Jacqueline Thompson News

An artful adaptation of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, will be featured in the fourth annual, wildly popular, Shakespeare in the Streets, it was announced today by Rick Dildine, Artistic and Executive Director for Shakespeare Festival St. Louis.  The event is scheduled Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 17-19, on N. 14th Street in the Old North neighborhood. 

Playwright Laurie Brooks examines the events that led to the infamous Salem Witch Trials from a different perspective with her intriguing and thought-provoking work, AFFLICTED Daughters of Salem. Unlike Arthur Miller's masterpiece, The Crucible, this play focuses our attention solely on the young girls who wound up making the accusations that started the wheels in motion. What we're privy to are the private thoughts and desires of a group of young girls who meet in the woods under the moonlight with the mystical slave Tituba. What comes through is their unhappiness with the way they feel their individuality is being repressed by their strict Puritan community. Since they can see nearby Quakers experiencing a great deal more freedom, they've come to resent the way of life they feel has been imposed upon them. Metro Theater Company's production at the Missouri History Museum (through March 22, 2015) is a taut and vivid presentation that ends with the audience being asked specific questions as to whether these young women should be held accountable for their acts. Their response may shock you. It will certainly provide food for thought.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis open their Studio Theatre season with playwright Daniel Pearle's A KID LIKE JAKE, a layered and contemporary look at issues of gender identification as seen through the eyes of a pair of concerned parents, who are conflicted in their feelings about the dress up roles their preschool age son is drawn toward. It's an engaging and, in many ways, touching and sensitive production that's sure to spark a lot of positive conversation about the subject, and that makes it important enough in and of itself, but its also a work that makes you really care about these characters in a very raw and emotional way that is quite unexpected.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis opens the 2014-2015 Studio Theatre series with A Kid Like Jake Jake by Daniel Pearle and directed by Seth Gordon. This moving production will be performed in the Emerson Studio Theatre of the Loretto-Hilton center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road (on the campus of Webster University), Webster Groves, today, October 29-November 16, 2014.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis opens the 2014-2015 Studio Theatre series with A Kid Like Jake Jake by Daniel Pearle and directed by Seth Gordon. This moving production will be performed in the Emerson Studio Theatre of the Loretto-Hilton center for the Performing Arts, 130 Edgar Road (on the campus of Webster University), Webster Groves, October 29-November 16, 2014.

The Duke Ellington Center for the Arts will commemorate the Duke's 115th birthday with an outdoor ceremony and concert on Sunday, April 27th at 1 PM in front of Duke Ellington's statue at 5th Avenue and 110th street. Additionally Duke Ellington's 115th Birthday Bash, a musical birthday Party and show will be celebrated on Duke's actual birthday two days later (Tuesday, April 29, from 7 to 9 PM) at Ballroom off Fifth on 37th St between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Quilting is truly an art form, and though a lot of the quilts made over the years were made strictly out of necessity, a lot of them now hang in art museums. Playwright Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder uses this fact to tell the story of the Pettway women from Gee's Bend, Alabama. Now, if you're thinking that quilting is all this play is about, you'd be mistaken. It's certainly a part of the picture, but Wilder let's us view the family as they age and confront the changes that occur to them against the backdrop of our history. GEE'S BEND is a fascinating piece that's deserving of your time and attention, and Mustard Seed Theatre has put together a very fine production.

Local Grove/Forest Park Southeast residents will be learning staging tips from professional actors when rehearsals begin this week for Old Hearts Fresh, a play artfully adapted from William Shakespeare's The Winter'sTale. The show, part of the wildly successful Shakespeare in the Streets event, will be performed Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 19-21, at 4226 Manchester Avenue (between Tower Grove and South Boyle avenues), and will also include a nightly unveiling of a painted mural.

The dictionary defines insidious as "proceeding in a gradual way, but with harmful effects". Playwright Ibn Shabazz's work INSIDIOUS certainly follows that line of thinking, with the eponymous title character worming his way into the lives of a engaged couple Kara and Dawud. The play makes allusions to AIDS and to the way homosexuality is looked at in the African American community. But at its heart, it's a pot boiler, a pulpy work that takes a number of twists and turns before resolving itself. The Black Rep's current production is graced with solid performances and direction, and it continues through June 24, 2012.

Tenor Joshua Benevento, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut this season in Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" and soprano Jacqueline Thompson will perform together for the first time at The Enrico Caruso Room at Grotta Azzurra Ristorante in Little Italy tonight, May 22, 2012 at 8 PM. They will be supported on keyboard by David Schaefer.

Tenor Joshua Benevento, who made his Metropolitan Opera debut this season in Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" and soprano Jacqueline Thompson will perform together for the first time at The Enrico Caruso Room at Grotta Azzurra Ristorante in Little Italy on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 8 PM. They will be supported on keyboard by David Schaefer.

The headline performers for tonight's May 15 Opera Night at the Enrico Caruso Room at Grotta Azzurra Ristorante in Little Italy are Dan Singer and Jacqueline Thompson.

The headline performers for the next two Opera Nights at the Enrico Caruso Room at Grotta Azzurra Ristorante in Little Italy have been announced: Cabaret star Shana Farr and tenor John Carelli will share the bill on tonight, May 8, and Dan Singer and Jacqueline Thompson will headline on Tuesday, May 15.

The headline performers for the next two Opera Nights at the Enrico Caruso Room at Grotta Azzurra Ristorante in Little Italy have been announced: Cabaret star Shana Farr and tenor John Carelli will share the bill on Tuesday, May 8, and Dan Singer and Jacqueline Thompson will headline on Tuesday, May 15.

Soprano Cheryl Warfield and tenor Randy Pradera will be the headliners tonight, April 24, at 8 PM in the newly opened Enrico Caruso Room at Little Italy's legendary Grotta Azzurra Ristorante , located at 177 Mulberry Street on the corner of Broome Street. The performance will mark the second week of Tuesday Opera Nights at the new music venue which has been established to showcase established and emerging opera performers. Last week's premiere performance with soprano Shana Farr and tenor Vincent Ricciardi drew an SRO audience.

Soprano Cheryl Warfield and tenor Randy Pradera will be the headliners this coming Tuesday, April 24, at 8 PM in the newly opened Enrico Caruso Room at Little Italy's legendary Grotta Azzurra Ristorante , located at 177 Mulberry Street on the corner of Broome Street. The performance will mark the second week of Tuesday Opera Nights at the new music venue which has been established to showcase established and emerging opera performers. Last week's premiere performance with soprano Shana Farr and tenor Vincent Ricciardi drew an SRO audience.

The new Enrico Caruso Room will feature a weekly Tuesday Night Opera Series starting April 17, showcasing a pair of talented professional opera performers each week, and a weekly Thursday Night Open Mic Series starting April 26, where singers will perform two musical pieces each. The singers on both nights will be supported by David Schaeffer on keyboard.

The new Enrico Caruso Room will feature a weekly Tuesday Night Opera Series starting April 17, showcasing a pair of talented professional opera performers each week, and a weekly Thursday Night Open Mic Series starting April 26, where singers will perform two musical pieces each. The singers on both nights will be supported by David Schaeffer on keyboard.

New York City Center Encores! will continue its 2007 season with the first full-scale restoration of Irving Berlin and Moss Hart's 1932 musical, Face the Music, starring Judy Kaye, Walter Bobbie and Lee Wilkof

Jenny Powers has been cast as Diana Devereaux in the Encores! production of Of Thee I Sing, running from May 11th through 15th