Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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Janet McTeer in Bernhardt/Hamlet Front Page
Roundabout Theatre Premiere by Theresa Rebeck
By: - Sep 30th, 2018Bernhardt/Hamlet by Theresa Rebeck has arrived at the Roundabout Theatre where it plays in a limited run through November 11. Bernhardt is played by the glorious Janet McTeer, seen as a powerful Nora in Ibsen’s The Doll House and as Albert Nobb's Hubert Page, her Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated role.
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Conrad Tao and Bruckner at NY Philharmonic Front Page
Shock and Awe Under Jaap Van Zweden
By: - Sep 30th, 2018Conrad Tao’s world premier composition Everything Must Go was performed by the New York Philharmonic and followed without a breath by Anton Bruckner’s powerful Eighth Symphony.
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JACK Quartet at the Catacombs Front Page
The Angel's Share Explores Modern Medieval
By: - Sep 28th, 2018We can count the ways the JACK delights in The Catacombs of the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Depth, breath and height, as far as the strings can reach, up and down. The Catacombs, wrapped in a mysterious yellow light ebbing to darkness added to this moving presentation.
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Miller Theater Premiers Missy Mazzoli Front Page
Proving Up Arrives in New York
By: - Sep 27th, 2018Aware that all art forms now compete with Netflix, composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek seek out stories for their musical theater that will attract audiences. Mazzoli, a masterful young composer, can go very dark in tales because her music, in its blocks of beauty no matter what the subject, is compelling and evocative.
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Ne Quittez Pas at Opera Philadelphia Front Page
Patricia Racette Compels as Elle
By: - Sep 26th, 2018Ne Quittez Pas is writ large on a marquee in a hot neighborhood of Philadelphia. Hold on, it says. Don’t leave. Stay on the line. This is a phrase used repeatedly in the old French telephone service, a main character in the opera to unfold inside the club, Theater of the Living Arts, a disco/nightclub near the harbor.
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Glass/Handel at Opera Philadelphia Front Page
Barnes Museum Hosts Anthony Roth Costanzo
By: - Sep 25th, 2018Anthony Roth Costanzo has a manly strength and a feminine range, giving surreal power to the voice. Costanzo not only sports this range but is committed to bringing its beauty to an audience unfamiliar with the pleasures of classical music. His alliance with Opera Philadelphia and headline position at the second annual O 18 Festival in Philadelphia is represented in a program at the Barnes Museum.
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Lucia di Lammermoor at Opera Philadelphia Front Page
Dark Yet Entrancing
By: - Sep 25th, 2018Rumors that Gaetano Donizetti was of Scotch origin swirled over the Italian countryside when his opera Lucia di Lammermoor was first produced. They were untrue. Now Laurent Pelly gives us a grim, grey countryside to match the mood of the opera's heroine. Brenda Rae triumphs in the role at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.
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Sky on Swings at Opera Philadelphia Front Page
World Premier of Lembit Beecher's opera
By: - Sep 24th, 2018Sky on Swings is a collaborative opera. The three principal artists, Lembit Beecher, Hannah Moscovitch and Joanna Settle have worked together for more than a year to bring a musical portrait of death-by-Alzheimer’s to the stage.
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NAT by Verlon Brown at Theater for a New City Front Page
Directed by Rome Neal at Theater for a New City
By: - Sep 21st, 2018Remembering the Unforgettable Nat King Cole. New to the professional stage, Actor/Writer Verlon Brown brings the life of an extraordinary man to Theater for the New City, under the seasoned direction of Rome Neal.
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Jaap van Zweden at the New York Philharmonic Front Page
A New Era Begins
By: - Sep 21st, 2018Opening night at the New York Philharmonic is a yearly tradition an occasion for fat cat donors to dine on the Promenade of Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall, and for ordinary critics (like your humble scribe) to put on suits and hobnob with each other before the performance. This year's ceremonies, held Thursday night, were also notable as it marked the long-awaited official debut of Jaap van Zweden, the orchestra's new music director.
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The New Group Presents The True Theatre
Edie Falco Stars as a Star Political Operative
By: - Sep 20th, 2018The True by Sharr White premiers at The Pershing Square Signature Center. Edie Falco headlines the show. She is a tough talking Albany political figure in 1977, the year that Danny O’Connell, for over half a century the head of the Albany Democratic machine, died.
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Space Odyssey 2001 at NY Philharmonic Front Page
Reprise of Classic
By: - Sep 18th, 2018Stanley Kubrick's seminal 1968 classic is now 50 years old, and remains as puzzling as ever. On Friday night, as part of this year's The Art of the Score festival, the New York Philharmonic performed the complete orchestral and choral music of 2001 as accompaniment to a large scale screening of the film at Lincoln Center.
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Soundstage by Rob Roth at HERE Music
Loneliness of Out-Sized Personality
By: - Sep 17th, 2018Soundstage by Rob Roth is playing at HERE through September 29. Using all the facilities that the grand HERE space affords, the production is first rate. Although the author and lead actor Rob Roth identifies this as a queer vision, the piece resonates more widely.
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Echo and Narcissus Updated by Satellite Collective Front Page
Kevin Draper Re-Imagines an Ancient Myth
By: - Sep 15th, 2018Satellite Collective is an adventurous group of artists from every medium who combine dance, art, music and theater into a unified work. Echo and Narcissus is a full-length collaborative event at BAM Fisher.
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Agnes Howls at 59E59th Front Page
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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The Naturalists, A World Premier Front Page
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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Separate and Equal at 59E59th Street Front Page
Things Get Bad Before They Get Better
By: - Sep 10th, 2018Birmingham passed an Ordinance in May of 1951 which prohibited blacks and whites from playing games together, among other injunctions. Boys will be boys. Often in the South they are allowed to play together until they reach puberty. An empty lot with two baskets was too tempting for six boys, three black and three white, to resist. The consequences are tragic.
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1969: The Second Man at Next Door NYTW Front Page
A Tribute to Runner's Up
By: - Aug 27th, 2018When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon, this transformational moment was expected to give us a new perspective on life on earth and our place in the Universe. Aldrin, it turns out, administered communion to himself on the moon. He was that kind of guy and Jacob Brandt in song and talk captures him.
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Shorts at 59E59 Theaters Front Page
Victims Triumph Often
By: - Aug 24th, 2018We look at victims in each of three short plays offered this summer at 59 E59 Theaters, Throughline Artists producing. They are all brave in their own way, a bravery that is unexpected. Unusual situations in each play intrigue.
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Dell'Arte Opera's Vignettes from Vienna Front Page
Introducing Emerging Talent in Mozart and Salieri
By: - Aug 22nd, 2018Dell'Arte Opera presented Vignettes from Vienna, including Mozart and Verdi. The highlight of the evening, however, was not Mozart’s music as a stand alone. We were treated to a performance of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, into which the composer interwove Mozart’s music as part of the story.
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The Tsar's Bride at Bard Summerscape Front Page
The Pleasures of Rimsky-Korsakov
By: - Aug 20th, 2018Bard Summerscape concluded its 2018 season with a production of The Tsar’s Bride by Rimsky Korsakov. Often performed in Europe, it is unfamiliar to most opera lovers in the United States, who received it with rapt admiration at the FIsher Center.
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The Brothers Khan by George Pfirrmann Front Page
Brotherhood at the Extremes
By: - Aug 18th, 2018In this era which has generated a nigh unprecedented displacement and resettlement of refugees, George Pfirrmann delves into the human conundrum of self definition buried in the frightening headlines of violence and despair.
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Mark Morris at Mostly Mozart Front Page
Dancing Against the Current
By: - Aug 15th, 2018Mostly Mozart presents the Mark Morris Dance Group, accompanied by three excellent chamber and vocal music performances.
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The Originalist at 59E59 Theaters Front Page
Una Lagrima Furtiva Hits Home
By: - Aug 12th, 2018Antonin Scalia is the subject of The Originalist, a powerful play by John Strand and directed by Molly Smith. It is presented by Middle Finger Productions in association with the Arena Stage and running at 59E59 Theaters. Edward Gero brings Scalia to life.
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Summer Shorts at 59E59 Theaters Front Page
Searching for Love
By: - Aug 11th, 2018Humor and pathos are gracefully layered in three shorts; The Plot by Claire Zajdel, Ibis by Eric Lane and Sparing Partner by Neil Labute. Crisply written and acted, all three plays convey a poignant sense of the parallel truths that inform our desire to love and be loved. Through religion, films, and the ever possible aspirations of our childhood remembrances, we create parallel truths that the characters ask us to indulge.
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