Anita Stewart

Latest Articles

Warming up to Portland Stage’s Snow Queen

Out in the cold
This week, we look at another theatrical alternative to the Dickens ghosts.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | December 14, 2011

PSC’s poignant Morini Strad

Fiddle me this
At first, the snide narcissism of aged violin prodigy Erica Morini (Laura Esterman) is an insufferable drag to the 40-something violin restorer, Brian (John G. Preston), whom she's trying to hire.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 05, 2011

Review: Actors are concert pianists too, in PSC's 2 Pianos 4 Hands

Two roles
A good bout of slapstick goes on between tuxedoed pianists Ted (Tom Frey) and Richard (Jeffrey Rockwell) before they finally flip back their tails and get into Bach's Concerto in D Minor :
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 09, 2011

Review: Portland Stage's The 39 Steps works the funny bone

Comedy, not suspense
The driving force of Hitchcock's 1939 film The 39 Steps is suspense, as unwitting bachelor Richard Hannay gets caught up in espionage, train escapes, weapons technology, and the future of Europe and the world.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 07, 2010

We heart even more people!

Encores
We were right. We told you two weeks ago that any list of Portland's Most Influential people was inherently incomplete — and so it was.
By JEFF INGLIS | February 24, 2010

Campy send-up

Irma Vep mocks show biz
The Mystery of Irma Vep . Portland Stage Company's excellent, giddy production, directed by Christopher Grabowski, stars Tom Ford (who portrayed some dozens of characters in PSC's superlative I Am My Own Wife ) and Steven Strafford.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 03, 2010

Breaking away

Exploring womanhood at Portland Stage
Out of Sterno is a quirky feminist comedy by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Casey Stangl for Portland Stage Company.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 11, 2009

Norse myths

Creating Peer Gynt at PSC
A troll, according to folklore, can conceive by lust alone. That's one presumptuous genesis, and one that Peer Gynt learns the hard way.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 04, 2009

Drink up!

Santaland gets to the dark heart of Christmas
Santaland gets to the dark heart of Christmas
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | December 10, 2008

Vast and intimate

Portland Stage’s masterful Caesar
PSC’s sophisticated and devastating interpretation of Julius Caesar reminds us of just how crucial it is that we keep our heads.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 02, 2008

Degrees of difficulty

Portland Stage's subtle premiere of Magnetic North
“Well, this has to be inappropriate,” says Mara, hastily moving away from a rather close moment with old flame James.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 16, 2008

On Portland’s poet

Celebrating Longfellow’s words
It’s a testament to much of what’s good about America that one of her first and most popular poets had such reverence, and such affection, for so many of her stories.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 31, 2007

A valley of rift

Siblings duel in PSC's The Piano Lesson
A piano doesn’t produce anything except notes, insists Boy Willie.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 03, 2007

Feeling it

Intimate Apparel touches the fabric of life
Plain Esther Mills sews the most ravishing of unmentionables.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 11, 2007

Off-stage

Portland Stage looks behind the curtain
“All the world’s a stage,” waxes Shakespeare’s Jaques, but nowhere is that more true than backstage.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 31, 2007

Upheaval on the way

Portland Stage's tavern life entertains, investigates
The catechism that tortures and eludes 12-year-old Rudy Pazinski was named after the Greek, katechismos, which translates to “to speak so as to be heard” or “to echo.”
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | October 04, 2006

Meta-farce (Portland theater)

Tom Stoppard plays with the play at Portland Stage Company
The SS Italian Castle is almost absurdly gorgeous. With its sleek and imposing height, its glowing portholes peeking into sumptuous Art Deco cabins, and the huge full moon hanging above its deck, this luxury ocean liner seems over-the-top, too dramatic to be true. And that is exactly as it should be. Caricature is the currency of both setting and sensibility in Tom Stoppard’s comedy Rough Crossing .
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 01, 2006