SEVEN ANGELS THEATRE OFFERS A MENU OF TREATS

A parade of stars marches by as the famous Edwards Twins perform their unique magic by transforming themselves into everybody from Rod Stewart to Barbra Streisand, Cher to Celine Dion. On Saturday, September 11 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 12 at 2 p.m., Seven Angels Theatre in Waterbury will be making musical magic happen. Don’t let Las Vegas's number one impersonators pass you by. Tickets are $55. Next up are the zany and wild guys, known as Coconuts, bringing their special blend of comedy and music to the stage. For more than four decades, they have been spreading joy along the Eastern Seacoast, from Cape Cod to the Florida Keys, and now they are in the neighborhood for your entertainment pleasure. Called the “Ultimate Baby Boomer Party Band,” these guys promise to celebrate Rock ’n’ Roll with a hefty frosting of fun. Tickets are $20. The music continues on Saturday, September 25 at 8 p.m. when the Connecticut Transit Authority sails in for a spectacular pit stop, recreating the sounds and songs of Chicago, one of the greatest American bands ever. Take a seat for such hits as “Beginnings,” “Just You ’n Me,” “Old Days,” “Make Me Smile,” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” and many more. Tickets are $29. Our favorite nuns are back again from Friday, October 1 to Sunday, October 10 but with a twist. The Little Sisters of Hoboken have returned with a vengeance, guaranteed to provide a hilarious and heavenly time, with our own Semina DeLaurentis as Sister Amnesia leading the charge. Until September 15, use code NUN to save $5, otherwise tickets are $30. Come help officially re-open Seven Angels Theatre with “Nonsense with a Twist!" Ready to be wowed? On Saturday, October 16 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., The Amazing Kreskin willl unveil his bag of mental tricks as a stage magician. Not a psychic, Kreskin does “predictions” and hypnotic suggestions, He has appeared on “The Late Night with David Letterman,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Tickets are $30. Mark your calendar for Willy Wonka Jr October 3-17, Great Balls of Fire October 23 and Earlene’s Christmas Show December 3-16. For tickets to all these shows call 203-757-4676,1 Plank Road, Waterbury or online at SevenAngelsTheatre.org/calendar. Light up your autumn entertainment season with a visit or three to Waterbury’s Seven Angels Theatre.

TIME PASSAGES

The last year and a half, all 500 plus days, have been challenging to say the least. We are being tested on a daily basis and, unfortunately, we don’t have a course or text books to study. It’s trial by fire and we have surely been burned. On a recent typical day, I turned on NBC’a Today Show and learned about the death toll in Haiti as another hurricane swept through the land. Then it was the continuing forest fires in the west that have devastated California and surrounding environs that are pushing east, with smoke that is polluting the air. To add to the mounting problems, many people across the globe are afraid to get their COVID shots and new variants like Delta are spreading illness and saturating the wards of hospitals and exhausting our medical personnel to the breaking point. To add to the trauma, the country of Afghanistan has been overrun by the Taliban and citizens and workers stationed there are fleeing for their lives. And, by the way, Hurricane Henri was planning to pay us a visit in Connecticut, ready or not. No wonder it seemed safest to pull the covers up and stay in bed. Clearly the world is in a dangerous place and is not going to heal itself any time soon. Where is Annie and her sun will come up tomorrow promise? Can we hold on until December when the newest Annie, Celina Smith, will brighten the horizon with a live television broadcast on NBC? Personally, in the last week alone, I have experienced incredible sorrow and infinite joy. A beloved Aunt, Shirley, was struck and killed by a bus as she crossed a Florida street on the way home from a COVID test. She left a legacy of kindness and concern throughout her 94 years on this earth. Ironically she died one year to the day after her husband Mac, a man she devoted her life to caring for in his long years of illness. To balance the scales, my nephew Seth and wife Amy welcomed a new son, Alexander Lev, and celebrated his bris with a small family circle and shared the occasion on Zoom. The circle of life continues. Are there lessons to learn from these events? The major one is that life is precious and all too precarious. We cannot waste the moments that mark them. As the Jewish holidays approach, now is the time to ask for forgiveness and to grant forgiveness so that healing can begin. Life is too short, even for 94 years, to allow hatred or anger to color your soul. As the song in “Frozen" states so eloquently, let it go.

"HAVING OUR SAY" AT THE IVORYTON PLAYHOUSE

imagine the changes you might experience if you lived a hundred years, especially if you start life as the daughter of a slave. That is the amazing historical reality for two remarkable sisters, who are now maiden ladies of 103 and 101, Sadie and Bessie Delany. Until September 15, they will be "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years” at Ivoryton Playhouse, a play by Emily Mann, adapted from the Book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany, with Amy Hill Hearth. Growing up in Raleigh, South Carolina on the campus of St Augustine’s School where both their parents held positions, these two forward thinking women achieving success in teaching and dentistry They were raised with their eight brothers and sisters to value their African-American heritage, to hold family close and dear and to be true and honest in all their dealings in life. In need of an extra grandmother or two, you could not do better than adopting Bessie and Sadie. Hope Harley as Bessie is delightfully feisty and independent of heart and spirit while Catherine Williams brings Sadie’s sweetness and shyness to the stage. Both ladies are wonderfully convincing and sincere as they tell their hundred year journey, one that spans the discriminatory Jim Crow laws, through their personal educational triumphs, their careers, their close family ties, to life in Harlem, across the Civil Rights trials and triumphs, to their current retirement in Mt. Vernon, New York. Smart and sharp and filled to their Sunday go-to-church hat brim with wisdom and wit, we meet these fine ladies as they prepare a feast to celebrate their long deceased and beloved father’s birthday. They freely reveal their unique take on life. Eating a clove of garlic, a spoonful of cod liver oil, stuffing their diet with vegetables, doing daily yoga (except on Sunday, which is devoted to church) and not having husbands to worry them are all clues to their longevity. Born to a family of achievers, Sadie became the first woman of color to teach home economics in a New York City high school (even if she had to cheat a little to make it happen), while Bessie became the second Negro woman licensed to practice dentistry in New York (one who never turned away a patient if they couldn’t pay). They cherished getting the right to vote in 1920, and never missed an election, because it earned them the right to complain. Proud Americans, they refused to let a lack of money or a lot of prejudice stop them. Todd Underwood directs their charming and charismatic conversation, made even more touching because of homey set designed by Martin Scott Marchitto. For tickets ($55 adults, $50 seniors, $25 students), call the Ivoryton Playhouse at 860-767-7318. Tickets will not be sold online. Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. You’ll admire and applaud the dignity and devotion of the Delany sisters and the indelible mark they are guaranteed to leave on your heart. Always planning for the future, Sadie and Bessie established a fund at the New York Community Trust to give grants to help”hang a rainbow in the sky” for people and families working to improve their lives. How sweet of them to care and fulfill their father’s philosophical statement that “your mission is to help somebody."

JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE: "WALDEN"

Are you ready for an adventure? Not a jungle cruise, but exciting nonetheless. TheaterWorks Hartford is luring you off your comfy couch to travel into the woods, down a dirt trail, for a theatrical experience that is different and absorbing. Have you ever given any thought to the future of our planet? What might happen if we ignored climate change or didn’t act fast enough to solve the looming questions about food resources and water options? The fact is that we may run out of farmable soil in a mere sixty years and already today there are millions of people in the world who go to bed hungry. How will we solve these burning issues? Until August 29, you are invited to enter into a world created by playwright Amy Berryman that raises many of these issues. You-Shin Chen has created a cabin in the woods, with a flourishing garden of vegetables and chickens ensconced in a coop and your seat is ready, with a bottle of bug spray in the chair pocket and headphones to hear so you don’t miss a word of dialogue or a cricket or birdsong. Come meet Cassie, Jeena Yi, who is just back from the moon after a lengthy one year visit, where she was able to make plants grow. A botanist, she has trained extensively for the honor. Her sister Stella, Diana Oh, also trained for the mission but was not selected. The sisters, twins, have a long history of competition and have been estranged. Now with Stella’s invitation to visit, they finally have an opportunity to reconcile. Complicating their reunion is Bryan, Gabriel Brown, who wants to marry Stella. Bryan is an earth advocate, wanting to solve the problems right here on this planet and not try to colonize another place, like the moon or Mars. Cassie has come with an alternative motive: she wants Stella to come back to the NASA program and be her control when she goes on a mission to Mars. Their mother died in childbirth and their father was a famous pioneer astronaut and the sisters are conflicted over which role to pursue. Can they reconcile their differences? Will the issues in space be too great to overcome? How will Bryan’s views color their imminent decisions? The action in person takes place in Windsor at Riverfront Recapture by the river,100 Meadow Road, under the careful direction of Mei Ann Teo, with intriguing lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and vivid sound by Hao Bai.The play will stream until August 29. For tickets ($95 lawn seat, $150 director seat), call TheaterWorks Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at www.twhartford.org. For streaming call for the cost. Shows are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. and Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:15 p.m. On August 25, the time changes to 6:45 p.m. This is a regional premiere. Come immerse yourself in this compelling drama of the future where you will think differently about loneliness and isolation and the fate of the globe. Be a modern day Thoreau. Let the stars and the lightning bugs guide you down a path of reconciliation and understanding as these two sisters try to reconnect with each other and with the earth.

BROADWAY IS COMING TO OLD SAYBROOK

Broadway is coming to Old Saybrook so get ready to celebrate cabaret Friday, August 13 at 7 p.m., Saturday, August 14 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday, August 15 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. courtesy of WISP, the Wagner Iovanna Studio Performances. WISP is a non-profit arts initiative started in 2017 by gifted performers Robert Iovanna and wife Karen Wagner-Iovanna who have dedicated their talents to encouraging actors, young and old, to develop their skills on stage in the performing arts. To that end, the husband and wife team have provided the training and experience to showcase each one’s potential, resulting in many past and present participants going on to careers in the music industry as well as film/TV, Broadway, print, voice overs and have been accepted into top theater and conservatory programs across the country. They successfully incorporate professionals in the worlds of acting and singing with the new young talent they are cultivating, like the show’s narrator iheart radio’s John Cadillac Saville and New York City Opera’s Erich Simo as Jean Valjean. At cabaret tables, where you are invited to bring your own meal, you will be treated to a trio of Broadway favorites. “Dear Evan Hansen” tells the tale of a boy who feels invisible and desperately wants to be accepted. When another student at his high school commits suicide, Evan is swept into a web of lies not of his own making but which have the power to change his life and give him all the acceptance he so desires. Will he accept this unanticipated chance or admit the truth of the fabrications? Songs like “So Big/So Small,” “Requiem,” and “Sincerely Me” propel the action. Venture next into the cellblocks of the 1920’s when women are celebrated for the brazenness of their murders as Roxie and Velma vie for top billing, belting out tunes like “Cell Block Tango,” “Mister Cellophane” and “All That Jazz." Completing the program are the majestic melodies of “Les Miserable,” the tale of an honest man who steals a loaf of bread and is imprisoned for years. Even when he is finally released Jean Valjean is haunted by a determined policeman Javert who wants him never to know freedom’s sweet taste. Every song like “I Dreamed a Dream,” “One Day More,” “Master of the House” and “Castle on a Cloud” are memorable. The show’s directors are Rob Iovanna and Karen Wagner-Iovanna, with Lauren Celentano as choreographer and James Teti as musical director. For tickets ($25, $20 for children under 7), to the performances at the First Church of Christ, 366 Main Street, Old Saybrook, call 203-494-1633 or go online to https:/buy.tututix.com/WISP or visit www.wisperformances.org. This show is dedicated to their beloved cast member Shauna Clifford who was in an auto accident that prevents her from being Heidi Hansen, Evan’s mom. They look forward to her being back on stage in October for “Spooktacular Halloween Cabaret.” Come to the cabaret and cheer on the WISP stars of today and tomorrow as they bring Broadway right to your table.

BROADWAY BOUND

Did you ever wonder how Broadway came to be? More than 250 years ago, two ambitious and forward thinking entrepreneurs, Walter Murray and Thomas Kean began presently plays by Shakespeare and ballad operas like The Beggar’s Opera. The site was a Theatre on Nassau Street, in New York City, holding 280 patrons and, thus, Broadway was born. Today there are 41 buildings, each with 500 or more seats, that qualify for the title Broadway theaters, stretching for 13 miles across Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square and Union Square. This popular tourist attraction boasted almost 15 million visitors, spending almost $2 billion in 2018-2019 alone. Broadway musicals, an enormously popular American pastime, help make New York City or the Big Apple the cultural capital of the world. By the late 1800’s, most theaters had moved uptown where the land had been used for farms and family homes. Theaters like the Hudson, Lyceum and New Amsterdam have been in existence since the early days. The first musical, all 5 and 1/2 hours of it, arrived in 1866. The Black Crook played for 474 performances. This was followed by vaudeville, burlesque, musical comedies and operettas. When white lights were installed on electric signs outside the venues, Broadway was nicknamed The Great White Way. The First World War, the advent of motion pictures and the Great Depression took a toll on Broadway but the blockbuster Oklahoma!, running for 2212 performances starting in 1943, opened the stage door for a new era. In 1982, Joseph Papp established The Public Theater and led a campaign to “Save the Theatre” and designate the area as an historic district. Due to the pandemic, Broadway theaters closed March 12, 2020 with venues slated to reopen September 14, 2021. Springsteen on Broadway resumed on June 26, 2021 with Hadestown set to follow, with the Tony Awards soon thereafter. While I love the excitement of the Great White Way, Connecticut is blessed with entertainment centers from Norwalk and New Canaan to New Haven and Hartford and Storrs, all across our state. As a theater reviewer, I cannot wait to find my orchestra seat, with notebook and pen, and share the newest offerings in my blog, The Balcony and Beyond, the Connecticut Critics Circle, The Middletown Press and the West Hartford News. My Technicolor world is about to open again and I am so anxious for the curtain to rise. Come join me for the fun and joy.

"OEDIPUS REX" PUZZLES PROPHESY

The history of theater dates back to Greece, circa 429 B.C. when early playwrights like Sophocles penned involving Greek tragedies. The newly opened Legacy Theatre of Stony Creek, Branford is offering audiences the unique opportunity to be carried dramatically to a land far away and long ago for a rare viewing of "Oedipus Rex,” a timeless classic. Ian Johnston has provided the translation. Oedipus, masterfully captured by Mitchel Kawash, is King of Thebes, a country burdened by a plague, not unlike the pandemic that threatens our world today. Anxious to end the illness, he learns that finding the murderer of King Laius is the question he must solve. Oedipus accuses Creon (Tom Schwans) of the crime but Creon vigorously denies the deed. Upon further investigation, Oedipus comes to a disturbing truth, that he himself may be the real culprit. Years before events took place for which he had no knowledge. Oracles had predicted that Oedipus would one day kill his father and marry his mother, horrible consequences he could not even fathom. Since those revelations, Oedipus has wandered the earth fleeing far from his place of birth to ensure that those events could never be realized. Suddenly he must fact the truth that they have, in fact, occurred and he is guilty of both. His wife, Jocasta (Mariah Sage) may, indeed, be his mother and he must accept the fact that he is adopted and King Laius is his real father. Fate and fatal flaws figure prominently in the plot. Director Keeley Baisden Knudsen keeps the drama intense with an involving set and intriguing lighting by Jamie Burnett, projections designed by Lauren Salatto-Rosenay, costumes by Katya Vetrov assisted by Callie Liberatore, and sound by Adam Jackson. Others in the cast include Michael Sayers, Tyrell Latouche, and chorus members Jessica Breda, Emmett Cassidy, F. Liam Devlin, Barbara Hentschel and Michael Steinman. The play continues until August 22, with performances Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m.., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets ($45-75) call 203-315-1901 or online at LegacyTheatreCT.org. The theatre is located at 128 Thimble Island Road, Branford, exit 56 off 1-95. Of the 120 plays written by Sophocles, only seven remain and “Oedipus Rex” is considered his finest, the most powerful and purest example of tragic Greek drama.

TAKE A MUSICAL JOURNEY “INTO THE WOODS”

No need for bug spray or long sleeved clothing as you prepare to venture into the woods with Playhouse on Park in West Hartford for a wonderful musicaljourney, courtesy of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine until August 22.This blockbuster story is all ready for viewing as it travels somewhere between “once upon a time” and “happily ever after,” where the Brothers Grimm have created a forest of fairy tales. These tales were dark and mysterious and gave us goose bumps and nightmares in equal installments. The two clever composers have taken all these intriguing plots and woven them into an imaginative cauldron of tasty soup entitled “Into the Woods.” There’s no necessity to don Little Red’s red cape or Cinderella’s glass slipper or Rapunzel’s long yellow hair or climb Jack’s infamous Beanstalk, unless you want to help the Baker and his wife (Robert Denzel Edwards and Laurel Andersen) in their quest to have a child. Old ago a Witch (Tania Kass) had a curse placed upon her and in order for it to be lifted, the Baker and his wife must bring her, in three days’ time, a cape red as blood, hair yellow as corn, a cow white as milk and a slipper pure as gold. So the pair set off “into the woods” to make their dream of a baby come true. In the forest, they meet a devoted son Jack (Jacquez Linder-Long) who has been sent by his mother (Zoe Goslin) to sell Milky White, his beloved cow, so they can have money to buy food. Also in the forest is a feisty and determined Little Red (Jackie Garmone) who is off to visit her granny (Zoe Goslin) but meets a wolf (Jack Dillon) instead. Cinderella (Kara Arena) has escaped her wicked stepmother (Olivia Rose Barresi) and stepsisters (Bianca Day Feiner and Miss Sandra Mhlongo) in her quest to go to the prince’s ball but Rapunzel (Hallie Friedman) has been imprisoned in a tower with little hope of rescue. Toss in a pair of handsome, charming but insincere princes (Jack Dillon and Isaac Kueber), a mysterious man (Chris Bellinger) who also plays the narrator who tries to orchestrate the action and you have all the ingredients for a fulfilling and satisfying evening of theater. The steward is played by Danny Kelly and the ensemble includes Katie Brough and Trishawn Paul. Sean Harris directs this fine cast on this flight of fancy in fabulous style, on a lovely set designed by David Lewis and colorful costumes by Kate Bunce, with a nine piece band directed by Melanie Guerin. For tickets ($35-40), call Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford at 860-523-5900., ext. 10 or online at boxoffice@playhousetheatregroup.org. Call for performance schedule as it varies week to week. Come early and hear a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets in the lobby in honor of the Festival. A children’s version of “Snow White” is playing until August 22. Heartfelt wishes and witch’s curses, magic beans and wolfish fiends, angry giants and a community’s defiance, “Into the Wood” has them all in fantastic and fanciful abundance. Come and be bewitched.