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A Noise Within
Our Shared Catastrophes: A Conversation with A Noise Within’s Resident Artist Trisha Miller
The Skin of our Teeth is a comedy that is littered with life-altering, potentially world-ending catastrophes. What drew you to this story, and being part of this kind of storytelling? To me, this play couldn’t be timelier. With the worldwide pandemic, we have gone through something that was life-altering. No matter if we were in elementary…
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A Noise Within
Meet A Noise Within’s New Director of Education, Lea Madda
What were your first impressions with the Summer With Shakespeare program? The education program here at A Noise Within (ANW) is so robust. In my opinion, what truly makes a theatre education program high-quality and impactful are the folks on the front line, also known as the teachers. I will happily share that we have…
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A Noise Within
When August Wilson is a Family Affair: Interview with Aaron Jennings
When Aaron Jennings took on the role of Hedley in August Wilson’s King Hedley II at A Noise Within theatre, he already had a storied personal history with this play, long before he assumed the titular role. Aaron is an actor, from a family of actors, and his mother Juanita Jennings, played the role of…
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A Noise Within
ATTEND THE TALE: A SWEENEY TODD FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
By Dr. Miranda Johnson-Haddad (Resident Dramaturg, A Noise Within) Ever since its debut on Broadway in 1979, Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd has usually been described as a “dark comedy,” a “comic-horror musical,” or with such epithets as “hilariously terrifying.” (“Murder most tasty!” jokes one reviewer of the current Broadway revival.) But as entertaining and…
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A Noise Within
An Outsider’s Guide to Loving Sweeney Todd
Growing up, my friends and I were what I’d call “casual musical theatre enthusiasts,” diving into our favorite songs from The Heathers and Hamilton musicals for months on end, but then moving on to another interest just as quickly. Stephen Sondheim was not on my radar then. Until very recently, everything I knew about Sweeney Todd…
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A Noise Within
Nostalgia and A Christmas Carol
As my fifth month of my internship at A Noise Within comes to a close and A Christmas Carol enters its final few performances, I have been thinking about what brings audiences back to this play, year after year. Roughly half of the audience members have come to the play before, and many of them…
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A Noise Within
Beyond Bah Humbug: Understanding How Social Inequity in A Christmas Carol is Part of its Enduring Appeal Today
Charles Dickens’ timeless classic A Christmas Carol paints a portrait of Victorian England that seems to evoke a bygone era. But on closer inspection, our world today shares many of the social inequities that Dickens captured so vividly, and that he himself experienced as a child. And this portrait of social inequity and personal redemption—from its…
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A Noise Within
A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Comedy of Consent, and it’s Dark Undertones
A good portion of the American youth population came of age during many high-profile #MeToo scandals, and as a result, scores of young people are ever mindful to consider “‘the three C’s’ – consent, consent, and consent.” In the world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream the bedrock principles of consent are not just ignored but…
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A Noise Within
A Noise Within helps prepare the next generation of theatre-makers in the LA area
A Noise Within (ANW) is well known for its “resident artist” program, a core group of 20+ seasoned actors and creative theatrical professionals, who are featured in nearly every show at ANW. Lesser known are the other performers who might make up any given ANW production, and the theatre company’s commitment to making connections with…