Front Page
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Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman
Stratford Festival of Canada
By: - Sep 03rd, 2016This production is worth seeing less, I believe, for a seldom-seen, lesser Ibsen play, than for a sensitively directed, brilliant cast. The plot development may be drawn out and repetitious, but its dramatic effect onstage is mesmerizing.
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Carl Belz at 78
For 24 Years Director of Rose Art Museum
By: - Sep 03rd, 2016For 24 years Carl Belz was the director of the Rose Art Museum where he was a champion of regional artists with an emphasis on women. There was an annual major exhibition sponsored by Lois Foster who was later instrumental in his ouster when she and her husband Henry were the primary donors of an addition in their name designed by Graham Gund. Belz passed away recently at the age of 78.
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Sotto Voce at Shakespeare & Co.
Displaced Persons Seeking a New Nome.
By: - Aug 28th, 2016Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz spins a lyrical drama centering on the long forgotten voyage of the St. Louis, which carried 939 German Jews seeking asylum. They were turned away and 234 ultimately died in concentration camps. "I can't believe this is happening again," Bernadette, the protagonist, says toward the end of Sotto Voce. The plight of these refugees seems reenacted in today's conflicts.
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Summer at the Movies
Some You Might Have Missed
By: - Aug 27th, 2016A number of quirky little subversive gems a made for a delightful summer. “The Lobster” had only a limited release in March and came into the theaters of middle America at the end of May, making it, by default, a summer movie for those of us not living in New York or LA. Then came “Swiss Army Man,” “Wiener-Dog,” “Captain Fantastic” and “Hunt for the Wilderpeople.”
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Mark Morris Dance at Mostly Mozart
Morris Paints Notes in Dance
By: - Aug 27th, 2016Mark Morris is billed as a musician, and has, in fact, been music director of the Ojai Festival. He is clearly a musicians’ musician and knows as much about music as most professionals. His main gig is choreography. He insists on using live ‘bands,’ in this case, the Mostly Mozart Orchestra. Morris channels Mozart's notes in surprising and apt movements.
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Naughton Twins Play Messiaen
Genetics Gives a New Dimension to Duo Piano at the Crypt
By: - Aug 26th, 2016Two pianos. Four hands. One heart. A spiritual beauty lurks in the origins of Messiaen's music. Certainly duo pianists Michelle and Christina Naughton seem spiritually bound to one another, although there a sparks of difference. This does not suggest conflict, but rather an opportunity to work to achieve unity, as Messiaen must have worked to embrace his God in the face of the Nazi occupation of France.
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The Hypochondriac by Moliere
Stratford Festival of Canada
By: - Aug 26th, 2016Antoni Cimolino’s production is showy, full of brilliant moments, superbly cast, and elaborately staged. But what should be a souffle soon begins to feel like a heavy, overfilled, over-spiced stew.
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Josephine Baker JB Julia Bullock
Hello Blackbird at Mostly Mozart
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Peter Sellars suggested that Julia Bullock interpret Josephine Baker. The young African American, who is more interested in creating musical moments than she is in taking on conventional opera roles, is riveting as Baker in a piece composed by Tyshawn Sorey.
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Opera Love in Santa Fe
Exploring a Theme
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Love is the theme connecting the five productions of the Santa Fe Opera 2016 Festival. Leading off one week of the season was Don Giovanni, where an attempted rape and then a murder jumpstart the opera. The Don is a questionable subject for the discussion of love, as the Don mows down woman after woman in his quest for the Guinness Book of Records first place position as the world’s best, or most effective, seducer. Yet love triumphs.
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Chorus Line in Charleston
Opens 85th Season of Footlight Players
By: - Aug 25th, 2016The production of A Chorus Line which opened the 85th season of Footlight Players in Charleston was so fresh and lively that it was hard to fathom that the musical premiered some four decades ago. The smallish stage was packed with 26 hopefuls auditioning for just eight roles.
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Superb Dining At Ruca Malen
Argentine Local Cuisine Is Paired With World-Class Wine
By: - Aug 25th, 2016Chef Lucas Bustos and Winemaker Pablo Cuneo of Ruca Malen Winery in Mendoza, Argentina have teamed up to make wine pairing easy. Their ever changing menu focuses on local cuisine is paired with wines that Pablo Cuneo makes. It's like a match made in heaven.
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Steve Martin's Meteor Shower
World Premiere at Old Globe Theatre
By: - Aug 24th, 2016“Meteor Shower”, Steve Martin's latest play, is currently wowing audiences at the Old Globe with his far-out sense of humor that deals with the social mores of 1990s California. It has already been extended twice.
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Capriccio at Santa Fe Opera
Insider's Debate Gives Pleasure to All
By: - Aug 23rd, 2016Are words or music more important? In opera there is no debate. Both reign. Richard Strauss, trapped in Nazi Germany because beloved members of his family were Jewish and he wanted to save them, set his last opera as a debate. Unquestionably, in 1942 he was also making a plea for civilization. Santa Fe produces a delightful take on Capriccio.
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Two Gentlemen Of Verona at S&Co.
A Complicated Tale Of First love
By: - Aug 23rd, 2016In this early play by Shakespeare, rarely produced, we find four main characters, two love triangles, two fathers hoping to help their children, two of Shakespeare's clowns and a dog (!) providing laughs for the whole family. The absurdist atmosphere created by the director, Jonathan Croy, allows the audience to see the wonders and obsessions of first love.
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Don Giovanni Burns Up in Santa Fe
Superb Mozart
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016The production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni now running at the Santa Fe Opera is a perfect occasion for a celebration of the opera company’s sixtieth anniversary. Seating over 2200, it is a grand house in part because it is located on a mountain top with a view of the Jemez Mountains. Performances begin at 8pm as the sun sets and the backstage real sky is streaked orange, and red and burnt sienna.
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Mass MoCA Installation by Richard Nonas
The Man in the Empty Space
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016Now in his mid seventies Richard Nonas switched from anthroplogy to sculpture in his thirties. His work is featured in Building Five of MASS MoCA the largest space for contemporary art in North America.
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Gounod's Romeo and Juliet
Santa Fe Opera Orchestra
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016The Santa Fe Orchestra under Harry Bicket charges in the introduction to Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet with a dark gusto. On stage, the Capulets in blue sword fight with the Montagus in red. We quickly cut to the choral summation of the famous tale of ill-fated lover who pave the way to peace among naturally-born enemies.
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Tribes at Barrington Stage Company
Award Winning British Drama by Nina Raine
By: - Aug 22nd, 2016Since its London premiere in 2010 Tribes, an award winning drama by Nina Raine, opened Off Broadway and has since been produced by major regional companies. It is being directed at Barrington Stage Company by Jenn Thompson
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Flexn at Jacob's Pillow
The Arts and Black Lives Matter
By: - Aug 21st, 2016More than a dance company the appearance by Flexn, with its related panels and talk back, proved to be an aesthetic and political movment illustrating through inventive dance why Black Lives Matter.
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Broadway Bounty Hunter Stars Annie Golden
Barrington Stage Debuts Hit Musical by Joe Iconis
By: - Aug 20th, 2016Annie Golden broke out with Hair in 1979. As she sings in a sure to be standard the actress is a "Woman of a Certain Age." She plays herself in a world premiere of Broadway Bounty Hunters by Joe Iconis at Barrington Stage Company. This is a fun musical that you will want to see at least twice. They just don't make them like this anymore.
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Updating the Jason Bourne Series
Matt Damon Returns to Thriller
By: - Aug 19th, 2016Critical reception has been generally mixed. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the flick 3 and one-half stars out of a possible four. I think he was very generous.
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Cafe Society by Woody Allen
Nostalgic Journey Back to the 1930s
By: - Aug 19th, 2016“Café Society” written and directed by Allen, once again, takes us on a nostalgic journey backward in time to the 1930s. Gorgeously photographed by Academy Award- winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro who makes the New York romantic sequences a picture-perfect post card truly ‘made for a boy and a girl’, as the lyrics say in Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers’ iconic song tribute to the Big Apple in “I’ll Take Manhattan”.
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Gonzo Aesthetics of Giuliano’s Poetry
Ultra Cosmic Gonzology
By: - Aug 18th, 2016With the third book of poetry by Charles Giuliano, Ultra Cosmic Gonzology, again the essayist is Robert Henriquez. The former CBS News producer has probed deeply into aspects of the avant-garde and places the development of gonzo poetry into a larger historical and literary context. The new book will be launched with a reading at Gloucester Writers Center on August 31.
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Provincetown Arts
31 Years of Publishing
By: - Aug 17th, 2016Mid summer, since 1985, we anticipate the annual issue of Provincetown Arts. The current magazine features whimsical works by the figurative fantasy painter Tabitha Vevers.
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Terrence McNally Play in Fort Lauderdale
Love! Valour! Compassion! at Andrews Living Arts Studio
By: - Aug 16th, 2016“Love! Valour! Compassion!” is a character-driven, relatable, touching and terribly timely work with just a smidgen of sentimentality. The play, which will cause you to laugh one moment and cry the next, a la Neil Simon, vividly captures the fears, hopes, heartbreaks, tension and pride of a group of eight gay men in the summer of 1995.
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