Josh Kornbluth is the original Red Diaper baby, a fact that’s given him much material for his work as a monologuist. Raised in New York by Communist parents, Kornbluth moved to Boston in his early 20s and took a job as a copy editor for the alternative newspaper The Boston Phoenix. He briefly attended Princeton University but dropped out before graduating, and only recently … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2013
Theater roundup: ‘Hamlet,’ abridged; ‘Rain’; ‘Cat Lady’
We have to acknowledge that audience attention spans have decreased dramatically in recent years, which makes one wonder how Shakespeare’s plays would be different if he were writing for today’s impatient theatergoers. Offering an answer is Miami-born playwright-director (The Brothers Size) Tarell Alvin McCraney, a former writer-in-residence for Great Britain’s Royal … [Read more...]
Pianist Paremski plumbs depths of Rachmaninov
When it comes to the monumental Third Piano Concerto of Sergei Rachmaninov, the pianist Natasha Paremski comes by her affinity for it naturally. Born in Moscow, where she began piano studies at age 4 before emigrating to the United States with her family at age 8, Paremski’s family insisted on speaking and writing Russian, reading Russian books and watching Russian movies at … [Read more...]
Festival makes case for enduring power of poetry
By Tom Tracy Miles Coon is aware that some people’s attitude toward poetry is less than welcoming. Perhaps they have indelible memories of having to recite a bit of rhyme in front of their eighth-grade class, something about “gate” and “fate” that they could never quite memorize. Maybe they were confused and baffled by a first encounter with Walt Whitman, singing endlessly … [Read more...]
Bernini Quartet masterful in Flagler program
String quartets these days are relatively big business, and listeners have many opportunities to hear live and recorded performances of masterworks (and otherwise) by fine ensembles from around the world. Most of the time we hear quartets with a modern edge, on instruments with metal strings whose sound cuts through the sonic murk of our noisy everyday. But when the string … [Read more...]
‘Camelot’: A once and future good idea
The void created by the demise of the Caldwell Theatre Company is still felt on the local arts scene, but at least artistic director Clive Cholerton’s concerts of musicals have found a home at Palm Beach Dramaworks. Newly dubbed the Musical Theatre Masters Series, it launched this weekend with Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Camelot and other selections appear to be … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 12-13, 2013
Music: Pianists and lovers of Bach are in a high state of excitement over Sunday afternoon’s concert at the Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall featuring the great American pianist Simone Dinnerstein in a complete, uninterrupted performance of the Goldberg Variations. This is the work – a tremendously impressive display of compositional ingenuity ― that helped make Dinnerstein’s … [Read more...]
Kuerti spellbinding in concerti with NY Chamber Soloists
About 2,000 music lovers filled the Kravis Center on Tuesday to hear the refined playing of the New York Chamber Soloists Orchestra ― 16 players, all at the top of their game, coming together to make the sweetest sounds. An early Haydn symphony, No. 6 (in D, Hob. I: 6), written in 1761 when the composer was 29 and newly hired by the Esterhazys, began the program. Subtitled Le … [Read more...]
The Oscar nods: Affleck, Bigelow snubs baffling
To paraphrase Sally Field, “They don’t like him. They really don’t like him.” That is the only possible conclusion to be drawn from the snub of Ben Affleck from the Best Director nominations, announced early this morning in Hollywood. Affleck was assumed to have a lock on one of the five slots in the category for his audience-friendly, fact-based thriller Argo, but it simply … [Read more...]
Dance companies reimagine Romeo, chronicle women in workplace
It would be difficult to count the number of different artistic adaptations of the story of Romeo and Juliet that have appeared since William Shakespeare’s play first trod the boards in the late 16th century. But its apparently permanent appeal likely stems from its central idea of an all-consuming love, and, well, that’s something we can all relate to. “It’s a tragic story, … [Read more...]