Front Page
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Kendall Messick’s "Blind Sight"
To See and to be Seen
By: - Aug 13th, 2020In October 2019, I was having dinner with my friend Kendall Messick, an artist who creates installations with still photography, film, video and ever-evolving two-and three-dimensional media. Over dinner he told me he was flying to Bogota, Colombia, the next day for a major installation of his work. The show is an achievement of both patience and memory. It was thirty-four years in the making.
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What Joe Thompson Means to Northern Berkshire County
The Daunting Legacy of MASS MoCA
By: - Aug 22nd, 2020Joe Thompson graduated from Williams College in 1981. As founding director of MASS MoCA he has been here ever since. Stepping down in October he will sever ties next summer. Between now and then he will plan the next move. Other than some loose ends his remarkable work here is complete. Magnificently so.
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Tony Awards to Take Place Virtually
Annual Ceremony Honors Excellence on Broadway
By: - Aug 22nd, 2020The Tony Awards will take place online this year. Earlier this year, presenters postponed the event due to the pandemic. The annual ceremony recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater.
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The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography
A Netflix Documentary
By: - Aug 30th, 2020Elsa Dorfman was the limner of the Beat Generation. She made deadpan, large-format Polaroid potraits of her celebrity pals as well as ordinary folks. She passed away a few months ago but is superbly recalled in a Netflix documentary by Errol Morris. It's so like Elsa who is regarded as a major artist but described herself repeatedly as a "nice Jewish girl."
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Ross On Wagnerism
The Intoxification of Baudelaire
By: - Sep 03rd, 2020Alex Ross whose Wagnerism is to be published on September 15th, first heard Wagner on a LP record borrowed from his local library. Listening to Lohengrin, he was neither transformed nor transfixed. The Meister is not a free pass to paradise. Yet many listeners have been instantly seduced by a steady procession of creeping chromaticisms.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Richard Curtis Presents The Creepery
A Podcast Series from a Horror Dramatist
By: - Oct 04th, 2020Richard Curtis, masterful playwright and master of mystery, has produced a new creepy podcast series in time for Horror Season. Episode 1, You Have a Guest, is available now. A demon’s dozen disturbing audio dramas are conjured out of the dark imagination of this horror dramatist. .
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Jay Critchley Takes on the White House
Tarred and Feathered in Provincetown
By: - Oct 06th, 2020The Provincetown based conceptual artist, Jay Critchley, is known for wit and outrageous projects. Trump has him mad as hell and he can't take it anymore. Rather than just get mad he's getting even. His latest stunt it literally to tar and feather the White House.
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B3 2020, Hello Truths, Frankfurt/Germany
And Silo Solos, Boston, MA
By: - Oct 07th, 2020The 2020 B3 Biennial in Frankfurt/Germany will open with 'Hello Truths, Extravaganza Virtuale' on October 9 in the US East Coast time zone @ 4 pm and in Frankfurt/Main @ 10 pm. The festival will be concluded after ten days on October 18. More than 100 artists from 23 countries will participate in an array of virtual events.
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Images Cinema in Williamstown
Update on Lockdown
By: - Oct 07th, 2020Images Cinema, an art house in Williamstown. has been shut down going on eight months. Here is an update from executive director, Doug Jones.
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Rise Up by Ariel Klein
Urban Protest Art at Eclipse Mill Gallery
By: - Oct 08th, 2020This past summer the artist, Ariel Klein, was in the thick of New York’s protests against the police inflicted murder of George Floyd. He was a resident of Brooklyn and its community of artists. His take on that is on view as “Rise Up” at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams.
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Broadway Won't Re-open Before May 30
Theaters To Remain Dark Into 2021
By: - Oct 14th, 2020Broadway will remain shuttered through at least May 30 which will mark 444 days since all 41 theaters went dark due to COVID-19. Broadway officials have said that they project productions to eventually resume over a series of rolling dates.
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Composer Victoria Bond in Recent Works
Pianist Paul Barnes and Violist Martha Mooke Perform
By: - Oct 15th, 2020Victoria Bond brings a distinctive, rich ear to her musical composition in many forms. A recent commission provided a chance to collaborate with Paul Barnes, a go-to pianist for both Bond and Philip Glass. Bond's Simaron Kremata is based on a Greek chant and opens with a five note melody which repeats.
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Tony Nominations Announced
Honoring Broadway's Best
By: - Oct 16th, 2020The Tony Awards' presenters announced the nominees for the 74th Annual Tony Awards. The pandemic cut this past Broadway Season short. Alanis Morissette's musical, Jagged Little Pill, leads the way with 15 nominations. In the Play category, Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play comes out on top with 12 nominations. A date for the Tony Awards presentation has yet to be announced.
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Daniel Kershaw Stages the Show
The Art of Native America at the Met
By: - Oct 20th, 2020Before covid and shut-downs, millions of viewers each year passed through the galleries at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at Daniel Kershaw's stagings. He is a design star you’ve never heard of. As Senior Exhibition Designer at the largest museum in the United States, Kershaw’s job is to plan and build environments for up to a dozen shows annually.
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Gardner Museum Faces Challenges
A $5 Million Matching Gift
By: - Oct 21st, 2020As part of a $65-million campaign called Renewing the Promise: For the Public Forever, which is raising funds to implement the Gardner’s bold Strategic Plan and ensure the continued success of the Museum’s vision and values into the future, a gift challenges the Museum to raise $5 million in endowment funds by 2024. These funds will be matched 1:1 with a $5 million contribution from the anonymous donor.
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Mark St. Germain's Typhoid Mary
Barrington Stage to Stream October 30 & 31
By: - Oct 21st, 2020Mark St Germain's Typhoid Mary will be filmed in advance with the cast performing remotely. It will be available to stream on October 30 & 31 at 7:30 pm ET. The ever more timely play premiered at Barrington Stage Company in 2018.
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