updated May 2, 2017

Welcome to WHAT'S NEW on TotalTheater.com!

With formidable sweat equity, the First Annual Berkshire Theater Awards has been launched. The winners were announced, and two of the four major Berkshire companies, Barrington Stage Company and Shakespeare & Company, dominated.

While 17 critics have voted, not all of them saw most of the nominated productions. This is particularly true for companies on the fringes of the Berkshires. It is likely that the majority of critics, however, saw most of the productions of the four major companies which were well represented in nominations.

The Good Person of Szechwan — Bertolt Brecht's fable of a kind-hearted hooker forced to disguise herself as a hard-hearted pimp in order to survive the predations of her underclass peers — has been approved for college curricula since the 1960s at least, making Die Gute Mensch von Sezuan one of the prolific author's most-produced plays. (Formerly known as “The Good Woman of Setzuan,” the gender-neutral "mensch" is nowadays more often translated as "Good Person.")

"Summer theater" usually suggests Shakespeare-under-the-stars, song-and-dance spectacles in a barn, or retro-cabaret on the patio. The city offers some of these citronella-circuit treats, but you can also find plenty of serious warm-weather thrills, too—and you don't need to wear bug repellent or sunscreen to the theater.

Light and sweet:

Over the past two nights we watched the 1962 “Long Day's Journey into Night,” directed by Sidney Lumet, on Turner Classic Movies. The film stars Katherine Hepburn as Mary Tyrone, Ralph Richardson as her husband, James, and Jason Robards, Jr. as their son Jamie, Dean Stockwell as Edmund, and with Jeanne Barr as Cathleen.

Lindsay Ann Crouse, the daughter of playwright Russell Crouse and his theater activist wife Anna, was born in 1948. During summers when her father was writing with his partner Howard Lindsay and others, she and her brother Timothy, a critic and author, grew up in Annisquam a village in a cul de sac near Gloucester. My sister Pip was Lindsay's age, and I was a few years older than Tim. Through his effort, I repCROUSE:ed him as rock critic for the Herald Traveler when he left for Boston After Dark and then Rolling Stone.

On Broadway: From Rent to Revolution (Rizzolli; 8x12 Hardcover; Color and B&W designs, photos, and posters; Credits; 224 pages; SRP $45), written by Drew Hodges with a Foreword by designer/author Chip Kidd, Introduction by author David Sedaris, and a Cast section, is a history of the past 20 years of razzle-dazzle window-card design from the SpotCo ad agency that brought shows visually alive and helped create the buzz that helped fill theater seats.

Late in Ike Holter's play Sender, 20-going-on-30 Jordan, in a burst of pantheistic zeal, hurls his cigarettes off the third-floor back porch to the street below. Almost immediately, he regrets his action, lamenting, "I just threw my addiction off the roof!"—to which his companions reply, "The only addiction you need now is us."

A new block of seats for the Off Broadway revival of Joel Paley and Marvin Laird’s musical romp, Ruthless!, are on sale for the announced extension of the show through June 18, 2016.

Who in the world had the clout to have the immortal George and Ira Gershwin and Gus Kahn song, "Liza," introduced by Ruby Keeler in a 1929 Ziegfeld show, pulled out of mothballs and sung by none other than Judy Garland to her newborn? None other than Miss Liza Minnelli. The tune not only became a Garland classic, but has been forever connected to Liza with a Z.

L’Chaim! To life! And what a life Fiddler on the Roof has had. Since its 1964 Broadway debut, more than a half-century of sunrises and sunsets have set on the musical by Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), with book by Joseph Stein, based on Czarist Russia stories by Sholom Aleichem. It’s become one the most beloved musicals of all time, with its timeless score winning the hearts of millions the world over.

With the 1969 musical Dames at Sea making its Broadway debut in fall 2015, let’s take a fun look at some facts about the original staging:

The musical was originally a short sketch, based on the Warner Bros. Gold Diggers movies and the lavish production numbers staged by Busby Berkley—only on a tiny budget.

The part of Ruby was modeled—in a steal of a deal—after Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street and was suggested by the Ruby Keeler-type from those early movies.

The musical was lengthened to 50 minutes with Robert Dahdah directing.

As soon as you enter the auditorium of the Helen Hayes Theater and see that stunning art deco red curtain, you know you're in for something fun. The curtain rises on a movie-theater screen, and the credits roll as if you're about to see a B&W RKO or Warner Bros. classic, starring the likes of Fred and Ginger and Ruby Keeler and directed by Busby Berkeley.

Allegiance, the new musical by Marc Acitom with music and lyrics by Jay Kuo and which is inspired by stories of Japanese-Americans uprooted from their homes after the Pearl Harbor attack and sent to internment camps, finally arrives on Broadway Sunday. In development for seven years, the show has undergone numerous changes since its 2012 San Diego premiere. Shepherding it to the stage is Olivier Award nominee Stafford Arima (London's Ragtime, Off-Broadway's Bare, Carrie, Altar Boyz).

"With a face like that," stated Meg, Margaret Smith's mom, no less, "how could you hope to be an actress? Go to secretarial school." Nat, her dad, didn't agree. Not that it mattered. Meg was stagestruck and the flames of desire to make a career there never extinguished.

A drama teacher, sensing something special, accepted her into her school and, with her instructor as Svengali, Meg, no surprise, soon was playing leads—and, at Oxford, as Maggie Smith won over audiences in several revues. The seed was not only planted but grew like the bean in Jack and the Beanstalk.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade evoked our recent visit to New York City for an American Theater Critics Association (ATCA) mini-meeting. Most enjoyable is the hour before giant balloons, super bands, fancy dance groups, and singers adorning fancy floats march down the parade route. It's when we get glimpses of the best of Broadway musicals.

The musical Something Rotten! was one of the best musicals we have seen in ages. It is so refreshing and original! It was thrilling to have a second chance to enjoy the singing and dancing of such talented performers.

The American Theater Critics Association, a national organization, hosts annual conferences in a rotation of cities. Since joining the organization, we have attended meetings in Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville (Humana Festival), Shepherdstown, West Virginia (Contemporary American Theater Festival) and most recently in New Orleans. We are looking forward to April in Philadelphia. The following year we meet in San Francisco.

Days after the Huntington Theater Company severed ties with Boston University, the other shoe has dropped. As part of its expansion, Emerson College--in recent years a major presence in the Boston theater district—bought the historic Colonial Theater on Boylston Street. The performing-arts-based college manages the Majestic Theater.

The venerable Colonial thrived during an era of out-of-town tryouts for Broadway bound productions. The most successful of these shows returned to Boston during regional tours. Only the latter part of that formula remains, with ever more attrition.

Sarasota's newest theater company, The Starlite Players, tries to prove “The Customer Is Always Right” as it stages five new comedies under that rubric. They play July 15-16 and July 17-18, 2015, 7-9PM, at The Starlite Room, 1001 Cocoanut Street. Sets and seats are upstairs of the restaurant that can turn the venue into a dinner theater with its discount for ticket holders on performance dates.