Almost 13 years ago, the Grand Rapids Symphony (GRS) ventured beyond Michigan’s borders for the first time. The destination: Carnegie Hall, New York City’s iconic concert venue.

Dance has the power to interpret and recreate worlds of experience without explaining or intellectualizing. Without words, it invites us into an experience through the universal language of the body, of movement. When done well, that experience is transcendent, and elicits an emotional response born of communal creation as well as private connection.

A conversation was sparked after the first production of “Building the Wall” by playwright Robert Schenkkan premiered in Michigan last night. The 70-minute-play, directed by Carrie McNulty, has already sparked controversy and confusion in the city with its artwork of an angry Donald Trump on the poster. What’s important to be pointed out though, is that the Actors’ Theatre Grand Rapids production is less about Trump and more about the messages and ideologies that existed long before the last election.

For the first week of April, kids from all over Grand Rapids will indulge in all things writing and theater for the Ebony Road Players’ Spring Break Theater Camp.

Playwrights today are probably grateful they don't have to actively compete with someone of William Shakespeare's caliber. It goes without saying that he is considered one of the greatest playwrights of all time. He wrote everything from comedies like Merchant of Venice to tragedies like Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth. To this day, centuries after they were first performed, theaters across the world are still performing his work. 

There’s never a question of the arts being alive in Southwest Michigan, but every now and then there’s an event that goes above and beyond our relatively high expectations.

In Terrence McNally’s delightful comedy “It’s Only a Play,” the play is the thing. And this particular play is very focused on the theater world, Broadway in particular. Amid name dropping and one-liners, a little bit of wisdom emerges about what those of us who love theater want from it.

What is art for, and what is the nature of the artistic impulse? These questions central to “Red,” the multiple Tony Award-winning play by John Logan currently on offer at The Kalamazoo Civic’s Parish Theatre.

For his 75th birthday, Hammond B3 organ guru Dr. Lonnie Smith celebrated doing what he loves most. He performed at the Jazz Standard nightclub in New York with his musical “brothers,” guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg and drummer Johnathan Blake. The live set of covers and Smith’s original compositions are featured on All in My Mind, Smith’s newest album and his second after returning to Blue Note Records in 2015.

Celebrating its sixth season, Muskegon’s Shoreline Symphony marked another milestone last fall when it performed in its new home, Frauenthal Theater.