Category Archives: Literary
The poster boy finally gets his day
Composer Philip Glass has just enough of a mix of pop culture caché and serious classical cred to make the premiere of his Book of Longing last night one of the ’07 festival’s top must-be-seen-at events. After all, the man’s face is plastered on every available surface across the peninsula; he’s more recognizable than Bono [...]
Another Book review
Another review of Friday’s world premiere of Book of Longing drops in Toronto, this one from the Globe and Mail. The wrap graf:
“In the end, Book of Longing was a chance worth taking, and enjoyable to witness. You could hear the two participants greeting each other across their different disciplines, if not always embracing. It [...]
Hotter than Dutch love
The twenty-something hipster quotient at Friday’s Spoleto Soiree was off the charts and into another realm altogether. You could have powered a small city for a week on the sexual energy crackling around the Gaillard Exhibition Hall, fueled by several open bars, pulse-punding ung-cha-ung-cha from a DJ in the corner, enough liquor to fill the [...]
Internal affairs
The 2 p.m. premiere of blessing the boats was packed — surprising, considering that there’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon out there and Sekou Sundiata’s “performance essay” is a play about the relationship between one man and his kidneys. Enough people apparently found this premise compelling enough to to fill the Emmett Robinson Theatre, which, if [...]
Never play Scrabble with the Late Night Players
The Late Night Players, old Piccolo and Charleston Comedy Festival hands, return to the lower peninsula in a couple of weeks for Theatre 99’s Piccolo Fringe and a quartet of shows at Buxton’s East Bay Theatre. One of the Boston-based sketch comedy outfit’s favorite devices is the anagram, that age-old parlor game in which all [...]
Parsing Spoleto ’06’s Most Memorable Moments
With Spoleto 2006 officially in the rear-view mirror, it’s worth observing once again that there’s a hell of a lot more to festival season than just what happens on stage, as anyone who followed this blog regularly surely noticed. It’s no accident that Spoleto founder Gian Carlo Menotti jammed the whole thing into 17 days; [...]
Saturday Schedule
So let’s see, where was I when last I was bloviating in this space? Ah yes, extolling the virtues of bullet points. It’s been a busy weekend. And we’re not even halfway through Saturday yet — at least, not mine. The evening’s agenda is — to borrow a turn from CP editor Stephanie Barna — [...]
Getting forensic on Spoleto 2007
The 31st Spoleto Festival USA is officially in the past tense. It’s now time to get forensic on the thing. But that’s less easy than it sounds. Part of the difficulty in summing up the festival after the fact lies in its nature; as Mayor Riley noted during the mid-festival tribute to founder Gian Carlo [...]