{"id":4517,"date":"2015-06-15T07:26:13","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T11:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4517"},"modified":"2015-07-27T07:28:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-27T11:28:47","slug":"the-summer-theater-season-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4517","title":{"rendered":"The Summer Theater Season Begins!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4519\" style=\"width: 276px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4519\" class=\" wp-image-4519\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Converted_file_54ec0fe0.jpg?resize=266%2C162\" alt=\"The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey\" width=\"266\" height=\"162\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4519\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, Madison, NJ<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Two current comedies made for a lively weekend. The <a href=\"http:\/\/shakespearenj.org\/\">Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey<\/a> opened its 2015 season with that George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber classic about a theatrical family, the Cavendishes. <em>The Royal Family<\/em> is a \u201cgrand, exuberant ode to the American theatre, and the wonderful tribe that \u2018struts and frets\u2019 upon our stages,\u201d said Bonnie Monte in the director\u2019s notes. You\u2019ll recall that it is a play about three generations of a theater family, based loosely on the Barrymores, and all the aspects of the actor\u2019s life that both attract and repel them (the Know-the-Show audience guide includes more about the play and the scandalous Barrymores, <a href=\"http:\/\/shakespearenj.org\/OnStage\/current\/Royal%20Family\/Royal%20Family_kts.html\">available here<\/a>). They are never acting more fervently than when the claim they are going to give it up. Beautiful set and costumes (1920\u2019s), and wonderful performances, especially, by Roxanna Hope (Julie Cavendish), Elizabeth Shepherd (Fanny Cavendish), and Samantha Bruce (Gwen Cavendish). Benjamin Sterling as Tony Cavendish is a fireball. On stage until June 21.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/princetonfestival.org\/\">The Princeton Festival<\/a>, an annual performing arts extravaganza that brings a year\u2019s worth of vocal and orchestral concerts, theatrical productions, and related lectures to venues around Princeton in the space of about three weeks, puts on the musical <em>The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee<\/em> this year. It was a high-energy performance, with catchy songs and engaging characters, well played (music and lyrics: William Finn; book: Rachel Sheinkin). One (unnecessary) song keeps it from being a production suitable for children, with a number of good messages. For adults, it\u2019s all fun. In the Mathews Acting Studio with a live orchestra, <a href=\"http:\/\/princetonfestival.org\/event\/the-25th-annual-putnam-county-spelling-bee\/\">performances continue through June 28<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two current comedies made for a lively weekend. The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey opened its 2015 season with that George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber classic about a theatrical family, the Cavendishes. The Royal Family is a \u201cgrand, exuberant &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4517\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Summer Theater Season Begins! - the comedy classic The Royal Family & music-filled The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[272,104,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","category-the-morgue","category-theater"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1aR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4520,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions\/4520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}