Author: Grant Golden

GRANT GOLDEN wears a number of hats. He has been practicing radiology in Buffalo since 1981, for the past 15 years, with Seton Imaging. Dr Laszlo Tabar, internationally famous mammographer, has been his special friend and mentor. Grant began The Old Chestnut Film Society, Buffalo’s only film society, in 1983. Now in its 35th consecutive season, the OCFS does monthly screenings of Hollywood classics in 16mm. He has written the scores (and some of the books) for a number of locally produced musicals, including the old WONDERMAKERS shows, THE OTHER ISLAND, NOBODY’S INN (Alleyway Theatre), IZZY! (Musicalfare), and ME II (Western Door Playhouse). He reviewed local plays on the radio for 20 years--on WBEN and WBFO—before making the switch to BuffaloRising. Grant and his lovely wife Deborah live in Central Park with their dog Ginger, and cats Ella and Felix. They have three adult children, and now, happily, two grandchildren!

THE BASICS: The Irish Classical Theatre’s first offering of the 2014-5 season is David Ives’ “translaptation” (read: “translation with a fair amount of adaptation”) of Pierre Corneille’s hit comedy of 1643. It’s a conflation of Whopper Telling and Speed Mating, rendered in cheeky rhyming verse. Fortunato Pezzimenti directs a cast of eight. THE LIAR plays weekends at the Andrews Theatre through October 12th. It runs a little under 2 ½ hours with its single intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Paris, 1643 (give or take). Dorante, a young gallant who is an inveterate and accomplished liar, returns to town, and, on Day One,…

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THE BASICS: ART of WNY has opened its 2014-5 season with this 1993 musical reworking of Arthur Schnitzler’s LA RONDE. The book, music and lyrics are by Michael John LaChiusa, brother of the ART’s artistic director, Matthew LaChiusa. Jeffrey Coyle directs a cast of ten. The show plays weekends through October 4th at Art In The Box–the basement space at the Church of the Ascension on Linwood Ave. The running time is a little under ninety minutes. There is no intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: This is a series of ten short, linked sexual encounters. The Man from Scene 1 goes on…

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THE BASICS: J.B. Priestley wrote this still-delightful Yorkshire comedy in 1938. It has been revived successfully quite a few times over the years, including at the Shaw Festival in 1990. The present production runs in repertory at the Royal George Theatre through October 26th. Joseph Ziegler directs a cast of fifteen. The play clocks in at about 2 hours and 20 minutes, with its now single intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: The action unfolds in the sitting room of Alderman Helliwell’s house in Clecklewyke, Yorkshire. The Helliwells, Parkers and Soppitts, three now highly respected and well-to-do couples who were married, jointly, twenty-five…

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THE BASICS: This 1973 theater piece by English playwright Edward Bond calls itself A Comedy, but that is somewhat misleading. It’s more of an Adventure in Deep Dish Philosophy, with Interwoven Tragic and Farcical elements. Or, as the Pythons used to say, “Now for something completely different!” THE SEA runs in repertory at the Court House Theatre through October 12th. Eda Holmes directs a cast of fourteen. The play, with its single intermission, runs two hours and twenty minutes. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: The action takes place in 1907, in a small village on the East coast of England, and on the…

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THE BASICS: This year’s Lunchtime Theater offering at the Shaw is an all-but-unknown one-act comedy written by Tennessee Williams in 1979, and hearkening back to Williams classics like THE GLASS MENAGERIE and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE. Blair Williams directs a cast of four. CREVE plays at the Courthouse Theatre through October 11th. It runs just under one hour, putting you back out on the streets of lovely Niagara-on-the-Lake by 12:30pm. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: The action takes place in a run-down apartment in a working class section of St. Louis in the 1930’s. Dorothea, a civics teacher at the nearby high school,…

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THE BASICS: This year’s entry in the venerable Shaw Rediscoveries series is a 1906 country house drawing room comedy by GBS contemporary, St. John Hankin. Christopher Newton, the former Shaw Artistic Director, directs a cast of thirteen. CHARITY plays in repertory at the Court House Theatre through October 11th (see here). It runs about two hours and twenty minutes with its single intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Lady Denison, who has recently fallen under the spell of maverick clergyman Reverend Hylton (of the ersatz Church of Humanity), has taken to inviting hapless and needy strangers to her country home, in the name…

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THE BASICS:  This “dark comedy” by up-and-coming British playwright Mike Bartlett is receiving its local premiere at the Main Street Cabaret, the front part of the Alleyway Theatre complex.  This is a BUA/ Theater Jugend coproduction.  Drew McCabe directs a cast of four.  COCK runs weekends through June 7th.  The show runs about 100 minutes.  There is no intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH:  Great Britain, present day.  John, a young gay man, in an established, long-term but increasingly strained relationship, falls for a young woman, a fellow bus-rider.  Will he stay with the catty, supercilious “M”, to whom he feels most indebted, or fly off…

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THE BASICS:  This is the revised, one act version of A. R. Gurney’s  comedy/drama, as staged in NYC in 2008.  The original two-act version was performed at the Studio Arena Theatre in 2002, with Betty Buckley in the lead.  Buffalo veteran Barbara Link LaRou plays it this time around.  Richard Lambert directs a cast of six for this New Phoenix production, which runs weekends through May 24th.  The show runs approximately ninety minutes. THUMBNAIL SKETCH:  Amanda Monroe, a film and TV actress who has seen better days, decides on a bold career move—going back on the boards for a lead in Chekhov’sTHE…

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THE BASICS:  This lesser known Arthur Miller drama from 1956 has been mounted by the Subversive Theatre Collective as a part of their Workers’ Power Play Series.  It continues through May 2nd at the Manny Fried Playhouse on Great Arrow.  Kurt Schneiderman, the company’s founder and A.D., directs a cast of twelve.  The play runs close to 2 ½ hours with its single intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH:  The action takes place in a poor Italian American community near the Brooklyn bridge.   Like most of the men here, protagonist Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman.  He’s worked hard over the years to provide for his wife…

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THE BASICS: This well-regarded, 2011 comedy-drama by David Lindsay-Abaire (RABBIT HOLE) is having its local premiere at the Kavinoky Theatre. There are continuing weekend performances through March 30th, including Saturday 4pm and Sunday 2pm shows. Robert Waterhouse directs a cast of six. The play runs approximately 2 hours with its 10 minute intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Boston, present day. Margie Walsh, a middle aged woman with a grown, severely retarded daughter, has been a “Southie” her whole life. That is, a resident of South Boston’s Lower End—where bingo is the best thing going, and almost no one lives above the poverty…

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