WATCH WHERE YOU WALK ON "THE 39 STEPS" AT WESTPORT COUNTRY PLAYHOUSE

Even though Alfred Hitchcock was noted for his suspenseful and mysterious movies, as the master of the macabre he probably would have relished the farcical humor endowed on this fast paced suspenseful and silly slapstick ride, an adaptation by Patrick Barlow, based on an original concept by Nobby Dimon and Simon Corble, from the novel by John Buchan and the 1935 movie of the same name. Clearly Alfred Hitchcock would have gotten a hoot from the clever doings of the four stars who play a whole mine field of characters, donning wigs and hats, aprons and uniforms, leaping off bridges and trains, as the grand pursuit unfolds.

Think of a game of CLUE that has run amok. Think of it aa a humorous homage to the great film maker Alfred Hitchcock. Think of a spy film with secret agents of decidedly German ancestry. Think practically autumn entertainment with a sense of humor and a special spoof in the making. All these clues spell out “The 39 Steps” and the Westport Country Playhouse can’t wait for you to come, until Saturday, November 9, to solve the comical adventurous game afoot.

There's an old saying "Be careful what you wish for" so when Richard Hannay, a resourceful and resiilent Joe Delafield, complains one day in his London apartment in 1935 that he is bored, what happens next sends him fleeing for his life, accused of murder. Not so bored any more, eh Richard.

When he attends a performance at the London Palladium, he triggers a series of episodes that begin with a German damsel in distress, Annabella (Sharone Sayegh) being murdered in his bed. Before she dies, she warns Hannay that there is a dastardly plot being brewed to smuggle documents out of the country that will lead to disaster for England. She also cautions him to beware of a man with part of his little finger missing.

Soon Hannay is jumping on and off trains, running from spies, hiding out on farms and in hotels, a fugitive from justice, giving speeches in double talk for unknown politicians and falling in love with Pamela (Sharone Sayegh), one of his chief accusers. A versatile fleet of only two more, Seth Andrew Bridges and Evan Zes, play a plethora of roles from milkman to mothers, motormen to Mr. Memory, adding spice to a veritable stew of characters. Mark Shanahan directs this merry and mysterious romp in Alfred Hitchcock Land with aplomb.

For tickets ($40-80), call the Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court, Westport at 203-227-4177 or online at boxoffice@westportplayhouse.org. Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m, Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.,Thursday at 7 p.m. and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

Come discover for yourself how biscuits and bagpipes, haddock and handcuffs, underwear salesmen and undercover agents, play a significant role in this whistle-while-you-work theatrical tour de force event. Be sure to have your ears tuned to pick up all the references to Hitchcock hits sprinkled liberally throughout this wild and wooly whodunit.

NEW HAVEN THEATER COMPANY SHARING LOVE LETTERS IN "DEAR ELIZABETH"

New Haven Theater Company member J. Kevin Smith is a decidedly patient man. Way back in the theater season 2023-2024 Sarah Ruhl’s invitingly intimate play “Dear Elizabeth” was selected to be the first production of the company’s new season. One week before opening a bad accident to a cast member cancelled the show. Now J. Kevin Smith is indulging in second chances and will direct the series of letters, 80 out of the original 450, penned between two famous poets Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, that track their close relationship, a friendship that lasted for thirty years.

New Haven Theater Company will open with “Dear Elizabeth" on Thursday, November 7 and run for the next two weekends, entering their personal lives, from the time they were introduced by a fellow poet at a dinner party and realized they’d like to spend more time together indulging in their mutual love of poetry. Only Robert’s death ended their special connection.

Two newer troop members Sandra Rodriguez and Ralph Buonocore, with visiting artist Abby Klein, will portray Elizabeth and Robert, both Poet Laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners. Even though they were often geographically apart in different countries their friendship spanned years and separation but was always warm and sentimentally close. Letter writing may seem to be a lost art today but for these two their connection with pen and paper was a valuable lifeline between their minds and hearts. It didn’t seem to matter if he was in Italy and she in Brazil or if he was in Maine and she in Key West, their spirts were united. They both spoke in poetry, she writing traditionally of her own experience and he revealing his soul for all to see, like a father’s confessional. She was not a big fan of his way of communicating.a

J. Kevin Smith hopes audiences will come away with a sense of the beauty of friendship, one inspired by love. As our current political angst grows, he wants them to see it as a sense of escape, a way to feel better about the world. He wants their intimate stories, how they supported each other through their problems and boosted each other’s spirits, to leave the audience feeling better than when they came in the door.

For tickets ($25), go online to www.newhaventheatercompany.com. Performances are Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the back of EBM Vintage, 839 Chapel Street, New Haven.

Calling upon the elements of nature, from water to planets to the moon, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell promise each other a starry eternity.

"FALCON GIRLS" RUNNING FOR THE FINISH LINE AT YALE REP

Teenage girls and puberty can be a deadly combination of hormones. Just ask the eighth grade girls bonded together in a horse judging competition who experience all the great and grotesque diary entries of their age and gender. Yale Rep is currently exposing all the various body parts and peculiarities of one group of active participants in this true tale memoir of "falcon girls” by Hilary Bettis playing at its theater at 1120 Chapel Street in New Haven until Saturday, November 2.

Hold on to your bobby socks and horse’s pommel as you make the intimate acquaintance of six young girls as they reveal the true story of their ascent toward adulthood. These are supposed to be the best and golden years of youth but are they? Each budding flower is dealing with a full hand of issues, from jealousy to Jesus, rivalries to romances, horses and hostilities and sex and serial killers.

In this world premiere play directed with skilled hands by May Adrales, we encounter a bevy of personalities and problems in a rural Colorado ranch land in the early 1990’s. When H (or Hillary or Hillary Clinton) arrives in town, she tries to find a place for herself as a member of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) to indulge her love of horses and her desperate need to fit in and not to just be the new girl. She has to settle for being an alternate to an alternate, but waiting for her turn on the team can be tiresome.

The tribe of troubled teens includes Alexa Lopez’s April who wants to be a Hollywood star married to an even more famous Hollywood star, Alysssa Marck’s Carly who is saddled with an abusive father and some strict rules of behavior, Anna Roman’s Mary who leads the fan club for Jesus and continually asks WWJD (What Would Jesus Do in every situation), Annie Abramczyk’s Rebecca who has been indoctrinated to believe, courtesy of her mom, that winning at all costs is the prize and Sophia Marcelle’s Jasmine who has plunged herself into phone sex and online chats no matter the danger of being thrown off her mount. At the heart of this saga is Gabrielle Policano’s H who learns more lessons than she bargained for before and after she revealed her big secret.

This sisterhood enjoys a patient coach (Teddy Canez) as Mr. K who tries to reign them in and set them on a comfortable trotting path, Juan Sebastian Cruz’s Dan who just likes to be considered part of the team no matter what job he needs to do and Liza Fernandez’s Beverlee who as H’s mom tries to protect her from all the evils of her world. The girls prefer to gallop often out of control as they drop their leads and adventure off the path into pregnancy, abortion, guns, race, murder mysteries and, of course, their beloved horses. Evaluating the horses and their finer points is given a whole new perspective when H humorously applies the same terms, unflatteringly, to her potential teammates. Meanwhile one brave boy, Dan, serves as their male mascot and erroneously seeks dating advice when he fancies a relationship with H.

Think Mean Girls on Horseback to capture or lasso some of the angst of these talented performances. These adolescents are not likable, as they hug each other one moment and spit venom the next. For them, growing up is a gigantic challenge, one many of their parents make incredibly harder. If only Mr. K. could make them believe in themselves and their intrinsic value.

For tickets ($15-65). call the Yale Rep at 203-432-1234 or online at yalerep.org. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 8 p.m. with occasional matinees at 2 p.m. on Wednesday and every Saturday.

Take a startling ride, often bareback, as these girls struggle to find their identity in a world that is often confusing and hostile, where even their beloved stallions can not always carry them cross the finish line into adulthood.

"A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE AUDITION" COMES TO NELSON HALL ON NOVEMBER 8TH

PRESS RELEASE

Calling all “Opera, Broadway and Comedy Lovers.” After a run of sold-out performances, Award-Winning Director, Martin Marchitto brings the madcap musical cabaret “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Audition” for one special encore performance to Nelson Hall at Elim Park.

Join us for a hilarious evening featuring talented singers and Opera professionals lamenting about audition mishaps, mayhem, and miracles through hits from the Opera, Operetta and Broadway stages. With action taking place in the audience everyone is part of the show.

Friday, November 8th 7:30pm. Tickets are only $15 https://www.nelsonhallelimpark.org

"JERSEY BOYS" LIGHTS UP THE CONNECTICUT SKIES AT A.C.T.

Four guys singing under the streetlamp on a New Jersey corner enjoy the saving grace of redemption when they each could have been destined for a jail cell. Music helped them to escape the fate as juvenile delinquents and led, in a round about fashion, to their amazing success, ultimately, as the Four Seasons, Venture to A.C.T. of CT in Ridgefield for the mostly joyful story of Frankie Valli and friends in the exuberant “Jersey Boys” delighting audiences now extended until Sunday, November 17.

Rarely has a musical the ability to raise the rafters quite like this show about a quartet of young guys, blue-collar workers, from the Garden State. With book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, and music by Bob Gaudio and lyrics by Bob Crewe, “Jersey Boys” tells the tale of how Frankie Valli becomes lead singer of The Four Seasons. The transformation is not an easy one, and the four have some hard choices to make along the way, but that "rocky road” is a spectacular journey you won’t want to miss.

You definitely want to cheer on this smash 2006 Tony Award winning show. With a sweet, honey-dipped sound and a dazzling dream, these young kids flirt with crime and the wrong side of the law but, eventually, set their careers straight toward stardom. Finding members who fit their sound was the first hurdle. Claiming a name that suited their voices was the second. Avoiding arrest by the cops, reconciling family life with long stints on the road, a gambling addiction and burden of debt all conspire to almost bring them down.

But Gian Raffaele Dicostanzo’s Frankie Valli, Christian Engelhardt’s Bob Gaudio, Matthew Stoke’s Tommy DeVito and Anthony

Cangiamila’s Nick Massi persevere and go on to sell 175 million records worldwide, all before they hit thirty, with Gaudio and Justin Michael Duval’s Bob Crewe, their producer/lyricist writing many of the show’s thirty three songs, including five #1 hits and 11 that made the Billboard’s top ten. Come snap your fingers and hum along to “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Oh, What a Night,” “My Eyes Adore You,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” and “Working My Way Back to You,” and so many more.

Watch how the brash and bold Tommy DeVito takes full credit for forming the group, discovering the angelic voiced Frank Valli, and steering them to stardom but never claims the ultimate sin that almost destroys them. Christopher D. Betts directs this great gift of momentum, motives and music.

For tickets ($72 and up), call A.C.T. of CT, 38 Old Quarry Road, Ridgefield at 475-215-5433 or online at www.actofct.org. Performances are Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.and Sunday at 2 p.m., with no performance Thursday, October 31 and an additional performance Wednesday, October 30 at 7 p.m.

Let a quartet of wildly talented guys adore you with their eyes and serenade you with their great voices as they work their way into your heart. Oh, what a night! Join the multiple millions who have loved this show as they reunite to enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor they cherish and deservedly so.

"DR. JEKYLL AND MR HYDE" SET TO SCARE AT HARTFORD STAGE

To celebrate the spookiest time of the year, the Hartford Stage has conjured up a new, novel and scary version of that Victorian classic by Robert Louis Stevenson penned in 1886, the result of a nightmare that is the origin of the macabre tale. Screw up your courage and venture into the dark and dangerous world of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” scaring audiences until Sunday, November 3. This new adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher and skillfully directed by Melia Bensussen, confronts the age old question of good and evil, are we all one or the other or rather a mixture of each in a varying degree.

Nathan Darrow’s Dr. Henry Jekyll is a physician consumed with the conscious mind, with research, with experimental drugs, with the struggle of good impulses fighting off impulses of evil. When he swallows a tincture of ingredients, he creates a variety of alter egos, depending on the combination of drugs taken and the amount of each in his system. This inability to control the results of his experiment leads to uncontrollable and often disastrous results. Yet in each a variation on a theme, a differring version of Mr, Edward Hyde, is created.

On a majestic thrust stage created by Sara Brown, we encounter the characters who people Jekyll’s world, those who support him and those who oppose him: Peter Stray’s Dr. H. K. Lanyon, Omar Robinson’s Dr. Gabriel Utterson, Nayib Felix’s Sir Danvers Carew and also The Inspector, Sarah Chalfie’s Elizabeth Jelkes and Jennifer Rae Bareilles’ Mr. Poole. Do not for an instant believe you are safe from murder just because you once were on Dr. Jekyll’s good side. Anyone and everyone is fair game in this tale of dual consciousness, of lightness and darkness, of salvation and condemnation, sanity and madness. Dark desires are clearly not easy to control, when appetites and impulses range out of command.

For tickets ($30 and up), call the Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford at 860-527-5151 or online at boxoffice@hartfordstage.org. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Added shows are Thursday, October 31 at 1 p.m. and Sunday November 3 at 7:30 p.m.

The theater has just announced that $9,000,000 of its $20,000,000 Set the Stage Endowment has already been reached for this nationally recognized live theater where stories are told.

Witness this macabre dance nightmare where psychological repercussions reign and good impulses and bad impulses run amok, where a potion has the power to create evil and the beast in man’s nature can be so easily unleashed.

JOHN O'HURLEY: A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS AND STANDARDS

If you answer to the name John O’Hurley, actor, comedian, singer, author, game show host and television personality, you have been blessed with a resume any Hollywood personality would be proud of and rightly so. His smooth and distinguished voice, where he is noted for playing characters from villains to knights, doctors to politicians, captains to professors and kings to God, would be treasure enough to brag about endlessly. Don’t forget his roles as King Arthur in “Spamalot,” and as the fast talking lawyer Billy Flynn in “Chicago,” his stints on soap operas like “All My Children” and “The Young and the Restless,” his two dozen movies and numerous television shows, his decade doing commercials for Coors Light beer, and his controversial but ultimate win in the dance off on “Dancing with the Stars” in its first year winning for his sister Carol who at 17 lost her life to epileptic seizures as he played for the Epilepsy Foundation and the list rolls merrily along.

You have the unique opportunity to hear from John O’Hurley live and in person as he brings his one man show to two venues, with his band: Waterbury’s Palace Theater on Saturday, October 26 at 8 p.m. and West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park on Sunday, October 27 at 4 p.m. In a 90 minute retrospective of his fascinating life he will regale the audience with storytelling as he sings from the Great American Songbook “A Man with Standards.”

The idea for the show began seven years ago when his pianist and friend Michael Feinstein called John and asked if he had a one man cabaret show. Feinstein had a new hotel and he wanted John to open it for him in three weeks. John said he did and then began to write one and that was the impetus that pushed him over the edge to write the story of his life, with music from the 1950’s and 1960’s. The first iteration was two and a half hours but even John was sick of talking about himself for that long and a 90 year old gentleman who saw the first show commented in the best way possible when he said “I listened to your show and didn’t have to go to the bathroom once.” The show has been nominated twice by Broadway World as the “Best Celebrity Show."

Even though he was born in Kittery, Maine, he has ties to Connecticut and West Hartford where he moved to when he was 5 or 6 and in the second grade. He always loved being on stage and live theater was always his favorite. "The interaction with the audience where I need them as much as they need me always led to the applause, which I deemed time well spent.” At home, his mom hummed everything all day long so John always had a song in his head and a rock band in the garage. “My parents had a dinner/date every Saturday and went dancing which put the Great American Song Book as a constant memory in my head." He taught himself the piano and is a classically trained vocalist and started composing music as a teenager, with two albums that reached the Billboard charts and three books on the Amazon and New York Times Best Sellers list. Growing up in a house filled with music and melody influenced his life.

While his wife Lisa is a beautiful singer, his son William at 17 has been a pilot for the last two years and shows no sign of wanting a career in show business. He does, however, enjoy two week jaunts aboard the Regent Cruise line touring the world to twenty different countries to expand his “geographical dimensions” when his dad performs. His own childhood helping his parents entertain guests was great preparation for his stints hosting Family Feud and To Tell the Truth that he viewed as an extension of his West Hartford life talking to the adults who frequented their home. His job was “moving the party along” which he found “a wonderful experience.”

His interaction with people might have prepared him unintentionally for another gig when since 2002 and for the next 23 years he has hosted Purina’s National Dog Show following the Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving, that he calls “the greatest piece of tv success.” This is even though a Great Dane once circled the arena. looked him right in the eye and stopped, squatted, and left a twelve pound editorial comment for his approval.

One of John O’Hurley’s most memorable achievements is his 20 episodes as J. Peterman, Elaine’s neurotic boss on ”Seinfeld,” as a catalog company entrepreneur. Ironically, a year after the show ended the real J. Peterman called John, and said the romantic clothing wear company was in financial trouble and asked him to buy it. As John relates,”It’s an odd transition. I liked the role so much I bought the company…(he said) let’s put the company back together again,,,So since 1999, I’ve owned the J. Peterman Company with the real J. Peterman.” Go to peterman.com to check out the great clothing line with Hemingway-like commentary and pastel drawings.

As to his dreams of the future, John O’Hurley would like to tackle the role of the idealistic but fumbling Don Quixote with its great musical score as well as the role of the elegantly overwhelming physician in the startling play “Equus,” the monologue from which he recites to warm up before going on stage.

For tickets, call the Palace Theater, 100 East Main Street, Waterbury at 203-346-2000 or online at palacetheaterct.org or call Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford at 860-523-5900, ext. 10 or online at playhouseonpark.org. A reception is available to meet John after the West Hartford show for an additional premium.

Of one thing that is absolutely assured, at both venues John O’Hurley will definitely razzle dazzle ‘em! After all, People Magazine did name him “sexiest man alive."

THEATERWORKS HARTFORD EXPOSES YOU TO "FEVER DREAMS"

Mark Twain famously said “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything” and “A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top.” It would have been prudent if the trio of characters, Zach, Addie and Miller, in Jeffrey Lieber’s intriguing and suspenseful “Fever Dreams” had heeded that warning. Enter at your own risk to TheaterWorks Hartford’s latest offering in honor of their 35th anniversary season of intoxicating theater, until Sunday, November 3 with “Fever Dreams (of animals on the verge of extinction).

Luke Cantarella’s set design of a lovely cabin in the woods, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, complete with exposed beams, an enclosed screen porch and a canoe, gives no clue, except for a broken cabinet door, that any one or any thing is amiss. That is deceptively untrue. Three decades ago Doug Savant’s Zach and Tim DeKay’s Miller were best buds and college roommates, until Lana Young's Addie asserts her sensual self into their midst. She ends up marrying Miller and carrying on a clandestine affair with Zach for thirty years, meeting infrequently in the inviting cabin in the woods.

There are many secrets lurking in their chosen sanctuary, too many secrets that are bubbling up to the surface just waiting to be exposed. As an environmentalist, Addie weaves her tale of animals, from bears to beetles, on the verge of extinction into her complicated relationship with both men. The level of danger is heightened when Miller suddenly makes his appearance. Will all three survive the encounter? Can they resolve their now revealed deceptions? Will the rules of reality destroy their fragile connections? Rob Ruggiero directs this convoluted triangle of friendship that is tested to the last degree.

For tickets ($33-78), call TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at twhartford.org. Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Be sure to explore the photographs in the gallery and treat yourself to a cup of Mezzie’s delicious ice cream in the lobby.

Discover how life can hang by a thread, how friendships can be undone, why relationships are so fragile, and how a gun can complicate any situation so quickly and irrevocably.

COME SEE WHAT'S COOKING IN NONI'S KITCHEN THANKS TO PANTOCHINO PRODUCTIONS

All the world over, food and family, customs and traditions unite us. Generations of families lived in the same multi-level house, on the same street as aunts and uncles and cousins and gathered together for a feast after church at grandma’s house on Sundays. Tragically many of those sacred days are lost as people spread across the land and only get close on chosen holidays or, worse yet, on family reunions every few years.

Luckily in 1974, the Cimino family has not caught up with the changing times and practically live in each other's apron pockets, especially if it concerns the matriarch of the clan, Noni. Italians have long recognized these important factors and have melded them in every layer of lasagna and morsel of meatball. To learn about the importance of breaking bread and dipping it in gravy, the proper term for tomato sauce, come running to Pantochino Production of “Noni Cimino’s Kitchen” weekends until Sunday, October 27as this not-for-profit theater celebrates its 15th season.

This original production, created and performed seven years ago, was written by Pantochino’s Artistic Director Bert Bernardi for book and lyrics, with music by Justin Rigg, and costumes by Jimmy Johansmeyer and focuses on a wonderful and warm grandmother, affectionately called Noni by her close knit clan. It is played with heart and spirit by Donna Vinci who is at the center of this sweetheart of a tale. Excitement is in high gear when the unsuspecting Noni wins the opportunity to make her famous dish, chicken pizziaola, on national television with the master chef Graham Kerr, better known as the Galloping Gourmet.

Thanks to a letter penned by Noni’s daughter-in-law Lori (Valerie Solli), whose own recipe for gefilte fish was rejected, Noni is now the center of attention, with recognition she doesn’t want. Her daughters (Mary Mannix, Maria Berte and Shelley Marsh Poggio) as well as her granddaughters (Charlotte Thomas and Alice Saunders), nosy neighbor (Tracey Marble), her niece (Marlena Ascher) and son (Jimmy Johansmeyer) are all aflutter at the news.

Noni’s tiny kitchen, created in great detail by Von Del Mar, is soon stuffed like manicotti, with everyone who wants to be part of the excitement. When the television show’s lead man Jerry (Justin Rigg) arrives, the kitchen is in happy chaos as everyone wants to help. Noni even offers Jerry a slice of heaven, her special dessert bianco mangia, affectionately termed “blah,” an all white with cherries marvel of cake and creme.

Will Noni get her moment on the television screen? Will her chicken pizziaola become world famous? Be sure to eat a hearty helping of Italian fare so you won't starve as the daughters give cooking lessons on stage. The show is set up like a cabaret so you can bring food and drink to share at your table. For tickets ($35), go to www.pantochino.com. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., with two Saturday matinees October 19 and 26 at 2 p.m. All shows take place at the Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Avenue South, Milford, on the east bound side of the Metro-North train station.

Come be Italian for at least a few hours and let Noni embrace you as one of the family as, to her, la familigia is everything. Bon appetito.

PLAYHOUSE ON PARK REVISITS "JAWS" IN THE COMIC "THE SHARK IS BROKEN"

When Steven Spielberg, the Academy Award winning filmmaker, created his 1975 film portraying great white sharks that attacked and killed swimmers in a fictional town like Martha’s Vineyard, he never imagined the impact it would have on the shark population. Not only did “Jaws” terrify beach goers, it inspired many fishermen to hunt sharks for sport, causing their numbers east of North America to be cut in half. For this, Spielberg regretted the effect his blood thirsty movie had on the shark survivors.

You now have the unique opportunity, today until Sunday, October 20, to make the acquaintance of the trio of actors who made the movie, with frustrating experiences every day for nine weeks as they realized “The Shark Is Broken.” “The Shark Is Broken” is written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon and directed by Joe Discher.

Thanks to Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, you will find yourself aboard the ship the Orca where a police chief (Roy Scheider) played by Nicholas Greco, a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) played by Jake Regensburg and a ship captain (Robert Shaw) played by John D. Alexander while away the hours. They drink whiskey and rye, play card games, and bicker and badger each other about their careers as they wait for the shark, named Bruce, to be repaired.

Ironically, the problem fixing the shark creates more suspense and terror as it is rarely viewed in the film, just introduced by ominous music, and builds anticipation. Spielberg actually called the continued mechanical problems as “good luck because it's a scarier movie without seeing so much of the shark.” Come judge for yourself as you seek a comfortable and comic seat on Johann Fitzpatrick’s realistic ship, awaiting “Bruce’s” arrival. Spoiler alert: he never makes it.

For tickets ($27.50-57.50), call Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Avenue, West Hartford at 860-523-5900, ext. 10 or online at playhouseonpark.org. Performances are Tuesday at 2 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 pm. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m., followed by a talkback. Coming soon are "A Man with Standards: An Evening with John O’Hurley” on October 24 at 4 p.m., “An Evening with Rossi, the Punk Rock Queen of the Jews” on October 29 at 7 p.m. and “Mother (And Me) A Daughter’s Story of Love, Loss and Goulash" by Melinda Buckley on November 2 at 7:30 p.m. and November 3 at 2 p.m. Check the website for more theatrical adventures.

Watch these actors portraying actors survive the tedious delays as they question whether this movie, filmed on a real ocean for the first time, is really worth their time and talents.

TERRIS THEATRE SHARES SENSITIVE AND SOUL SEARCHING SCOTTISH "NO LOVE SONGS"

If your life was a playlist of music, what would it feel like if there were “no love songs” to gladden your heart and warm your nights. Come sojourn to Scotland and enter the moment Lana frequents a tavern and sees the singer entertaining there, Jessie, who would soon color her world with sunshine and starlight.

The Terris Theatre in Chester welcomes you to share their days and nights together, in the poignant and often heartbreaking “No Love Songs" from an original idea by Kyle Falconer and Laura Wilde, with songs by Kyle Falconer, book by Laura Wilde and Johnny McKnight, with John McLarnon and Anna Russell-Martin. It will serenade you until Sunday, October 20. Be prepared to tune your ears to catch all the inflections of their lilting Scottish brogue.

When Anna Russell-Martin’s Lana encounters John McLarnon’s Jessie at a gay bar in Dundee, Scotland, the attraction is immediate and dynamic. She is attending college and he is striving to create a successful music career. After a rocket courtship and marriage, they welcome parenthood with open arms. In a series of songs like “Monsters,” “Still Here,” “Listen Lana,” “Don’t Call Me Baby” and “Wait Around,” we follow the exhilaration and excitement of a new son, quickly extinguished by the reality of the spiral of mounting responsibilities, from nappies and feedings, bouts of incessant crying, loneliness and feelings of inadequacy, Lana experiences being broken as Jessie departs on a month long tour to America to perform.

Their separation at this critical moment in their marriage sends Lana into a traumatic spin, what one in five women and one in ten men experience after the birth of a child: post-partum depression. With no one nearby to lean on, no husband, no mother, no friend or neighbor, Lana’s struggle to cope results in her despair when she fails. You cannot help but want to lessen Lana’s burden and encourage her to keep her faith and her love strong. Gavin Whitworth serves as conductor and keyboardist while Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore direct this soul searching and sensitive song fest.

For tickets ($25-59), call the Terris Theatre, 33 North Main Street, Chester at 860-873-8668 or online at goodspeed.org. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Come witness this intensely personal story, inspired and emotionally invested intimate love story of Lana, Jessie and their new little man as they ultimately face the future with hope.

IVORYTON PLAYHOUSE DEFENDS BOOKS AND READING IN "ALABAMA STORY"

Did you know that you can ban a book simply because you think it may be racial or radical to students, even if you’ve never taken the time to read it yourself? Concerns and fears are behind these challenges for censorship and they have been escalating each year at alarming rates, supposedly to promote children’s morality, about race, gender, history and sexual orientation. For example, the Washington Post found in a 2023 analysis that only eleven people were responsible for filing book challenges in over 100 school districts while in a survey by PEN that Republican-led censorship laws in the 2023-2024 academic year resulted in about 10,000 books being banned.

Censorship started early in the Puritan colonies in 1650 and continued with slavery issues in the Civil War, with the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” unfortunately rising each year to being front and center today. In recent years, books from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and Harry Potter, Anne Frank’s Diary and Shakespeare have been in the foreground for challenges. Back in 1959 in Alabama a school librarian faced her own censorship obstacles. Thanks to Ivoryton Playhouse, until October 20, you are invited into the center ring of the debate with Kenneth Jones’s “Alabama Story,” a true account of this issue at a pivotal moment in American history.

Come make the acquaintance of Ivoryton’s Executive Director Jacqueline Hubbard starring as Emily Wheelock Reed, a fierce defender of her beloved books and freedom of speech, and her fiery opponent in bigoted men like Michael Irvin Pollard’s Senator E. W. Higgins. With eloquent and flowery disguised language, he attacks a children’s book “The Rabbits’ Wedding” by Garth Williams, author and illustrator, who dared to have a black bunny wed a white bunny. Higgins viewed it as an attack on whites and segregation, and the sacred principles of the South. For her part, Emily had the protection and dedication of her library assistant Nicholas-Tyler Corbin’s Thomas Franklin for support in her battle against censorship.

In a compelling side story, the long term relationship and termination of that friendship are illustrated by a wealthy socialite teen Allie Seibold’s Lily who develops an unacceptable affection for the African-American son of the family’s cook, Anthony Vaughn Merchant’s Joshua Moore. Their reunion later in life illustrates the long approved division among racial lines clung to by Southerners. Daryll Heysham portrays Garth Williams among other characters and narrator. This is a compelling tale, told with fervor and authenticity by the talented actors, a true story, a love story, an historical story, and one that resonates today in school board conference rooms across our great land. You need to acknowledge the dangers that loom over our library shelves and be educated about the risks that threaten our children, no matter which side of the printed page you stand on.

For tickets ($60, seniors $55, students $25), call the Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street, Ivoryton at 860-767-7318 or online at ivorytonplayhouse.org. Performances are Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 7:30 pm, Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m, and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Last week was Book Banning Week so this is a timely reminder of the need to protect our freedoms, the importance of books and our libraries, and our need to educate ourselves and be curious about our world all the days of our lives.

"A BEAUTIFUL NOISE" EXPLODES AT THE BUSHNELL THIS WEEK

If you love Neil Diamond, the man and his music, even half as much as I do, as a faithful fan with genuine credentials and long standing admiration, have I got a red, white and blue recommendation for you. This tip has an expiration date of Sunday, October 5 and can be redeemed at only one place, Hartford’s Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, when the life story and musical treasure trove explodes on stage as “A Beautiful Noise.”

Follow the musical trail of this Brooklyn boy, born eighty one years ago, who fought the challenging fight to be judged by his peers and the world as “so good, so good, so good.” He is no imitation, no zirconia, no diamond in the rough but a true “believer,“ worthy of wonderment and fascination. But for a quirk of fate, he might have become a doctor, but lucky for us, his music heals and elevates, and aren’t we the lucky ones.

His first big hit “Solitary Man” was an outgrowth of his despair as a struggling songwriter, one striving for some sign of success and it was the initial validation he needed to keep working. This show that was created with the man himself in command is the work of producer Ken Davenport, Bob Gaudio and NETworks Presentations and stars “American Idol” winner and Broadway star Nick Fradiani as Neil Diamond, a role he played on Broadway since October 2023. Come see this Connecticut favorite son in this stirring role.

Glory in such immortal favorites as “Sweet Caroline,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “America,” and “I’m a Believer” and so many others. Learn how he has sold 120 million albums, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and took home the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has sold out more concerts around the world than the King himself, Elvis.

As Diamond himself said, “Some of my most thrilling nights have been while I was on tour, bringing my music to audiences across the world. Having "A Beautiful Noise” go on tour is an honor and I can’t wait for audiences across North America to experience this show. I hope they enjoy it as much as I have.”

For tickets ($48 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at bushnell.org. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Come two hours early to experience a Fall Festival outdoors before the show, with fall-themed food and drinks, games and fun for the family.

Let Nick Fradiani entertain you as the legendary Neil Diamond with story and song, history and legend, to astound and delight.