Brian P. Allen News

Good Theater continues its Second Stage series with the return of Shannon Thurston's solo show MEN: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT. The production will run in repertory with the main stage production, PACK OF LIES.

Good Theater returns for the second half of the 2021/2022 season with the Maine premiere of Harry Townsend's Last Stand by George Eastman.

Good Theater returns for the second half of the 2021/2022 season with the Maine premiere of Harry Townsend's Last Stand by George Eastman. A smash hit off-Broadway in 2019, Harry Townsend's Last Stand stars Good Theater favorites Will Rhys and James Noel Hoban, and is directed by Good Theater Artistic and Executive Director Brian P. Allen. The production opens February 2nd and plays through February 20th, 2022 at Good Theater’s home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. 

Good Theater returns for the second half of the 2021/2022 season with BROADWAY GOES POP, a tribute to the pop hits that have made their mark on Broadway. BROADWAY GOES POP stars Good Theater favorites Colleen Clark and John Lanham and also features Good Theater newcomers John Furey and Jackie Grigg.

Good Theater is delaying the opening of its next show, the Maine premiere of Harry Townsend’s Last Stand by George Eastman, by three weeks, in an effort to get past the omicron surge.

Good Theater is presenting the world premiere of the acclaimed adaptation of the Jane Austen short novel LADY SUSAN. Directed by Brian Allen and James Noel Hoban, the show stars Brynn Lewallen, Joseph Bearor, Hannah Daly, Jay Mack, Halsey Redman, Amy Roche, and Nathan Gregory. October 20 - November 14.

The Good Theater reopened its doors last night with a breathtakingly stunning world premiere of Rob Urbinati’s new play LADY SUSAN, directed by Brian P. Allen and James Noel Hoban. Taking its inspiration from Jane Austen, this 21st century work has all the eloquence of an early 19th century classic, as it explores the intricate, timeless mating games that seem as relevant today as they did more than two hundred years ago.

Good Theater will return to the St. Lawrence stage with a season of new works, recent Broadway hits, and the long-awaited Maine premiere of the critically acclaimed off-Broadway musical DESPERATE MEASURES, a production which has been on-hold since 2020, when its run was postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, has just released a video of “Seasons of Love”  from RENT, featuring 14 singers and stunning Maine video footage.  The song can be viewed on Youtube, at the link:

“At Good Theater we have put ourselves in mothballs, declares Executive/Artistic Director Brian P. Allen. Maine State Music Theatre’s Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark concurs, “ For me the hardest part is the feeling of treading water.” “My Grandfather taught me that life was a staircase,” Clark recounts. “He would say,’ Always make sure you are moving forward; if you have to stay on a step for a while, no big deal. Try not to take a step backwards, but if you have to, figure out why, fix it, and keep moving forward.’ Right now,” Clark says sadly, “it does not feel possible to keep climbing. Everything is stacked against us and all the people we need to help us.”” On a brisk fall day nine months into the pandemic the two are taking a moment to share their experiences in this unprecedented time of crisis – a crisis that has shuttered their theatres and forced them to engage all their energies in survival of the institutions and the art form they love.

Good Theater will not reopen until sometime in 2021.  Concerns for public safety, as well as the safety and well-being of our cast, crew and staff, is what brought us to this decision.  We are eager to reopen, and we are committed to opening with Desperate Measures, the musical which was in rehearsal at the time of closures due to COVID-19.   

Good Theater has postponed its production of Desperate Measures.

The tautly paced, compactly plotted 1983 psychological spy thriller, PACK OF LIES by Hugh Whitemore, proves to be a cliff hanger for audiences at the Good Theater, where its recent revival, expertly directed by Brian P. Allen with a finely tuned ensemble cast, demonstrates the relevance of its message in the chaotic political context in which we currently live.

Good Theater continues its Second Stage series with the world premiere of Shannon Thurston's solo show MEN: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT. The production will run in repertory with the main stage production, PACK OF LIES. MEN: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT opens February 15th and plays through March 7th, 2020 at Good Theater's home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. For tickets and information, please call the Box Office at (207) 835-0895 or visit www.goodtheater.com.

Good Theater continues its 18th season with the Portland premiere of the acclaimed British drama PACK OF LIES by Hugh Whitemore. The production opens February 12th and plays through March 8th, 2020 at Good Theater's home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. For tickets and information, please call the Box Office at (207) 835-0895 or visit www.goodtheater.com.

Each year Portland's Good Theater presents a holiday musical revue, written and directed by Brian P. Allen, and dedicated to celebrating a decade in American musical theatre history. Allen's show this year is devoted to the 1940s when so many of the geniuses of the a?oelegitimatea?? musical theatre style reigned supreme. The revue he has created is ambitious and comprehensive featuring twenty-five performers, including several Broadway actors, and covering the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill, and the Gershwins, together with many lesser-known writers. Performed with the intimacy and informality of a cabaret setting, Broadway at the Good Theater offers a nostalgic and delightful musical evening.

As evidenced by the breadth of nominations for Broadway World's Annual Audience Choice Awards, Maine's theatrical landscape seems to grow and flourish with each new season. For a state as remote as we are, we boast two prestigious regional theatres now in their second half centuries a?" Maine State Music Theatre and Ogunquit Playhouse a?" which are leaders on the national regional scene and which have become destinations for travellers from far flung places. Add to these an array of countless other companies of every size and philosophic bent, and you have a colorful, rich artistic arena that grows more interesting each year. I am privileged to get to sample these performances as Broadway World's Maine editor and to be able to compare many of them favorably with shows I see across the country, in New York and London. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2019, grouped by theatre company and show.

The Good Theater's production of Jule Selbo's BOXES offers a taut psychological study of manipulation and longing, misconceptions about self and love, all carefully crafted into a thriller with rapid twists and turns that compels the audience's attention for its brisk ninety-minutes. The boxes of the title are literal props used in a clinical psychological research study, but they are really metaphors for the constraints that shape our views of selfhood and for the inscrutable containers of dark secrets.

The Good Theater opens its season with Joshua Harmon's powerful and persuasive drama about class and race, aspiration in America, and the complexities of navigating a world where nothing is black and white, no matter how much one wishes it so. ADMISSIONS is a stunningly astute choice for 2019, though it was written long before recent headlines and made its Lincoln Center debut in 2018. As Executive/Artistic Director Brian P. Allen expands the Good's season to five main stage plays and four second stage shows, this Maine premiere of Harmon's play represents Allen's keen sense of the moment and what is excellent drama.

Good Theater will kick off its 18th season with the Maine premiere of the award-winning new play ADMISSIONS by Joshua Harmon. The production opens October 2nd and plays through October 27th, 2019 at Good Theater's home, the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland. For tickets and information, please call the Box Office at (207) 835-0895 or visit www.goodtheater.com.