Saturday, June 23: Almost all performers who got their start at the grind of standup feel driven to return to it from time to time, to reearn their stripes and relate to a live audience. Not many, however, play venues like Bethel Woods when they do.
As a venue, Opus 40 is the Red Rocks of Ulster County. Good thing that, under the stewardship of the writer, artist and self-taught musicologist Tad Richards, music at Opus 40 has been brilliantly curated for decades. Catch Cirkus Luna at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 22; Makbet on Sunday, June 23.
June 21-July 14: This is a story that has resonated for decades with youngsters and grownups alike. Lucy Simon (Carly’s sister) set it to music, with a book by Marsha Norman, Pulitzer Prizewinner for ‘night, Mother. The original 1991 Broadway production of The Secret Garden won three Tony Awards and four Drama Desk Awards.
Friday, June 14: Hudson Valley cinephiles and boosters of the regional economy alike have reason for excitement this week: A star-studded feature film shot locally, whose director is responsible for a long string of iconically quirky indie productions going back to the 1980s (Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Only Lovers Left Alive, Paterson), hits the big screen this weekend. And Upstate Films in Rhinebeck is hosting a truly homegrown red-carpet event this Friday evening by inviting an unusual group of special guests for a photo op at the late show.
For all the focus of this clever screenplay on topical issues of our digital-driven society, it dawns on the viewer by the end of the second act that what we’re enjoying here is fundamentally a French sex farce in highbrow clothing.
Announcing the event as one that “further reinforces Denizen Theatre’s commitment to bold new works,” New Paltz’s new black-box performance space in the Water Street Market will play host for one night only on Tuesday, June 18 to a lightning rod among contemporary playwrights: Neil LaBute, who will give a reading of his latest stagework, Comfort, with discussion to follow.
Wednesday, June 12: Depicted are six pooches that open and close drawers, turn their mistress over in bed, remove paper from the computer printer, push a syringe into flesh, put on a woman’s socks and pull up her blanket. They soothe a veteran with PTSD and a severely autistic child.
They’re politically “woke,” break no rules and look down on all their less-serious age peers. Picture a couple of Californian Hermione Grangers and you’ve got the gist.
Friday, May 31: This new documentary – directed by award-winning filmmaker Barak Goodman, produced by Jamila Ephron and written by Goodman and Don Kleszy – promises 96 minutes of “that teeming mass of humanity, the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half a-million-strong throng of young people [that] was nothing less than a miracle of unity.”
May 31-June 16: The first play on this year’s list at the charming former vaudeville theater is a new drama by D. W. Gregory. Based on true events, it chronicles the tale of Alexei S., a Soviet journalist with perfect memory who is seen as a threat by Stalin’s propaganda machine and targeted by a government censor.