Front Page
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Barrington Stage Company Eleanor Encore
By Mark St. Germain
By: - Sep 29th, 2020Eleanor, which was filmed earlier this month without an audience at BSC’s Boyd-Quinson Mainstage, will be available to stream on October 3 & 4 at 7:30 pm ET. Tickets ($15) can be ordered from OvationTix and a link will then be sent to the ticket holder within 24 hours of the scheduled performance.
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Philip Guston Now to Not Now
What He Meant to Boston’s Artists
By: - Sep 26th, 2020The retrospective "Philip Guston Now" was scheduled to open in June 2001 at the National Gallery. It would travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, then to Tate Modern in London, and finally, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Of 125 paintings and 75 drawings some 24 works caricature the Ku Klux Klan. Fearing backlash the museums have postponed to 2024 to develop programming that contextualizes the work. The MFA has a history of ambivalence to the artist's work. From 1973 to 1978 he taught a graduate seminar at Boston University.
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Necessary Sacrifices at North Coast Repertory Theatre
Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglass Clash and Carry
By: - Sep 28th, 2020“Necessary Sacrifices” deals with the relationship between US President Abraham Lincoln and the acclaimed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author, public speaker and a leader in the abolitionist movement during the Civil War.
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The Humans
Streamed by Olney Theatre Center
By: - Sep 27th, 2020In the age of COVID, Stephen Karam's dramedy The Humans is particularly timely. The Olney Theatre Center is streaming the play through Oct. 4. Karam balances comedy, creepiness, and drama. The Olney Theatre Center production features first-rate performances.
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Rob Kapilow Tackles the Appassionata Sonata
Orli Shaham Exposes a Sonata
By: - Sep 27th, 2020Rob Kapilow begins his “What Makes it Great” evenings with a discussion of special elements in a musical work to be performed in its entirety at the conclusion of the evening. Kapilow is a conductor and performer. Always responsive to a live audience, he draws us in, elucidating us as he instructs. Now he is streaming from an empty Merkin Hall. Yet you become addicted in one outing. Through Kapilow, listening to music has added whole new dimensions. Orli Shaham provides examples for a discussion of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 5. She also gives a deeply moving performance of the Appassionata.
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Irish Repertory Theatre Streams Geraldine Hughes
Belfast Blues a Perfect Production for Video
By: - Sep 23rd, 2020We are swept along by her lilting Irish brogue as Geraldine Hughes takes the stage in her Belfast Blues. Irish Repertory Theatre chose the play to open their fall season streaming. Charlotte Moore and her partner Ciarán O’Reilly chose well. This one woman shows draws the portraits of twenty-four characters, all presented through the vessel of Hughes. Yet we never wonder who is speaking. We learn the gestures and tics of each character and come to be entranced.
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Black Words Matter from New Federal Theatre
Poetry Jam
By: - Sep 22nd, 2020Leave it to Woodie King, Jr. mastermind of the now fifty years young New Federal Theatre, to get our new streamed delivery form better than anyone else (Irish Repertory Theater excepted). For two evenings, starting on September 21 and then on September 28, the NFT is presenting Poetry Jams. The first one, hosted by Rev. Rhonda Akanke' McLean-Nur is a marvel of commonplace images elevated to song. The Reverend at first sees herself as strong black women in history. She admits that neither she nor the Queen of the Nile bear much resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor.for starters.
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Raise a Glass to Michelangelo
Famous, Rich and...... Miserly!
By: - Sep 21st, 2020Ever wonder what the great artist, sculptor, architect, painter and poet, Michelangelo, ate and drank? According to his handwritten, and illustrated, 16th century grocery list, the Master thrived on a diet of fish, bread and lots of wine.
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HBO's Coastal Elites
Playing the Pandemic with Grim Humor
By: - Sep 21st, 2020HBO’s just released film “Coastal Elites”, navigates the COVID-19 experience in a comedic and satirical way (for a deadly subject matter) with five vignette monologues, by five actors; each breathing life into playwright Paul Rudnick’s spot-on slices of pandemic life during this unprecedented experience, and all deftly directed by Jay Roach.
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Ruth Bader Ginsberg Loved Opera
Our Very Own Brunnhilde
By: - Sep 20th, 2020Justice of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who died this week while still sitting on the bench, was a hero to American women. She believed above all that women could bring about a better world. She loved Beethoven’s "Fidelio," the story of Leonore, who disguises herself as a man to rescue her husband from prison. She related to the opera's story as a woman and a feminist.
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Eleanor by Mark St.Germain
Discussing a Work in Progress
By: - Sep 19th, 2020A work in progress, "Eleanor," by Mark St. Germain was commissioned by Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota. It was given a reading there. Recently it had a reading with another actress, Harriet Harris, for Barrington Stage Company. With two performances in an empty theatre it was viewed by subscription. By phone we discussed the new work and its intriguing character who was superly portrayed by a remarkable actress.
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Royal Ballet Company
PBS Great Performances
By: - Sep 19th, 2020Classical ballet as performed by England’s Royal Ballet Company in this new film version by filmmakers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, feature two new sublime, glittering, and accomplished principal dancers.
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Brooklyn Museum Deaccessions 12 Works
AAMD Sanctions Corona Emergency Measures
By: - Sep 17th, 2020While Trump's billionaire golf buddies are begging for a bailout the arts in America are left twisting in the wind. Closed for months museums are depleting reserve funds to survive. That has meant furloughs, pay cuts and staff reductions. As a desparate measure, in a lapse from guidelines for deaccessioning, the Brooklyn Museum is selling twelve works to raise $40 million. It recalls when the Berkshire Museum gutted its collection to raise $50 million. This is never a good idea but we discuss crucial differences.
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Stepping Back from Your Own Mind
Becoming Observer and Observed
By: - Sep 15th, 2020In a moment of upset when we are raging against that “thing” we thought so awful, shouting such hurtful words at the one standing before us, imagine how horrified we would be if we could step back to watch ourselves! Wouldn’t we wish we could find that patience, that wisdom,, to know that awfulness diminishes over time?
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More on Alex Ross, Wagnerism
Ross Captures The Meister's Voice
By: - Sep 14th, 2020Alex Ross’s depiction of Wagner in America, in his new work "Wagnerism," is focused at the start on the author Willa Cather. Ross finds Cather and Thomas Mann the most musically educated and sophisticated of the many literary figures who infused their work with the ideas of the Meister. The boundless scope of a work, its inclusion of ancient myth made present, and leitmotifs bound together to organize a story, are key elements of the Wagner style.
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Former Boston Artist Miroslav Antic
Conceptual Painting of Roy Rogers and Trigger
By: - Sep 14th, 2020When Miroslav Antic moved from Boston to Florida, initially he continued to teach as he had for the Museum School. As sales picked up he was able to live modestly including buying a couple of houses. The kids are grown and he lives alone with all his time in the studio. There have been no sales this past year but he is replenishing inventory, It was great to catch up during a recent call to West Palm Beach. He sent along an image of a recent knockout painting of "Roy Rogers and Trigger." It brought back boyhood memories.
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Art New England
Letter from the Publisher
By: - Sep 15th, 2020We are planning a return to print with a January/February 2021 issue of Art New England. In the interim, we are working on enhancing ANE’s website and adding a few exciting new features, including a “rolling” Artist Directory (updated every two weeks); and a “rolling” Destination: New England section dedicated to the entire region.
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The Gifts You Gave to the Dark
Darren Murphy's Play is Online Through Oct. 31
By: - Sep 15th, 2020The Gifts You Gave to the Dark focuses on how we react to death and the power of story during dark times. The play is streaming on the Irish Repertory Theatre's YouTube channel through Oct. 31. A trio of actors offers superb performances.
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Dame Diana Rigg at 82
From Avengers to Game of Thrones
By: - Sep 13th, 2020Dame Diana Rigg was a renowned English performer who played roles such as Emma Peel in The Avengers and Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones. Rigg was a stage and screen star. The Tony Award-winner last appeared as Mrs. Higgins in a 2018 Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. Rigg also portrayed James Bond's wife in the 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
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How George Seybolt Changed the MFA
Board President Initiated Business Concepts from 1968 to 1972
By: - Sep 11th, 2020George Crossan Seybolt (1915-1993) was president and chairman of the William Underwood Company, best known for its canned Deviled Ham. He was recruited to the board of trustees by the director, Perry T. Rathbone. When be became president of the board there was constant conflict. Seybolt mico managed the museum and ousted Rathbone over the Raphael incident. His personal appointment for director, Merrill Rueppel, proved to be a disaster. He was fired after a Globe exposé. Seybolt went on to be a museum lobbyist and visionary. It's what we discussed in 1977.
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MFA Reopens on September 23
The Director Welcomes Us Back
By: - Sep 11th, 2020The MFA will open over the next month or so in phases. First, and with great pleasure, we reopen the Art of the Americas Wing, reinvigorated with some new additions and enhanced interpretation. “Women Take the Floor,” on the Wing’s third level, has new works to see, presenting a refreshed narrative worth another look, and “Black Histories, Black Futures,” the groundbreaking display curated by Boston teens, remains on view in the Level 1 Rotunda, Sharf Visitor Center, and Hemicycle.
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Iris Love
Unforgettable
By: - Sep 11th, 2020The doorbell rang. I was in bed. It was about 9pm and I was a little hung-over from the birthday party I’d hosted the night before. Who could it be? Wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear, I opened the door just enough to see who it was. OMG. It was Iris Love, dressed in her full Scottish clan regalia of plaid tartan kilt, white shirt, knee socks, and jacket with kilt pins and clan badges.
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More on Wagnerism by Alex Ross
George Eliot Absorbs Wagner
By: - Sep 10th, 2020When Wagner’s music crossed the English Channel, it attracted the attention of novelist and critic, George Eliot, who always took a great interest in music. Early on, she identified Wagner’s achievement as a path to the future, writing, “…anyone who finds deficiencies in opera as it has existed hitherto...” must admit that Wagner “…has pointed out the directions in which lyric drama must develop itself, if it is to be developed at all.”
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Racial Injustice Themes in Pop Culture
Arts for Social Justice in America
By: - Sep 08th, 2020Historians a century from now may decide that this part of the 21st century was a political horror show. So it only makes sense that the real world of racial injustice and our racist history is bleeding over into pop culture. We can now partake of film, video, books and music where these historical themes are blended with horror and heroic stories.
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Demi Moore as GI Jane
An Oldie but Goodie
By: - Sep 09th, 2020When the 1997 movie “G.I. Jane” was released women in Israel were already hardened combat veterans. In the US. Military, however, women trying to integrate the male dominated ranks of combat soldiers were met with severe resistance from the heads of the armed forces. “Women will become a distraction and a liability in combat. Combat requires physical strength as well as stamina to handle the rigors of war and combat”.
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