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  • The little Opera Company's Piramo and Tisbe

    Hasse Is a Hot Composer Again

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 26th, 2018

    The superb little Opera company has mounted Hasse’s Piramo and Tisbe, based on the tale told in Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Book IV. It resembles Romeo and Juliet. Two young people, who in this case live in adjoining homes in Babylon, fall in love through the wall that separates them, but are driven apart by warring parents. All does not end well. Yet in the process of telling the story, glorious music abounds.

  • Brahms Requiem at St. Thomas Church

    The Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 24th, 2018

    Saint Thomas Church was one of the first buildings constructed with an acoustical architect's guidance. Wallace Sabine, who also gave acoustical advice for the building of Symphony Hall in Boston, guided in New York. Concern then was for the human voice delivering sermons. Listening to Bruckner and Brahms, just the right reverberation is clear.

  • Dido of Idaho at Ensemble Studio Theatre

    Abby Rosebrock Mourns Aeneas

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 22nd, 2018

    Dido's Lament is a beautiful aria. it suffuses Abby Rosebrock's new play and is not helpful. Nora, a contemporary Dido, is drowning in love, alcohol and mother-angst. Rosebrock drives her tale with often witty and amusing dialogue.

  • On Site Opera at Museum at Eldridge Street

    Ricky Ian Gordon's Morning Star

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 22nd, 2018

    The Triangle Fire of 1911, in which more lives were lost than in any other disaster before 9/11, flames in the background of Ricky Ian Gordon and William Hoffman’s opera Morning Star.

  • Easter Wines During A Nor'Easter

    Tuscany Is Famous For The Sangiovese Grape

    By: Philip S. Kampe - Mar 21st, 2018

    Choosing the right wines for your Easter meal is often a hard task. Two recommendations for your Easter table are contained in this article. All you have to provide is either lamb, pasta with red sauce or pizza.

  • Beth Morrison and National Sawdust

    Ten New Composers and Ten New Works

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 20th, 2018

    Beth Morrison and National Sawdust host new composers and new works in a competition for the chance to expand a work next year. The Next Generation is here.

  • Spring Is Time To Buy Summer Wine

    Fifteen Dollars And Under

    By: Philip S. Kampe - Mar 20th, 2018

    Are you looking for wines that are light and perfect for the summer seaso? I have found three that cost under $13 a bottle.

  • Brigadoon in Boca Raton

    Lerner and Loewe's Enchanting Musical

    By: Aaron Krause - Mar 19th, 2018

    South Florida's Wick Theatre and Costume Museum present an enchanting Brigadoon. The regional production of Lerner and Loewe classic is magical and humorous. Despite sound and timing issues, the actors enchant in mostly strong staging.

  • Through the Elevated Line by Novid Parsi

    Carin Silkaitis Directs a Chicago World Premiere

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 19th, 2018

    Through the Elevated Line is made up of a series of sometimes-bumpy scenes, running about 2.25 hours with one intermission. The direction seems uneven too, with some characters shouting when it doesn’t seem called for. Razi is a sympathetic character despite getting into trouble both at home in Iran and in Chicago. His relationship with his sister is sweet and realistic.

  • You for Me for You by Mia Chung

    At Chicago's Sideshow Theatre Company

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 19th, 2018

    Mia Chung’s other plays include Catch as Catch Can and This Exquisite Corpse. You for Me for You premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London; its first U.S. production was in 2012 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC. Chung is a graduate of Brown University with an MFA in playwriting.

  • BLO's The Threepenny Opera Worth Two Cents

    Weill and Brecht Classic Full of Jaunty Songs but Hard to Stage

    By: David Bonetti - Mar 19th, 2018

    "The Threepenny Opera" needs to be done with color and verve if it is to speak to today's audiences. The BLO's production was all too beige. Director James Darrah soft-pedaled the politics at the heart of the work, which left it a corpse with some not-so-pretty songs attached.

  • The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia?

    At CV REP in Rancho Mirage California

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 19th, 2018

    Edward Albee, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, debuted his highly controversial play “The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia?” on Broadway in 2002. It went on to garner a Tony Award for Best Play, A Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

  • Sister Act the Musical

    At the Palm Canyon Theatre

    By: Jack Lyons - Mar 19th, 2018

    “Sister Act” the Musical owes its theatrical existence to the movie “Sister Act”, starring Whoopy Goldberg. Popularity begets popularity. The movie was then turned into a musical written by Alan Menken and Glen Slater, from a libretto by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane. The result is a musical Blockbuster which I believe is one of the best musicals ever produced by the Palm Canyon Theatre.

  • Cyrano by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner

    Adaptation of Edmund Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac

    By: Nancy Bishop - Mar 19th, 2018

    Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897 in Paris and based his leading character on a French libertine of the same name. He is credited with introducing the word “panache” into English; the word then meant a plume or feather on a helmet or headdress. Cyrano by Boho Theatre continues in Chicago at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, through April 15

  • Education by Brian Dykstra

    At 59E59 Theaters

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 18th, 2018

    Education is a bold title for a play, but this arresting new play by Brian Dykstra deserves the title. Directed with precise attention to detail and an ability to turn the emotional context on a dime, Margarett Perry captures 21st century public school high school life.

  • Dead Man’s Cell Phone

    By Sarah Ruhl at Ross Valley Players

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 18th, 2018

    Sarah Ruhl is one of the darlings of contemporary theater. Her work ricochets between grounded and fanciful, with storylines usually a little off-normal, and populated with at least some loopy characters. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is one that turns from realistic to fantasy at intermission.

  • Scholarships Available for Summer Sonatina Piano Camps

    Kids 7 to 16 Within 100 Miles of Bennington

    By: Chris Buchanan - Mar 17th, 2018

    Piano students aged 7 to 16 of all skills levels who live within 100 mile radius of Bennington Vermont are encouraged to apply for this summer scholarship opportunity. Deadline is April 6th.

  • Alarm Will Sound at Carnegie Hall

    A Portrait of György Ligeti

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 17th, 2018

    Alan Pierson of Alarm Will Sound invites us to a salon he conducts with Nadia Sirota. Tonight’s subject would be György Ligeti, the Hungarian composer who many people heard for the first time as they watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  • Dancing Lessons in South Florida

    Touching Comic-drama by Mark St. Germain

    By: Aaron Krause - Mar 16th, 2018

    Dancing Lessons is a surprising packed, yet taut play about the capacity to change. The poignant Mark St. Germain play demonstrates the effect people seemingly with nothing in common can have on each other. This comedy-drama spreads knowledge, awareness about an autism-related disorder without lecturing or using too much jargon. The play had its world premiere at Barrington Stage in the Berkshires.

  • Cosi Fan Tutti at the Metropolitan Opera

    Coney Island is the Setting

    By: Paul J. Pelkonen - Mar 16th, 2018

    How do you solve the problem of presenting an opera that forces men and women into the stereotypes of the 18th century to a 21st century audience? If you're director Phelim McDermott, whose dazzling new Cosí fan tutte arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night, you roll the score in glue, dip it in glitter, and hope for the best.

  • The Fall at St. Ann's Warehouse

    Baxter Theatre Takes Down Cecil B. Rhodes

    By: Susan Hall - Mar 15th, 2018

    Al Sharpton wanted to take down the Jefferson Memorial and hasn't yet succeeded. The US military helped Iraquis topple Saddam Hussein's statue. In an engaging and lively student occupation on the campus of the University of Cape Town, seven members of the Baxter Theatre troop take down Cecil B. Rhodes in "The Fall" at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.

  • Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies

    By Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, Produced by Custom Made Theatre

    By: Victor Cordell - Mar 15th, 2018

    Custom Made’s production of Hooded, by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, sizzles. The cast, led by Jesse Vaughn as Marquis and Tre’Vonne Bell as Tru captivates. Under Lisa Marie Rollins’ excellent direction, all the characters are well developed and their interactions are precise and true

  • Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery

    Monty Python Meets Sherlock Holmes at Long Wharf

    By: Karen Isaacs - Mar 15th, 2018

    Ken Ludwig stays relatively faithful to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery novel The Hounds of the Baskervilles. Holmes is asked to help protect the newest heir (Sir Henry) to Baskerville Manor and the estate after the previous owner was found dead with a look of terror on his face. The back story includes an early evil ancestor who was killed by a large, ghostly hound dog. Sir Henry has just arrived from Canada and immediately receives a threatening letter. Ludwig has maintained the skeleton of the plot, but has turned it on its ear.

  • Nézet-Séguin at Carnegie Hall

    Toast of Two Cities

    By: Paul J. Pelkonen - Mar 14th, 2018

    There is no question that the Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the big man on the New York classical music scene at the moment. The music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra was in town with his troops on Tuesday night, for his first Carnegie Hall appearance since being appointed the music director of the Metropolitan Opera.

  • Shakespeare and More in Cincinnati

    ATCA Regional Conference in the Queen City

    By: Aaron Krause - Mar 14th, 2018

    Cincinnati's theaters are exploring race and other timely topics on their stages. American Theatre Critics Association takes in a diverse group of plays at recent regional conference as vibrant live theater scene is sampled by critics

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