Susan Hall
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Recent Articles:
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The Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon Continues Series C Theatre
Love in Many Surprising Forms
By: - Jun 19th, 2015The EST, play after play, performance after performance, delivers first rate productions of new playwrights. The EST is of the most exiting companies in New York, or anywhere.
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Gilbert Conducts Joan of Arc at the Stake Front Page
Marion Cotilliard Simply Magnificent as Joan
By: - Jun 13th, 2015The North American continent does not have military heroines. A 17th century Mexican nun, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, was censored for her apostatic writings, but never picked up a sword. Without queens and saints, we have struggled into modern times. For comfort when France was challenged, as it often has been in history, the country looks to its patron saint, Joan of Arc, who helped end the Hundred Years War before she was burned at the stake. The New York Philharmonic reminded us of her trials in the ineffably moving composition of Paul Claudel and Arthur Honegger.
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Joan of Arc, Patron Saint of France by Marion Cotilliard Front Page
Honegger, Claudel and Alan Gilbert Join Forces
By: - Jun 09th, 2015On June 10, 2015, Alan Gilbert will present Honegger's most famous composition, Joan or Arc at the stake. Modestly, Honegger said he only followed the inspiration of his librettist Paul Claudel. Their collaboration was inspired. Gilbert discussed the dramatic oratorio with Come de Bellescize, the stage director, and Pierre Vallet, who assisted Seiji Ozawa with his production of the oratorio.
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The Ensemble Studio Theatre Marathon Theatre
Existential Questions Dramatic and Personal
By: - Jun 05th, 2015The Ensemble Studio Theatre just won a 2015 Drama Desk Award its commitment to producing new works by American playwrights since 1968. This year's 35th Marathon of Short Plays shows why the award is so deserved.
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Fugard Theatre's A Human Being Died that Night Theatre
Truth and Reconciliation at the BAM Fisher
By: - Jun 03rd, 2015Both Plato and Aristotle wrote about the catharsis of tragedy in drama. South Africa with some success took the idea and tried to find truth and healing post apartheid. In large measure they succeeded. This wonderful play, conceived by Eric Abraham and written by Nicholas Wright, suggests why in a personal and incredibly moving adaptation of a true story.
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Carnegie is Busting Out All Over Music
The Iconic Hall Has Brought Music to Every Corner of New York
By: - Jun 01st, 2015Throughout the five boroughs of New York, Carnegie Hall has presented live music to audiences of every age nd every hue. Community colleges, town halls, libraries and churches have opened their doors to music makers. Catching up at the seaason's end we heard Julia Bullock and Renate Rohling at St. Michael's Church in Manhattan and the Whistling Wolvves in the extraorinarily inviting Weill Music Room in Carnegie's new wing.
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A.R.Gurney's What I Did Last Summer Theatre
Jim Simpson Directs at the Signature
By: - May 28th, 2015What I Did Last Summer is A.R. Gurney's latest play and a delight. How could it be a dream summer at the beach when Dad is off fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, Mom is lonely, Elsie is trying to lose weight and Charlie is trying to become a man without a model around? Yet it is as directe by Jim Simpson
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Bizet's Carmen in Sunset Park Brooklyn Music
Indominatable Regina Opera Scores Again
By: - May 23rd, 2015With four hundred seats cushioned in plush red velvet to match the red velvet curtain donning a stage almost as tall as the Metropolitan opera's, the Regina Opera Company plays to a packed house full of the much-to-be envied millenials, their children, their parents. Everyone enjoyed great opera.
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Ensemble Studio Theatre's Marathon of One Acts Theatre
Series A Opens the 35th Year
By: - May 22nd, 2015The Ensemble Studio Theatre is presenting its 35th anniversary Marathon of one act plays. Although proud of their production, Hand to God, which is now on Broadway with five Tony nominations, they are hardly sitting on their laurels.
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Hand to God at the Booth on Broadway Theatre
Stunning Performances in an Edgy Play
By: - May 21st, 2015Robert Askins' play started at the Ensemble Studio Theatre and has not stopped since. It arrived on Broadway in time to receive five Tony nominations this year: three for actors, one for the play and the other for direction. Shows you what aa hand to God can do.
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The Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall Music
Wizard Nézet-Séguin Conducts
By: - May 15th, 2015Music as diverse as Nico Muhly, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff all sprang up from the Philadelphia Orchestra in rich dynamic and tonal swoops as the conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, drew forth resplendent sounds and shapes. From the beating of a woodblock to a celestial harp, Nézet-Séguin dances as he conducts and his body movements, which are smooth rather than exaggerated, convey to both the musicians and the audience the breath of the phrasing.
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Gerald Finley: Master and Devil Music
Teaching the Art of Generosity
By: - May 12th, 2015Gerald Finley is showing young singers a moment, steering them, helping them build their unique gifts as he conducts a Master Class at Juilliard. He emphasizes intimacy as the connection between the singer in full, his personality and spirit released out to the world in song. Finley took time off from his thrilling performance as Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress at the Met.
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The Road of Promise by the Collegiate Chorale Music
Ted Sperling Conducts a Kurt Weill Blockbuster
By: - May 07th, 2015Kurt Weill had had theatrical success with Three Penny Opera and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny when he was approached by Max Reinhardt to compose music for a pageant highlighting the plight of Jewish people in Germany and throughout the world. The Collegiate Chorale presented an oratorio based on the pageant.
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Two Gentlemen of Verona at Theatre for a New Audience Theatre
Fiasco Production in the Polosky Shakespeare Center
By: - May 05th, 2015What may well be Shakespeare's first play is produced as a wild and charming mashup of The Book of the Courtier, Match.com and luscious language. Fiasco Theater out of the Folger in Washington, DC has collaborated with Theatre for a New Audience in the past. Now they arrive in full blossom at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn with Two Gentlemen of Verona.
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Mozart's Magic Flute Set in a Masonic Symbol Music
Night and Sunlight Battle at the Manhattan School of Music
By: - May 02nd, 2015The symbol of the Free Masons frames the set of the Manhattan School of Music production. A circular insert reveals the interior dramas of the opera: the imprisonment of Pamina, journeys through the forest, the home of the Queen of the Night. An effective transition from sun to moon locates us in the various worlds of the opera.
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Röschmann and Uchida Captivate Carnegie Music
Sleeping Songs Arise
By: - Apr 22nd, 2015The poet who provides the lyrics for Schumann's Liederkreis which opened this extraordinary program at Carnegie Hall speaks of song sleeping in all things. Song came alive in concert with Dorothea Röschmann with the heartbeat of the piano in Uchida's hands.
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An Unfortunate King and I at Lincoln Center Theatre
Ken Watanabe, Kingly, Sexy and Touching
By: - Apr 19th, 2015Some moving performances sung beautifully graced the Lincoln Center stage. Standouts were Ruthie Ann Miles as Lady Thiang, Conrad Ricamora as Lun Tha and Jon Viktor Corpuz as Prince Chulalongkorn. Attempting to make the story more ordinary does not help. It is after all about a King and a son who will be King and a woman of aristocratic bearing who teaches both of them. A stylish idea that requires style.
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Laura Eason at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre
Right Now Has an Undeniable Sound
By: - Apr 18th, 2015Rattlesnake Plawrights and Womens Project Theater collaborate to present the world premier of Laura Eason's new play. Twenty years ago Eason was a singer, song writer and bass player in a pop band in Chicago. Her band Tart played in venues like Hank's Bar, the setting of this play. Eason has a deep feeling for the pwoer of music to exist in the right now.
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Les Violons du Roy Loft Purcell at Carnegie Hall Music
Dorothea Röschmann, A Dark and Pure Dido
By: - Apr 13th, 2015Before Bach and Purcell don't instantly call to mind slapstick, but there is was, and marvellously done, onstage at Carnegie Hall. Purcell's The Fairy Queen was written to please: we missed the singing monkeys, but had two delightful fairies sung by Lesley Emma Bouza and Sheila Dietrich to tease a bumbling, drunk Stephen Hegedus until he collapsed in a heap. So much for the warm-up.
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Ghosts by Ibsen Physicalized by Richard Eyre Theatre
Leslie Manville, Tender and Tough
By: - Apr 12th, 2015Richard Eyre’s fresh and visceral take on Ghosts brings powerfully to the stage not a play set in the end of the 19th century, but a play which resonates in any time present. The cast matches each other beat for beat.
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The Amazing Max Darwin, Magician Theatre
Conjuring Truth
By: - Apr 08th, 2015No wonder Max packs ‘em in. With an unerring eye for talent and courage, his audience assistants fall into their new role with ease. They all caught the wand tossed to them with the cavalier ease of Yogi Berra.
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John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden in Metabookâ„¢ Opinion
New Digital Book Publisher Puts a New Spin on a Modern Classic
By: - Apr 03rd, 2015The publishing conundrum. How to attract readers tied to their mobile devices and induce them to read a book. Ken Siman and his partners Christian and Benjamin Alfonsi have produced a packed multimedia edition of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for iphones and ipads. Is this the answer to book reading in the 21st century?
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Gotham Chamber Opera Music
Excerpts from Shakespeare's Musical
By: - Mar 28th, 2015Ever innovative and daring, yet pleasing to audiences young and old, the Gotham Chamber Opera is a go-to company for an ear-tingling, eye-catching experience. The Tempest Songbook stretches its limits in unusual ways. Composer Kaija Saariaho joins Purcell. Martha Graham dancers give us characters dead and aive. Neal Goren and his musicians pull it all together.
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Paul Robeson Lives at BAM Theatre
The Tallest Tree in the Forest by Daniel Beaty
By: - Mar 24th, 2015Paul Robeson is one of those figures who haunts us. David Beaty brings him to life at the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. What is striking almost forty years after his death is the power of the man: his beautiful voice, fierce intellect and passionate commitment to use the gifts with which he was born to enhance the world around him. Daniel Beaty captures the man in all his complexity.
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Irreversible Presented by The Red Fern Theatre Company Theatre
Jack Karp's Intriguing Play about Oppenheimer
By: - Mar 23rd, 2015The play about the bomb is a hit. Set in the Jimez mountains of New Mexico, suggested by the orange, siena dust and the yellow gold skies, Robert Oppenheimer dominates the stage as he dominated the Los Alamos lab. General Grove admired him so that he kept him there despite Oppenheimer's communist-tainted past and his sometimes erratic behavior. Playwright Karp captures this huge figure in detailed strokes, and shows why his brother, wife and lover could not stay away from him.
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