Amaya Braganza, ‘Hadestown’s Eurydice, Talks with Theater Mirror before Boston Stop of National Tour

April 20, 2024April 23, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

J.Antonio-Rodriguez and Amaya Braganza in ‘Hadestown’
Photos by T Charles Erickson

Next week, the national touring company of Hadestown, winner of eight 2019 Tony Awards (including Best Musical) and the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, rolls into Boston for a limited run at the Boch Center Wang Theater, April 23-28. Theater Mirror’s Mike Hoban caught up with Amaya Braganza, ‘Hadestown’s’ Eurydice to talk about her transition from child performer to Broadway lead.

By Mike Hoban

Theater Mirror: I know that you did Annie on Broadway when you were 10, and obviously, they didn’t just pick you out of a crowd, so how did your career start?

Amaya: I grew up in California and started doing musical theater in community shows when I was about five. My first show was Annie, as one of the orphans – and I still have a picture from that show. When I was eight, I was part of a musical theater program where we took dance classes and did competitions and shows. That’s where I met my best childhood friend, Mia. She told me about this open call in New York for Annie on Broadway and we decided to go. Her mom had airplane and hotel points, and they took me to New York. It was an open call, and I think there were almost 1000 people there, with a bunch of kids lined up outside of a New York high school. I did the open call, and then I kept getting callbacks throughout the week, and then I ended up booking the show and found I had a real love for theater.

Theater Mirror interviews Emmy Award-winning Actor Gordon Clapp, who brings his one-man Robert Frost show to the BCA

April 8, 2024April 8, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Emmy-winning actor Gordon Clapp (NYPD Blue) will bring his acclaimed portrayal of poet Robert Frost to Boston this Spring in the one-man show “Robert Frost: This Verse Business” by local playwright A.M. Dolan.The show portrays the great poet and platform legend whose public “talks” were hot tickets for nearly half a century. Theater Mirror spoke with Clapp as he prepared for the April 23-28 run at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston.

by Mike Hoban

Theater Mirror: I understand that you’ve long had a love affair with Robert Frost’s work. How did you first discover him?

Gordon: It was the Kennedy inauguration (where Frost read “The Gift Outright”) – I’m that old – but I knew of him before that. Later in school, we were assigned “Out, Out,” which is a reference to “Out out brief candle!” (from Macbeth). It’s a very dark poem. In an idyllic setting, this horrific event happens. A boy gets his hand cut off by a buzzsaw in rural New England in the backyard of his home, and it really had an impact on me as a boy of that age in that setting, some fifty years later, and I just got addicted to Frost’s poetry. I would do little readings all through college, and a few years after college, I read his three-volume biography by Lawrence Thompson and said to myself, “I’ve got to bring this guy to the stage.” It took me thirty years to get around to it, but when I turned 60, I thought, “Now I can get away with playing the older Frost.”

Theater Mirror Speaks with Comedian Gabe Mollica, who is bringing his one-man show, “Solo: A Show About Friendship,” to the BCA

April 8, 2024April 9, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Comedian Gabe Mollica brings his Off-Broadway comedy, “Solo: A Show About Friendship,” to the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA from April 16-21^st. He dives deep into what it means to have friends in your 30s, his special relationship with Stephen Sondheim, working at a summer camp for children with chronic illnesses, and what happens when you break up with your best friend. Theater Mirror caught up with Gabe recently as he prepared for his Boston engagement.

Dance Musical ‘Message In A Bottle’ Featuring the Music of Sting, Comes to Emerson Colonial (Interview)

March 20, 2024March 20, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

The Emerson Colonial Theatre’s will present a seven show run of the touring dance/theater production Message In A Bottle, based on the music of Sting and works from his band The Police. Featuring 28 songs, some re-mastered and re-interpreted, and developed by Kate Prince, Artistic Director of ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company, Message tells the story of displaced refugees and their struggle to find a new home. Theater Mirror’s Mike Hoban spoke with Associate Choreographer Lukas McFarlane in anticipation of the show’s opening on March 26 (through March 30).

by Mike Hoban

Theater Mirror: How did the idea for Message in a Bottle come about?

Lukas: Kate Prince (the show’s creator) grew up with the music of Sting and the Police and is huge fan. One day she was listening to Sting’s “Desert Rose” and thought, what if we (put together) a show using the music of Sting and the Police? She wrote an email to one of our producers, Sadler’s Wells, and within a couple weeks Sadler’s had her in a meeting with Sting in a hotel lobby pitching this idea to him, which was really cool and quite surreal for her.

Theater Mirror interviews Karin Trachtenberg, Whose ‘My Mother Had Two Faces’ Makes its Boston Debut at The Rockwell

February 20, 2024February 21, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

My Mother Had Two Faces makes its Boston debut at The Rockwell at 255 Elm Street in Somerville, MA on Sunday, March 3rd at 2:00pm. Coming off a successful world premiere in Los Angeles, Boston is the second stop on the production’s tour before heading Off-Broadway for The United Solo Festival on March 14^th and then onto the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. The play is written and performed by local theater artist Karin Trachtenberg and directed by Jessica Lynn Johnson. For information and tickets, go to: https://www.therockwell.org/calendar/my-mother-had-two-faces-all-ages/

Theater Mirror Interviews Director Dori Robinson and Playwright of Coffee Shop Labor Dramedy ‘Little Peasants’

February 6, 2024February 6, 2024 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Somerville – Food Tank will present a pair of workshop performances of Little Peasants, an“immersive theatrical journey behind the closed doors of a food workers’ union organizing campaign” at The Burren on February 7^th and 21^st. A one-act iteration of Little Peasants was previously featured at SXSW in March of 2023 and received critical acclaim. Theater Mirror spoke with playwright Bernard Pollack and director Dori A. Robinson during rehearsals last week to learn more about the production.

Barnstable Native Jeffrey Kelly Returns Home with National Touring Production of ‘Annie’

January 31, 2024February 4, 2024 michaelhoban1 Comment

*Jeff Kelly (center) in National Touring Production of ‘Annie’, coming to Boch Center February6-11*

Jeff Kelley, who plays Rooster Hannigan in the national touring production of Annie that lands next week at the Boch Center Wang Theatre, was not your typical theater kid. Unlike much of the theater community in his age group (almost 33), the Barnstable native did not grow up with ‘Rent’ posters on his wall and didn’t even try his hand at acting until he was in college. After some struggles with his major (earth science) at UMass Amherst, he decided to switch to music as a major (he was a jazz drummer) and took a semester off to focus on auditioning for the school’s music program.

Broadway Icon Brings ‘An Evening with Laura Benanti’ to Concord

March 8, 2023March 8, 2023 michaelhobanLeave a comment

This weekend, the “glamorously witty” Tony Award winner, TV and film actor Laura Benanti will perform her one-woman show (which includes longtime musical director and collaborator Todd Almond) at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord, MA. Theater Mirror’s Mike Hoban spoke with Laura to learn more about her and what audiences can expect at ‘An Evening with Laura Benanti’. The show spans two nights and limited tickets were still available at press time. For tickets and information, go to: https://theumbrellaarts.org/performing-arts/concerts

Peter Fogel Brings Jewish-Italian Heritage Show to the Arlington Regent for the Holidays

December 3, 2021December 4, 2021 michaelhobanLeave a comment

by Michele Markarian

Peter J. Fogel, the actor and standup comedian is coming to town to perform Steve Solomon’s “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish, I’m Home for Holidays!”, a role he’s enacted, in one form or another, from South Florida to Trinity Rep in Providence. The one-man show will run from December 8 through the 19^th at the Arlington Regent Theater. Theater Mirror spoke to Peter from his home in Florida.

Theater Mirror: Tell us a little bit about the show.

Peter: The character I play is on his way home for the holidays and ends up stuck at Atlanta-Hatfield Airport, with relatives complaining and freaking out over the telephone. I play 25 different characters in about two hours. I think it’s a show that a lot of people can relate to. Generational boomers love it because they have to take care of their elderly parents. The play takes family dysfunction and makes people laugh about it.

Hana Bible Fulfills a Childhood Dream as Lead in Cirque Dream’s ‘Holidaze’

December 3, 2021December 3, 2021 michaelhobanLeave a comment

by Mike Hoban

The tour of Cirque Dreams’ Holidaze will make a stop at the Boch Center the weekend of December 10-12. The Broadway-style musical, inspired by the ‘Nutcracker’ ballet, is infused with over 20 contemporary circus artists and features over 300 costumes as ballerinas, snowmen, penguins, reindeer, ethereal aerialists, gingerbread people, carolers and colossal ornaments fly, balance, and juggle around a Christmas-themed storyline. The show also features Broadway singers performing renditions of holiday classics as well as original music.

Theater Mirror had the chance to speak with aerialist Hana Bible, the lead in the show, who is making her debut with Cirque Dreams as Clara, the young girl from the story of the ‘Nutcracker’.

THEATER MIRROR: When did you first get involved in performing?

HANA: I’ve been a performer since I was very young, and the story is actually pretty ironic. I started as a dancer, and the reason I started dancing was because I wanted to play the role of Clara in the Nutcracker. I started dancing ballet when I was six, but when I was old enough to play the role (typically around age 12) I wasn’t cast because I tended to play the parts that usually went to boys because I was athletic and could tumble and leap. I was actually cast as the Nutcracker instead, because at my dance studio the role called for an athletic performer. So from the time I was 11 until the age of 18 I was the Nutcracker. Eventually I aged out of the opportunity, but I was in love with dancing by that point, so I just kept going. I moved to LA (from San Francisco) to go to college, and after I graduated, I went back to dancing because it was my first love. I was doing hip-hop and modern dance but it was for the love – it was mostly unpaid. Then I got a few professional dancing jobs, got an agent and began auditioning for TV shows and commercials and musical theater. A few years in, I realized I needed to expand my horizons as a performer, and I began to get into the circus arts, primarily the aerial silks.