Front Page
-
Boston Boy by Nat Hentoff
A Memoir by a Radical Journalist and Jazz Critic
By: - Dec 04th, 2018Nathan Irving “Nat’ Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) passed at 91 some time ago. Why then, in the waning moments of 2018, write a review of a book written some 32 years ago? Reading a memoir by a legendary radical journalist and jazz critic resonated with my own memories of growing up as a Boston Boy.
-
Add Spice To Your Life
Mixing It Up in the Kitchen
By: - Dec 08th, 2018During the busy summer season in the Berkshires we eat and run. Winter is for more elaborate, experimental meals. On every level it means putting more spice in your life. Since Labor Day we have been having fun experimenting in the kitchen.
-
Honoring Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues
All Stars at The Cabot in Beverly, MA.
By: - Dec 11th, 2018The Cabot in Beverly, Mass. is gearing up for its Centennial in 2020. It escaped the wrecker's ball a few years ago and is now in the midst of renovation, Toward that end there was a gala, all star benefit tribute to a 1920s icon Bessie Smith The Empress of the Blues. It was a night to remember and indicator of the next chapter of a venerable venue.
-
The Prisoner by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne
Large Questions at Theatre for a New Audience
By: - Dec 09th, 2018We are in a neutral country, anywhere in the world where crimes are committed and people are punished. The question that pervades the quiet space of The Prisoner by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne concerns appropriate retribution.
-
Matthias Goerne at the New York Philhamonic
A Journey into Mystery
By: - Dec 11th, 2018For their last program before the annual dive into holiday season concerts, Jaap van Zweden and the New York Philharmonic gave their audience something unique: a song cycle created from the work of two composers and featuring the voice of Matthais Goerne, the German lieder specialist who sings Wotan on van Zweden's new recording of Wagner's Ring.
-
The Wiz In South Florida
Classic Musical At Stage Door Theatre
By: - Dec 14th, 2018Stage Door Theatre's mounting of The Wiz is uneven. The production largely lacks magic and sound is a problem. However, the production improves in the second act, with strong singing and acting. Actress Nayomi Braaf makes a refreshingly bright-eyed, optimistic Dorothy.
-
Campania's Giuseppe Maglione Follows Tradition
The New Generation Of Pizza Makers
By: - Dec 18th, 2018Following his grandmothers footsteps, Giuseppe Maglione is the new generation of pizza makers that dot the Campania food scene. Pizza dough is his canvas and he is the artist. We visited recdently in Avellino.
-
Thomas Oliemans at Park Avenue Armory
Malcolm Martineau Joins Baritone
By: - Dec 18th, 2018Thomas Oliemans, a Dutch baritone, sang in the Officer's Room at the Park Avenue Armory. His first line evokes love's bite, suggesting a mix of pleasure and pain that would inform his program. The tall-full-voiced baritone was accompanied by Malcolm Martineau whose delight in the songs of Charles DuParc and Gustav Mahler was apparent.
-
Affordable Bila-Haut Languedoc Wines
Michael Chapoutier Estate
By: - Dec 19th, 2018The 2017 vintage from Bila-Haut is a very good value. Maybe its the Euro exchange rate,but, these two wines, especially the white are people and party friendly. Michael Chapoutier has a knack for growing the right grapes at the perfect slope. These wines illustrate his mastery.
-
The Lifespan of a Fact at Studio 54
By Playwrights Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell
By: - Dec 21st, 2018Playwrights Jeremy Kareken & David Murrell and Gordon Farrell have balanced the piece carefully. This is based on the essay and book by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal. They are the John and Jim of the story. But I suspect details have been changed, in fact it is billed as “a new play based on a true-ish story.” It is a tight 85 minutes enhanced by fine performances.
-
Foss & Ferrandini: A Fruitful Friendship
Tandem at Boston's Gallery Naga
By: - Dec 21st, 2018Jeremy Foss taught painting at Massachusetts College of Art and Design during the 1970s and 80s. It was during the 70s, while Robert Ferrandini was a student at Mass Art, that he and Foss formed a friendship that has lasted to this day. Their exibition Foss & Ferrandini: A Fruitful Friendship will be on view January 4 to 26 at Boston's Gallery NAGA.
-
All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914
Stranger Than Fiction at Loreto Theatre on Bleecker Street
By: - Dec 23rd, 2018What is remarkable about this production directed by Peter Rothstein with music direction by Erick Lichte is both the simplicity and the complexity of the production. There is no set; the stage is a black box. No orchestra or piano accompanies the actors as they sing; it is a capella. The harmonies arranged by Lichte and Timothy C Takach are wonderful.
-
Gardner Museum Loans Its Greatest Treasure
Momentous Decisions for Titian’s Masterpiece Rape of Europa
By: - Dec 23rd, 2018In flagrant violation of the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner the museum's greatest masterpiece Titian's "The Rape of Europa" has been cleaned for the first time and is about to be loaned for up to two years. She stipulated that “[I]f [the trustees] shall at any time change the general disposition or arrangement of any articles which shall have been placed in the first, second and third stories of said Museum at my death,” then the entire collection, the museum building and property would be given to Harvard University to be sold.
-
El Nino, a Nativity Oratorio, at Cloisters
Julia Bullock and the American Modern Opera Company Featured
By: - Dec 23rd, 2018John Adams and his frequent collaborator, Peter Sellars, focused on the Nativity when they created El Nino, a Christmas Oratorio. Handel's Messiah, the most frequently performed music for Christmas, sprawls into Easter. Now we have marvelous seasonal music for our time.
-
Adriana Lecouvreur at Metropolitan Opera
Gala Features Beczala, Maestri, Netrebko, and Rachvilishvili
By: - Jan 03rd, 2019Adriana Lecouvreur was brought to New York most recently in a Carnegie Hall concert by Eve Queller’s Opera Orchestra of New York. Angela Gheorghiu came to sing the diva role and was delicious, both touching and full of haughty allure. When Anna Netrebko expressed interest in the Adriana role, The Metropolitan Opera joined with five partners and hired the stalwart Sir David McVicar to produce.
-
Superior Donuts In South Florida
Tracy Letts Dramedy by Miami Lakes' Main Street Players
By: - Jan 05th, 2019Despite some apparent opening night issues, Main Street Players delivers a well-done production of Superior Donuts. Tracy Letts' play is sweet, but also has some meat to it. Superior Donuts was a finalist for the 2009 2009 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA (American Theatre Critics Association) New Play Award.
-
4:48 Psychosis at the Prototype Festival
Philip Venables' Remarkable Opera Arrives in the US
By: - Jan 06th, 20194:48 Psychosis, an opera by Philip Venables, had its North American premier as part of the Prototype Festival in New York. It feels like exploding moments of Ophelia’s descent into madness. Based on a play by Sarah Kane, and often called her suicide note, musical moments of both beauty and anguish depict emotions leading to death by hanging.
-
Ismael Reed's The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda
Rome Neal Directs Sold-Out Readings at the Nyorican Cafe
By: - Jan 08th, 2019Audience response to The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, a new entertaining, witty and historically incisive play was unusually enthusiastic. Ismael Reed's work was still in street clothes with scripts in hand. The actors, despite the trappings, delivered their lines with pathos and conviction, and Reed's vision shown through the bare-bones milieu.
-
Wairau River in New Zealand
Top Family Estate Winery
By: - Jan 07th, 2019Phil and Chris Rose and their five siblings and extended family run and manage this rare family estate in the Marlborough region of the South Island of New Zealand. Besides bottling amazing wines, the winery is hailed as a mecca for local foods, all served in their Cellar Door restaurant. The food was so exquisite that a recipe is included in this article.
-
THISTREE with Leah Coloff at Prototype
World premiere at HERE
By: - Jan 08th, 2019A mysterious figure hidden in a huge poke bonnet parades onto the rear of the Mainstage Theater at HERE. She is trailed by figures bearing jeans, an icon of the American West. These are dropped to form a trail, like Hansel and Gretel's candies, leading to the pioneer, Leah Coloff's, seat on stage. Coloff with Ellie Heyman has created a lament modeled on a traditional cowboy ballad.
-
Charlie Johnson Reads All of Proust
À la recherche du temps perdu
By: - Jan 10th, 2019An older man decides he will read Marcel Proust’s iconic novel. As he reads all six volumes over the course of a year, he responds to Proust and reflects on his own life. And his audience may gain insights into their own too.That’s the sum total of an engaging solo production titled Charlie Johnson Reads All of Proust, now on stage at Chicago's Den Theatre
-
The Infinite Hotel at Prototype Festival
Michal McQuilken's Rollicking Celebration of Community
By: - Jan 10th, 2019The Prototype Festival rolls on with a big production at Irondale, a Brooklyn venue which offers a large space and unusual opportunities for audience viewing. The Infinite Hotel by Michael Joseph McQuilken is having its world premiere. This is a rollicking, joyful and often touching production. It is full of surprises.
-
The Infinite Hotel at Irondale
New Music/Theater Captures Audiences
By: - Jan 12th, 2019Death hangs over the exuberant music/drama The Infinite Hotel. Jib sings of the pain of loss from beginning to end. Her music is lifeful, as is the music of Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley who gave new work to this production.
-
Free Shakespeare In The Park
Romeo and Juliet by Florida Shakespeare Theater
By: - Jan 14th, 2019An uneven South Florida mounting of Romeo and Juliet needs more energy. The Bard's poetry mostly fails to land in Florida Shakespeare Theatre's production. Miami-area based troupe finds the humanity of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedy of star-crossed lovers.
-
Goodbye, Dolly!
Remembering Carol Channing at 97
By: - Jan 15th, 2019Broadway and cabaret star Carol Elaine Channing passed away today at the remarkable age of 97. She originated the iconic lead on the 1964 production of Jerry Herman's Hello,Dolly! It earned her a Tony award for which she was nominated three other times. She was still glamorous and forever young, but pushing 60, when I saw her in the late 1970s at Boston's jazz and cabaret club Lulu White's. That spectacular night evokes many fond memories.
<< Previous Next >>