Fratellanza is a new collaboration between Jim and Paul Manganello committed to generating live theater with physical rigor and imagination. [The play is] Written and performed by Jim and Paul Manganello with Josh Berkowitz. Two forgotten actors. A printer and his apprentice. An absurd clown and a sad one. All these characters collide in a print shop to publish the plays of the recently dead Shakespeare. Before ink meets paper, they're battling over the soul of poetry, drama, nonsense. Using verse and movement, Fratellanza transforms history into a living celebration of love.The Mute Quire is told from a traditional point-of-view in a decidedly non-traditional manner. The Mix Studio Theater is at 130 W. Michigan in Ypsilanti, MI. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets.
James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said. “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.” She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...