IN THE AIR: FREE MUSIC, MOVIES AND MORE

Jul 18, 2017

Week two of this summer’s Movies in the Park series in Red Bank features an entry from the ‘Star Wars’ catalog. Below, Layonne Holmes fronts the Motor City Revue in a return to Sandy Hook Wednesday.

There’s a chance to imagine yourself as part of the biggest franchise in film fantasy history. Some power pop on the dock. A heat-blast of Latin-flavored jazz in the park. A little beach-music soul on the sands. And one of the world’s most beloved plays on yonder grassy knoll.

It’s all going on beneath the setting sun and stars of the Greater Red Bank Green — and all fabulously free of charge in the evenings to come.

More →

July 18, 2017 - 10:50 am |

LINCROFT: MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S MERRIMENT

Jul 11, 2017

Grab your folding chair, pack a picnic basket, and get thee to the Great Lawn at Brookdale Community College, where the Shakespeare on the Lawn presentation of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM gets well-met by moonlight beginning this Thursday.

If ever was such a thing as “entry level Shakespeare,” then A Midsummer Night’s Dream is that single most easily inaccessible work with a little something for everyone: a hyper-kinetic love story; some slyly supernatural shenanigans courtesy of mischievous magical beings; a charming little play-within-a-play, and some of the author’s wildest opportunities for honest-to-goodness belly laughs, courtesy of the outsize ambitions and actorly egos of the play’s “rude mechanicals.”

It’s also the Shakespeare work that’s most at home in the open air — a thing best done the way the Bard intended, with un-amplified voices, improvised solos by Mother Nature’s minions, and an audience of engaged, enthusiastic (and ever so spirited) folks from all walks of life. And, beginning this Thursday evening, July 13, A Midsummer Night’s Dream becomes the perfect vehicle for the Shakespeare on the Lawn series to get back to its roots, with a new outdoor production on the Lincroft campus of Brookdale Community College.

More →

July 11, 2017 - 12:00 pm |

RED BANK: A BARD OF EDUCATION, AT TRTC

Apr 20, 2015

A cast and crew of teens from local schools rehearse A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, the annual “Little Shakespeare” production that presents four public performances this weekend. (Photos courtesy of Two River Theater Company)

They hail from Red Bank Regional, Markham Place Middle School and Rumson Country Day School — and they meet by moonlight in the enchanted woods outside Athens, as conjured by William Shakespeare in his most kinetic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Actually, the forest faeries, passionate young lovers and amateur actors of the Bard’s most magical mystery tour will assemble inside the “black box” performance space at Two River Theater this week. And when the imaginary curtain goes up on this Midsummer Night for 10 performances between April 23 (Shakespeare’s birthday) and May 1, it will mark the latest in a new series of annual productions presented under a program entitled “A Little Shakespeare.”

More →

April 20, 2015 - 12:00 pm |

RED BANK: SEEKING YOUNG SHAKESPEAREANS

Dec 29, 2014

From press materials furnished by Two River Theater Company

For the next production in a series presented under the title A Little Shakespeare,Two River Theater Company is seeking students in grades 9 through 12 — not just actors, but stage managers, designers and crew — for a staging of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that’s scheduled for next spring.

The TRTC team is also seeking “a few actors in grades 6-8” for roles in the production of the Bard’s kinetic comedy of forest fairies, passionate young nobles and somewhat self-deluded amateur actors — a funny and fantastic favorite that was previously seen at Two River in a gag-infused “grownup” version several seasons back. Auditions will take place at the theater during the week that begins on Sunday, January 4, and rehearsals will begin in late January.

More →

December 29, 2014 - 6:00 am |