Front Page
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Tom Krens Has Plans for Northern Berkshires
Discusses Williamstown to North Adams Cultural Corridor
By: - Dec 07th, 2015For seven years former Guggenheim Foundation director, Tom Krens, made grueling monthly trips to China. He declines to discuss how he was "beaten down" in negotiations with the Chinese. He has opted to develop two museum level projects closer to home. Krens, a Williams alumnus and former director of its museum, initiated what is now Mass MoCA. He left decades ago but has maintained a residence in Williamstown.
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Noel Coward's Fallen Angel
Chicago's Greenhouse Theater Center to January 10
By: - Dec 07th, 2015Noel Coward is known as the playwright of brittle, witty Roaring Twenties drawing room comedies such as Blithe Spirit, Design for Living, Private Lives and Hay Fever, which are part of the regular repertoire for theaters all over the world. Fallen Angels, a 1923 play, is not as well known and reviewers considered it vulgar and risqué when first produced in 1925 in London and in 1927 in New York.
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Diana Damrau at Carnegie Hall
A Range of Dramatic Power and Grace
By: - Dec 06th, 2015Diana Damrau attends every detail of her performance. A gifted programmer, she started small and moving, with a Schubert song and ended vamping Dvorak.
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Another Take on the Hip-Hopera Hamilton
Hottest Ticket on Broadway
By: - Dec 06th, 2015Hamilton the hottest ticket in New York City, boasting $ 27 million advance ticket sales in just the first few weeks since opening. Rumors have it that orchestra tickets are selling on the street in excess of $1300 each for a weekend performance.
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Tom Krens Outlines Plans for a Cultural Corridor
Former Governors Dukakis and Weld Share North Adams Podium
By: - Dec 05th, 2015Using a satellite image Tom Krens commented on a six mile line connecting North Adams and Williamstown. It was a part of an engaging power point presentation to develop a cultural corridor connecting world class resources including a new for profit museum and one in North Adams featuring model railroads and maquettes by renowned architects. Former governors Dukakis and Weld attended the presentation.
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Hollywood and the Media
Spotlight and Truth
By: - Dec 04th, 2015The investigative stories depicted in "Spotlight" and "Truth" although based on events that occurred not that long ago represent that last gasp of the tradition of great American journalism. Beyond entertainment these films raise issues about the ever diminished means by which we get the news.
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Visiting Hilton Head Island South Carolina
A Top Family and Golf Destination
By: - Dec 03rd, 2015Noted as a golf-lovers paradise with opportunities to play on many different courses Hilton Head Island features spectacular natural scenery. There are fabulous restaurants, gracious homes surrounded by live oaks and Spanish moss, dozens of shopping venues from upscale to outlets. And fantastic resorts!
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Rio de Janeiro
The incomparable 24-hour city
By: - Dec 02nd, 2015Host for the 2016 Olympics and Paralympic Games, Rio has spectacular natural landmarks, gorgeous sparkling beaches, notable museums and an appealing laid-back joyous lifestyle evident all hours of the day and night.
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Journey Poetically Documents a Decade of Travels
Urban Designer/Artist Mark Favermann's Critical Eye to the Built Environment
By: - Dec 02nd, 2015For the past several decades, photography has been a creative media for urban designer/artist Mark Favermann. However, he came to it rather late only starting to take pictures when he was 33. His current exhibit at Newbury College in Brookline, MA displays his critical and appreciative eye for architecture, environment and culturally relevant structures and details.
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Norma by Bellini Ignites LA Opera
Angela Meade and Jamie Barton, Luxury Casting
By: - Dec 01st, 2015Bellini died young, but like Mozart and Schubert, will never be forgotten. Norma is the all-time great Bellini opera. In the age of Lena Dunham, it comes as a shock that women in antiquity could choose friendship over boyfriends. Even the Roman consul is shocked when one of his lovers upends him. For great singing, rush to the LA Opera's Norma.
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Memories of a War to Come by Erika Marquardt
A German Girl Growing Up in the 2nd World War
By: - Dec 01st, 2015Do all, who have experienced war first-hand respond differently, perhaps more knowingly to images, reports and articles, now inundating the air waves about current wars, notably in Syria and Iraq? So very timely is the poetry and picture book by Erika Marquardt, which I received recently. And what a book it is! Her WW II childhood memories have haunted her all her life and she has written poems and painted pictures and collages for decades. Marquardt now collected those memories eloquently in her 2015 published book, which deserves a wide reception and circulation. Will there ever be PEACE?!
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Charming Beaufort, South Carolina
The Old South and Its Gracious Living
By: - Dec 01st, 2015The old south lives in the quaint seaside charm of Beaufort, South Carolina just 70 miles from Charleston. It indeed deserves her status as “Queen of the Carolina Sea island.”
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Jake Heggie's Moby Dick at LA Opera
Jay Hunter Morris a Magnificent Avenger
By: - Dec 01st, 2015Moby Dick, the opera by Jake Heggie is inspired by Melville, but not the tale as we know it. As the librettist points out, since most people who think they have read Moby Dick haven't, the audience is not left wondering, for instance, where is "Call me Ishmael." Instead the extraordinary music conducted by James Conlon and the video projections which are the heart of the set sweep you up and carry you off on the obsessive chase for revenge.
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Hamilton’s Leslie Odom plays Burr
Discussing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hip-Hopera
By: - Nov 30th, 2015Between the matinee and evening performances of the smash Broadway musical, Hamilton, we met backstage with Leslie Odom who plays Aaron Burr. The meeting was arranged by Jack Lyons, a California critic and friend of the actor's family. In a cramped dressing room we were joined by Florida based critic William Hirschman. This resulted in a lively, insightful discussion of the show and its unique casting which is causing a paradigm shift for Broadway musicals.
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Frank Stella at the Whitney
Ad Astra Per Aspera
By: - Nov 29th, 2015In an Ivy League mashup, Yale grad, our man Martin Mugar, takes a go at Princeton alumnus Frank Stella. More on Zombie Formalism. Let the games begin.
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The Miracle of Long Johns by David Lefkowitz
Theatre Critic Moonlighting in the Far Outhouse
By: - Nov 28th, 2015David Lefkowitz, a member of American Theatre Critics, as is his colleague Ed Rubin, moonlights as a stand up, sit down or whatever. This is a performance not to be taken lightly but those of us who give a shit about theatre.
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Sandy and Gerry on Broadway
Overview of ATCA-NY Conference
By: - Nov 28th, 2015Waving her cane earned Sandy Katz and her husband Gerry some nice perks to Broadway shows. This included an autographed Playbill from ninty-year-old Cicely Tyson starring in The Gin Game. In addition to shows they offer tips on accommodations, tours and dining.
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Dudamel Conducts LA Philharmonic
Roberto Bolle and ABT Dancers Add to Musical Thrills
By: - Nov 28th, 2015When Frank Gehry was asked to design Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, he made one condition: that Yasuhita Toyota be hired as the acoustician. He was not going to build a hall for musical performance that did not have fabulous acoustics. Disney Hall is an acoustical dream and its warm, intimate seating encircling the musicians and performers is mirrored perfectly by real surround sound. Under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, the LA Phil shines.
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Visiting Belgium
From Beer to Waffles in Antwerp and Mechelen
By: - Nov 27th, 2015Belgium offers much to see in historical art and architecture. There are also delights to taste from the world's best beer to those paradigmatic waffles. Those familiar thick waffles were introduced to America at New York’s 1964 World’s Fair.
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The Gin Game Is Magnificent
A Triumph for James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson
By: - Nov 27th, 2015Treasures of their generation the 90-year-old Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, now 84, are appearing in a heart warming production of that theatrical old chestnut, D. L. Coburn's "The Gin Game." The energy, wit, charm and humor they convey is inspirational and truly astonishing. This is a play for everyone who appreciates theatre at its very best.
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Charles III Reigns on Broadway
Dysfunctional Royals
By: - Nov 26th, 2015Now 67, Charles Prince of Wales has a death wish. The feisty British import 'Charles III' suggests what happens when the now 89-year-old Queen Elizabeth finally vacates the throne. This speculative but well reasoned dark fantasy posits that the death of his mother is just the beginning of more trouble for the royals.
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Kick Stars JoAnna Rush
One Woman Show Off Broadway
By: - Nov 26th, 2015Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s direction allows JoAnna Rush to be unhindered in her mannerisms and movements. The various topics were heartbreaking; a woman’s struggle with trying to be on par with her male colleagues.
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Tony Winner Fun Home
Poignantly In and Out of the Closet
By: - Nov 25th, 2015As the closeted father Bruce, Michael Cerveris won a Tony as the lead in the compelling musical Fun House. The story of his suicide and his coming out in small town Pennsylvania is narrated his his forty something lesbian daughter Alison. She is portrayed at thre age levels by Beth Malone, Emily Skeggs and as young Alison the simply adorable Gabriella Pizzolo.
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Visiting Poland with a Group of Educators
Sobering Lessons of Nazi Death Camps
By: - Nov 25th, 2015Sandy and Gerry Katz joined a group of educators touring the death camps of Poland. The teachers were engaging in field research as a part of developing their curriculum for teaching WWII history.
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Dear Elizabeth at Women's Project Theatre
Cherry Jones and David Aaron Baker Share
By: - Nov 24th, 2015Dear Elizabeth, a dramatization of the letters of two pre-eminent American poets, Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, is being staged with different couples taking the lead roles as the run passes. Cherry Jones, one of our great American actors, was well-matched with David Aaron Baker.
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