If there’s one thing Hell’s Kitchen does incredibly well it’s remind us what an extraordinarily gifted songwriter Alicia Keys is. The national tour of this semi-biographical Tony Award winning jukebox musical kicked off Broadway Grand Rapids’ new season at DeVos last night.
Djanet Sears’ award-winning 1997 play Harlem Duet imagines Shakespeare’s Othello’s first marriage, before Desdemona, embodying and centering his Black first wife’s experience. Sometimes referred to as a prequel to The Bard’s 16th Century tragedy, this brilliant work plays with the silences in Othello while riffing on many of its themes.
At least as far back as written history extends, veils have been worn. Sometimes they were used to mark status; in ancient Mesopotamia, they indicated high social class.
Holland offers such a beautiful landscape,” said Jaer Medina. “I don’t know that you could ask for a better place for an artist to grow up, outside the Swiss Alps.”
From symphonies and chamber music to Broadway tours, ballet, theater, opera and an impressive slate of visual art exhibitions, the season ahead offers no shortage of ways to fill your calendar.
Hammerspace Gallery lies at the intersection of conceptual art, unconventional spaces and motherhood. Hailey Johnson founded it as a mobile pop-up gallery in Portland, OR, and has since brought the project to various spaces around Grand Rapids.
In the outpouring of memorials following Irish musician and actor Glen Hansard’s untimely death last month, came the recognition of his vast gift to bring people together, to use music to cultivate community and make us feel less alone.
Eaton Rapids, MI (population: 5200 or so), holds a unique place geographically: it’s further from any great lake than any other city in the state of Michigan. So it wasn’t inevitable that Bryanna Manning, who was raised there, would grow up to paint Lake Michigan.
Even as artificial intelligence threatens to infiltrate more and more of the entertainment industry, our West Michigan music community continues to prove how strong and irreplaceable it is, with this year’s Best of the West Music winners showing a true commitment to craft and community.
Thirty years ago the musical Rent took Broadway by storm, receiving massive critical acclaim and becoming an instant classic phenomenon that brought a new generation to musical theatre.
