Front Page
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Ain’t Misbehavin: The Fats Waller Musical Show
Jukebox Musical at Barrington Stage
By: - Jun 20th, 2022Artistic director, Julianne Boyd, in her storied career will be remembered for her many stunning musicals. That run ends this season with a revival of the 1978, Tony winner, Ain’t Misbehavin: The Fats Waller Musical Show. The jukebox musical runs some two hours with an intermission.
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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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Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie
Exploration of Strange Loops. Part I
By: - Jun 24th, 2022A Musical Offering is Bach’s final work. After his visit to Potsdam during which King Frederick offered him a phrase to elaborate on, he returned home where he died three years later, The work’s complexity is often noted. Running many musical lines simultaneously in canons and fugues yields rich linear results. Bach undoubtedly heard the vertical harmonies which the canonical runs create. They are as radical as any composer’s who followed him: dissonance, chromaticism, even odd and undefinable sounds abound. The performance makes the case for Bach, known as the pinnacle of baroque music, as the founder of all music that followed.
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A Strange Loop, the Musical
Edwin Bates Steps into the Lead Role
By: - Jun 26th, 2022A Strange Loop, the musical, is an exuberant yet sad story about a young, queer Black man who is struggling to write a musical. In fact, Michael R. Jackson, winner of Tonys for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical, spent twenty years putting this show together.
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Paris by Eboni Booth
In Chicago Steep Theatre New Home
By: - Jun 29th, 2022Jonathan Berry (no relation) directs this script, the midwest premiere of a debut work by playwright/actor Eboni Booth, a Vermont native. It’s the first production in Steep Theatre’s new home, a short walk from its earlier home on Berwyn Avenue. She was one of 10 playwrights awarded a 2021 Steinberg Playwright Award, given annually to up-and-coming American playwrights.
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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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Peter Gelb Unfiltered
Jeff Brown of VAN Magazine Interviews the Met Opera's GM
By: - Jul 04th, 2022What a last seven years it’s been for Peter Gelb and the Metropolitan Opera: Conflicts among board members and between labor and management; allegations of sexual abuse against late music director James Levine; COVID furloughs that left orchestra members in serious financial trouble; the firing of Anna Netrebko over her refusal to denounce Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Jeffrey Arlo Brown sat down with Gelb to talk about those issues, plus Gelb's aesthetic priorities for the Met and whether he has a secret Twitter account.
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Michel Andreenko, a Ukrainian émigré Artist
On View in Two Chicago Exhibitions
By: - Jul 05th, 2022The work of Michel Andreenko, a Ukrainian émigré modernist painter and stage designer, is featured in two exhibits at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. The main exhibit in the West Gallery—Michel Andreenko: Revisited—is a career survey, almost a retrospective, of the artist’s work from the 1920s through the 1970s. The parallel exhibit—Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian Artists in Paris—focuses on the work of Andreenko and his fellow artists who moved to Paris to escape Russia. The exhibits, postponed for two years due to the pandemic, are curated by Adrienne Kochman, UIMA curator.
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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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Joe Caruso Makers and Shakers
Hallspace in Dorchester
By: - Jul 07th, 2022HallSpace presents recent sculpture and paintings by Joe Caruso. This body of work was sparked by Caruso's interest in power figures and art forms that enable human beings to find their connections to the spiritual world. It all started out while he was walking through an outdoor flea market in Paris, and he discovered a small African sculpture from Benin.
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Man of God by Anna Ouyang Moench
Opens Williamstown Theatre Festival Season
By: - Jul 08th, 2022After a six week run at Geffen Playhouse MAN OF GOD written by Anna Ouyang Moench and directed by Maggie Burrows has launched the three play season for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Four Korean American teen girls are confined to a Bangkok hotel room during a field trip with their Pastor. It appears that he is a voyeur and predator. Once outed the comedy entails fantasy acts of revenge.
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Jacob’s Pillow Alumnus Jonah Bokaer
Dance at Clark Art Instutute
By: - Jul 08th, 2022On Saturday, July 23 at 3 pm, the Clark Art Institute hosts a performance by acclaimed Jacob’s Pillow alumnus Jonah Bokaer. The choreographer and visual artist performs a solo choreography inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, Fallen Angel.
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Adams Landmark Reopens as Firehouse Café and Bistro
Legendary Berkshire Chef Xavier Jones
By: - Jul 09th, 2022Although still on its maiden voyage, already Firehouse stands out as a Best in the Berkshires destination. We wish them success for the sake of all of us who enjoy fine dining.
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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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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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Grammy Winner Aoife O’Donovan
Concert at the Clark
By: - Jul 14th, 2022The Clark Art Institute hosts an outdoor concert by Grammy award-winning folk musician Aoife O’Donovan on Tuesday, July 19 at 6 pm on the Clark’s South Lawn near the Reflecting Pool. An Irish-American singer-songwriter, O’Donovan quietly dazzles with intimate songs that feel big and bold.
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Napa's Auberge du Soleil
Gordon Huether's L’Esprit du Soleil
By: - Jul 15th, 2022Auberge du Soleil, Napa Valley’s quintessential adult getaway, and renowned local artist, Gordon Huether, today unveiled “L’Esprit du Soleil” (The Spirit of the Sun), a commissioned multi-panel art piece designed especially for the newly remodeled entrance to the award-winning hotel and its Michelin Star Restaurant.
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Most Happy in Concert at Williamstown
Directed by Tony Winner Daniel Fish
By: - Jul 17th, 2022Most Happy in Concert, now at Williamstown Theatre Festival is not a revival of the 1956 musical Most Happy Fella with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. It's a tear down and deconstruction by director Daniel Fish. He similarly ripped apart Oklahoma which won a Tony award. Let's see if he again cruises Broadway with an even more radical production of a vintage musical.
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The Drowsy Chaperone
Produced by Sonoma Arts Live
By: - Jul 17th, 2022The opening premise of the fiction is that Janet van de Graaf and Robert Martin, played by the charming and talented pair of Maeve Smith and Stephen Kanaski, are to be married on the day that the musical takes place. The reality of the show’s evolution is that “The Drowsy Chaperone” began as a spoof of old musicals that was performed at a stag party for a real engaged couple with the same names as the characters in the show. Got that?
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Berkshire Artist Stephanie Blumenthal
Deconstructing Dutch Still Life
By: - Jul 19th, 2022Catching up recently with Sheffield based artist, Stephanie Blumenthal, she commented on having work in the last two annual juried shows of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. They are photographs in the manner of 17th century Dutch still life paintings entailing fast food. I asked her to send images which proved to be intriguing.
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Vincent Castagnacci: Notes from a Quarry
Summer at Cape Ann Museum
By: - Jul 20th, 2022This summer, the Cape Ann Museum presents a special exhibition of works by contemporary artist Vincent Castagnacci. Notes from a Quarry will focus on Castagnacci’s drawings and paintings from the mid-2000s to the present, pulling in earlier works that reflect the strong influence Cape Ann has had—and continues to have—on the artist.
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Anna in the Tropics By Nilo Cruz
2003 Pulitzer Winner at Barrington Stage Company
By: - Jul 21st, 2022Other than an explosive ending the Pulitzer Prize winning Anna In the Tropics proves to be quite tepid as produced by Barrington Stage Company. Set in a Prohibition era cigar factory the lictor is reading Tolstoy to the workers. Themes of infidelity, jealousy and revenge in Anna Karenina weave their way into the plot by playwright Nilo Cruz.
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Ian Bostridge Sings Schubert in Munich
Anthony Papano Accompnies at the Prinzregent Theater
By: - Jul 20th, 2022Ian Bostridge is the go-to performer for Franz Schubert's Winterreise. He notes that 'Even as a child I was unnaturally obsessed with love and death, so in that sense I really was born to sing lieder'. This concert is another testament to his natural affinity for the form and for the composer.
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Every Breath You Take
I Can See for Miles
By: - Jul 22nd, 2022Wudang is the center of Daoism in the world, where the early monks went to hide from the Emperor’s soldiers. The Chinese emperors were fearful that the people would follow the Daoist priests and monks instead of them, and they killed many of them, destroying thousands of temples over the centuries.
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Sondheim's Follies
At San Francisco PLayhouse
By: - Jul 22nd, 2022The lavish and expensive-to-produce “Follies” earned 11 Tony nominations and won seven, but was a box office disappointment with barely 500 performances on Broadway. Yet, the show became a classic. San Francisco Playhouse has taken on the challenge of producing this massive and demanding project. The result is a worthy rendition of a great American musical.
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