After strong out-of-town previews, “Irene” bombs in NYC
Aug
29
2011
Bewildered international tourists departed the normally ballsy New York City confounded by a five-day terror campaign in advance of a robust wind-and-rain storm that moved through town on Sunday. The fear was transmitted in coordination by civic government and media. Head for the hills, New Yorkers, and batten down all hatches, the media carped. It ...
Irene gives her regards to Broadway 1
Aug
27
2011
In New York on a visit to the marvelous Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, it’s been a five-day, non-stop hurricane watch. No hurricane could possibly be as harrowing as the run-up to Hurricane Irene, which has succeeded in making a nervous wreck out of an entire city. And one visiting dance critic ...
What a guy! Ehrich Weiss, a.k.a. Harry Houdini
The absolutely fabulous “Houdini: Art and Magic,” which opens tomorrow at the Skirball Center along with its equally wonderful companion show, “Masters of Illusion, Jewish Magicians of the Golden Age,” injects fun, mystery and gamesmanship into the ether — right when we need it most. Jewish guys dressed in turbans and tuxedos, waving wands, and ...
Jack Cole dancer George Martin dies 5
Sad news. One of the last living connections to Jack Cole and a key member of Cole’s great brigade of film and nightclub dancers, George Martin, died in Atlanta on April, 6, 2011, we learned yesterday from Dancers Over 40. I met the Martins, George and Ethel, at a symposium on Cole last summer at ...
Accomplished arts professional Kristy Edmunds to head UCLA Live
Performing arts curator Kristy Edmunds has been named executive and artistic director of UCLA Live, the venerable outlet for music, dance, and theater at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. Edmunds, an American, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, comes to UCLA Live from Australia’s University of Melbourne, where she was head of the ...
Happy 100th birthday, Tennessee Williams 1
Mar
22
2011
Two terrific Tennessee Williams shows are on right now, and what a lovely way to gain exposure to our great southern playwright, born March 26, 1911, who would turn one hundred years old this Saturday had he not choked on the cap of his eyedrop squeezer in 1981. But that’s a story for another time. ...
Honoring America’s greats: National Medal of Arts
President Obama this morning honored some of our nation’s great artists in a ceremony at the White House. Receiving the 2010 National Medal of Arts were Robert Brustein, the theater producer and critic; Van Cliburn, the pianist; Mark di Suvero, the abstract expressionist sculptor; poet Donald Hall; and the pioneering dance organization, Jacob’s Pillow Dance ...
But enough about me, what do you think about me? Celebrity Autobiography! at the Broad Stage 1
An all-star cast of Florence Henderson, Laraine Newman, Ileana Douglas, Eugene Pack, Julian Sands, Jonathan Silverman, Jennifer Tilly, and more, read snippets of real celebrity autobiographies to the great pleasure of a café-style audience in the Eyde performance space behind the Broad mainstage. It’s a wicked funny review with a rarin’-to-go pick-up cast: Celebrity Autobiography. ...
What a piece of work is Hamlet!
I am attending “The Trial of Hamlet” this evening to determine the competency of the defendant to stand trial for the murder of Polonius. United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will adjudicate this mock trial of Hamlet, Crown Prince of Denmark. The trial takes place tonight on the USC campus. [Justice Kennedy was nominated ...