We rely on stories to connect us, to share human experiences that may or may not be our own, and to teach us, again and again, what it means to be human. But rare and perhaps most lasting are the stories that remind us of what we all too often forget: that above all, humans are kind.

• Mason Street Warehouse
• theatre
• Saugatuck Center for the Arts
• theatre reviews
• Come From Away
• Musicals

In 1990, David Hockney turned down a knighthood. His reason? He doesn’t “care for a fuss.” Offered the opportunity to paint Queen Elizabeth II, he demurred, citing a busy schedule.

• visual art
• Grand Rapids Art Museum
• GRAM

How dare they? This isn’t one of your regular bards we’re talking about. This is the bard, the immortal bard: the one and only William Shakespeare, The Greatest Writer In The English Language (™), the…the…the Shakespeare of his time. Well, dare they did. 

• theatre
• Circle Theatre
• theatre reviews

Making your way through the world can be a frightening thing, which is one of many insights into the human heart driving Waitress, the 2015 musical based on Shelly’s final film. It’s small in scale but big in emotion, humor, and something far too rare in Broadway musicals: genuinely good songs (music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles). With strong direction by Allyson Paris and memorable singing and acting by, well, everyone onstage, Grand Rapids Civic Theatre’s production (June 6th-29th) traffics in both the sweet and savory, telling a story of people as flawed, and as good, as we ourselves are.

• Grand Rapids Civic Theatre
• theatre
• theatre reviews
• Waitress

Summer in West Michigan wouldn’t be complete without the events, exhibitions, and shows put on by Saugatuck Center for the Arts. It’s a time for celebration, for community, and for sharing experiences, all of which the center offers in spades.

Lynne Brown-Tepper was 10 or 11 years old when she saw her first Circle Theatre show.  It was Cabaret, the sex-drenched musical set during the rise of Nazism. 

• theatre
• Circle Theatre

“It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this,” says righteous Juror #8 in the stage production of 12 Angry Men that opened The Barn Theatre’s 79th season. “Wherever you find it, prejudice obscures the truth.”

It’s the hottest day of 1954 in New York City with no AC and a broken fan when a jury of 12 white men start peeling off their sport jackets and loosening their ties because one of them isn’t willing to send a 16-year-old to the electric chair so the jurors can quickly move on with their lives after the three-day trial and stop being inconvenienced. 

• theatre
• theatre reviews
• barn theatre

Dead teenagers in a macabre amusement park limbo making a pitch for why they should get to return to their lives is far more amusing than might be expected in “Ride the Cyclone”, a wildly charming musical currently in production at Farmers Alley Theatre in Kalamazoo.

• theatre
• Farmers Alley Theatre
• theatre reviews

In the worldview of Dixie Longate, Alabama’s fast-talkingest, gum-smacking, snort-laughing, highest-grossing Tupperware Lady, you can be one of three things: a cherry bomb, a bottle rocket, or a dud.

• theatre
• theatre reviews

Deos Contemporary Ballet’s 2024-2025 season finale, Awaken 25, reflected the mood of our times, offered a balm via movement, and showed the small but mighty company’s artistic and stylistic range in the wonderfully intimate space of Gezon Auditorium at Calvin University.

• dance
• Ballet
• Deos Contemporary Ballet
• theatre reviews
• Dance reviews
• Calvin University