“Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight” – Written and directed by John Kolvenbach. Scenic Design by Kristine Holmes. Lighting Design by M Berry. Presented by Huntington Theatre Company, the Maso Studio, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston, through March 23, 2024.
By Linda Chin
Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight is both the title of a very clever one-man show written by John Kolvenbach and one of many imperatives uttered by the show’s leading man – actor Jim Ortlieb – to command the audience’s attention.
Jennifer Apple, Brian Thomas Abraham in the “The Band’s Visit” at the Huntington. Photos by T Charles Erickson
“The Band’s Visit” — Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Based on the Screenplay by Eran Kolirin. Directed by Paul Daigneault; Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Music Direction by José Delgado. Scenic Design by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs. Costume Design by Miranda Kau Giurleo. Lighting Design by Aja M. Jackson. Sound Design by Joshua Millican. Produced by Huntington Theatre in collaboration with SpeakEasy Stage at 264 Huntington Ave. Boston through December 17.
By Linda Chin
As the house lights go down and the overture (conducted by music director extraordinaire José Delgado) begins, a message is projected on a large-screen: “Once, not long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.” Bookending the production, this message is reiterated at the show’s conclusion by Dina (a dazzling Jennifer Apple), the owner of a café in Bet Hatikvah (a fictional town), Israel, 1996, where an Egyptian police band led by Tewfiq (solidly portrayed by Brian Thomas Abraham) has mistakenly arrived. The next bus doesn’t depart until the next day, and the band is hungry, tired, and stranded.
Music by Kurt Weill; Libretto by Bertolt Brecht; English translation by Michael Feingold; Original German text based on Elisabeth Hauptmann’s German translation of John Gay’s “The Beggar’s Opera”. Directed by James Darrah; Music Direction by David Angus; Set Design by Julia Noulin-Mérat; Lighting Design by Pablo Santiago; and Costumes by Charles Neumann.Presented by the Boston Lyric Opera at the Huntington Avenue Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston through March 25
Let me begin by saying that the sum total of my experience with opera is pretty much confined to multiple viewings of the Warner Bros. classic cartoon, What’s Opera Doc. But as a friend and colleague informed me when I told him at intermission that I had never seen an opera until now, he jokingly replied, “Well, you still haven’t.”
