The Far-off Hills Revival

With frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in the news due to actor Bruce Willis fighting the disease for several years, I decided to speak with playwright Jake Broder, an Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, about his motivation to create Unravelled and his research on the disease.

DIETRICH, written by Willard Manus, starring Cindy Marinangel, Chicago Second City Conservatory graduate, directed by Glenda Morgan Brown and produced by Sea Angel Productions., LLC is based on a true story. Set in May 1960, the play takes place when the actress returned to the Berlin stage for the first time since fleeing the Hitler regime in the 1930’s. Inside her dressing room at the Tatania-Palast Theater, Dietrich weighs whether to go through with the live performance despite threats on her life by Nazi sympathizers who resented her for having spent much of World War II entertaining American soldiers on the front lines. To them, Dietrich is a turncoat; a traitor who deserves to be shot and killed on stage.

Tanglewood has announced additional programs and updates to its 2024 season (June 20–August 31), which celebrate the legacy of Seiji Ozawa and reflect the BSO's commitment as a service organization to advancing the humanities and enriching the lives of Berkshire residents: 

Learn more about the lineup of classical favorites and star-studded pops concerts for the 2024 Blossom Music Festival by The Cleveland Orchestra here!

Tanglewood has revealed details of its 2024 season, opening in late June through August 31.

Multiplatinum singer-songwriter and 12-time Grammy winner John Legend will join The Boston Symphony Orchestra's Labor Day weekend lineup for the 2023 Tanglewood Popular Artist Series.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced that Guster will be performing as part of the 2023 Tanglewood Popular Artist Series. 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced that Jackson Browne will be performing as part of the 2023 Tanglewood Popular Artist Series.

THE GODFATHER, the Academy Award-winning film starring Al Pacino and Diane Keaton directed by Francis Ford Coppola is coming up next on Sunday, April 16, 2023 at 6:30 p.m. as part of the Fine Arts Theatre Beverly Hills month-long celebration of their 86th Anniversary this month.  Get your tickets 25 cents movie tickets today at retro 1937 ticket prices. 

In his inimitable artistic style, actor and concert pianist Hershey Felder continues to bring the lives and music of famous composers, including Debussy, Beethoven, Berlin, Bernstein, Gershwin, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff, to stages around the world. When I heard he was bringing his final performances of George Gershwin Alone to The Wallis in Beverly Hills this April, I decided to speak with him about the decision to retire his popular production and what his vision for the future holds.

The Fine Arts Theatre Beverly Hills with celebrate the 86th Anniversary of the historic theatre with retro 1937 ticket prices of twenty-five cents per movie ticket and fifty cents for Double Features during a month-long celebration screening of 11 classic films from April 2 – 30, 2023.

Pasadena Playhouse has announced the cast for Sunday in the Park with George, the first production of the theater’s six-month-long celebration of Stephen Sondheim. See performances dates and how to purchase tickets!

Pasadena Playhouse Producing Artistic Director Danny Feldman announced the latest news for the theater’s upcoming six-month-long celebration of the works and impact of Stephen Sondheim January 26 through June 11, 2023. 

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine's Great Music in a Great Space concert series presents a performance by Organ Scholar Samuel Kuffuor-Afriyie, Minster of Music at The Brick Presbyterian Church Raymond Nagem, violinist Monica Davis, and Ensemble 1047 Dance Collective—featuring Chase Buntrock, Runako Campbell, Mio Ishikawa, and Kevin Pajarillaga—on Tuesday, April 26 at 7:30pm at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue (at 112th Street).

This 2021 Boston Pops July 4th Spectacular will be a televised, live-streamed concert to take place under the direction of Keith Lockhart from the stage of Tanglewood’s Koussevitzky Music Shed, Sunday, July 4, 8-11 p.m., broadcast live on Bloomberg TV and Radio, as well as locally on WHDH-TV Channel 7.

Start sweater weather season off right with exciting new original series and A-list blockbuster movies coming this October to HBO Max.

It's another busy weekend in Nashville - but when is Music City not packed with events, festivals, affairs? - and we're back with our Critic's Choice recommendations to have you cut through the theatrical flotsam and jetsam and find a cultural opening that's a good fit for your harried lifestyle. Nashville Opera opens its staging of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at Noah Liff Opera Center, Way Off Broadway Productions unveils its version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Music Valley Event Center, Street Theatre Company invites you to the see their staging of Lynn Nottage's Sweat at their new venue on Elm Hill Pike and Nashville Rep continues its celebration of 10 years of The Ingram New Works Festival at Nashville Children's Theatre.

Had Lucy's family stayed in Trenton, history might have been very different, but the Garden State stayed peripherally involved the Queen of Comedy's life and work.

Tickets on sale today for three plays in the Carrie Hamilton Theatre of the Pasadena Playhouse, the State Theater of California, this fall. The Los Angeles premiere of Bess Wohl's darkly comic American Hero, a Pasadena Playhouse Guest Production from IAMA Theatre Company, directed by James Eckhouse performs September 15 to October 31 (press opening September 21).  Next, The USC School of Dramatic Arts and Pasadena Playhouse continue their exciting partnership by presenting two productions for the School's MFA in Acting program at the Carrie Hamilton Theatre: Detroit 67 by Dominique Morisseau, directed by Gregg T. Daniel November 8-10, and The Receptionist by Adam Bock, directed by Andi Chapman November 16-17.

As a major highlight of its summer-long celebration, June 15-September 2, of the centennial of Leonard Bernstein's birth, Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in Lenox, MA, has programmed several fully staged and semi-staged productions of Leonard Bernstein's work written for the stage, featuring several Tony Award-winning Broadway performers, choreographers, and directors.

Continuing the momentum created with the current season launch of its Music Knows No Borders series, Executive Director Thor Steingraber unveils the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts' 2018-19 Season, which features four world premieres, two American premieres, several of the world's greatest orchestras, innovative jazz programs, two tributes to Hollywood legends, Broadway classics plus artists from 18 different nations who will appear on stage at The Soraya next season.  New Subscription Series tickets will go on sale May 1, 2018.

During the late 1920s and into the 1940s, the United States went through the great depression. Unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25%. These were drab times and, as is the case, since the arts represent the era from which they come, the theatre of that time period represented two extremes: heavy drama reflecting the negative mood of the nation and escapism to make people feel better by hiding from their angst-filled reality.

Featuring a cast of seasoned veteran actors working beside some of the DC-area's most gifted young performers, Theater J offers a sublime take on Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical look at growing up poor and horny in Depression era Brooklyn. Through the lens of nostalgia, Simon's 34 year-old play is like a valentine to a hard-scrabble upbringing sprinkled with humor, rather than the laugh riot of THE ODD COUPLE or the later RUMORS.

I remember the Herzog Video at the Whitney Biennial 2 rounds past but forgot the name of the Dutch artist he portrayed. Now the MET has the definitive exhibition of Hercules Segers......Who? Yes, that artist. In the way only the MET can do with the help of the RijksMuseum and a few others you can see a very rare relatively complete moment in history 400 years ahead of itself. Most existent prints are here as well as several paintings and like a comet they will not cross our path in NY or anywhere for that matter for another 100 years.

David Mirvish has announced the 17 shows in the 2016 - 2017 Mirvish Theatre Season.  There will be seven shows in the Mainstage Subscription Series, three in the Off-Mirvish Subscription Series, and seven bonus shows not on subscription.