Front Page
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Cats With Music by Andrew Lloyd Weber
Produced by Troika Entertainment, at Golden Gate Theatre
By: - Jun 03rd, 2022Who could predict that such a musical would set performance records for both the West End (21 years) and Broadway (a mere 18 years)? But innovation doesn’t put butts in seats. So, what propelled “Cats” to immortal fame?
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Queen by Madhuri Shekar
At Long Wharf
By: - Jun 04th, 2022I wasn’t sure what to expect from this work by Madhuri Shekar and produced in partnership with the National Asian American Theater Company’s project. But I found it an engrossing, if not always totally motivated work.
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Belfast Girls by Jaki McCarrick
Irish Repertory Theatre
By: - Jun 06th, 2022Belfast Girls, the Irish Rep’s current play by Jaki McCarrick is a sure-fire winner. Though all of the play’s action takes place on the transport ship Inchinnan in 1848 bound for Australia, the majority of the two act, 12-scene play with one intermission, takes place in a small, cramped, and windowless 5-bunk bed cabin in the ship’s steerage, and to a lesser degree on the ship’s deck where the girls can be seen contemplating their future.
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Basil Twist Alights in Versailles
Les Arts Florissants Returns An Opera to its Origins
By: - Jun 07th, 2022Jean-Joseph de Mondonville’s Titon et l'Aurore returns to Versaille. It is a pastorale heroique opera in three acts with a prologue. Inspired by Madame De Pompadour, it was first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris in January 1753.
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San Antonio’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy
Tried to Deny Afro-Indigneous Senior, Kayla Price Graduation Ceremony
By: - Jun 07th, 2022On Friday June 3rd, the Dean of Schools and Principal at San Antonio’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy tried to deny Afro-Indigneous senior, Kayla Price, from walking in her ceremony because of the eagle feather beaded onto her graduation cap. The Young Women’s Leadership Academy (YWLA), part of the San Antonio Independent School District, ranks in the top 20 high schools in the United States. Per their Non-discrimination Statement,
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Todd McKie: Last but Not Least
On View at Gallery NAGA
By: - Jun 09th, 2022Last but Not Least is an exhibition of sixteen new paintings. Created in the last nine months of Todd McKie’s life, the paintings are as fresh and witty as ever.
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Rodin in the United States Confronting the Modern
Organized by the Clark Art Institute
By: - Jun 09th, 2022The Rodin exhibition explores changing perceptions of the sculptor’s work, beginning with the first acquisition made by an American institution—the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1893—and Rodin’s controversial debut at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition in the same year. The exhibition examines the collecting frenzy of the early twentieth century, promoted by noted philanthropist Katherine Seney Simpson, avant-garde performer Loïe Fuller, and collector Alma de Bretteville Spreckels
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Hadestown Produced by Broadway SF
Plays at the Orpheum Theatre
By: - Jun 10th, 2022From this play’s outset, it is clear that “Hadestown” will have a distinctive style. Although the musical’s auteur, Anaïs Mitchell, comes from the folk world, she developed a unique musical amalgam for the show with elements from blues, jazz, and pop in addition to folk. Her orchestration is as unexpected as it is brilliant in providing a magnificent background sound.
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Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward
Witty Summer Fun in Chicago
By: - Jun 11th, 2022Blithe Spirit is personal for me; it was my first involvement in live theater, when I joined the Cortez, Colorado, community theater many decades ago. I worked on the set, sold tickets and made new friends who were interested in the arts in that oil-boom town. Later I directed (William Inge’s Picnic) and acted (in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and a western melodrama, Deadwood Dick, or the Game of Gold). As a child and teen in Chicago, I had often gone to the theater with my Aunt Belle and also attended theater as a student at UIC. But Blithe Spirit was the first time I experienced the stage. And I still can repeat many of the lines.
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Cabaret at Goodspeed
Production Lacks Sting
By: - Jun 12th, 2022Cabaret is one of the great musicals of the 1960s. Kander and Ebb (and book writer Joe Masterhoff) created a show that used a seedy, third-class nightclub as a metaphor for Germany slipping into the Nazi era.
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Don Giovanni
Produced by San Francisco Opera
By: - Jun 13th, 2022The dark comedy “Don Giovanni” holds a place as one of the greatest operas ever composed. In the hands of a world class company like San Francisco Opera with a great orchestra and the ability to attract some of the best artists to grace the stage, the production is as musically rich as it is professionally performed.
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Awakenings by Tobias Picker
Opera Theatre of St. Louis Presents Premiere
By: - Jun 15th, 2022Awakenings is a new opera by the very American opera composer Tobias PIcker. In the past, he has musicalized the stories of Judith Rossner, Theodore Dreiser, and Stephen King. His new opera premieres at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
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Berkshire Opera Festival
Three Decembers by Jake Heggie
By: - Jun 16th, 2022The spirited and ambitious Berkshire Opera Festival opens its 2022 summer season with a compelling new production of Jake Heggie's intimate THREE DECEMBERS on July 21 and 23 at PS21 in Chatham, NY, conducted by Christopher James Ray and directed by Beth Greenberg. This contemporary American opera is based on Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally's original script for Some Christmas Letters. It marks BOF's 2nd Second Stage event, following Tom Cipullo's highly praised Glory Denied last summer.
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X in Dorchester: Malcolm Comes Home
Anthony Davis Opera Conducted by Gil Rose
By: - Jun 19th, 2022Today, decades after it was written and first premiered at New York City Opera, X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X, feels both deeply rooted in classic opera traditions of Wagner, Strauss and Berg and deeply connected to our jazz heritage. The work is as much Charlie Mingus as it is say Parsifal, which composer Anthony Davis often references. A semi-staged concert version was performed at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, Massachusetts, near Malcom's childhood home.
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2022 Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival, Adams, MA
Return After Three Years
By: - Jun 20th, 2022Last Saturday marked the return of the Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival after three years, the fifth celebration since 2016. Cold weather and stormy winds could not keep away faeries and fair minded goblins from near and far.
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B.R.O.K.E.N. Code B.I.R.D. Switching
World Premiere by Tara L. Wilson Noth at Berkshire Theatre Group
By: - Jun 26th, 2022The playwright, Tara L. Wilson Noth, has taken on a lot as the program notes state: Racism, incarceration, justice, and relationships. There can be turmoil trying to follow and resolve this mélange of subplots.
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The Mystery of Irma Vep
At Island City Stage near Ft. Lauderdale
By: - Jun 26th, 2022The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlam is a spoof of genres such as Gothic melodrama and horror. Island City Stage in Wilton Manors, near Ft. Lauderdale, has mounted a consistently entertaining production. The play is purely escapist entertainment.
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Romeo & Juliet on Boston Common
Presented Free by Boston Lyric Opera
By: - Jun 29th, 2022A free, public opera adaptation of Romeo & Juliet on the historic Boston Common opens Boston Lyric Opera’s 2022/23 Season with two performances August 11 and 13 at 8PM. Based on Charles Gounod’s 1867 musical setting of the classic drama with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, and an English translation by Edmund Tracey, the production is co-presented in partnership with (CSC) and the City of Boston.
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Mega Award Winning Once
Impeccable Berkshire Theatre Group Production
By: - Jul 04th, 2022Directed by Gregg Edelman, Berkshire Theatre Group has created a stunning production of Once the multiple award winning musical. The twelve actors in this work are also the musicians and singers. Set in a Dublin pub it tells the tale of unrequited love between a Guy and Girl. For this critic it proved to be an emotionally shattering theatrical experience.
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Mary Ann Unger: To Shape a Moon from Bone
Williams College Museum of Art
By: - Jul 05th, 2022Exhibition reconsiders the multidisciplinary practice of one of the twentieth century’s great artists,
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Hurricane Diane by Madeline George
At Chicago's Theatre Wit
By: - Jul 06th, 2022Dionysus/Diane has messages for us. The messages we continue to ignore about the serious dangers that climate change portends for our future—and more importantly, for the futures of our children and grandchildren. Yes, while we seethe with anger about SCOTUS decisions and the January 6 insurrection, playwright Madeline George wants us to get mad about climate change too. She’s right, of course.
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Eva Hesse: Expanded Expansion
Guggenheim Museum Exhibition
By: - Jul 08th, 2022In the late 1960s, Eva Hesse sought to make objects that were neither painting nor sculpture, but a hybrid that was all her own. Simultaneously adopting and pushing against the prevailing Minimalist language of repetitive forms and hard edges, her work is imbued with a haptic experience that reflects her keen interest in materiality and incongruity.
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Remembering Paulie Walnuts
Sopranos Mobster with Silver Wings
By: - Jul 10th, 2022During a stint at Sing Sing Tony Sirico was inspired by a visiting troupe of actors. What followed was years of bit parts and supporting roles. There were lots of opportunities given the public's unquenchable thirst for mobbed up entertainment. He hit the jackpot as Paulie Walnuts in the 1999-2007 run of HBO's Sopranos. He died this week at 79.
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Phil Kline at Mass MOCA
Wide-Ranging Magical Music
By: - Jul 11th, 2022Three Phil Kline concerts at Bang on a Can's LOUD Weekend, from a duo with Jim Jarmusch to anti-war classic Zippo Songs (7/28-30, MASS MoCA)
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Kim’s Convenience at Westport Country Playhouse
Adapted from Hit Canadian Sitcom
By: - Jul 13th, 2022Kim’s Convenience now at Westport Country Playhouse is adapted from the long running hit Canadian sitcom. It was aired on Netflix. It centers on the patriarch of a Korean family that loves over the shop. His broken English and inventive syntax are part of the humor if you can understand it.
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