Portland Stage Company

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The second half of the season brings surprises

Comedy and danger
Those who missed out on LOREM IPSUM's Threepenny Opera this fall should get in line early for its spring production of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, at SPACE Gallery (March 22-April 1).
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | December 28, 2011

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 works through Reza's Carnage

Just bein' kids
The setting of God of Carnage is a sleek, upper-story apartment with a full-wall view of the 14th arrondissement, where wealthy Parisians eat delicate desserts. But it is also a playground, where spoiled brats duke out their rage.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | November 16, 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

Portland Stage Company looks back — and forward — at working America

Changing times
In 1919, a New York switchboard room of the American Bell Telephone Company is vertiginously perched between eras: The three women working the switchboards are soon to be replaced by automation, big business is getting bigger, gender and ethnicity are flashpoints for emotion, and technology is changing how everybody knows everyone else.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | August 24, 2011

Spreading Maine ideas

Talking TED
"Innovation is part of Maine's legacy and DNA." So says Adam Burk, executive director of TEDxDirigo, the independent group working to create a local TED conference for Mainers.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | August 25, 2011

Maine's quirky summer stage season

History + mystery
Summertime and a lush arboreal landscape is an unexpected setting for Samuel Beckett's flinty Waiting for Godot , and this reviewer is already stirred.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | June 15, 2011

Stopping by a stark Genet show

Dramatis personae
When it is Claire's turn to be Madame, she paints her lips and cheeks a garish crimson. She preens, pouts, flounces, demands to be dressed in her white gown with the spangles.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 25, 2011

Review: An émigré's struggle with his baggage, in AIRE's Brendan

When the pipes aren't calling
America, enthuses Irish émigré Brendan (Michael Dix Thomas), is the smell of coffee and gasoline.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 06, 2011

Review: PSC winningly turns the Wright brothers upside-down in Center of Gravity

Into the distance
The set of Portland Stage Company's Center of Gravity is a spacious, elegant network of cables, a ladder, and a ramp.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 16, 2011

Review: Dramatic Repertory Company ponders deep subjects in Blue/Orange

Inside the shrinks
The set is black and white — dark modern chairs and table against a pale grid of a screen, like a vertical drop-ceiling.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 09, 2011

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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

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Review: John Cariani's Last Gas premieres at Portland Stage

Pursuit of happiness
It's hard to get anywhere from Township 15, Range 8 — it's vast, empty, and hours from even Bangor.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | November 16, 2010

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

Fall Theater Preview: Not quite Oklahoma!

August: Osage County + steampunk robots
Perhaps the most anticipated Maine premiere this season is the darkly caustic family apocalypse of August: Osage County (October 14-November 7), the much-lauded 2007 tragicomedy by Tracey Letts, to be produced by the GOOD THEATER .
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | September 15, 2010

Beyond the State: What's reopening where

Venue Watch
As we enter Portland's busy season, there are several comings-and-goings (we'll focus on the comings and less on the goings) to keep track of as we plan our summer outings and evenings on the town.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 24, 2010

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A new peak

Katahdin relocates, gets even better
Only in a city as small as Portland can a move of a few blocks, like Katahdin’s recent relocation from High Street to Forest Avenue, seem like a significant change of neighborhood.
By BRIAN DUFF | June 09, 2010

With feeling

Mad Horse's latest show has exceptional heart
From the darkness, a hand strikes chalk against a spot-lit blackboard: July 1981 , it writes, and then, 16 .
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | June 10, 2010

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Organic farce

PSC’s fugue-ish Bach at Leipzig
The Thomaskirche church, in Leipzig, is a hub of musical influence in Germany’s booming Baroque arts scene.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 12, 2010

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Sins of the father

Visiting the son in 'Master Harold'
On a rainy afternoon, Hally, short for Harold, (Michael Littig) comes home from school as usual to his wealthy parents' tea room in apartheid-era South Africa.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | March 10, 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

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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

Open lines

What if the dead could talk?
In our hyper-connected day and age, a woman laments in Dead Man's Cell Phone , there exist only three sanctuaries from the ringing: the theater, the church, and the toilet — and even these havens are ring-less only in principle.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 20, 2010