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More Fun with Jeff and Jane
Concert at Williams Inn Nov. 19
By: - Oct 17th, 2016Dyno rockers Jeff and Jane Hudson will present an (ahem) New Wave Party at the Williams Inn on November 19. The vintage punk rockers are promoting their latest release The Middle which combines new and old material. Until recently they operated an antiques store at Mass MoCA. Jane is a legendary genius while Jeff is generally viewed as a piece of work. Together they make strange and rhapsodic music. Never miss one of their iconic events.
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2016 Berkies Announced
First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards
By: - Oct 17th, 2016There has been extensive media coverage of the First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards. The winners of The Berkies have been announced. There will be an awards celebration 5 pm on November 13 at Mr. Finn’s Cabaret in Pittsfield. In this first round of awards Barrington Stage Company and Shakespeare & Company dominated in most categories. The smash hit Pirates of Penzance ran the table. The Larry Murray Award, named for the founder, will be the only suprise of the gathering of critics, media and theater mavens.
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Brahms' Human Requiem
White Lights Festival
By: - Oct 16th, 2016Can listeners experience music as their own, an inside experience enjoyed by performers? Yes, in the extraordinary productioin conceived by Jochen Sanig and brought to life by the Rundfunkchor Berlin under Simon Halsey assisted by Nicolas Fink. The setting was Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Brahms' Requiem was the experience.
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Roundabout Presents The Cherry Orchard
Diane Lane, Joel Grey, John Glover, Chuck Cooper
By: - Oct 16th, 2016The Cherry Orchard was Anton Chevkov’s last play. He drew a picture of an old Russian family at the end of their run, their beloved cherry orchard and the hundreds of acres that it fills will be auctioned in August to pay the debts of Liuboff Andreievna Raneyskaya. Liuboff, the role originally created by Chekhov’s wife, is now enlivened by Diane Lane in her return to the New York stage. Lane’s first Broadway appearance was in The Cherry Orchard decades ago.
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Nick Cave’s Until at MASS MoCA
Bling, Bling, Sparkle, Sparkle
By: - Oct 16th, 2016Bling, bling, bling went our heartstrings during a first encounter with Nick Cave's "Until" which will be on view at MASS MoCA for a year. The installation which has a festive, crowd pleasing appeal is a not readily apparent statement about deaths of African-Americans in police custody in places like Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.
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First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards
Berkies Launched by Critic Larry Murray
By: - Oct 14th, 2016For the first annual Berkshire Theatre Awards seven shows received more than five nominations each including 11 for The Pirates of Penzance and eight for Broadway Bounty Hunter, both produced by Barrington Stage Company. Seven nominations were received for Or, and six for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare & Company. Also popular with five nominations each are The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Little Shop of Horrors (Berkshire Theatre Group), and American Son (Barrington Stage).
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Hand to God
GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida
By: - Oct 14th, 2016“Hand to God,” the biting, darkly comic, disturbing, thought-provoking and meaty play is receiving a solid southeastern premiere at GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida through Oct. 30.
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Sir Simon Rattle and Mahler at Carnegie Hall
The Philadelphia In Magnificent Form
By: - Oct 12th, 2016Sir Simon Rattle, the great conductor of the Berliner Philharmonika, joined forces with an A list orchestra, the Philadelphia, to perform Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony. In an interview Rattle says, Mahler "was my road to Damascus moment. This is something that has lived with me all my life. And it is something that will never stop being a challenge and a discovery."
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St. Germain’s Camping with Henry and Tom
Barrington's Revival Seems Ripped from the Headlines
By: - Oct 10th, 2016The 1993 Mark St. Germain play, Camping with Henry and Tom, is as fresh as a daisy in a timely revival at Barrington Stage Company. With an update of just five lines Henry Ford, originally inspired by third party candidate Ross Perot, has an uncanny resemblance to the worst aspects of Donald Trump.
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Ryan Thorn and Andrew Sun at Carnegie Hall
Marilyn Horne Makes the Case for Song
By: - Oct 09th, 2016How fortunate we are to have class Ambassadors for the new crop of musical talent. Both Ryan Thorn, baritone, and Andrew Sun, pianist, have participated at Marilyn Horne's Santa Barbara school and in its competition. Horne stepped to the front of the altar at a church on the upper West Side of Manhattan and made the case for the importance of Song, from Solomon to Richard Rogers.
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Joe Sutton's Brilliant Orwell in America
At 59E59th Street Theater
By: - Oct 09th, 2016Playwright Joe Sutton creates George Orwell twisting moment to moment. Jamie Horton is magnificent in the wrenching role. Orwell’s discomfort, his loneliness, his humor and passion are all developed before us in language that is very much the author’s. Director Peter Hackett brings off this complicated character in an enormously engaging piece.
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Simon Bolivar Orchestra at Carnegie Hall
Gustavo Dudamel Sets the Hall A-Buzz
By: - Oct 08th, 2016Gustavo Dudalmel went from the street to El Sistema with a music program for poor kids in Venezuela. Over time, the role of music in society has become ever more important and consuming for him. He mission is comparable only to Riccardo Muti's.
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Sunday in the Park Stunning at Huntington
Sondheim and Seurat Bring Out the Best in Each Other
By: - Oct 06th, 2016Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his obssession with “the art of making art.” Certainly, one of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois who did a superb job with last year's A Little Night Music.
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The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
Florida's Outre Theatre Company
By: - Oct 04th, 2016“The Normal Heart” deals with multiple thought-provoking, timely themes and issues that spur discussion, make us look inward and potentially take action: The need to work together toward a common goal, the uselessness of fighting and blaming one another, reconciliation among family members, the agenda of the press and government, the right to be recognized as valued citizens and feel loved as well as to live and die with dignity.
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Andris Nelsons Delivers a Sublime "Der Rosenkavalier"
Renee Fleming Sings Her Most Sympathetic Role with Susan Graham
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" is a model of passionate communication via music. The story of the Marschallin who hands over her young lover Octavian to a girl his own age drips with fin-de-siecle melancholy. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Richard Strauss’s beloved comedy “Der Rosenkavalier” was as close to perfection as I have heard.
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The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley
Faking Vermeers in WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group's Co-Production
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley in Stockbridge at the Unicorn Theatre is a co-production of WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group. An artist is on trial for selling Vermeers to the Nazis. He has to make a fake to prove his innocence. The play is based on a true story in post war Holland.
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New Victory's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Captain Nemo Makes His Case
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016The New Victory uses every imaginable tool to go to the depths of the ocean in a 19th century submarine. Jules Verne tells his story with present references to the throttling of the sea by plastic and a case for democratic leadership.
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Tony and Emmy Winner Hal Linden
Now 85 in Fantasticks at Pasadena Playhouse
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016I think because the writing was solid, not “trendy”, and always very relatable. I recently put together a clip reel for a concert appearance I was doing, and I had to sit down and watch over 100 hours of “Barney Miller” episodes. I was amazed at how substantial they were, and that they still hold up almost forty years later.
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October Sky at Old Globe
Musical is Outasight
By: - Oct 03rd, 2016“October Sky” is an uplifting, feel-good type of musical that boasts 19 songs with such numbers as “Look to the Stars”, “We’re Gonna Build a Rocket”, “Stars Shine Down”, “The Man I Met”, and “The Last Kiss Goodbye”, the latter number being especially poignant as sung by the miners’ wives and girlfriends.
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On Site Opera with Argento and Berlioz
Stanford White's Harmonie Club Ballroom is the Setting
By: - Oct 02nd, 2016While huge opera houses are the dinosaurs of the 21st century, smaller venues for the presentation of the original multi-media art form are thriving. Opera is alive and well in every nook and corner of the world. Even in grand ballrooms of exclusive Manhattan Clubs like the Harmonie.
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Mongolia Part One
Ulaanbaatar and Gorkhi-Terelj National Park
By: - Oct 01st, 2016An independent country since 1990, Mongolia is a vast land situated between China and Russia. It has retained its centuries old nomadic life style and culture, despite 80 years under socialism. Ulaanbaatar , the capital city, is a vibrant metropolis with temples and museums, and is quickly establishing itself in the world community. Gorkhi-Terelj National Park boasts a landscape of forests, granite hills, rivers and meadows. It is home to 550 nomadic families and a favorite vacation spot for city dwellers.
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Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife
From Stratford Festival to Chicago's Timeline
By: - Oct 01st, 2016The Last Wife premiered last year at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and Timeline snagged it for its first US production. The 2.5 hour play is smart and funny and will have you turning on your phone at intermission to look at Katherine Parr’s Wikipedia page.
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Mahabharata as Battlefield via Peter Brook at BAM
A Startling Message from the Distant Past
By: - Sep 30th, 2016Mahabharata is older and many times as long as the Bible. Its message of man's impulsive thrust to war and destruction is as fresh today as it must have been when it was first composed. Brook has tackled the piece before. This short form packs a powerful punch.
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Calixto Bieito's "Carmen" at the BLO
Controversial Production Lives Up to Expectations
By: - Sep 29th, 2016Calixto Bieito restores the sexuality long-missing to "Carmen" - but it is the guys, the half-naked soldiers in Spain's North Africa outpost, who are hot. His Carmen is a cool existentialist, half in love with easeful death. Her murder by a spurned lover on an empty stage outside the bullring could have been staged by Samuel Beckett. This is a controversial production for the expanded Boston Lyric Opera.
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Metropolitan Opera's Controversial Opening
Cast in Trenchcoats Shine in Tristan and Isolde
By: - Sep 27th, 2016Never has the disconnect between glorious singing and a production been so clear. To put Tristan and Isolde in trenchcoats isn't even a starter in a Wagner opera. Stuart Skelton, Nina Stemme, Rene Pape, Ekaterina Gubanova and Evgeny Nitikin are all superb in their roles. It is an insult to put such world class singers on this set. Do not be tempted by the HD. Listen on the radio where you can enjoy the opera's glories.
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