Front Page
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MAGMA Opens in Gloucester
Dance Program of Sarah Slifer Swift
By: - Aug 29th, 2017To launch Sareah Slifer Swft's Movement Art Gloucester MA (MAGMA) there were popup performances as well as card triks by her adolescent son Seamus. It was a fun way to christen a great space for dance and the performing arts.
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Brigsby Bear Directed by Dave McCary,
A Sweet Indie Film
By: - Aug 29th, 2017If you missed the movingly sweet indie film “Brigsby Bear,” you are not alone. My theater cancelled their scheduled weekend showings after a negligible audience for its opening Friday, though they did allow it a 4:00 p.m. showing the following Monday and Wednesday afternoons before sending it on its way.
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Step by Amanda Lipitz
Award Winning Documentary Film
By: - Aug 29th, 2017If there are antidotes to Charlottesville, one may be “Step,” the new documentary from Amanda Lipitz that won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2017 AFI Docs festival. The film tells the remarkable story of the step team at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSYW). The school opened its doors to sixth graders in 2009. In the spring of 2016, its inaugural class was preparing to graduate.
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The Sunshine Boys in The Sunshine State
Neil Simon Comedy at Margate's Stage Door Theater
By: - Aug 28th, 2017Neil Simon's one-liners are a refreshing change-of-pace to unsettling plays in the era of Trump. Actors nail comic timing in Broward Stage Door Theater's production of The Sunshine Boys. Director and cast don't forget the pathos in the Neil Simon's play
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Out of the Mouths of Babes
Israel Horovitz Play at Gloucester Stage
By: - Aug 28th, 2017Forty years ago playwright Israel Horovitz was a founder of Gloucester stage which has produced many of his 70 plus plays. Many have Gloucester settings but the latest Out of the Mouths of Babes is a part of a Parisian trilogy with one more to go. It was produced last summer at Cherry Lane in Manhattan. It is having its New England premiere in Gloucester and debuts in London this fall.
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Madama Butterfly Returns to Metropolitan Opera
A Great Love Story
By: - Aug 28th, 2017It's one of the greatest love stories of the operatic canon. It's a sharp commentary on American imperialism and the uncaring treatment of "natives" by white people. It's both. It's brilliant. It's Butterfly.
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A Glut of Tomato
Tips, Quips and Recepies
By: - Aug 28th, 2017I’ll let you in on my recipe for the best pasta sauce ever. Roasting the tomatoes adds a certain nutty, burnt richness to the sauce.
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Iceland: Part Two
Reykjavik and Western Iceland
By: - Aug 27th, 2017Iceland is a destination for both the culture and nature enthusiast. Although Reykjavik is a small capital city, its cultural offerings are as varied as those of any major European capital. Snaefellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland is dotted with charming coastal villages and a feast of natural wonders. Snaefelsjokull, a glacier capped 700,000-year-old volcano, looms large over the western end of the peninsula.
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Dell'Arte's Calisto and Cunning Vixen
Two Worlds Mix and Match in Opera
By: - Aug 26th, 2017Separated by almost three hundred the years, the full productions of Dell’Arte’s annual festival both looked at how two worlds mix and match in Calisto and The Cunning Vixen. Both productions were at once delightful and moving.
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Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble Untamed
Impeccable Opera Produced with Verve
By: - Aug 25th, 2017Opera is a form comprised of many elements. Seldom are all of them addressed successfully. Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble succeeds in producing intriguing and complex theater with attention to every detail. How do they do it, opera after opera, concert after concert?
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Languedoc AOC Pezenas Quality Wines
Languedoc Is France's Largest Wine Producer
By: - Aug 23rd, 2017On a recent trip to Languedoc, the wines from the first evenings samplings of AOC Pezenas stood out as quality driven wines. In fact, one out of every ten wines sold worldwide is from Languedoc.
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Shorts Gone Wild in South Florida
Annual Short Play Festival at times a hoot
By: - Aug 22nd, 2017Audiences choose the order of the plays in annual "Shorts" festival. Actors bring comic energy to roles in production of popular theatrical event. Relevance not hard to spot in largely-escapist shows
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Robin Hood the Musical by Kem Ludwig
World Premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre
By: - Aug 21st, 2017San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has the honor of mounting the World Premiere of Ken Ludwig’s newest comedy/farce “Robin Hood”, deftly directed by longtime stage and TV veteran Jessica Stone.
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Ivan Fischer's Don Giovanni
Mozart at his Most Sublime
By: - Aug 20th, 2017Ivan Fischer, the great Hungarian conductor, returns to Mozart's original version of Don Giovanni. Putting on a production from the Don's point of view, everything is a body. Furniture, peasants, chorus all are wearing white body suits and often strike arresting poses. This concept invites us to listen more closely to the terrific Budapest Festival Orchestra and the singers.
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Film Night at Tanglewood
Andris Nelsons Shares Conducting with John Williams
By: - Aug 20th, 2017Opening the first half of the annual Film Night at Tanglewood Andris Nelsons shared conducting duties with 85-year-old John Williams. Nelson's was a surprise guest trumpet soloist in the score of Lincoln by Williams. It was a sold out evening on a perfect summer night in Lenox. It is always a thrill to hear him conduct the iconic scores that have earned him a record 50 Academy Awards nominctions.
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Sophie Treadwell's 1928 Machinal
Chicago's Greenhouse Theater Center,
By: - Aug 19th, 2017Machinal, a new production of a neglected 1928 play by Sophie Treadwell at the Greenhouse Theater Center, is stunning in its balletic staging and the nuanced performance of Heather Crisler, playing the Young Woman.
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Gil Shaham Plays Tchaikovsky
Langrée Leads Mostly Mozart
By: - Aug 18th, 2017Mostly Mozart programs with intent. While the most obvious connections between a program including Prokovief's 1st Symphony, Mozart's 25th and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto may be their bridge positions between musical periods, the Classical, Romantic and Neoclassical, more than a ladder rung binds these pieces. Exuberant turns of phrase, often taken at a tear, provide their texture. Violinist Gil Shaham uses his consummate pyrotechnics on behalf of the music.
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Trisha Brown Dance Company
Triumphant Return to Jacob’s Pillow
By: - Aug 18th, 2017Trisha Brown was a founder of Judson Dance Theatre and was an influence on following generations of dancers exploring post modernism and pure movement. Dhe died in March at 80. This week the company has performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance with works tom 1980 to 2009.
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How Mom Became Dr. Josephine R. Flynn
Middlesex Later Became Brandeis University
By: - Aug 18th, 2017This is another chapter from Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport. It will be launched with a reading on Wednesday, August 23, at Gloucester Writers Center, 126 East Main Street, Gloucester, 01930. The event, paired with Annisquam poet, Geoffrey Movius, is free and will start at 7:30 PM. Mom graduated from Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery during the Great Depression. After WWII its founder, Dr. John Hall Smith, sold the Waltham property which was launched as Brandeis University. I graduated from Brandeis in the class of 1963.
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Kirill Gerstein. at Mostly Mozart
Celebrating the love triangle of Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms
By: - Aug 17th, 2017The trials and tribulations of the great Romantic composers have always fascinated the classical music-loving public. From the extramarital wanderings of Richard Wagner to Frederic Chopin's stormy relationship with the lady novelist George Sand, it has provided fodder for intermission conversation over coffee and small overpriced sandwiches. Arguably, the most famous triangle relationship was between three composers: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms.
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Gershwin at 59E59 Theaters
Anderson Twins Play
By: - Aug 17th, 2017The Anderson Brothers, consummate musicians, make the case for Gershwin's popularity by citing his access to the new media, radio. The songs themselves are enough to convince us. Joined by Molly Ryan, who has a perfectly beautiful voice, the fabled composer entrances.
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Berkshire Resident Jerry Martin 1926-2017
Artist / Illustrator and Master of Green River
By: - Aug 17th, 2017A man for all seasons, Jerry Martin, the Berkshire artist/ illustrator has passed. With quirky Mr. Natural looks and mannerisms he was a pithy and complex character and friend. He was a lively presence in the Alice’s Restaurant gang that hung out at the church in Stockbridge and communal holiday gatherings. In the summer we skinny dipped in the secluded Green River on his spacious property. Benno Friedman remembers our much loved friend. He passed this week at 91
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Hamlet in San Diego
Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival Theatre
By: - Aug 16th, 2017“Hamlet” once again graces the Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival stage as part of the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival. The ‘melancholy Dane’ and his travails is crisply directed by the Old Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi artistic director Barry Edelstein, who caps off another winning season of plays and musicals selected and produced under his stewardship.
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Picpoul de Pinet From Southern France
A Perfect Acidic Wine For Seafood
By: - Aug 16th, 2017In southern France, close to the Mediterranean Sea lies a region that specializes in wines made for seafood. That wine is Picpoul de Pinet and is perfect for oysters, mussels, clams and the gamut of seafood that inhabits the earth.
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Financial Crisis of the Berkshire Museum
What Do the Numbers Add Up To
By: - Aug 16th, 2017As a matter of public record we have examined the Federal tax information Form 990 disclosures of the Berkshire Museum from 2011 to 2015. They do not appear to create a profile of a cultural institution in dire straits. The museum is going forward with last ditch plans to sell 40 works of art. It is possible that there has been a dramatic downturn in the past two years? A Berkshire Eagle editorial asked “Why deny access to the museum's profit/loss statements for the past two years?" Based on reports for the prior five years we have questions for the museum, its director, Van Shields, and the board of trustees.
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