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MEGAN GRUMBLING

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Good Theater explores being stuck, and escaping

Understanding poverty
The wood walls are streaky and weathered in the homes of both Margie (Denise Poirier) and Mike (James Noel Hoban).
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  October 18, 2012

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Mad Horse opens new home with classic comedy

Playing at politics
Charles P. Smith (Brent Askari) is in trouble. He has, according to his own closest advisor (Mark Rubin), "fucked up everything he's touched."
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  October 18, 2012

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AIRE’s journey of a Faith Healer

Don’t stop believing
The assonant, guttural names of old Welsh and Scottish villages — Aberarder, Aberayron, Llangranog, Llangurig, Abergorlech — return often to the mouths of the characters in Brian Friel's Faith Healer .
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  October 10, 2012

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Wasserstein’s wide range of characters

It takes all kinds
Between the three of them, the sisters Rosensweig cover quite a range of the Meyers-Briggs psychological types.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  October 03, 2012

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Comedy and talent at Lyric

A Golden Age
A ballsy young stock broker, a wealthy young ingénue, an evangelist-turned-nightclub singer, and a gangster and his moll Bonnie — a rich array of American archetypes will encounter each other aboard the S.S. American , in the Cole Porter classic Anything Goes .
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  September 26, 2012

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Dead Wessex’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Victoriana’s old clothes
That we have not yet fully outlived the Victorians seems self-evident, given the political right's priggishly austere agenda for women's reproductive health and rights.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  September 19, 2012



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Head back inside for fall’s theater

Leaves fall; curtains rise
My own first show of the season will be this weekend's opening of Tess of the D'Urbervilles , the classic Thomas Hardy tragedy of the ravished Tess, mounted by the newly formed DEAD WESSEX FAIR (September 14-23, at the sadly soon-to-be former Lucid Stage).
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  September 12, 2012

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Playing with modern religion

Road Shows
A Maine playwright, director, and cast of four are taking the Big Apple this month, but before they do, we have the chance to see them right here in Portland: Dominion, a new play by writer and actor Hal Cohen, will premiere next week at Lucid Stage, in advance of its run as part of the Manhattan Repertoire Theater's Fall One-Act Competition.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  September 12, 2012

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MSMT’s fabulous New York, in 42nd Street

A glorious homage
You know how this story goes: Lovely, ambitious, and impossibly nice tap-dancing ingénue arrives in Depression-era New York City to make it on Broadway, and — by a mingling of pluck, luck, and looks — she gets herself cast as a chorus girl.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  August 22, 2012

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Doing the Time Warp at Arundel Barn

Absolute pleasure
The Arundel Barn Playhouse has given its production of The Rocky Horror Show a "PG-14" rating, and attendees are asked by artistic director Adrienne Grant (in both a pre-show speech and a detailed online document that is itself a work of art) to observe a few niceties.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  August 15, 2012

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Carson Kressley in Damn Yankees

The Devil went down to Ogunquit
This year marks the Ogunquit Playhouse's 80th season of breezily sophisticated, classic American musical entertainment.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  August 08, 2012



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Monmouth’s Henry IV is stunning

No Shallow Hal
Shakespeare's Henry IV is considered one of his "histories," as it enacts actual acts and battles of the British king who deposed Richard II.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  August 01, 2012

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Fenix Theatre face the challenges of the Scottish play

They dare do all
Theater's al fresco season is upon us, and once again the Fenix Theatre Company regales us with a Shakespeare classic as we nestle against a hillside in Deering Oaks Park.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  July 25, 2012

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Molière than thou

The master of mockery at Monmouth
Religious hypocrisy has been one of the lowest-hanging fruits for satire in the last few years: Think of those fervid denouncers of homosexual acts, like New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard, who were discovered to be clandestinely engaging in those very acts (in Haggard's case, with a hired masseur and under the influence of crystal meth).
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  July 18, 2012

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The world of Aquitania is a pleasure

The play within the play
The stirrling billing for the original play Aquitania is "Alice in Wonderland meets Magritte."
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  July 11, 2012

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Notes from the Fringe

Three shows not to miss
As you read these very words, the great Portland Fringe 2012 is already up and running. Herein we highlight three of the Fringe's more beguilingly strange offerings.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  June 27, 2012



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Portland’s Fringes are full of energy

Living on the edge
Starting Tuesday, Portland will be briefly and absolutely awash in new, experimental, and edgy works of theater — more than 60(!) shows to be staged in a little under a week.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  June 20, 2012

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Monologue peels the screen back for a look at the core of Apple

Under the smooth exterior
The narrator of Mike Daisey's one-man show has long had a worshipful relationship with Apple electronics.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  June 20, 2012

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A Chorus Line explores the many, and the one

E pluribus, unum
The ensemble dancers in a big Broadway musical are meant to function like one seamless, glittering organism, with no one dancer drawing attention from the others or from (perish the thought) the stars.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  June 13, 2012

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Alternatives, and standbys, for summer

Life on the Fringe
The big theater buzz this summer is of course is the Fringe, which actually comprises two overlapping programs from June 26 to July 1.
By: MEGAN GRUMBLING  |  June 06, 2012
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