Nancy Robillard

Co-directors Nancy Robillard and Olympia Dukakis provide a lovely world premiere for this delicate one-act memory play by Leslie Ayvazian, who held forth on this stage in her solo-show High Dive last winter. Ayvazian leads a cast of four as the “I” in a gossamer-thin play. The “Rosemary” of the title, played with charm and warmth by Judith Roberts, is the mother of Ayvazian’s character. Read the rest of this entry »

The Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3 opens its 2004 season with “Unsinkable Women: Stories and Songs from The Titanic.” Written and performed by Deborah Jean Templin, this emotional tour de force focuses on the personal journeys of various women who were aboard The Titanic. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who know that the names in the title could only be Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence will enjoy this bio-revue of sketches and songs by the team that gave New York’s Broadway and London’s West End a touch of class between the 1920s and the 1950s. Read the rest of this entry »

Rough Crossing offers smooth sailing for lovers of farcical comedy. It is yet another of the wave of comedies, most with a decidedly back-stage feel, now being offered on local stages. At Signature show folk cavort on a train. At Arena they frolic on a sound stage. Now at MetroStage they spar, finagle and conspire on an ocean liner. Read the rest of this entry »

This fall must be the “Fall of Farce,” as three major theater companies open their seasons with screwball comedies centered on outsized showbiz egos clashing during the gilded 1930s. Maybe that makes it the “Rise of Farce,” although some of the farce seems forced. Alexandria’s MetroStage has the latest entry in the farce- off, “Rough Crossing,” and it is the best of the three. Read the rest of this entry »

When Nancy Robillard’s visually striking and consistently intriguing production of Stuart Flack’s intellectually challenging play ends, it comes as a surprise that less than two hours have elapsed. Sometimes time having stretched out is a bad sign for “time flies when you are having fun.” In this case, however, it is a good thing. The less-than-two-hours seem much longer not because you are bored, but because you are captured, forced to concentrate and contemplate the material before you. Read the rest of this entry »

Somewhere in each of us lives an observer, who watches us and remarks on our progress through life. We know we’re aging as our hair thins, our eyesight dims, and our memory begins to spark like a loose wire, and that quiet voice reminds us that we’re moving ultimately toward a mysterious and somewhat frightening end.

Most of us shut out that voice, buy a red sports car, comb hair over our sparse spot, and pursue a variety of avenues to retain youth. Edward Albee’s Pulitzer prize winning “Three Tall Women” is that voice we try to drown out, and watching Northern Stage’s current production pricks us to think without taking us into catharsis. Read the rest of this entry »