Cherbourg’s historic theatre, from the year 1882, faces onto the city’s main square, the Place Général de Gaulle. In the center of the front façade are the busts of three men: Corneille, Boieldieu and Molière. Two of these, Corneille (1606-1684) and Molière (1622-1673), are unsurprising. Corneille was best known for Read More …
In the summer of 1595 — or maybe it was 1596, nobody knows for sure — a young English playwright woke up from a weird and wonderful dream and started writing it all down as fast as he could, before the dream faded. In this dream the Duke of Athens, Read More …
This historic theater got its name from the fact that it was built on the bank of a small river called the Wien — a river that has since been banished underground. For many years the Theater an der Wien presented a mixed bag of operas, operettas, musicals and spoken Read More …
Bavaria at the turn of the 20th century was a kingdom within an empire. The king, Otto I, was insane, so he was kept locked up in a castle behind high walls while the kingdom was run by his uncle, Prince Regent Luitpold (1824-1912). During the twenty-six years of his Read More …
For sixty-two years, from 1955 to 2017, one of the unique attractions of Steinau was the Holzköppe marionette theater, which performed in the Marstall, a historical building which had originally served as the horse stables for the nearby Steinau Castle. The word Holzköppe means ‘wooden heads’ in the local dialect, Read More …
If only I understood a bit of Czech, I would have gone to a play at this lovely old theater which was just a couple blocks from my hotel in the Prague district of Vinohradech. I would love to have seen their staging of Friedrich Schiller’s play Marie Stuartovna (Mary Read More …
When I was in Belfort I couldn’t see a show at the municipal theatre Le Granit, because it was closed for the summer vacation. But I did find out a few things about it. For one thing, I learned that Le Granit is a scène nationale, meaning ‘national stage’. I Read More …
From the local newspaper, L’Est Républicain, which I read each morning during a leisurely breakfast in the hotel garden, I learned that every summer the city of Belfort sponsors a “festival of humor” called Les Rigolomanies de Belfort, consisting of six comedy shows on six Thursday evenings in the 867-seat Read More …
There has been a theater on this site on the Rue de la Gaîté since 1817, and the present Théâtre Montparnasse dates from 1886. Note that the ornate nineteenth century façade includes two lovely caryatids, statues of half-naked women supporting the roof with their heads. The theater was renovated in Read More …
There are several hundred lively small theaters scattered around Paris and vicinity. Some of them disappear after a few years, but this one in the Marais district has been going strong since 1980, presenting “the great authors and their great works, classical or contemporary.” The play I saw here was Read More …