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Finding common ground: for Earth Day, bridging our national divide
For Earth Day: a bridge across our national divide, even in the Age of Trump
Comptroller’s audit criticizes RCSD
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli gave a harsh account of the Rochester City School District’s payroll processes this morning, calling them “disorganized, highly decentralized, and not administered uniformly, resulting in errors that are costing taxpayers.” DiNapoli made the statement as he released a new audit of the district, conducted from July 2014 to October 2016, which…
THE WEEK AHEAD: Events for the week of April 10
The Henrietta Democratic Committee will announce its candidates for town office, including a supervisor candidate, at 11 a.m. today. Currently, none of Henrietta’s elected town-level officials are Democrats, even though the party has a significant enrollment advantage. Over the past few years, however, a group of town Democrats reinvigorated the Henrietta committee. The town supervisor…
For Parcel 5: a theater topped by apartments
If City Council approves, a key part of the Midtown Plaza site will be developed as a 3000-seat theater for the Rochester Broadway Theatre League with a 50-apartment building on top of it.
Film review: ‘Going in Style’
In the heist comedy “Going in Style,” Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Arkin star as Joe, Willie, and Albert, lifelong friends who hatch a drastic, late-in-life plan to become bank robbers. The catalyst for this career change comes after the factory which employs the men suddenly decides to shift manufacturing overseas to Vietnam, leaving…
Theater review: Geva’s ‘Private Lives’
Noël Coward penned his hit play “Private Lives” in less than a week, yet more than 80 years later the show remains a crowd-pleaser in theatrical seasons around the world. Through April 16, Geva Theatre Center is staging “Private Lives” on its Wilson Stage. Coward — who also wrote “Hay Fever” and “Blithe Spirit” –…
ROOTS | Smooth Hound Smith
Smooth Hound Smith looks terribly under-qualified to be making as big a sound as it does. I mean, c’mon, it’s a duo, for chrissakes. The Nashville duo — multi-instrumentalist Zack Smith and singer-percussionist Caitlin Doyle — plays it mean, but stops shy of murder. With the guitar dished out dirty over a big bass drum…
ELECTRONIC | Kawehi
Dubbed “The genius one-woman band” by Elle magazine, Kawehi creates intricate, hypnotic, multi-dimensional loops using Ableton Live, and builds layers of sound with guitars, ukuleles, a MIDI keyboard, and beatboxing in beautiful array of artistic alchemy. This alternative-electronic musician takes an independent, DIY approach, with five albums and a full US tour completely funded by…
VOCAL | Classical Idol
If you’ve ever been frustrated with televised singing competitions — inconsistent vocal performances, musically illiterate judges, and all — don’t worry. This Saturday, the Rochester Oratorio Society will host the finals of its 11th annual Classical Idol competition at Temple B’rith Kodesh. In search of the next crop of up-and-coming opera singers, art song recitalists,…
CLASSICAL | Juan Trigos
Contemporary composer and conductor Juan Trigos may have gone under your classical music radar before, but now there’s no excuse. Trigos will be at Eastman School of Music as a Howard Hanson Visiting Professor, presenting two free recitals featuring his alluring yet mysterious music. On Wednesday, April 5, a concert given by classical guitarist and…
METALCORE | The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada rode into the world in the mid-2000’s on a wave of metalcore, post-hardcore, and pop-punk bands that will forever be linked in my mind with the blazing, July sun and asphalt parking lots of Warped Tour. So many of those acts — Scary Kids Scaring Kids, Attack Attack, A Day to…
POP | RPO plays “The Music of David Bowie”
I’ve got genuine mixed feelings about seeing a David Bowie impersonator. But since I never got to see the man himself in concert before he died last year, that’s as close as I’m gonna get. On Friday, world-renowned Bowie impersonator David Brighton will join The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra to present “The Music of David Bowie.”…
INDIE ROCK | Drew Taylor
With laidback charm and plugged-in strum, Brooklyn’s Drew Taylor is textbook indie rock minus the excessive effort usually made by those who crowd the idiom to capacity. Gently electrified, the music lilts loose beneath Taylor’s casual, strident tone. But this ain’t an indie “look-at-my-shoes” snooze fest: there’s hope and a Velvet Underground twinkle in there…
SPECIAL EVENT | Greater Rochester Peep Show
No, it’s not what you think. The only kind of peep you’ll get during the Greater Rochester Peep Show is of the sugary, marshmallow variety. The show will feature more than 100 art pieces and dioramas incorporating the marshmallow Peep. Thousands of people came through the exhibit in its first year, and the Webster Community…
FILM | “The Good Mind”
The Friends of Ganondagan on Saturday will host a screening of “The Good Mind,” an environmental advocacy documentary which follows the efforts of Onondaga Nation leaders to regain rights to their ancestral lands and protect the sovereignty and culture of their people. The film will be followed by a discussion with writer-director Gwendolen Cates and…
SPECIAL EVENT | Women in Theatre Symposium
The theater industry, like most areas, has a gender disparity. In the 2015-16 season, according to a study by American Theatre Magazine, only 21 percent of 1,914 plays produced were written solely by women (67 percent by men and 12 percent were co-written). Women do account for 72 percent of stage managers and assistant stage…
COMEDY | Paula Poundstone
Loyal listeners of NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” will be familiar with comedian Paula Poundstone. She’s been a long-time panelist on the quiz show — always ready with a witty one-liner or a somehow-relevant story about her cats — and more than three decades into her stand-up career, she regularly tours arts centers and theaters…
Feedback 4/5
We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. For our print edition, we select comments from all three sources; those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in…
Urban Action 4/5
This week’s calls to action include the following events and activities. (All are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.) Detaining immigrants, making money The growth in the number of undocumented immigrants detained by the US has been accompanied by a growth in for-profit prisons detaining them. The Rochester Committee on Latin America…
Community marches for economic and racial justice
Community members marched on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination to stand against racism and to fight for an end to poverty-level wages. A group of nearly a hundred marched from Joseph C. Wilson Foundation Academy on Genesee Street through the surrounding neighborhood, eventually ending at the academy for a town hall style…
Historic district for Park Avenue area?
Rochester has an impressive collection of houses, schools, small retail buildings, and other structures built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. And many of them have been preserved so well that entire neighborhoods look very much the way they did a century ago. Neighborhoods like those may be eligible for designation as a state…
Marches promote science, climate action
Rochester is steeped in science. George Eastman’s film business was basically chemistry. The cutting-edge medical and tech research happening at the University of Rochester Medical Center uses just about every branch of science, from biology to theoretical physics. Photonics, a high-potential industry for the Rochester region, is a branch of science. And that just scratches…
Can she ‘interrupt failure’? City schools’ new chief
No one can accuse Rochester schools Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams of being a media hound. Since the school board hired her last summer, she’s had relatively little to say to reporters. She decided instead to embark on a months-long mission: an intense study of the district. Her listening tour involved dozens of meetings with teachers, administrators,…
Salad days
The CITY Newspaper production team hit the Rochester Public Market for its spring installment of “Market made,” where we see if we can craft a meal for $20 from only seasonal, market ingredients.
Album review: ‘Kick out the Rocks’
The Dirty Pennies “Kick out the Rocks” Self-released thedirtypennies.bandcamp.com With the title track as a nod to the late, great Chuck Berry, Rochester’s The Dirty Pennies keep the blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and straight-up garage rock from devouring one another on its debut full-length, “Kick out the Rocks.” The album isn’t as raw as the…
Album review: ‘Sinner in Me’
Krypton 88 “Sinner in Me” Self-released reverbnation.com/krypton88 “Sinner in Me” is 12 cuts of pure rockabilly badness; what more do you need? Krypton 88 — Rochester’s keepers of the slap, bang, and twang flame — are back. On this outing, the trio tools around town with the hood off in order to show off the…
Fruition Seeds focuses on locally adapted food and flowers
Petra Page-Mann, co-owner of the organic seed packet company Fruition Seeds, has saved seeds since she was a child, working alongside her father in his garden in Naples. Saving seeds “was just something we did every year, and I didn’t think much of it,” she says. Almost two decades later, she realized it was not…
THEATER | “A Twist of Lemmon”
Writer, musician, and performer Chris Lemmon documents and celebrates the life of his father, Jack Lemmon, in “A Twist of Lemmon.” The story for the one-man-show is pulled from Chris’ memoir of the same name — about the journey of their father-son relationship, with a peek behind the curtain at old Hollywood — and is…
THEATER | “Philadelphia, Here I Come!”
The prolific Irish dramatist Brian Friel’s first international success was the bittersweet comedy “Philadelphia, Here I Come!” Produced in the UK in 1964 and on Broadway in 1966, it is still one of his most popular plays. It takes place the night before a young man named Gareth (or Gar) emigrates from his small Irish…
ART | “It’s Not Funny”
Some artists use unexpected tones or materials to make serious topics more approachable. That’s the idea behind “It’s Not Funny,” a new show opening this week at Rochester Contemporary Art Center (137 East Avenue). The exhibit brings together a range of local and national artists who use humor, toys, and other playful objects to create…
Protecting the Earth is a moral issue
Climate change is real, Pope Francis said two years ago: “one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”
Film review: ‘Raw’
The exceptionally assured feature debut of French writer-director Julia Ducournau, “Raw” is a deeply unnerving coming-of-age story and must-see viewing for iron-stomached horror fans. The film follows 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier), a strict vegetarian with a deep and abiding love of animals, who is on her way to her first year of veterinary school. Sweet-natured…
Theater review: ‘Wicked’ at the Auditorium
It’s rare to meet a musical theater lover who hasn’t seen “Wicked.” It’s the ninth longest-running musical in history, and for good reason
