“I Hate Hamlet”
by Paul Rudnick
Aqua City Actors Theater
Studio Theater, 93 Main St., Waterville
Tickets: $12 for adults,
$10 for students and seniors
873-7000 or operahouse.org
The play chronicles insecure TV actor Andrew Rally as he attempts a stage version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” a role made famous by John Barrymore. Luckily for Rally, a séance delivers Barrymore, who is more than happy to school him in the ways of great acting and show him what it means to be a man — a manly, manly, man.
“Ten Blocks on the Camino Real”
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Davis Robinson
Lucid Stage, 29 Baxter Blvd., Portland
Tickets: $20
899-3993 or lucidstage.com
Beau Jest Moving Theatre returns with its original adaptation of “Ten Blocks on the Camino Real.”
In this one-act fantasy, Williams wrote with lyrical abandon a play he hoped would usher in a new kind of “plastic theater” that blended music, dance, poetry and visual imagery. By the time it opened on Broadway in 1953, the 10 vignettes had become the unwieldy and better-known 16-block Camino Real. It flopped. Additional characters and plot re-writes did nothing to improve the play. Only one version was authorized for performance — until now.
In 2008, New Directions published the original Ten Blocks version for the first time, and Beau Jest was struck by the rich, visual imagery and poetic leaps the script.
WATERVILLE
“The 39 Steps”
Hallowell City Hall
Tickets: $12 for adults, $10 for students/seniors
626-3698 or gaslighttheater@yahoo.com.
Adapted by Patrick Barlow, from the movie by Alfred Hitchcock and the novel by John Buchan. Directed by Lynette Miller.
A man with a boring life meets a woman with a thick accent who says she’s a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon, a mysterious organization called “The 39 Steps” is hot on the man’s trail in a nationwide manhunt that climaxes in a death-defying finale.
“A Life in the Theatre”
Freeport Factory Stage,
5 Depot St., Freeport
By David Mamet, directed by Sally Wood
Featuring Will Rhys and Dustin Tucker
Tickets: $19 for adults, $15 for seniors/students. Thursday performances are pay what you can; 865-5505 or visit freeportfactory. com.
“Charlotte’s Web”
Portland Stage in the Studio Theater
Performed by A Company of Girls
Tickets: $5 at the door; 874-2107.
“The Human Experience”
Lincoln Auditorium in
Roberts Learning Center on UMF campus
Suggested donation: $5 donation per person at the door.
The story follows Molly (Samantha Ellis), Amy (Tiarra LaPierre), and Jennifer (Katie Tilton): three young, recently-deceased women preparing to enter the eternal afterlife. Before their final ascension, however, they are met by the gate-keeper Janus (Eric Buckhalter) who has one last task for them. In order to depart from humanity, the three must first come to fully appreciate it — by learning compassion for a few less-than-lovable mortals.
“Kate”
Mount Blue High School auditorium
By Mt. Blue High School
Adapted and directed by Dan Ryder
Tickets cost $7 for adults, $4 for students/seniors. Tickets are available at Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers in Farmington; dryder@mtbluersd.org or 778-3561.
An original musical adaptation of “The Taming of the Shrew.” Kate takes Shakespeare’s story of an angry, bitter young woman targeted for marriage and “taming” and puts a modern spin on it — sort of. Set in 1930’s Franklin County, Kate introduces a young woman, Katherine Minola (Jennifer Hinds), more than a little frustrated by her mother, Baptista’s (Kerri Cooper) insistence that she be married before her more agreeable, charming and courted sister, Bianca (Paige Kincaid) may wed. Enter Petruchio (Noah LePage), just the sort of quick-witted, smooth-talking, empty-walleted man for the job. What follows is a madcap comedy of false impressions, mistaken identities, and general lunacy, leaving audiences thinking about being true to one’s self while finding satisfaction in the least likely of places.
“A Cheever Evening”
Johnson Hall in Gardiner
By Open Book Players
Directed by Lucy Rioux
Gurney has adapted 17 of John Cheever’s funniest stories, in which he probes the affairs of that set of people (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who once considered themselves to be in the majority but soon became aware that they were in the twilight of their power and at the mercy of a
changing world. Seen through the lens of A.R. Gurney’s dramatic sensibility, Cheever’s separate stories of a fragmented and lonely universe have been combined into a whole and resonant portrait — that of a culture which, while teetering on the brink of extinction, combats loss with humor, wit and feeling.
Tickets: $7 for general admission, $5 for students and seniors. This play contains mature language and themes; 441-3210 or lucyrioux@gmail.com.
Fred Garbo Inflatable Theater
Hall-Dale High School, 97 Maple St., Hallowell
Fast-paced, energetic, universally engaging and theatrically clever, Garbo mesmerizes audience members of all ages with imaginative imagery and artistic foolishness. Laugh, gasp, be amazed.
Tickets: $19 for adults, $16 for Johnson Hall members, $10 for children younger than 14.
“The Perils of Long Term Care” by Michael 1, directed by Lee Kerr and featuring Lee Kerr and Julie Barrett.
The program will be April 13 and 14 and will begin at 7:30.
Admission is free, donations are accepted; 626-3698
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