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.
This month, the Grand Rapids Ballet will pirouette, leap and float across Miller Auditorium’s stage against an all-white backdrop with scenes projected onto it, displaying some of the most iconic moments from Alice in Wonderland.
To James Sofranko, dance is a language within itself. “You can express ideas through dance that you can’t through other forms. It’s a beautiful thing,” he said.
More than 1,000 attendees are expected to show up at this year’s Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival at The Epic Center in Kalamazoo.
It’s no accident that HIS Dance Ensemble’s production of The Toymaker: An Easter Story bears little resemblance to the traditional Easter fables.
The personal stories of trauma, illness and loss behind the seven portraits that Donna F. St. John painted for Moving Through the Unimaginable encompass a more painful past than the seemingly jovial faces let on.
Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly the world’s most famous love story and has been performed and adapted countless times for more than 400 years. However, the current production is a first for Kalamazoo’s New Vic Theatre, and it’s been 34 years since the company has staged any Shakespeare play.
It’s a wonderful and rare thing in the theater when the exact right script, director, company, and moment come together. That wonderful, rare thing is even more remarkable when all of the aforementioned entities emerge from local talent.
Maine and its people are often the butt of New England jokes, much as the U.P. and Yoopers are often viewed in a stereotypical light by those of us downstate. And yet for outsiders, there’s something terribly appealing about places far north and the requisite ways of being amid interminable winter set apart from the rest of civilization — at least to peer in at from afar.
