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  • The Year of Magical Thinking

    Joan Didion Produced by Aurora Theatre

    By: Victor Cordell - Jul 02nd, 2019

    Joan Didion has crafted an engaging peek into her soul at a time of great tribulation, though there are numerous flashbacks to earlier times which flesh out her personal attributes and relationships and offer colorful vignettes from her past. She is unembarrassed to discuss some of her own foibles, including her frequent arguments with her beloved husband.

  • Herrens vije (Ride the Storm)

    A Masterful Danish Television Series

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 05th, 2019

    For 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.

  • Marjorie Minkin: The Shape of Light

    Museum Quality Work at Real Eyes Gallery in the Berkshires

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 05th, 2019

    In a relatively short time Real Eyes Gallery. located in the heart of Adams in the Berkshires. is notable for programming museum level exhibtions. Marjorie Minkin: The Shape of Light sets the bar high. Gallerist Bill Reilly has been able to work with artists from an expanding and ever more remarkable community of artists. How long can MASS MoCA ignore phenomenal work being created in its own back yard?

  • Twelfth Night at Shakespeare & Company

    Fun, Fun, Fun in Lenox

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 07th, 2019

    You may have seen Twelfth Night, perhaps a dozen times. But don't miss one more sharply directed by Allyn Burrows at Shakespere & Company in Lenox. What a hoot yet again to see the absurd Malvolio, a love sotted fool, decked out in yellow stockings with crossed garters. Expect a raucous night of fun, fun, fun.

  • Ronald K. Brown's Evidence Troop at Bard

    Classic Grace is Followed by Premiere of Mercy

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 07th, 2019

    Ronald K. Brown’s classic Grace was mounted in the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center of Bard. For the first time, accompanying music was live, an adaptation of the tapes usually run with the dance. Grace was followed by a world premiere of Mercy, a work commissioned by SummerScape at Bard among others.

  • Compagnie CNDC-Angers/ Robert Swinston

    Celebrating Merce Cunningham Centennial at Jacob's Pillow.

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 08th, 2019

    For his centennial Jacob’s Pillow presented three dances by the avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919-2009). The “music” featured his collaborator and life partner John Cage (1912-1992). In July, 2009 we attended the final performance at Jacob’s Pillow by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Several days later, on July 26, he passed away.

  • The Scottsboro Boys

    Playhouse on Park, West Hartford

    By: Karen Isaacs - Jul 08th, 2019

    The Scottsboro Boys is getting a terrific production at Playhouse on Park through Aug. 4. Previously the show won acclaim, nominations and awards off-Broadway, on Broadway, in London and other places.

  • Toni Stone Story of Vintage Baseball Player

    Home Run Off Broadway

    By: Edward Rubin - Jul 15th, 2019

    April Matthis, as Toni Stone (1921-1996) the first woman to play professional baseball in the Negro League, is knocking it out of the ballpark every night at New York's Laura Pels Theatre through August 11.

  • The Newport Jazz Festival 2019

    Talking with Bass Player Ron Carter

    By: Doug Hall - Jul 15th, 2019

    Bass player Ron Carter at 82, still performing around the world – will bring his trio to the Newport Jazz Festival Saturday, August 3rd at Fort Adams. He shared some thoughts about performing, music and musicianship.

  • The Irish Troubles

    An Overview in the Arts

    By: Nancy Bishop - Jul 19th, 2019

    A particular period of Irish history has been the focus of several recent remarkable works of art: two books, one an experimental novel, and the other journalistic nonfiction, plus a much-praised Broadway drama. All of them won multiple awards. I’ll also add a 2008 film to this list of artistic works. They all commemorate the years of the Troubles, that period of history of Northern Ireland in which more than 3500 people died or were disappeared.

  • In The Penal Colony Updated by Miranda Haymon

    Powerful Kafka in the Present

    By: Rachel de Aragon - Jul 18th, 2019

    At Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop The Hodgepodge Group and Lucy Powis presents, In the Penal Colony, a new and dynamic re-creation of Kafka's story by writer/director Miranda Haymon. What are the personal responsibilities of those who bear witness to the abuse of power? What is the relationship of the victim to the support of breaking institutional norms? What of the admiration for power, and the adulation of murderous solution?. At what point can we shed the reverence for brutal traditions?

  • A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons

    Fasten Your Seatbelt for a Bumpy Evening

    By: Edward Rubin - Jul 19th, 2019

    Not since A Strange Loop, through July 28th at Playwrights Horizons, have we come across a many faceted gay character like Usher (the extremely talented Larry Owens). He spares no detail, however raw, intimate, personal, scatological and sordid – in the telling of his life.

  • Kevin Puts Premiere at Tanglewood

    Andris Nelsons Conducts Renee Fleming and Rod Gilfry

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 21st, 2019

    The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts had its world premiere at The Shed at Tanglewood. Rod Gilfry, baritone, and Puts' collaborator Renee Fleming, sang the baritone and soprano roles of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, who were married for twenty-two years. Often living and working in different parts of America, they corresponded. Puts scoured the correspondence to develop an arc for his orchestral song cycle. It is a brilliantly achieved work.

  • Davone Tines in The Black Clown

    Langston Hughes Inspires the Journey to Manhood

    By: Susan Hall - Jul 25th, 2019

    Davone Tines was looking for a project to touch him deeply. His college classmate Michael Schacter suggested reading Langston Hughes' poems. The Black Clown hit him in the gut. Years ago Hughes had felt just as he did. Schachter and Tines collaborated on a moving and energetic musical monologue prompted by the poem. It is a wild theatrical success in its New York premiere.

  • The Children By Lucy Kirkwood

    Nuclear Meltdown at Shakespere & Company

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 26th, 2019

    The approach of the Lucy Kirkwood play, The Children at Shakespere & Company, is conceptual. It’s rather like a BBC detective series where there is investigation of a murder that we don’t witness. There is crime but the audience is spared the horrific details. Characters are involved with cleaning up the meltdown of a nuclear power plant which entailed their flawed design.

  • Chrissie Hynde at MASS MoCA

    Pretenders the Real Deal

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 27th, 2019

    It was standing room only last night for the packed performance of Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders. On a perfect summer night, with just a touch of heat relief, they performed on stage in a large courtyard of MASS MoCA.

  • Working: A Musical in Stockbridge

    Great Enertainment at Berkshire Theatre Group

    By: Charles Giuliano - Jul 28th, 2019

    For a deliciously entertaining evening of theater it is hard to top Working: A Musical at Berkshire Theatre Group. Last night the intimate Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge was filled to capacity by a thoroughly delighted audience.

  • Blck, Whyte, Gray at Mostly Mozart Festival

    British Hip Hop Takes Us Deep into Dance

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 03rd, 2019

    Blck, Whyte, Gray is performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, a clear invitation for a wide swathe of ethnic groups to join the Festival audience, and also a pleasure and a revelation for regulars. Advance notice was served at the White Light Festival last fall, when Blck, Whyte, Gray was a smash hit of the Festival.

  • Train Meets The Goo Goo Dolls

    Tanglewood Rocks

    By: Philip S. Kampe - Aug 06th, 2019

    A major billing with two headliners, Train and the Goo Goo Dolls, played to an enthusiastic audience of many generations, dominated by women at Tanglewood on Monday evening. Both bands played enthusiastic seventeen song set lists, before the encore. Cannons, fireworks and bouncing balloons helped keep the crowd active throughout the evening.

  • International Contemporary Ensemble

    The 12th Annual Journey of Sonic Landscapes

    By: Susan Hall - Aug 06th, 2019

    You can count on every International Contemporary Ensemble concert to deliver surprise, shock and awe. Performers are always in tip-top shape. You might hear an instrument you’ve never heard before, like the Cimbalon or the Kamanchah at a Mostly Mozart concert at Merkin Hall. ICE is superb and daring.

  • If I Were You.

    Composed by Jake Heggie with Libretto by Gene Scheer

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 07th, 2019

    If I Were You possesses a compelling score with drama to match. Full of symbols of soul transporters and apples and grieving elephants as well as contrasting venues from offices to bars, it stimulates the ears and eyes and holds the attention throughout

  • National Black Theatre Festival

    Biannual Event in Winston-Salem, NC

    By: Nancy Bishop - Aug 09th, 2019

    Some thirty members of American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) attended the Winston-Salem, NC National Black Theatre Festival. Here is the first report from our Chicago correspondent Nancy Bishop. More coverage will follow.

  • Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

    August Wilson Play Produced by Multi Ethnic Theater

    By: Victor Cordell - Aug 10th, 2019

    Set in 1927 Chicago, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the only play in August Wilson’s great ten-play, ten-decade “Pittsburgh Cycle,” of the black experience in America that takes place outside his home town. Although the black bottom in the title refers to the flapper dance of the period, it seems intended as a double entendre with sexual innuendo. Both connotations are relevant to one of the important verbal clashes among the band members.

  • National Black Theatre Festival

    Audience as Congregation in Winston-Salem

    By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 10th, 2019

    Thirty years ago the late Larry Leon Hamlin founded National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The biannual event, July 29 to August 3, featured 30 productions on stages in and around the city, They ranged from intensive dramas to entertaining musicals. A great part of the experience was being part of audiences that might better be described as congregations. People assemble from all over American for this unique celebration of African American history, theatre and culture.

  • Sustaining Regional Black Theatre

    Harlem, Houston,Winston-Salem, Chicago, Sarasota

    By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 12th, 2019

    In a conference organized by Florida critic, Jay Handelman, 30 members and guests of American Theatre Critics Association attended the biennial of the 30-year-old National Black Theatre Festival. In and around Winston-Salem, North Carolina there were 30 productions. During two insightful panel discussions we met artistic directors from Winston-Salem, Sarasota, Chicago and Houston. It provided a compelling overview of black theatre in America.

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