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Bishop on Broadway
Coverage During NY ATCA Conference
By: - Nov 09th, 2019I spent a long weekend in New York, including a meeting of the American Theater Critics Association. Busy days but time for theater at night, of course. Somehow I managed to stay on Broadway (or close) for five plays. Here are mini-reviews of the plays I saw.
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Arnold Trachtman Boston Protest Artist at 89
A Formidable Legacy of Social Concern
By: - Nov 09th, 2019An exhibition of Vietnam protest paintings by Arnold Trachtman was censored and closed by the admninistration of Harvard University. We remounted it at the Institute of Contemporary Art then on Soldier's Field Road. That formed a professional and personal relationship. He was a part of a niche of major Boston artists that existed out of the mainstream, Yesterday he passed away in Cambridge at 89.
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Victoria Bond's Opera Clara
A Child Prodigy Negotiates Career and Marriage
By: - Nov 09th, 2019Victoria Bond's Clara on the life of the pianist and composer who was married to Robert Schumann premiered at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden Germany last spring. The German Forum offered a concert version in New York. It is a superb exploration of this important musician.
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ATCA NY Conference 2019
Day of Panels at MCC Theatre
By: - Nov 08th, 2019Located in the belly of the beast the annual Anerican Theatre Critics Association New York conferences consistently feature superb programming. The best and brightest of American theatre are as accessible as a phone call and cab ride away. This year a day of panels were held for some 60 national members and guests at the new MCC theatre complex. Where else can you encounter a Pulitzer winning playwright interviewed by a fellow Pulitzer Prize winner. The panels. convened from 9 to 5, were varied, provactive and galvanic.
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Derren Brown - Secret
Cort Theatre, Broadway
By: - Nov 08th, 2019The Master Illusionist, Derren Brown, currently excites audiences at the Cort Theatre on Broadway with his extra ordinary performance in SECRET. He and his show have been imported from London's West End and promise sold out performances for a very long time. Who would not like to be thoroughly entertained and perplexed at still reasonable Broadway prices?
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Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning
Off Broadway At Playwrights Horizons
By: - Nov 07th, 2019Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning has more religious, personal, and political exposition (read talk) than many a mind can absorb at one sitting, The play is essentially a snapshot of the current divisive state of affairs in this country.
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Pacini's Mary Tudor at Odyssey Opera
First-Rate Mounting of an Under-appreciated Gem
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Queen Mary I is infatuated with the Scottish adventurer Fenimoore, who is in love with Clothilde, who in turn loves Ernesto. Romance and political intrigue are treacherous bedfellows in this opera based on Victor Hugo’s play about Mary Tudor. A remarkable and largely forgotten opera, its expressive vocal characterization paints an unforgettable portrait of a Queen and the repercussions of her indulgence in an unwise love. Presented as a fully-staged production in Italian with English subtitles. Libretto by Leopoldo Tarantini.
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Wrong Man Off Broadway Musical
By 2015 Pop Songwriter of the Year Ross Golan
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Several years ago, 2015 Pop Songwriter of the Year Ross Golan, who has written for Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Michael Bublé, and many more, developed a concept album called The Wrong Man. The project morphed into a one-man theatrical show that won Ovation Awards in Los Angeles. Now, a compelling, fully-formed, dark, rock opera appears Off Broadway.
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Tootsie the Musical
Drag Wins Tony on Broadway
By: - Nov 06th, 2019Michael/Dorothy comes alive on Broadway. The updated book by Robert Horn in the musical version of Tootsie shifts the action from the soap opera world to that of Broadway and improves the narrative and dynamics. David Yazbeck’s pop score with sparkling and penetrating lyrics adds another dimension with a sharper focus on female empowerment.
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The Height of the Storm on Broadway
Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce Struggle With Loss and Memory
By: - Nov 06th, 2019This mind-bending drama is performed by a great, almost all-British cast headed by two of contemporary theater’s most renowned artists. Jonathan Pryce is André, the father. The equally formidable Eileen Atkins plays his wife.
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ATCA at Sardi’s 2019
Marisa Tomei & Charles Busch Headline Broadway Luncheon
By: - Nov 05th, 2019When Marisa Tomei developed her role in Rose Tattoo at Williamstown Theatre Festival Mandy Greenfield made sure that she was off limits to local critics. That made it all the more exciting to get up close and personal with the her during the annual ATCA lunch at Sardi's. We also enjoyed quality time with the outrageous Charles Busch. He proved to be accessible, charming and down the earth.
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The Musician John Hiatt
A Nashville Artist
By: - Oct 29th, 2019I was invited to a 'pop-up' John Hiatt show the Noho section of Manhattan. It was a solo rooftop performance.
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Boston Country Singers Annie Brobst & Samantha Rae
Country Women for Women’s Cancer Benefit at Hard Rock Cafe
By: - Oct 28th, 2019Boston’s country singers Annie Brobst & Samantha Rae are behind the Country Women for Women’s Cancer Benefit at Hard Rock Café. The sold out event will occur on Saturday, November 2 at 8PM. The fundraiser will help the Susan F. Smith Center Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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Boston Jazz Entrepreneur Fred Taylor at 90
What and Quit Show Biz!
By: - Oct 27th, 2019Jazz entrepreneur Fred Taylor has passed at 90. He never retired producing concerts and programming for the Cabot Theatre in Beverly. Not surprisingly his yet to be published autobiography, a collaboration with Richard Vacca, is titled What and Quit Show Business. Taylor booked Boston's Jazz Workshop/ Paul’s Mall from 1963 to 1978. From 1991 to 2017 he booked Scullers Jazz Club and produced the Tanglewood Jazz Festival from 2001 to 2007.
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Billy Elliot at Goodspeed
Boys of Ballet
By: - Oct 26th, 2019Some flaws exist in this production of Billy Elliot directed by Gabriel Barre and choreographed by Marc Kimelman. Barre has changed a few things from the original show and overall they work,
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Kingfishers Catch Fire
Play by Robin Glendinning at Irish Rep
By: - Oct 26th, 2019The play by Robin Glendinning is based on fact. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the first Irish priest to hold the title of Notary of the Holy Office, spent WWII at the Vatican, where he proved to be a man of action.
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Ancient Nubia Now
Social Justice Catches Up with the MFA
By: - Oct 25th, 2019During a recent visit to the Museum of Fine Arts a school group was inappropriately treated in a blatantly racist manner. That has caught the museum, and its director Matthew Teitelbaum, in the cross hairs of media whiplash. There is a shameful legacy of racism and anti Semitism at the MFA. It will take decades to make appropriate changes.
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Bunkaru Theater at the White Lights Festival
Sugimoto's The Love Suicides at Sonezaki
By: - Oct 24th, 2019White Lights Festival at Lincoln Center brings bunraku Puppet Theater from Japan to The Rose Theater. Hiroshi Sugmoto, an artist of many disciplines, has updated Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Monzaemon was Japan’s Shakespeare and first to advance the notion that lovers whose relationship could be realized in this world could find happiness in a Buddhist paradise.
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Wondrous Oscar Wao at Repertorio Espanol
Written and Directed by Marco Antonio Rodriquez
By: - Oct 23rd, 2019Repertorio Espanol Presents The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao based on the novel by Junot Diaz. It is written and directed by Marco Antonio Rodriquez. The Pulitzer winning novel (2008) creates a painfully socially dysfunctional character. A young Dominican man armors himself within the world of sci-fi fantasy in order to weather the difficult process of assimilation. The story is as much a tale of one man's unbearable loneliness as it is a metaphor for the scars and trauma of ruthless dictatorial oppression, social fragmentation, ultimate immigration and assimilation.
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Charles Giuliano Photo Collages
Solo Exhibition at Real Eyes Gallery
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019Last summer for exhibitions at Gallery 51 and the Eclipse Gallery, both in North Adams, with Amanda at Beck's Printing I created large format digital prints on canvas. There were five last summer. Three classical based surreal prints are included in the November exhibition at Real Eyes Gallery in Adams. Ten more large canvases have been created for the project curated by gallerist Bill Riley. There are also some framed giclee prints as well as original collages.
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Drawing and Painting By Martin G. Mugar
Lesson Plans for Faculty and Students
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019The artist Martin Mugar has posted a number of provocactive think pieces to this site. His self published book Drawing and Painting provides lesson plans for progressive faculty and students. It distills what he learned earning an MFA degree at Yale followed by decades of teaching. Like all of his writing the book is challengings and insightful.
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Verdi's Nabucco
Produced by West Bay Opera
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019Nabucco evidences the Verdi sound and style associated with the masterpieces of his rich middle period. The music is melodious throughout, with demanding arias and complex ensembles, though none are among his more memorable. However, the overture, which includes many of the opera’s themes, captivates and is often performed on its own in concert halls.
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Off Off Braodway's Lively Fall Season
Duck by Tom Block and Quiet Enjoyment by Richard Curtis
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019Inside common experiences, one financial and the other political, are revealed in a broad slapstick comedy, Quiet Enjoyment and Duck, darkly humorous explorations of Snowden's dilemma and ours.
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The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh
Recalling 19th Century Sideshow
By: - Oct 22nd, 2019This fictional account tells of the life of the real Afong Moy, who in 1834 at age 14, became the first Chinese female to step foot in the United States. Unique to her era, only in the 20th century did Chinese women begin to trickle into this country. The Chinese Lady is a two person play by Lloyd Suh.
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The Jack Quartet at a Crypt Session
John Luther Adams Communes
By: - Oct 21st, 2019In The Crypt, composer and performing artists collaborate. Selections of a talented impresario invite artists and audience to enter special moments together. Sounds reverberate from stone as candles cast warm light. Moments nourish the soul to spread and re-capture the precious environment for which composer John Luther Adams has always fought. Adams now focuses on the power of music to transform. In the bows and string of the Jack Quartet, it does.
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