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  • Tragedy of Eugene O'Neill

    Family Ravaged as Long Day's Journey Into Night

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 04th, 2016

    Currently Long Day's Journey Into Night, the masterpiece of Eugene O'Neill, is enjoying an all star Broadway revival. One of the last of his plays before a decade of illness he left instructions that it not be published until 25 years after his life. It was produced in Sweden within three years of his death. Based on the horrendous circumstances of his alcoholic, drug addicted family he hoped to avoid collateral damage to survivors. It begs the question of who owns the moral and legal rights when artists draw upon family and friends as material for their art.

  • Annual Piccolo Spoleto Festival

    Fever Was Red Hot in Charleston

    By: Sandy Katz - Jun 03rd, 2016

    Piccolo Spoleto Festival is officially the outreach arm of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Spoleto Festival USA, and thirty-eighth year of Piccolo Spoleto.

  • Yannick Nézet-Séguin Appointed by Met Opera

    Questions Remain about Gelb's Control

    By: Susan Hall - Jun 02nd, 2016

    Nézet-Séguin, the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra where he will continue, assumes the role at the Met Opera in the 2020-21 season. He is a wonderful conductor of opera. What remains to be seen is Peter Gelb's role as "artistic director" of the opera company. Many first-rate conductors have not accepted the role because Gelb has insisted on control. The Board may not allow Gelb to continue to assert himself in artistic matters.

  • Marsalis Marches and Gilbert Honors with Brahms

    A Dirge for Kurt Mazur

    By: Susan Hall - May 31st, 2016

    The annual New York Philharmonic concert at St. John the Divine in New York was started a quarter century ago just as Kurt Mazur took the helm of the orchestra. The conductor was honored today in a wonderful New Orleans Funeral March led down the long aisle of the Cathedral by Wynton Marsalis and also a performance of Brahms' Second Symphony led by Alan Gilbert.

  • At Home With Lindsay Ann Crouse

    Reflecting on a Remarkable Life in Theatre

    By: Charles Giuliano - May 31st, 2016

    Having returned to Annisquam where she grew up during summers Lindsay Ann Crouse is performing annually with Gloucester Stage. We saw her launch the season with a lively and hilarious production of Lettice ad Lovage. As kids my sister Pip was Lindsay's age and I was a bit older than her brother Timothy. On a rainy day we met in her vintage village home and discussed a remarkable life in theatre with numerous stage, TV and film credits including an Oscar nomination and an Emmy.

  • Route of the Maya: Part Five

    Belize

    By: Zeren Earls - May 31st, 2016

    Boasting a rich ethnic mix on the Caribbean coast, Belize attracts visitors to sun and sea. Lamanai, a 26-mile scenic ride away on the New River, is an ancient city within a subtropical forest, where the Maya lived for over 3000 years.

  • Spinning by Deirdre Kinahan

    US Premiere at Irish Theatre of Chicago.

    By: Nancy Bishop - May 31st, 2016

    Spinning is notable for its fine direction and acting. Dan Waller is one of those solid Chicago actors who plays many types of roles and makes each one his own. His portrayal of Conor is wrenching and passionate as he gradually learns so accept his responsibility for his actions.

  • Devinssi Winery in Priorat, Catalonia, Spain

    Hugging the Grapes

    By: Philip S. Kampe - May 30th, 2016

    Devinssi Vineyard in Priorat, Catalonia, Spain gives its customers a chance to adopt a grapevine. This adoption opens doors ot the winery and community in rural, Priorat, Spain (only two hours from Barcelona).

  • Haymarket: The Anarchist’s Songbook

    Chicago's Underscore Theatre Company

    By: Nancy Bishop - May 30th, 2016

    If the Haymarket story is unfamiliar, you can read about it before you see the play. The creators do a good job of telling a complex story, but everything will make more sense if you read before seeing this production.

  • Annie Baker's The Flick

    Miami Theater Center

    By: Aaron Krause - May 30th, 2016

    The Flick by Annie Baker is being staged all over America. Given the scale of the movie theater with a theater the length of the individual productions varies greatly depending upon how long it takes for the trio of actors to sweep up all the popcorn between screenings. This is a review of a Miami production where it weighed in at about three hours.

  • Presto Change-O at Barrington Stage

    A Magical Three-Card Monte Musical

    By: Charles Giuliano - May 29th, 2016

    Barrington Stage Company is launching its Pittsfield season with a commissioned musical Presto Change-O which is having its world premiere on the intimate St. Germain Stage. On many levels this perky production is zesty and magical and that's not just an illusion.

  • Robertson Leads Majestic NYPHil

    Alan Baer, Tuba, Superb in John Wiliams

    By: Susan Hall - May 29th, 2016

    Music of all genres and spirits is overflowing the halls of David Geffen Hall and embracing the citizens of New York. Gustav Holst's The Planets brought amateur astronomers to Lincoln Center's Plaza for a viewing of Jupiter and its moons after we had heard the composer's interpretation. Wow!

  • The Man Who Knew Infinity

    Biopic Stars Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel

    By: Jack Lyons - May 27th, 2016

    The superb Jeremy Irons stars as the brilliant, eccentric, and passionate Cambridge University mathematics professor G. H. Hardy. When Hardy is confronted with the mathematics genius of a young twenty-five year- old completely self-educated Indian student from Madras, named S. Ramanujan (stoically and poignantly played by Dev Patel) Hardy’s faith and passion for his chosen profession is put the test.

  • Glostah Chowdah

    Charley’s vs. Causeway

    By: Foodies - May 26th, 2016

    For the best chowder in New England head for Gloucester. But steer clear of the downtown and harbor tourist traps. Don't even bother with Rockport. Seek out the fringe lunch places like Charley's and Causeway where the locals belly up. It will take a bit of poking around to find them but it's worth the effort.

  • The Met Orchestra at Carnegie

    Christine Goerke Is the Go-To Soprano

    By: Susan Hall - May 26th, 2016

    James Levine is gloriously winding down his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. The man who brought us the full Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera may have aged, but he is blossoming still and the stage of Carnegie Hall is the perfect venue to display his monumental talents.

  • John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey

    NY's TFNA Presents Ibsen and Strindberg

    By: Susan Hall - May 25th, 2016

    Can men and women find themselves and satisfaction at the same time? This question has been asked since the beginning to time. Theatre for a New Audience, in their remarkable home, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, features John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey in Ibsen's A Doll's House and Strindberg's The Father, running in repertory.

  • Route of the Maya: Part Four

    Antigua, Tikal and Yaxha

    By: Zeren Earls - May 25th, 2016

    Founded as the seat of Spain's colonial government in a valley towered over by Volcan de Agua, Antigua is a treasure trove of art and architecture of Colonial Guatemala. Tikal and Yaxha are national parks within a vast tropical jungle with a reserve area of magnificent ruins of ancient cities that pay tribute to the accomplishments of the great Mayan civilization of Central America.

  • Hudson-Berkshire Wine and Food Festival

    Event staged May 28th & 29th

    By: Philip S. Kampe - May 25th, 2016

    This is the fourth year the Hudson-Berkshire Wine & Food Festival dominates the scene for the Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy the sun and warmth in a local setting with NY and Massachusetts vineyards and distillers products.

  • Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer

    Lindsay Ann Crouse Launches Gloucester Stage Season

    By: Charles Giuliano - May 24th, 2016

    Veteran actor Lindsay Ann Crouse left LA several years ago to relocate to Annisquam the summer home of her theatrical family. In a now annual production she has been offered great roles by the local Gloucester Stage now launching its 37th season. She is stunning in the meaty role of an eccentric docent of a seedy British mansion. While entertaining she doesn't stick to the script. The play was written as a vehicle for Dame Maggie Smith by Peter Shaffer who wrote Equus and Amadeus. This play, as you will learn, is the cat's meow.

  • Sondheim on Sondheim as Putting It Together

    Stage Door Theatre in South Florida

    By: Aaron Krause - May 24th, 2016

    Unlike in another Sondheim revue, “Side by Side by Sondheim,” has no narrator to link the songs. Rather, a dramatic framework exists in which two couples are attending a cocktail party at an upscale residence. This allows the characters to sing nearly 30 Sondheim songs outside the context for which he composed/or wrote the lyrics.

  • World Premiere Noir Musical Thriller Hollywood

    By Tony Winners Joe Di Pietro and Christopher Ashley at La Jolla Playhouse

    By: Jack Lyons - May 23rd, 2016

    La Jolla Playhouse has the best track record of any West Coast theatre when it comes to sending their original theatrical productions to Broadway (over 30 of them to date). Their 2008 musical production “Memphis”, written by Joe Di Pietro and directed by Christopher Ashley went on to Broadway winning a 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. “Hollywood”, again written by Di Pietro, and helmed by Ashley, is looking to pull off a Tony Award-winning ‘Daily Double’ coup.

  • Jordi Domenech: Priorat's Busiest Winemaker

    Wears Coat of Many Colors

    By: Philip S. Kampe - May 23rd, 2016

    Jordi Domenech lives in the Priorat region of Spain, close to Barcelona. He is a winemaker, a vermouth salesman, a restaurant owner and a father. He is a very busy man. This is his present day story.

  • Weiner the Film

    Entertaining Film Doesn't Reveal

    By: Susan Hall - May 23rd, 2016

    Anthony Weiner may have revealed all on Twitter, but the film about his attempted political comeback as he ran for Mayor of New York in 2013 does not. It is an entertaining film. Weiner is more self-aware than many politicians, but the fact that he thinks he can behave in a style that forced his resignation from Congress apparently did not stop him from continuing that behavior. Politicians are like teenagers. You can warn them, but even after Gary Hart, they think: I am not vulnerable.

  • NY Philharmonic Performs Chaplin's City Lights

    Classic Movie with Superb Score

    By: Susan Hall - May 19th, 2016

    Alan Gilbert, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic has an uncanny knack for programming. Extending the ideas of where music does and does not belong in the classic/classical repertoire and how it should be produced. He has brought us semi-staged operas, adventuresome new music and live performance of film scores that were written to be heard live while the film is screened. City Lights, quintessential Chaplin, was accompanied by Chaplin's own score, played by the Philharmonic. The score had been restored and reconstructed by the conductor, Timothy Brock.

  • Michael Bernardi Discusses Fiddler on the Roof

    Filling His Father Herschel's Boots an Original Tevye on Broadway

    By: Aaron Krause - May 19th, 2016

    Michael Bernardi lost his father, Herschel, when he was not yet two. Still, for much of his life, he has sensed his father’s presence. His father played Tevye on Broadway over three years and 702 performances, beginning in 1965. The younger Bernardi is currently playing Mordcha in the Tony nominated Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

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