Ken Cheeseman

Husband and wife duo Stephanie Dodd and Justin Badger blog for Broadway Baby about debuting The Failure Cabaret in Edinburgh along with the benefits and pitfalls of writing a show with your partner about your most personal and sometimes sensitive subjects

You likely have little to no knowledge or information about this new play that enjoyed a successful run at the Royal Court in London and now makes its regional debut at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.  I will cut to the heart of the matter and state that both those who enjoy intrigue as well as good theatre should enjoy this fine production.

For playwright Max Posner, sitting down to write The Treasurer must have been a feat of de-centering oneself. The narrative takes a dusky, balmy look back at the relationship between his father and his grandmother, a wealthy, New York socialite who lived with dementia in her old age. While the story is, in a way, indirectly autobiographical, it offers few mentions of the playwright himself, uplifting the perspective of the protagonist, his father. In shouldering the role, Ken Cheeseman seems to push Posner's language further into the periphery. His ambulatory addresses to the audience and stoic musings seem to be conceived of in real time, not memorized from a written source. However, Lyric Stage Company's production of The Treasurer is not the standard a?oeI hate my fathera?? solo performance you are likely to see at any undergraduate institution's annual student festival. In fact, though the text is dominated by Cheeseman's character, the production is upheld just as much by him as it is by Cheryl McMahon in the role of Ida, his mother.

Ida Armstrong is broke, lonely, and fading fast. As she cheerfully spends all of her children's money, her son is forced to assume the unwanted role of The Treasurer: an arrangement that becomes untenable the more he questions his devotion to her. This darkly funny, sharply intimate new work chronicles the strained ties between a son and his aging mother, and the weight of a guilty conscience.

Tom Stoppard's genre-bending comedy, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead comes to the Huntington Theatre Company helmed by Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director Peter DuBois. Performances began September 20 at the Avenue of the Arts / Huntington Avenue Theatre (264 Huntington Avenue, Boston) and will run through October 20. Tickets are now on sale to the general public.

Tom Stoppard's genre-bending comedy, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead comes to the Huntington Theatre Company .

Tom Stoppard's genre-bending comedy, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead comes to the Huntington Theatre Company helmed by Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director Peter DuBois. Performances begin September 20 at the Avenue of the Arts / Huntington Avenue Theatre (264 Huntington Avenue, Boston) and will run through October 20. Tickets are now on sale to the general public.

New Repertory Theatre presents the New England premiere of Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN, most recently seen on Broadway over the summer. Lee became the first Asian-American female playwright to have a play produced on Broadway with this exploration of privilege, identity, and American values in a white, middle-class family.

New Repertory Theatre participates in the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of Steve Yockey's BLACKBERRY WINTER, a thoughtful, poignant take on one woman's coming to terms with her mother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease. Director Bridget Kathleen O'Leary and Adrianne Krstansky bring out the humor while focusing on the human emotions, rather than the illness, and the result is surprisingly uplifting.

New Repertory Theatre announces the National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere of BLACKBERRY WINTER, tonight, March 26, through April 17, 2016 in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA. The press opening will be Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. 

New Repertory Theatre announces the National New Play Network (NNPN) Rolling World Premiere of BLACKBERRY WINTER, March 26-April 17, 2016 in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA. The press opening will be Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. 

This Fall two of Boston's finest theater companies have taken the discussion on abortion out of the public arena and made it much more personal. Last month Company One Theatre explored the devastating reality of do-it-yourself abortions among teenagers in Ruby Rae Spiegel's unflinching new play DRY LAND. Now the Tony Award-winning Huntington Theatre Company examines the lingering, long-range effects of abortion in CHOICE, a provocative new play by Winnie Holzman (Wicked, My So-Called Life) that has a woman caught in the throes of a mid-life crisis looking back on the choice she made in her feminist youth.

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). The play officially opened on October 28 and continues through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. See what audiences had to say about the show in the video below!

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). The play officially opened on October 28 and continues through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. Click below to hear Holzman and Kaller talk about the play!

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). The play officially opened on October 28 and continues through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). The play officially opens tonight, October 28, and continues through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

The Huntington Theatre Company presents the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). Performances begin tonight, October 16 and continue through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

The Huntington Theatre Company will present the world premiere of CHOICE by award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman and directed by Sheryl Kaller (Next Fall on Broadway). Performances begin Friday, October 16 and continue through November 15, 2015 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. 

Chris Noth does not command attention in a disjointed adaptation of Marlowe's classic.

Classic Stage Company presents DOCTOR FAUSTUS, adapted by David Bridel and Andrei Belgrader from the play by Christopher Marlowe, starring Chris Noth ('Law & Order,' 'Sex and the City,' 'The Good Wife'), and directed by Andrei Belgrader (CSC's production of The Cherry Orchard). The show opens tonight, June 18 at CSC (136 East 13th Street). Let's see what the critics had to say...