By Sandra Schulman In an overwhelming Art Fair week ready to descend on Miami from all corners of the world, there are so many events to choose from it’s almost unreal and pure art nirvana. The sheer quality and quantity of shows, promotions, screenings, talks, public art and fairs ready to land on the billion-dollar sandbar is unparalleled in America and perhaps the world. … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘110 in the Shade’; ‘Shorts Gone Wild 3’
The musical team of composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones hit the jackpot their first time out with an intimate, endearing love story, off-Broadway’s The Fantasticks. But they wanted Broadway success, so they next adapted N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker on a larger scale, with a full, though essentially superfluous, chorus of townfolk, dramatic Agnes de Mille … [Read more...]
Theater reviews: ‘Lady Day,’ ‘Dames at Sea’
' With many a stage biography of a show business legend, there is the rise to stardom from humble roots and then the frequently inevitable descent in the second half of his or her life. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, an intermissionless biographical nightclub act of the great jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday – born Eleanora Fagan – is almost entirely descent. The … [Read more...]
Profile tells us a lot about pope, but still comes up short
Pope Francis has impressed Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his displays of compassion and kindness for the less fortunate. Many will recall that on Holy Thursday in 2013 Francis visited an Italian youth prison, where he said Mass and washed the feet of 12 young inmates, including a Muslim boy and two girls, one a Catholic and the other a Muslim. It was the first time … [Read more...]
Barbeau excited about challenge of ‘Pippin’
Adrienne Barbeau had forgotten how prescient her bio was. “The strangest thing is I went to my website to cut and paste from my bio and the intro talks about what an eclectic career it has been. And I say there, ‘All that’s left to do is be a radio disc jockey or a circus performer,’” she says with a throaty laugh. The woman who came to the nation’s attention as Bea Arthur’s … [Read more...]
Essay: Keeping dance all about the art
By Tara Mitton Catao Dance competitions are multiplying in profusion these days, forcing those of us in the art form to have mixed feelings about a growing popularity that seems to treat dance more as a sport than an art form. Dance has always relied heavily on technique because it uses the human body as its tool for artistic expression. The more technique a dancer has, the … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’, ‘Tryst,’ and ‘Vanya and Sonia…’
“Erratic” is the word that comes to mind to describe the inaugural season of Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre. But when it is good, the eight-month old company can compete with any troupe in South Florida, as it proves with its current production of the Fats Waller revue, Ain’t Misbehavin’. The 1978 Tony Award winner set the gold standard for composer tribute songfests and by … [Read more...]
Terrific ‘In a World’ makes wise comedy from voice-over niche
Think about this: When was that last time you saw a trailer that contained booming voice-over narration explaining the film’s plot and major themes? Not text on the screen or movie dialogue taken out of context, but narration, recorded exclusively for the trailer? You may have to go back some time. Don LaFontaine recorded these epic orations for more than 5,000 titles, peaking … [Read more...]
Powerful ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ a thinking person’s thriller
Hollywood’s view on the U.S. intelligence organizations’ “enhanced interrogation techniques” that have been violating Geneva conventions since 9-11 is pretty clear. Rendition, Taxi to the Dark Side, Standard Operating Procedure -- these features and documentaries all take the correct liberal position on the issue: that torture is shameful and ineffective, a moral blight on this … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Two Pulitzers, a great play and a dud
Palm Beach Dramaworks prides itself on serving up “theater to think about.” True, there are plenty of heady plays on its schedule this season, but it begins instead with Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly, a charming two-character romance from 1979, more like “theater to sigh over with a constant smile on your face.” It is a mating dance for an unlikely couple ― Matt Friedman, a … [Read more...]