Front Page
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Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss
Produced by Opera San Jose
By: - Sep 17th, 2019The intersection of the world of grand opera and musical confection rarely occurs. An exception to that rule would be Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus. Maestro Michael Morgan maintains brisk pace throughout the musical sections, resulting in a spirited rendering of the score.
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Harold Pinter's Betrayal
Director Jamie Lloyd's Broadway Revival
By: - Sep 23rd, 2019Pinter tells this story with a twist – the play begins two years after the affair has ended, and ends as the affair is beginning.
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Clara Schuman 200 Years Young
Works by Women Composers Featured at National Sawdust
By: - Sep 29th, 2019Constellation by Emma O'Halloran was inspired by images of hands in the first cave drawings. Turns out that most of these were women's hands, and they looked like constellations, which was O'Halloran's jumping off point. Naomi Louisa O'Connell drew their pictures in riveting song.
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Wittengenstein and Russell Revealed
Douglas Lackey Play at Theater for the New City
By: - Oct 01st, 2019Lackey is a master at bringing philosophy out of the dusty corners of academia and putting them on a very passion filled center stage. As with his previous works produced at Theater for a New City Daylight Precision (2014) and Arendt/ Heidegger; a love story (2018) Ludwig and Bertie is a victory for smart theater.
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Falling In South Florida
New City Players Presents Deanna Jent's Dramady
By: - Oct 21st, 2019Falling is a touching, honest look at a family caring for an autistic young man. New City Players' production presents a master class is naturalistic acting. The production runs through Sunday.
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Wondrous Oscar Wao at Repertorio Espanol
Written and Directed by Marco Antonio Rodriquez
By: - Oct 23rd, 2019Repertorio Espanol Presents The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao based on the novel by Junot Diaz. It is written and directed by Marco Antonio Rodriquez. The Pulitzer winning novel (2008) creates a painfully socially dysfunctional character. A young Dominican man armors himself within the world of sci-fi fantasy in order to weather the difficult process of assimilation. The story is as much a tale of one man's unbearable loneliness as it is a metaphor for the scars and trauma of ruthless dictatorial oppression, social fragmentation, ultimate immigration and assimilation.
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Ancient Nubia Now
Social Justice Catches Up with the MFA
By: - Oct 25th, 2019During a recent visit to the Museum of Fine Arts a school group was inappropriately treated in a blatantly racist manner. That has caught the museum, and its director Matthew Teitelbaum, in the cross hairs of media whiplash. There is a shameful legacy of racism and anti Semitism at the MFA. It will take decades to make appropriate changes.
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Billy Elliot at Goodspeed
Boys of Ballet
By: - Oct 26th, 2019Some flaws exist in this production of Billy Elliot directed by Gabriel Barre and choreographed by Marc Kimelman. Barre has changed a few things from the original show and overall they work,
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Kingfishers Catch Fire
Play by Robin Glendinning at Irish Rep
By: - Oct 26th, 2019The play by Robin Glendinning is based on fact. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the first Irish priest to hold the title of Notary of the Holy Office, spent WWII at the Vatican, where he proved to be a man of action.
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Boston Jazz Entrepreneur Fred Taylor at 90
What and Quit Show Biz!
By: - Oct 27th, 2019Jazz entrepreneur Fred Taylor has passed at 90. He never retired producing concerts and programming for the Cabot Theatre in Beverly. Not surprisingly his yet to be published autobiography, a collaboration with Richard Vacca, is titled What and Quit Show Business. Taylor booked Boston's Jazz Workshop/ Paul’s Mall from 1963 to 1978. From 1991 to 2017 he booked Scullers Jazz Club and produced the Tanglewood Jazz Festival from 2001 to 2007.
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Tootsie the Musical
Drag Wins Tony on Broadway
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Michael/Dorothy comes alive on Broadway. The updated book by Robert Horn in the musical version of Tootsie shifts the action from the soap opera world to that of Broadway and improves the narrative and dynamics. David Yazbeck’s pop score with sparkling and penetrating lyrics adds another dimension with a sharper focus on female empowerment.
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Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning
Off Broadway At Playwrights Horizons
By: - Nov 07th, 2019Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning has more religious, personal, and political exposition (read talk) than many a mind can absorb at one sitting, The play is essentially a snapshot of the current divisive state of affairs in this country.
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Pacini's Mary Tudor at Odyssey Opera
First-Rate Mounting of an Under-appreciated Gem
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Queen Mary I is infatuated with the Scottish adventurer Fenimoore, who is in love with Clothilde, who in turn loves Ernesto. Romance and political intrigue are treacherous bedfellows in this opera based on Victor Hugo’s play about Mary Tudor. A remarkable and largely forgotten opera, its expressive vocal characterization paints an unforgettable portrait of a Queen and the repercussions of her indulgence in an unwise love. Presented as a fully-staged production in Italian with English subtitles. Libretto by Leopoldo Tarantini.
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Arnold Trachtman Boston Protest Artist at 89
A Formidable Legacy of Social Concern
By: - Nov 09th, 2019An exhibition of Vietnam protest paintings by Arnold Trachtman was censored and closed by the admninistration of Harvard University. We remounted it at the Institute of Contemporary Art then on Soldier's Field Road. That formed a professional and personal relationship. He was a part of a niche of major Boston artists that existed out of the mainstream, Yesterday he passed away in Cambridge at 89.
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Ain't Too Proud
Jukebox Musical About The Temptations On Broadway
By: - Nov 16th, 2019Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations is playing in Broadway. This show, while a jukebox musical, does more than string a series of hits together. The dancing is electric and the singing is expressive.
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West Side Story
Classic Musical In South Florida
By: - Nov 23rd, 2019Broadway in Broward series kicks off strong with a heartfelt production of West Side Story. Broadway Palm's inaugural series production features talented triple threat performers. The production runs through Dec. 1.
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Jack Lyons on Broadway
California Critic Covers Three One Act Plays
By: - Nov 25th, 2019It takes stamina and seven league boots to keep up with my running buddy Jack Lyons. He was my plus one for the recent American Theatre Critics Association annual New York Conference. In addition to a day of panel discussions and lunch with the stars at Sardi's he took in the three plays covered here. When out of breath trying to keep with some affection I call him Jack Rabbit.
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Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death
Putrid Cadavers a Late Bloomer for the MFA
By: - Nov 28th, 2019The Museum of Fine Arts last featured Boston Expressionist Hyman Bloom in a 1959 group show. The current exhibition Hyman Bloom Matters of Life and Death, curated by Erica E. Hirshler, attempts to make up for that lapse. The focus on cadaver paintings and drawings is bold and spectacular. The work is ghastly with haunting beauty. On a national level it is among the year's best museum exhibitions.
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Obama’s Picks for Best Films
Everyone’s a Critic
By: - Dec 30th, 2019The conventional wisdom is that everyone is a critic. Which is an insult to those of us who pursue the difficult and complex craft. Why on earth would I give a fig about the year end movie list of former president Obama? I don't dabble in politics or take up brain surgery as a hobby. Having an opinion, and posting on social media, does not make you a critic.
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Copenhagen By Michael Frayn
Do the Math
By: - Dec 30th, 2019“But why did he come to Copenhagen? What was he trying to tell you?” This opening line by the deceased Margrethe Bohr is the entry point of Michael Frayn’s multilayered delight of a Tony-winning Best Play – equal parts science lesson, mystery, biographical drama, and morality play.
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Matthew Lopez’s Epic The Inheritance
Sniff of E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End
By: - Jan 06th, 2020In this two part play, that runs more than six hours, Matthew Lopez focuses on the modern generation of gay men whose current acceptance is built on the backs of earlier generations.
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Jeremy Schonfeld's Iron & Coal
Rock Opera at Prototype
By: - Jan 14th, 2020Iron & Coal is a live rock show presented as part of the Prototype Festival at the Gerald Lynch Theater in New York. The title refers to an iron will to survive, but also to the charred emotions that remain after a concentration camp incarceration. The songwriter Jeremy Schonfeld tells the story of his father’s arrival in America at 11. He searched for his place in our sun, and especially to answer the question: for what purpose did I survive when so many others did not.
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Barrington Stage Company 2020
Music, Music, Music
By: - Jan 16th, 2020Barrington Stage Company will present two World Premiere musicals and new productions of a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical classic, a Tony Award-winning musical revue, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. BSC will also perform outdoors for the first time with free performances of one of the company’s World Premiere musicals and featuring the company’s popular Youth Theatre.
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Jo Sandman: The Photographic Work
Legacy Project at Fitchburg Art Museum
By: - Jan 17th, 2020Jo Sandman: The Photographic Work on view February 8–June 7, 2020 at the Fitchburg Art Museum explores Sandman’s turn to photography in the 1990s.
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Equity Tour of Aladdin
Disney Musical Stops In Florida
By: - Jan 18th, 2020A national equity tour of Aladdin features spectacle and substance. Aladdin continues to enthrall with its magic and visuals. The Disney show is making stops in Florida.
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