NewsI Am My Own Wife, Wilson Works and Permanent Collection Top 2005 Year-End Regional ListsWhile New York dailies post Broadway and Off-Broadway's year-end “Best of” lists, publications across the country are focusing on their local theatre stagings.
By
Ernio Hernandez
December 29, 2005
Jefferson Mays in the original Broadway production of I Am My Own Wife.
Photo by Joan Marcus
Touring productions of I Am My Own Wife, 700 Sundays and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf were enjoyed across the country. A number of regional productions of August Wilson works (including Two Trains Running, Seven Guitars and Joe Turner's Come And Gone) also popped up among the best. And a new work, Permanent Collection, was enjoyed on more than one stage.
Here's a running list of some of the tallies from across the country:
The Boston Globe (Massachusetts): Boston Area:
The American Repertory Theatre, multiple productions
'Sanctuary Lamp and 'Gagarin Way (Sugan Theatre Company) Topdog/Underdog (Trinity Rep, New Rep, Alliance Theatre coproduction)
The Lovers (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater)
The Homecoming (Merrimack Repertory Theatre)
Arcadia (Publick Theatre)
Nicholas Martin’s direction of The Rivals and The Sisters Rosensweig (Huntington Theatre Company)
King Lear (Actors' Shakespeare Project)
Take Me Out (SpeakEasy Stage Company and Boston Theatre Works)
A Number (Lyric Stage Company of Boston)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Broadway in Boston) Western Massachusetts:
Macbeth (Out of Joint, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts)
Souvenir (Berkshire Theatre Festival)
Follies (Barrington Stage Company)
King John (Shakespeare & Company)
The new '62 Center for Theatre and Dance at Williams College
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Chicago Sun-Times (Illinois): (in no particular order)
Two Trains Running (Pegasus Players)
Seven Guitars (Congo Square Theatre Company)
Wheatley (Victory Gardens Theatre)
Time and the Conways (Griffin Theatre)
700 Sundays (Cadillac Palace)
Dollhouse (Goodman Theatre)
Design for Living (Circle Theatre)
Oliver (Marriott Theatre)
Red Herring (Northlight Theatre)
At Last: A Tribute to Etta James (Black Ensemble Theater) Chicago Tribune: (Illinois): Michael Phillips’ Top 10 (in alphabetical order):
The Bluest Eye (Steppenwolf Theatre Company)
The Cabinet (Redmoon Theater at the Viaduct)
I Am My Own Wife (Goodman Theatre)
La Luna (Teatr Cogitatur at Chopin Theatre)
Natural Affection (The Artistic Home)
Orpheus Descending (American Theatre Company)
The Pain and the Itch (Steppenwolf Theatre Company)
Permanent Collection (Northlight Theatre)
Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf Theatre Company)
Seven Guitars (Congo Square Theatre Company) Chris Jones Top 10:
4 Murders (A Red Orchid Theater)
Bright Abyss (Compagnie du Hanneton at Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
Death of a Salesman (The Hypocrites)
Footloose (Marriott Theatre)
Guinea Pig Solo (Collaboraction)
It Ain't Nothing but the Blues (Northlight Theatre)
Mabou Mines Dollhouse (Mabou Mines at Court Theatre)
Man of La Mancha (Court Theatre)
Red Light Winter (Steppenwolf Theatre)
Stones in his Pocket (Apple Tree) The Dallas Morning News (Texas): (in no particular order)
Margo Veil
Elegies (Theatre Three)
Movin' Out
Far East (Contemporary Theatre of Dallas)
Metamorphoses (Theatre Three)
Pluck the Day (Second Thought Theatre)
Wicked
The Violet Hour (Dallas Theater Center)
110 in the Shade (Lyric Stage)
Living Out (WaterTower Theater) The Hartford Courant (Connecticut): (in no particular order)
Wicked (Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Goodspeed Opera House)
Travesties (Long Wharf Theatre)
Journey's End (Westport Country Playhouse)
Singing Forest (Long Wharf Theatre)
Kimberly Akimbo (Hartford TheaterWorks)
Top Girls (Williamstown Theatre Festival)
Verekai (Cirque du Soleil)
The Overcoat (Bushnell)
Follies (Barrington Stage) Los Angeles Times (California): Best: (not in list form)
Thomas Gibbons' Permanent Collection
Daniel Henning's staging of Michael John LaChiusa’s The Wild Party
Chris Butler and Deidrie N. Henry’s performances in Dael Orlandersmith’s Yellowman
Gordon Davidson staging of David Hare's Stuff Happens
Other favorites included Killer Joe (L.A. Theatre Company at Gardner Stages), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (South Coast Repertory), tick, tick … BOOM! and Songs for a New World (both by Rubicon Theatre), She Stoops to Comedy (Evidence Room), Theatre of the New Ear (UCLA Live), Beauty Queen of Leenane (Celtic Arts Center) and I Am My Own Wife (Geffen Playhouse and La Jolla Playhouse). Worst:
Justin Tanner’s staging of Tobacco Road
Margit Ahlin's Climbing Everest/ Jerry Herman's The Grand Tour (Colony Theatre)
Dead End Michael Ritchie's first staging at the Ahmanson Theatre Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania): 1. Measure For Measure (London’s Globe) 2. Dog Face (Quantum Theatre) 3. A Little Night Music (Pittsburgh CLO) 4. Ghetto Superstar: The Man That I Am(City Theatre) 5. The Bird Sanctuary (Pittsburgh Public Theater) 6. The Nina Variations (Unseam'd Shakespeare) 7. Joe Turner's Come And Gone (Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre) 8. Lobby Hero (Public) 9. Henry IV (Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre) 10. One Flea Spare (Playhouse)
Rocky Mountain News (Colorado): (in no particular order)
Intimate Apparel (The Arvada Center)
The Syringa Tree
All My Sons (Denver Center Theatre Company)
Assassins (Next Stage)
The Full Monty (The Arvada Center)
Take Me Out (Curious Theatre Company)
A Raisin in the Sun (The Arvada Center)
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (PHAMALy, the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League) San Francisco Chronicle (California): Highlight: The People's Temple (Berkeley Repertory Theatre-Z Space Studio)
Top 10:
Caroline, or Change (Best of Broadway)
The Overcoat (American Conservatory Theater)
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Parts 1 & 2 (California Shakespeare Theater)
The Typographer's Dream (Encore Theatre)
The Goat (ACT)
Rain(Cirque Éloize, Best of Broadway)
Baby Taj (TheatreWorks)
I Am My Own Wife (Best of Broadway)
The Tempest (California Shakespeare Theater)
The Voysey Inheritance (ACT) The Star-Ledger (New Jersey): (in alphabetical order)
The Baker's Wife (Paper Mill Playhouse)
Boy Gets Girl (Premiere Stages)
Gem of the Ocean (McCarter Theatre Company)
Inspecting Carol (George Street Playhouse)
The Kyogen of Errors (TheatreFest)
Life of Galileo (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey)
Music from a Sparkling Planet (The Theatre Project)
The Rainmaker (12 Miles West Theatre Company)
Sight Unseen (Centenary Stage Company)
You Can't Take It with You (Two River Theater Company) St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota): 1. Honour (Jungle Theater) 2. Brooklyn Bridge (Children's Theatre Company) 3. An Almost Holy Picture (Pillsbury House Theatre) 4. Ragtime (Ten Thousand Things) 5. Pericles (Guthrie Lab) 6. Fire Ball (Great American History Theatre) 7. La Boheme (Theater Latte Da) 8. Take Me Out (Mixed Blood Theatre) 9. Beauty and the Beast (Chanhassen Dinner Theatres) 10. You Can't Take It With You (Park Square Theatre)
For a recap of the top ten lists of New York stagings, click here.
