With five venues, settled in a quaint town with plenty of walk-to attractions, the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, continues to attract a sizeable audience from Buffalo. Anthony Chase reports in during the intermission of "Peter and the Starcatcher" at the Royal George Theatre which is attracting a large number of younger audience members (suitable for 8+) who react audibly to the imaginative plot - the "prequel" to "Peter Pan."
At the Festival Theatre it's "Sweet Charity" while at the Courthouse Theatre Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea" is up. Many other productions will open soon and continue into the fall.
Final preparations for this year’s Artie Awards are being made. This 25th year reunites Charmagne Chi and Amy Jakiel—Buffalo’s Amy Poehler and Tina Fey—as co-hosts with Anthony Chase. The event, for the first time ever at 710 Main Theatre, is a fundraiser for the Immunodeficiency Clinic at ECMC. The red carpet begins at 7 p.m. when the bar opens and tickets are ONLY available at the door.
The night after the Artie's, the touring production of the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" presented by Shea’s and Albert Nocciolino, opens on Tuesday, June 2, and runs through Sunday, June 7. "Flowers in the Desert," a play by Donna Hoke presented by Woodbox Theatre, opens at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center in Niagara Falls on Friday, June 5 as does "Legally Blonde the Musical" at the Lancaster Opera House, as does "Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know" (a musical comedy revue) at the Grange Theatre in Hamburg.
Ongoing productions include "The Glass Menagerie," the famous drama by Tennessee Williams, presented by Aurora Players at the Roycroft Pavilion; "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" presented by O’Connell & Company through June 7 at The Park School; "Talley's Folley" presented by Red Thread Theatre at the Marie Maday Theatre on the Canisius College campus, also through June 7; and "Winnie the Pooh - The House at Pooh Corner" presented by Theatre of Youth through June 7 at the Allendale Theatre.
"The Un-American" closes this Sunday, May 31, with a 6 p.m. performance at the Manny Fried Playhouse."
