell is described as “taking place in the gaps between The Merchant of Venice and the realities of Jewish history. The final play is If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka by Tori Sampson, which is about the culture of beauty. You can purchase tickets to individual performances or the entire series. For the schedule, tickets and information visit drama.yale.edu/Carlotta or call 203-432-1234.
Celebrity Chefs: Long Wharf closes its 2016-’17 season with a world premier musical, The Most Beautiful Room in New York (Wednesday, May 3, to Sunday, May 28) about a celebrity chef and his efforts to save his restaurant. Joe Cassidy plays the chef and Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein directs. Also in the cast if Danielle Ferland. She hails from Stratford and was the original Little Red Ridinghood in the Broadway production of Into the Woods. Book and lyrics are by Adam Gopnik, a novelist and writer for The New Yorker; music is by David Shire, who has won both an Oscar and Grammy as well as receiving multiple Tony and Emmy nominations. For tickets, visit longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.
Yale Rep’s 2017-’18 Season: Among the plays planned for next season at the Yale Rep is a new translation of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (Oct. 6 to 28) directed by James Bundy, Native Son (Nov. 24 to Dec. 16) adapted from Richard Wright’s iconic novel, as well as several new plays. These include Field Guide by the Austin-based theater collective Rude Mechs from Jan. 26 to Feb. 17, Suzan-Lori Parks’ work Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3 (March 16 to April 7), and Kiss (April 27 to May 19) a new play by Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón. For information or subscriptions, visit yalerep.org.
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 both the Connecticut Critics Circle and New York’s Outer Critics Circle.