Oy, this is not a good year for sticking one’s neck out and predicting the Tony winners this Sunday evening (8 p.m., CBS-TV). There are no front-runners, like The Book of Mormon, which won in every category in which it was nominated and pundits could look prescient. I’m thinking the honors are going to be spread around so that all shows can have bragging rights and a chance … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2014
Weekend arts picks: June 6-8
Film: Filmed in exquisite, though bleak black-and-white by Polish writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida is a curious hybrid of Holocaust tale, road trip movie and odd couple drama. The title teenage character is a nun-in-training who is ordered to meet her only living relative, a distant aunt named Wanda, before she can take her vows. So Ida treks to meet Wanda and from her … [Read more...]
The View From Home 61: Friedkin, Kiarostami, Romanian New Wave, vintage Cagney, and a lame actioner
The People Vs. Paul Crump: Made in 1962 for Chicago public television but considered too controversial to air, the prescient documentary The People Vs. Paul Crump finally sees the light of day courtesy of Facets ($27.98 DVD). It is essentially an hour-long interview with Crump, a professedly innocent African-American death-row inmate convicted of murdering in a white security … [Read more...]
Riveting, creepy ‘Thrill Me’ impresses at Outré
The year was 1924, but the “thrill killing” of a 14-year-old boy by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb was so brutal and senseless that it was already being labeled “the crime of the century.” Over time, the case would continue to capture the nation’s imagination, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rope, Ira Levin’s novel Compulsion and John Logan’s play Never the Sinner. And most … [Read more...]
Community theater: Fine ensemble delivers powerful ‘Doubt’ at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Delray Beach Playhouse wraps up its 67th season with a presentation of Doubt, the taut, bare-knuckle drama that rivets audience members for the duration of its 90-minute, one-act story ripped from contemporary headlines. It runs through Sunday. Penned by John Patrick Shanley, Doubt examines the tense interplay between a tough, iron-willed nun who strongly … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys, No. 3: ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ ‘Aladdin’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Bullets Over Broadway — Susan Stroman (The Producers, Contact) must surely be the reigning director-choreographer of Broadway, but her stock has fallen substantially this season. It began with the musical Big Fish, which, by most … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys No. 2: ‘Act One,’ ‘Mothers and Sons,’ ‘Casa Valentina’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Act One — Just as marijuana is thought of as a gateway drug to harder stuff, Moss Hart’s autobiography Act One is surely responsible for getting many a young would-be theater artist hooked on the stage. The memoir of an impoverished kid … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys, No. 1: ‘Gentleman’s Guide,’ ‘Beautiful,’ ‘If/Then’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Here are three of this season's Broadway musicals, vying for a box office boost from the Tony Awards broadcast Sunday: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder — Romance is the motor of most musical comedies, but a team of writers, designers … [Read more...]
Natacha Koblova: Multilingual Society founder helps them speak in tongues
A year in business has not given Natacha Koblova all the answers she would like to have, although she did learn another language. The Russian-born 39-year-old polyglot (more on this later) has been in this business of teaching languages for many years. Now she faces the ups and downs of owning an infant language school/business that mixes traditional and unconventional … [Read more...]
Standout singing, graphics make for intriguing ‘Dandelion Woman’
A two-person chamber opera by a South Florida-based composer had an impact beyond its intimate scale thanks to two powerhouse performances and a beautifully accomplished suite of computer projections. Fairy Tales: Songs of the Dandelion Woman, which had its premiere in early May at the SoBe Institute for the Arts in Miami Beach (and which I saw May 17), is the brainchild of … [Read more...]