Television
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Mozart in the Jungle Cancelled
Amazon Bows Out of the Classical Music Series
By: - Apr 07th, 2018The popular and award-winning series Mozart in the Jungle has played its last concert. Today, Amazon.com announced that the series, a dramatic sitcom set in New York City that chronicled the backbiting, infighting and backstabbing of the classical music business, will not be renewed for a fifth season.
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Herrens vije (Ride the Storm)
A Masterful Danish Television Series
By: - Jul 05th, 2019For 250 years the Danish Krogh family has been in the God business. Brilliant, fanatical and tyrranical the elder Johannes dominates his parish as well as immediate family. The role earned Lars Millelsen an Emmy for the the 20 episode, 2017-2018 Danis television series. You will want to binge/view this best ever family drama on Netflix.
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Showtimes Streams Mary Magdalene
Biblical Tale with Feminist Twist
By: - May 01st, 2020Showtime recently screened the intriguing 2018 movie “Mary Magdalene”, written by Helen Edmundson and Phillipa Goslett, directed by Garth Davis. This provocative, revisionist, version (with undertones of the current worldwide feminism movement) gives one the opportunity to think outside the accepted “biblical box” concerning the role of women in history both religiously and socially.
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Penny Dreadful: City of Angels
1930s Showtime Series
By: - Jul 08th, 2020“City of Angels”, the Showtime TV movie series, is a powerfully relevant TV series and a sharp reminder not only of why the painful American Civil War of 1861 was fought, only later to introduce new Jim Crow laws in the South. The tensions between LA’s Chicano community and the corrupt white power structure within the city government of 80 years ago centers around the more militant factions of young Mexican-Americans known as ‘Pachucos.
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National Theatre Streams Rattigan's Deep Blue Sea
Helen McCrory Stars; Carrie Cracknell Directs
By: - Jul 17th, 2020National Theatre at Home streams Deep Blue Sea by Terrence Rattigan and Amadeus by Peter Shaffer. Remarkable productions keep theaters live when their homes are shuttered.
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The Weir by Conor McPherson
Irish Repertory Theatre Screens Performance
By: - Jul 27th, 2020The Irish Repertory Theatre has come up with the perfect play to stream. The Weir is a quintet, Four men living in a remote Irish country town are joined by a pretty woman from Dublin. Stories are told by four characters and the camera focuses on them during the telling. The scene broadens to include reactions. Sometimes Director Ciarán O’Reilly has an actor face the camera, deeply involving us in the drama.
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Lawrence Brownlee and Friends
Lyric Opera of Chicago Streams a Virtual Concert
By: - Jul 28th, 2020Lawrence Brownlee is an ambassador of song. He is not only a great bel canto tenor, but also leader in discussions on our racial divide. Identifying as a descendant of Africans and a person of dark skin tone, he has mentored young singers and helped direct the conversation on race in the arts and in the world about us. Yet he does not like the designation of Ella Fitzgerald as part of Black Heritage, her position on a postage stamp. Rather he sees her as a great American singer. Blacks are part of a larger community, not self-segregated.
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Irish Repertory Theatre Streams Love, Noel
Steve Ross and KT Sullivan Delight
By: - Aug 12th, 2020Players Club ,where the Irish Repertory production of Love, Noel is set, seems like just the right elegant space. Edwin Booth felt he had to make up for the assassination of Lincoln by his brother. Booth realized that a club where actors could socialize with the elite and elevate their status from rabble-rousers to artists was what New York needed. In 1888, he founded The Players Club at 16 Gramercy Park South together with fifteen other incorporators, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman. Players is the oldest club in New York City that’s still in its original location. Love, Noel graced its halls.
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HBO's Coastal Elites
Playing the Pandemic with Grim Humor
By: - Sep 21st, 2020HBO’s just released film “Coastal Elites”, navigates the COVID-19 experience in a comedic and satirical way (for a deadly subject matter) with five vignette monologues, by five actors; each breathing life into playwright Paul Rudnick’s spot-on slices of pandemic life during this unprecedented experience, and all deftly directed by Jay Roach.
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Irish Repertory Theatre Streams Geraldine Hughes
Belfast Blues a Perfect Production for Video
By: - Sep 23rd, 2020We are swept along by her lilting Irish brogue as Geraldine Hughes takes the stage in her Belfast Blues. Irish Repertory Theatre chose the play to open their fall season streaming. Charlotte Moore and her partner Ciarán O’Reilly chose well. This one woman shows draws the portraits of twenty-four characters, all presented through the vessel of Hughes. Yet we never wonder who is speaking. We learn the gestures and tics of each character and come to be entranced.
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Rob Kapilow Tackles the Appassionata Sonata
Orli Shaham Exposes a Sonata
By: - Sep 27th, 2020Rob Kapilow begins his “What Makes it Great” evenings with a discussion of special elements in a musical work to be performed in its entirety at the conclusion of the evening. Kapilow is a conductor and performer. Always responsive to a live audience, he draws us in, elucidating us as he instructs. Now he is streaming from an empty Merkin Hall. Yet you become addicted in one outing. Through Kapilow, listening to music has added whole new dimensions. Orli Shaham provides examples for a discussion of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 5. She also gives a deeply moving performance of the Appassionata.
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The Comey Rule on Showtime
Jeff Daniels as Former FBI Director James Comey
By: - Oct 05th, 2020The skinny is that former FBI director, James Comey, adhered so closely to his moral convictions that he impacted Hillary Clinton losing the election. She won the popular vote but lost the Electoral Collage by a razor thin margin. A last minute decision to reopen investigation of her e-mails, later rescinded, made the crucial difference. One would think that President Trump would owe one to Comey. See this compelling Showtime drama with Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleesen to see how things fell apart. Trump insisted that Comey behave as His FBI Director.
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New Federal Theatre Presents Octoberfest
Five Plays to Insp0ire
By: - Oct 25th, 2020Woody King Jr.'s Federal Theater presents Octoberfest: Five plays that reawaken, inspire, and remind us of the struggle for freedom and dignity of African-Americans. Each piece, with its own history of previous production success, has been re-imagined. Billed as readings, seasoned actors and directors take us to a new form of theatrical communication in the “zoom style” medium.
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Visit the Atelier des Lumières, Paris, France.
A Magical Van Gogh Exhibit
By: - Oct 28th, 2020Missing Paris? Van Gogh? Music? Impresario and superb clarinetist Joseph Rosen points the way to a magical Van Gogh exhibit with "Vincent" sung by Jim van Der Zee. Enjoy!
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The Orchestra Now at Bard
Chamber Ensembles Intrigue
By: - Nov 19th, 2020Bard’s The Orchestra Now (TON) gives live performances in the time of Covid. Recently they performed a challenging and revealing program in Annandale, NY. Selections were made with attention to the number of instrumentalists required and ability to social distance on stage.
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PBS Fall Schedule
From Walt Disney to Julie Waters in Indian Summers
By: - Jun 04th, 2015Yes Downton Abbey returns in January. PBS premieres the Civil War drama Mercy Street on September 27. Come fall PBS yet again will roll out an entertaining cornucopia of programming.
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Queen Latifah Triumphs in HBO's Bessie
Portrays Legendary and Tragic Empress of the Blues
By: - May 23rd, 2015As blues giant Bessie Smith in HBO's "Bessie" Queen Latifah gives the finest performance of her career. The drama is based on a 1972 book by Chris Albertson. During the 1920s she was the Empress of the Blues but during the great depression which followed in the 1930s, as she compellingly sang, "Nobody knows you when you're down and out."
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Moliere in the Park Takes Flight
The School for Wives as Fresh as Now
By: - Oct 26th, 2020We have been introduced to streaming technology across the boards in this time of Covid. It is a global experiment, which, whether or not it is smooth and realizes the intentions of the creators, is welcome. It provides connection. Safe connection as we are socially distanced. An opportunity also for grand experiments. The School for Wives produced by Moliere in the Park leads the way.
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PBS Airs The Draft on April 27
Exploring the Role of Enlisted Soldiers
By: - Apr 14th, 2015PBS’ THE DRAFT explores the turbulent history of the draft, from the Revolutionary War to present, including the debate over its termination. Airing Monday, April 27 at 9:00 p.m. ET, THE DRAFT is the first program to air as part of PBS’ special block of programming related to the Vietnam War.
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Scandal
Jumping the Shark
By: - Feb 15th, 2015Shonda Rhimes, the creator of the prime time hit, Scandal, and her team of writers are running on vapors. They have tossed the glamorous leading lady , Kerry Washington as Fixer Olivia Pope, into the deepest and darkest of dungeons. The move was initially hatched by the scheming VP to bring down his boss, and Liv's lover, President Fitzgerald Thomas Grant III. Now, oh please, she is being auctioned off to the highest bidder intent on leveraging Fitz. In the world of TV dramas this is a desperate plot ploy known as Jumping the Shark.
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Gillian Anderson in The Fall Season Two
Belfast Based Crime Drama on Netflix
By: - Feb 04th, 2015The glamorous, sexy, frigid brilliant detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) was brought in to solved a series of killings in Belfast. She matches wits with an equally brilliant and ruthless adversary, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) who has a teflon cover as husband and devoted father as well as a profession grief councilor. We binged on Season Two and although the crime has been solved we hope that the series continues. Anderson's arrogant detective gets under our skin in a manner that we love to hate.
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The Honourable Woman Golden Globe Winner
Maggie Gyllenhaal Astonishing as Activist Nessa Stein
By: - Jan 23rd, 2015The Honourable Woman is a combined project of SundanceTV and the BBC. Written and directed by Hugo Bick it stars the American actress Maggie Gyllenhaal as a Jewish CEO of the British Stein Corporation. She is a Nominee for the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries and has been honored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In A Miniseries Or Television Film.
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PBS Anounces New Programming
lInks for More Detailed Information
By: - Jan 19th, 2015PBS announced new programs and initiatives launching in 2015. A brief synopsis of each program is listed below, along with links to the full press releases.
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PBS Fall Winter Primetime Schedule
Tony Winner Mark Rylance in Wolf Hall
By: - Nov 20th, 2014PBS revealed today its full primetime schedule for the 2015 winter/spring season along with key talent appearing at the Television Critics Association Press Tour, taking place this January in Pasadena, CA. PBS will host two days of press conferences featuring Damian Lewis, who plays Henry VIII in MASTERPIECE’s “Wolf Hall,†starring Tony-Award winner Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell; Rory Kennedy, director and producer for LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE; Nicholas Kristof for A PATH APPEARS; Phylicia Rashad for AMERICAN MASTERS “August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Standâ€; Misty Copeland for AMERICAN MASTERS “American Ballet Theatre at 75 (w.t.)â€; Ricky Jay for AMERICAN MASTERS “Ricky Jay: Deceptive Practiceâ€; Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson for MASTERPIECE’s “Poldarkâ€; and other names to be announced.
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Hitmakers on PBS
Airs on Friday. November 14
By: - Oct 16th, 2014HITMAKERS is an up-close look at the music industry’s resilience in the digital age, featuring interviews and performances from notable artists, including Grammy® Award-winning rocker Melissa Etheridge, multi-media star Questlove, Electronic Dance Music DJ/producer Steve Aoki, multiplatinum Grammy Award-winning singer Lorde, powerhouse soul/funk singer Sharon Jones and Grammy-winning blues rock group Tedeschi Trucks Band, along with legendary music executives.
