Melissa Rodman

Film/Album Review: Sara Bareilles’s “Good Grief” Turns Loss into Communion

August 27, 2026
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Josh Alexander’s intimate studio documentary follows Sara Bareilles and her collaborators as they shape songs of infertility, bereavement, friendship, and collective consolation.

Book Review: Doing the “Art Monster” Mash

August 11, 2024
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The art monster is messy, ambitious, and narcissistic but couldn’t care less about what you think. Are you frightened?

Film Review: “Make Me Famous” – In Search of Edward Brezinski

March 5, 2024
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“Make Me Famous” is not the portrait of a superstar like Jean-Michel Basquiat or Keith Haring; this protagonist is representative of the everyday angst, the struggle, the not-making-it, and the work that was produced regardless.

NY Theater Review: “The Connector” – Truth or Consequences

February 16, 2024
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The musical’s focus on truth in journalism resonates in our post-2016, “fake news,” and Artificial Intelligence-saturated environment.

Visual Arts Review: “Van Gogh’s Cypresses” – Seeing the Forest for the Trees

June 6, 2023
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Ah, the trees! They are the focal point, the organizing principle, of this tight exhibition, which in three parts tracks Van Gogh’s productive yet challenging sojourn in southern France, from Arles to Saint-Rémy.

Visual Arts Interview: Oleksandra Kovalchuk on “Saving Ukrainian Art”

August 2, 2022
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“Ukrainian culture — Ukrainian language, Ukrainian books, literature, poetry, arts — is the testimony of our existence through all these centuries … It is still here, and we try to save it.”

Visual Arts Review: “Matisse: The Red Studio” – A Lesson in Objects

May 9, 2022
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Making the viewer draw visual connections among Matisse’s pieces in the title painting is at the core of MoMA’s The Red Studio.

Theater Review: “Prayer for the French Republic” — No Safe Haven

March 10, 2022
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Joshua Harmon’s serious but not solemn play focuses on a Jewish family in Paris grappling with the rise of antisemitism.

Opera Review: “Eurydice” – Not a Love Story But a Father-Daughter Dirge

November 27, 2021
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Forget romance. Forget chemistry. Forget star-crossed lovers. At its heart, this Eurydice is concerned with the love between a father and a daughter.

Book Review: “What You Can See From Here” – Hopefully Romantic

June 13, 2021
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There is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Mariana Leky’s vision of perpetual love compelling.

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