Short Takes

A Look at Our Lobby

Hartford Stage has partnered with the Wadsworth Atheneum of Art for a one-of-a-kind exhibition of theatrical show posters created by the artist Edward Gorey. Gorey was a great admirer of Agatha Christie’s, and his short illustrated novel about the untimely death of a 97-year-old mystery writer, The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, was inspired by Christie. The book is one of Gorey’s most treasured titles. The exhibition will include 10 lavishly illustrated posters on loan from a private collector.

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Edward Gorey: Theatre and Dance Enthusiast!

Join us at the Wadsworth Atheneum, on Wednesday, February 21, at 6 pm for an engaging discussion about artist Edward Gorey. Hartford Stage Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak, dance critic Robert Greskovic, and “Gorey’s Worlds” curator Erin Monroe take the stage for a conversation about Edward Gorey’s passion for the arts. Free admission – seating is limited. This event is being held in conjunction with the special Wadsworth exhibition “Gorey’s Worlds,” opening February 10.

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Hartford Stage Gala Preview

Somewhere just inside the gatehouse, a string quartet plays. Exquisitely dressed guests sip champagne and play croquet, escaping the bustle of Manhattan in the seaside playground of empire builders and the Bohemian elite. Inside, candelabras flicker as servants put the final touches on an elaborate state dinner…Welcome to The Gilded Age: New York to Newport! Inspired by Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, Hartford Stage’s annual fundraising gala will take place on Saturday, April 21, 2018, at the theatre’s Scene & Paint Shop. For tickets and information, please visit https://www.hartfordstage.org/gala/.

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For the Love of Theatre – Stratford Festival Trip

Hartford Stage is offering a four-day excursion, June 20–24, to the Stratford Festival – North America’s largest classical repertory theatre company located in Ontario, Canada. This trip includes premiere tickets to five productions, conversations and meals with guest artists from Stratford, and attendance at the opening night performance and cast party of Coriolanus. The trip is curated by Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson, who will lead discussions during the trip. For more information, visit https://www.hartfordstage.org/theatre-travel-series/.

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Seabury and Hartford Stage Education Partnership

Beginning in January 2018, Seabury, an Active Life Care Community in Bloomfield, began a new program in partnership with Hartford Stage Education. Over a dozen Seabury residents will attend three Hartford Stage productions this season, including Feeding the Dragon, Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, and The Age of Innocence. Inspired by Hartford Stage Education’s InterACT program for high school students, a Hartford Stage teaching artist will lead residents in pre and post-show workshops to contextualize and reflect upon each of the three plays. Hartford Stage was also recently selected as one of 20 organizations nationwide to participate in the National Guild for Community Arts Education’s Catalyzing Creative Aging program, through which it will research best practices in developing a new participatory theatre program for aging adults.

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Aetna New Voices Fellows: Where Are They Now?

Kaneza Schaal, Hartford Stage’s most recent Aetna New Voices Fellow (2016-2017), is getting ready to premiere her work, Jack&, in February at the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. This play examines how people enter and re-enter society, from debutante balls to prison re-entry programs. Janine Nabers’ (2013-2014 Fellow) play, Welcome to Jesus, which made its world premiere at the American Theater Company in Chicago late in 2017, depicts the tyranny of small town life in fictional Hallelujah, Texas, and the power of prejudice to define our fate. Matthew Lopez’s (2012-2013 Fellow) play, The Inheritance, will open at the Young Vic in London in March, 2018. His play depicts gay life in modern-day New York in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

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Next on Stage – The Age of Innocence (World Premiere)

The Gilded Age of the 1870s: New York City society at its most cultivated, wealthy and rigid—an elite class of people who dreaded scandal more than disease. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Edith Wharton introduces us to the courtly young gentleman lawyer Newland Archer; his traditional and demure fiancée May; and the free-spirited Countess Ellen Olenska, who has come home from Europe, tainted by scandal. From the moment Newland meets the Countess, he is torn between virtue and desire; and all three are forced to make the agonizing choice, ever old and ever new, between love and honor. https://www.hartfordstage.org/age-of-innocence/