“[Basketball] is a black man’s game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American.” — Larry Bird, June 2004 Joseph Graves, Jr. might as well be talking to the wall. For years, the professor of biology and African-American Studies at Arizona State and Embry-Riddle University has dismissed […]
Arts & Entertainment
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Sweetmeats on the stage
Gregg Coffin’s previous, much-admired musical developed at Geva was Convenience, a funny, touching drama with some memorable truths to tell. His new musical, Five-Course Love — again a compositional tour-de-force of clever writing and appealing music entirely created by Coffin — is much lighter fare but even more entertaining — and showy. Coffin creates book, […]
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A visit to Eugene O’Neill’s ideal childhood
Another two delightful openings show the Shaw Festival on a roll with five winners out of five thus far. The musical may be imperfect, but it’s a treasure. And the festival’s first production by Eugene O’Neill is a pleasure indeed. Alisa Palmer’s direction of the musical Pal Joey is perhaps a tad too wholesome, […]
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Kids these days
Fifteen-year-old Major League Soccer Savior Freddy Adu came to Rochester last Wednesday night as part of a friendly match that pitted his team, DC United, against the Rhinos. United won, 2-0, and Adu scored a fine mid-range goal set up by former Greece Arcadia star and United teammate Dema Kovalenko. Adu’s got that Bill […]
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Bodies taking up space
Our bodies are our obsessions. We feed them, bathe them, decorate them. When our bodies break down we fix them. We project our bodies into and through space literally as well as through a variety of media. As Andy Warhol once said, “before media… there used to be a physical limit on how much space […]
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Women out of time
Hugh Leonard’s Love in the Title, now playing at Shipping Dock Theatre, is certainly a women’s play, but not the kind anyone is familiar with. Three female actors play three generations of an Irish family’s women. But in Leonard’s fantastical plot, the women aren’t exactly reunited, because they didn’t know each other at these ages. […]
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Sports are beneath you
Stereotypical City Newspaper readers don’t open the paper to read about sports. They sit in coffeehouses debating the world’s injustices while ignoring the NBA or Stanley Cup Finals, even the NFL training camps that get started next month. They might not even know what sports I’m talking about. But I don’t blame them. I often […]
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Sewing stories
We don’t often get to experience the stunned awareness in realizing that what stands (or hangs) before us isn’t really what it seems. Recently, for us, it was realizing that what looked like an actual dress stretched out and pinned to the wall was, in fact, a digital photograph — complete with all the requisite […]
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For one brief, shining moment
Geva Theatre Center has a hit on its hands with Camelot. It’s a beloved story. Despite the show’s basic drawbacks, the large cast sings and performs well. And the King Arthur is worth the price of admission by himself. Four years after their incomparable My Fair Lady, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe came […]
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Rock out with a transsexual dynamo and her band
Water Street Music Hall is presenting its first fully staged rock musical, a sensational production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch. But you can bet this won’t be its last. Produced here in Rochester — mostly by Syracuse theater artists and Rochester musicians — this exciting production is […]
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Home repair
Red Wing Jason Bartlett broke his left wrist during a game on Saturday, May 8. The 24-year-old shortstop will likely miss four to six weeks. Despite sitting out 15 games with the injury through May 24, Bartlett was still in the top-40 in IL hits. He rode an eight-game errorless streak before breaking his […]
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Dancing around the teapot
Hallmark Danceworks, a modern dance company in Rochester, has no permanent home. Moving from space to space, as far west as SUNY Brockport to central locations in downtown Rochester, Hallmark dancers rehearse wherever they can. Hallmark Danceworks includes Artistic Director Liz Hallmark and three other permanent members. When her choreography calls for it, Hallmark […]
