A Midsummer Night’s Dream, streamlined to 90 minutes and staged outdoors by Classical Theatre of Harlem, is as cool and fizzy as a glass of Prosecco. Judging by the wild guffaws and applause on opening night, the zanies who populate this most fanciful of Shakespeare’s comedies (embodied by a top-flight cast of youthful New York actors) kept a steady hold on playgoers’ attention, despite the distraction of sirens punctuating the Bard’s iambic pentameter, helicopters overhead, and heat only slightly below the day’s high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. At a dramatic moment, an explosion of amateur fireworks just outside the amphitheater added a fortuitous burst of red and orange to the twilit sky, eliciting a gasp of audience amusement.
White Rose: The Musical
Those reflecting on history often use a wide brush and focus on major figures to the exclusion of perhaps less renowned but significant players. Hitler, the Nazi war machine, and concentration camps are front of mind as regards World War II in Europe, but how many people remember dissidents and resistance from within Germany? The White Rose, one such resistance group, presented a credible threat to Nazi lies, propaganda, and blind devotion to the Führer. Brian Belding’s White Rose: The Musical is an homage to some of those “good Germans” who risked their lives and paid the ultimate price for defying Hitler and his henchmen.