Urban legends about Judy Garland, nee Frances Gumm, get softened around the edges and the popular music of the decade leading up to her getting cast as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz” gets splendidly evoked in CHASING RAINBOWS: THE ROAD TO OZ in its world premiere at the Goodspeed Opera House. The book by Marc Acito, with consultation by Garland authority John Friske, dutifully acknowledges Gumm family problems like father Franks Gumm’s dalliances with men and mother Ethel's pr

Playwright Kate Cayley’s Bakelite Masterpiece is a fictionalized version of the trial of artist Han van Meegeren, who was arrested at the end of WWII in Holland on charges of abetting the enemy having sold a “lost” Vermeer painting to Nazi leader Hermann Goering. Meergeren admits he forged the canvas and to defend himself prevails on his prosecutor to allow him to create another perfect fake canvas of the master’s work before the court. Cayley fictionalizes the scenario, turn