Bill Marx
Junior Programs undertook “a visionary rethinking of the potential relationship between the performing arts and the lives of the nation’s children, with the specific artistic innovations emerging organically from that rethinking”.
This is the most slickly engaging of Mfoniso Udofia’s scripts so far, its domestic melodrama enlivened by welcome humor, detailed characterizations, and moments of pathos.
We desperately need plays and musicals — produced by local companies with courage and nerve — that acknowledge that the cancer of autocracy is here, today, and becoming stronger. That is the demand — will any answer the call?
“Heart-work,” Roberta Silman’s new collection of stories, looks at the knotty intricacies of domestic life.
The Russian dramatist’s expansive application of ridicule, his picture of human society as an endless chain of fools fooling fools fooling fools, couldn’t be more fitting — it is a funhouse mirror of our times.
Why did I help organize the Climate Crisis Cabaret? Because these are not normal times. And we need more theater like it.
It is always a pleasure to see Ibsen on stage, but this production of one of his masterpieces is generally humdrum.
Revelatory reunions are a standard dramatic setup, which explains why it takes quite a while for “The Grove” to gather some theatrical steam.
This moving, at times beautiful, production evokes Michael K’s vision of purity, a rejection of collective cruelty and madness that asserts human dignity’s last stand — as an animal.
Arts Commentary: From the Editor’s Desk — By Popular Demand, 2024
Back in February of 2024 I began to write a weekly column for the newsletter on Substack. A few readers have asked that I post these opinion pieces in the magazine. Here is a selection of my favorites.
Read More about Arts Commentary: From the Editor’s Desk — By Popular Demand, 2024