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The Big D in South Florida
World Premiere of Comic-Drama near Ft. Lauderdale
By: - Jul 03rd, 2018The Big D has a dual personality as a play, with some of the material risque and lively, while other moments are tender and tragic. Michael Mizerany's new work is having its world premiere at Wilton Manor's Abyss Theater. Prolific theater artist Ronnie Larsen is directing the play, featuring some strong acting.
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Objects of Desire at Eclipse Mill Gallery
Larry Alice and Joan Kiley Paired In Evocative Exhibition
By: - Jul 03rd, 2018The special exhibition Objects of Desire pairs whimsical narrative paintings by Joan Kiley with relief sculpture and polychromed assemblages by Larry Alice. There is a confluence and empathy of fantasy and the surreal in work that will be on view in the Eclipse Mill, 243 Union Street, from Friday, June 29 through Sunday, July 29. A receptiom will be held on Friday, July 6.
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Coming Back Like a Song at Berkshire Theatre Group
World Premiere of Juke Box Musical
By: - Jul 04th, 2018It's Christmas Eve at the NY apartment of Irving Berlin. He is joined by fellow masters of the Great American Songbook Jimmy Van Heusen and Harold Arlen. With just a piano we get 35 of their songs in Berkshire Theatre Group''s world premiere of Coming Back Like a Song by Lee Kalcheim,
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The Bennington Mural Project
Union Street Mural Unveiled
By: - Jul 03rd, 2018In downtown Bennington, a new mural lets local artists shine and brings the community together.
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End of The Royal Family of Broadway
NY Times Review Spikes Barrington Stage Production
By: - Jul 06th, 2018The Barrington Stage world premiere of the musical Royal Family of Broadway has earned mostly positive reviews. It has been treated as a work in progress potentially bound for Broadway. The team assembled for this production have been there before. Because of a devastating review by Jesse Green in the New York Times that may not happen. While Green is an established, and well qualified critic, is it the role of the Times to nip in the bud regional productions being developed for a run in New York?
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Van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic
A Beethoven Prelude to Action
By: - Jul 05th, 2018With all the secrecy that surrounds the arrival of a new music director for America's oldest orchestra, one must rely on live performances and recorded documentation to assess such a relationship. Happily, such documentation arrived earlier this year in the form of a DeccaGold recording of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, made by the New York Philharmonic under the aegis of its new boss, Jaap van Zweden.
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Hair at Berkshire Theatre Group
Celebrating 50th Anniversary
By: - Jul 08th, 2018If you plan to see Hair at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, as well you should, a few tokes of medical marijuana will help to set the mood. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. On opening night we spotted a granny with a crown of woven daisys.
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Batsheva — The Young Ensemble at Jacob's Pillow
Audience Insulted by Naharin’s Virus
By: - Jul 09th, 2018With a combination of theatre of nihilism, taunts and insults the audience at Jacob's Pillow endured a riveting performance by Israel's Batsheva — The Young Ensemble. There was a single, hour long piece “Naharin’s Virus” (2001). It was choreographed by soon to retire artistic director Ohad Naharin. Like an ersatz Stockholm Syndrome experience the audience perhaps too politely thanked their tormentors for the assault on their sense.
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Four Quartets Danced at Bard
Tamowitz, Saariaho and Marden Capture the Still Point
By: - Jul 09th, 2018Bard's Summerscape, ever brave, captures extraordinary moments in poet T.S. Eliot's masterwork, Four Quartets. The words the poet so clearly relishes in his own reading now dance before our eyes like searing moments at the still point. Choreographer Pam Tanowitz, composer Kaija Saariaho and painter Brice Marden join forces at the Fisher Center in Annandale.
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I Will Speak for Myself
Evoking Historical Women of Color by Valerie Joyce
By: - Jul 11th, 2018In Professor Valerie Joyce’s visits to schools, she asks students to name African-American women they know of from before 1865. Even among black female students, the responses quickly falter – Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, maybe Sally Hemings. With 250 years of history in the United States before the Civil War, this whole segment of our population is virtually silent, unknown.
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Macbeth the Scotched Play at S&Co.
Botched by Misdirection of Melia Bensussen
By: - Jul 12th, 2018It helps if you have read or seen other productions of Macbeth. Without that background the radical deconstruction ot the iconic play directed by Obie winner, Melia Bensussen, won't make sense.
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Artney Jackson by James Anthony Tyler
African American Theatre in Williamstown
By: - Jul 15th, 2018For the past decade there has been a tradition of at least one Afircan American themed production each season. This time its a benign and charming comedy Artney Jackson by James Anthony Tyler. Arguably there is progress that the well crafted and superbly acted play is a step back from polemical social and political agendas.
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Kevin Puts' Silent Night at Glimmerglass
Pulitzer-Winning Opera Wrenching and Gorgeous
By: - Jul 16th, 2018Silent Night by Kevin Puts with libretto by Mark Campbell is being presented at the Glimmerglass Festival. Tomer Zvulen directs this complex tale revealing each subtle turn in the story of a 24 hour truce during the First World War. Nicole Paiement conducts to bring forth all the subtlety and beauty of Puts’ score. Puts is both a fabulously gifted entertainer and a deep musical thinker. The music paints the scenes. The singers capture the tone in gorgeous melodies and often appropriately harsh recitative.
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MCLA Gallery 51 Exhibition by Charles Giuliano
Heads and Tales a 40 Year Retrospective
By: - Jul 17th, 2018A forty year retrospective by Charles Giuliano "Heads and Tales" opens Thursday, July 26 at MCLA Gallery 51 in North Adams, Massachusetts. It will be a part of the monthly Downstreet celebration, The artist will give a talk at the gallery on Wednesday, August 8 from 6 to 7 PM. The exhibition, curated by gallery director Arthur Debow, surveys 40 images of jazz and rock musicians from the Rolling Stones, to Marvin Gaye, Miles Davis, Yoko Ono and Frank Sinatra.
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Charles Giuliano Heads and Tales
Pictures at an Exhibition
By: - Jul 27th, 2018Arthur DeBow did a super job of curating and installing my retrospective Heads and Tales at Gallery 51 in North Adams. Some 150 plus friends and strangers passed through.
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La Cage Aux Folles
At South Florida Company's New Venue
By: - Sep 08th, 2018La Cage Aux Folles marks first show at Stage Door Theatre's brand new venue in South Florida. Popular Broward County company makes a triumphant debut at its new facility. Theater company imbues Jerry Herman, Harvey Fierstein classic with glamor, humanity and heart
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Tanz im August, Berlin 2018
Dance in August Ended September 2nd
By: - Sep 09th, 2018One of the big international dance festivals, the Berlin based Tanz im August, celebrated its 30th anniversary with a thought-provoking and breath-taking array of works.
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Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci
A Twofer at San Francisco Opera
By: - Sep 10th, 2018In an unusual alteration, perhaps opera’s most famous closing line, “La commedia è finita” which is written for Canio, is spoken by Mamma Lucia, who is a character from Cavalleria. This change is the most explicit link between the two operas, and it also suggests that the speaker represents humanity, demanding an end to the destructive chaos of primitive morality evidenced in both pieces.
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Roberto Devereux by Gaetano Donizetti
At San Francisco Opera
By: - Sep 10th, 2018Gaetano Donizetti is recognized as a master of bel canto, with its vocal ornamentation, agility, vibrato, glissando, and precise demands on breath and register control. Although not designed as companions, he wrote operas of three queens in that style, now known as the Tudor Trilogy – Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda, and Roberto Devereux.
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The Naturalists, A World Premier
Intimately Understanding Terrorism
By: - Sep 11th, 2018The Pond is an adventuresome young producing group whose mission is to seek out bold playwrights from Ireland and the UK and give American audiences a chance to know them. Playwright Jaki McCarrick deserves wide exposure. Terrorist acts are more familiar to the Irish than Americans, Yet the impact of these events on the families of terrorists is new territory and a fascinating one in The Naturalists.
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Chicago on Stage
Four Short Reviews
By: - Sep 13th, 2018Chicago critics Nancy Bishop and Matthew Nerber team up to cover four plays with brief reviews. This is one approach to focus on the wealth and diversity of productions in the Windy City.
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Now & Then
World Premiere Musical at Wilton Theater Factory
By: - Sep 15th, 2018A New musical has its touching moments, but is hampered by cliches, sentimentality. The world premiere of Now & Then runs through Sept. 30 at the newly-named Wilton Theater Factory near Ft. Lauderdale. A strong, versatile cast performs in Now & Then's first-ever production in South Florida.
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The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?
Edward Albee Play at Chicago's Interrobang Theatre Project
By: - Sep 15th, 2018The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is certainly a problem play, in the classic sense in which characters debate critical social issues in a realistic context. Think Ibsen, “kitchen sink drama” and the socialist plays of the 1920s and ‘30s. Albee also makes many references to classical tragedy, literature and Greek mythology throughout The Goat.
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Agnes Howls at 59E59th
Lesser America Presents a Play Centered on Autism
By: - Sep 15th, 2018Hurricane Agnes is raging outside the small living space of a group of friends in their early 20s. The play focuses on Charlie, who has been diagnosed at the upper end of autism. We see him struggle to become just like everyone else, or getting as close to more conventional people as possible. His perspective is surprising and dramatic.
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HIR By Taylor Mac
Transitional Theatre at Shakespeare & Company
By: - Sep 16th, 2018HIR by Taylor Mac, at Shakespeare & Company, demonstrates that we are now well beyond LGBT. The new acronym is LGBTTSQQIAAF. For Maxine who is transitioning to Max the correct pronoun is hir passing through ze. The playrwight answers to the pronoun judy. The play which took 17 years to create is described as Mac's most biographical.
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