Although its subject is controversial and its characters’ responses are emotional, Shipping Dock’s current, challenging production is thoughtful, rather low-key, and pleasant. Rebecca Gilman’s Spinning Into Butter takes its central character, Sarah Daniels, the dean of students at an elegant, Vermont liberal arts college, through conflicts with both minority students who feel discriminated against and […]
Arts & Entertainment
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Surefire comic spirits
More than six decades after Noel Coward took about two weeks to toss off his enchanting ghost-frolic, BlitheSpirit, it is still delighting audiences in frequent productions around the world. Everybody loves the show, but it’s about time to start respecting it as a modern classic of foolproof comic theater, as well. Blackfriars’ enjoyable revival this […]
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21st-century sublime
American Sublime, a recent exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, surveyed the paintings of 19th-century landscape masters Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, and others. The show explored the traditional view of the sublime landscape in all its transcendent glory. That was then; this is now. Scott Laird, gallery director […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
21st-century sublime
American Sublime, a recent exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, surveyed the paintings of 19th-century landscape masters Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, and others. The show explored the traditional view of the sublime landscape in all its transcendent glory. That was then; this is now. Scott Laird, gallery director […]
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Geva cooks up a mouth-watering blues musical
“You go to the theater night after night, hoping that something magical will happen,” my guest said to me as we were leaving Geva Theatre on Saturday, “and tonight it did.” Everybody knows what a tough business it is to try to produce new theater, especially a new musical show. But I don’t think I’m […]
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Christopher Plummer’s controlled despair
Distinguished alumni continue to return to the Stratford Festival to make its 50th anniversary season stellar indeed. Alumnus Brent Carver, a Tony Award-winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman, returns to Stratford in the world premiere of Timothy Findley’s play, Shadows. Findley, an actor in the first 1953 company at Stratford, later became a […]
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May we suggest…
Last time out. The Rhinos (16-3-7) split a pair of games with the Toronto Lynx (10-4-13) over the weekend. They dropped the road portion of the home-and-home series on Friday, losing 2-1. The Score is a little mystified by the decision not to start Hamisi Amani-Dove and the red-hot Greg Simmonds in that match, especially […]
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Rewards and surprises at Shaw
The final three productions of the Shaw Festival’s 2002 season are impressive indeed. The world premiere of Simon Bradbury’s Chaplin, though, looks more like a brilliant work in progress than the final solution to the problem of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp having to deal with Hitler. Christopher Newton’s choice for his final directing stint before […]
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Rochester Rhinos
Last time out. The Rhinos (15-3-6) hit the road for a pair of matches against two of the weaker teams in the A League. On Friday, they earned their first bonus point of the season with a 3-1 win over Cincinnati (8-0-16). Hamisi Amani-Dove scored twice in that game, and added one the following evening […]
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Comic chameleons
One of the most eye-opening, hilarious shows you’re likely to see for some time is playing at Shipping Dock Theatre through the end of this month (and ought to be extended past then). In The Kathy and Mo Show: Parallel Lives, Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy created a series of connected sketches exploring feminist […]
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Timeless impressions
Talent is never enough, at least not in the art world. Of course talent’s important, but timing is everything. And if an artist wanted to be noticed, the early 20th century was no time to be doing Rembrandt. Portrait of Life: The Etchings of Arthur William Heintzelman, at the Memorial Art Gallery, showcases the […]
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Summer treat
Unfortunately, InterPlay, Shipping Dock Theatre’s annual festival of new plays, can schedule only three performances each during two summer weekends, so you have only this coming weekend to see the two plays that opened last week. I suspect, though, that Craig Pospisil’s delectable Months on End will show up again. In 1995, InterPlay introduced […]
