Broad Street Review

Philly's home for arts, culture, and conversation

Joanna Rotté

Contributor

BSR Contributor Since March 3, 2014

Joanna Rotté is Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Villanova University.

Joanna Rotté, Emeritus Professor of Theatre at Villanova University, is a writer, teacher, director, and actor residing in Center City, Philadelphia. Her books include Scene Change (A Theatre Diary: Prague, Moscow, Leningrad) and Acting with Adler. Since 2002 she has been the feature theatre essayist for a print and online publication: http://www.soulamericanactor.com.

She has directed featured productions for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, including her own plays: All Victorious Ocean: the Noble Life of Yeshe Tsogyal, Tantric Yogini; Death of the Father; Art Talk (starring the late great art historian and critic Arthur Danto); and Prajna (based on a script by the fully realized Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa). She is a meditation practitioner in the Shambhala tradition and has recorded five audio-books written by the beloved Pema Chödrön: http://www.shambhala.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=rotte.

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Page 1

“Tailor Carries His Sewing Machine through Monsoon Waters” (Gujarat, 1983). (Photo © Steve McCurry)

Steve McCurry: India at the Rubin Museum of Art

Looking the world in the eye

Steve McCurry gives us unexpected glimpses of unguarded moments in India, urban and rural. His photographs are all about people, directly or indirectly.

Jan 29, 2016 Articles 4 minute read

Evoking the plane. (photo by the author)

The Flight 93 National Memorial

Reclaiming the site of a tragedy

The recently opened memorial to United Flight 93 is a glorious work of art that blends architectural structures and crafted landscape to create a contemplative place for visitors and a resting place for those who died.

Sep 29, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

“After he gave us Vito Corleone, I kept waiting for him to play Lear.” Brando in “The Godfather” (© 1972 - Paramount Pictures)

'Listen to Me Marlon' directed by Stevan Riley

The genius of Marlon Brando

In the new documentary Listen to Me Marlon, if we didn’t know it already, we are convinced of the genius of Marlon Brando and the significance of his artistic contribution.

Aug 25, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

Before the memories are forgotten: Jonathan Kozol (photo by BenFrantzDale via Creative Commons/Wikimedia)

Jonathan Kozol's 'The Theft of Memory'

Tackling the memoir

For Jonathan Kozol, summoning up vivid memories as he wrote a memoir of his father's battle with Alzheimer's was mostly a pleasant process. It kept his father, as well as his mother, alive for him after their deaths. But the last few months of concluding the book were hard and painful, he said, because it meant saying good-bye to his parents all over again.

Jun 30, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

FDR's Hyde Park home, Springwood. (Photo by Ad Meskens via Creative Commons/Wikimedia)

FDR Presidential Library and Museum

At home with FDR

The qualities that FDR cultivated — fortitude, equanimity, compassion, and transcendence — to live a prodigiously fruitful life in spite of extreme debilitation were the qualities that enabled him to lead the nation out of the morass of the Great Depression and through the horrors of World War II.

May 23, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

“Clouds over Olana,” Frederic Edwin Church, 1872

Frederic Church's Olana

The art of landscape

I visited Olana on the first day of spring with chilly air, bare trees, snow on the ground, and ice in the Hudson. The house or villa or monument is a marvel, a fantasy, an unlikely but pleasing blend of styles — Persian, Moorish, Italian, and then some.

Mar 31, 2015 Articles 5 minute read

For the roses. (All photos by the author)

The 2015 Philadelphia Flower Show

Gone to flowers, everyone

The theme of this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show is “the movies,” although the organizers are being somewhat disingenuous in that only Disney movies are included. The Disney-only focus allows for marvelous flights of fancy but limits the emotional range, and emotional maturity, of the entries.

Feb 28, 2015 Essays 5 minute read

Mother and Twins Monument by Henry Dmochowski Saunders, commemorating his wife and children. The site overlooks the bend in the Schuylkill River where the twins drowned. (Photo by Smallbones via Creative Commons/Wikipedia)

The age of mothers

In the weeks after losing her mother, the author explores a pair of historic Philadelphia cemeteries.

Jan 30, 2015 Essays 5 minute read

Sarah Charlesworth. “Patricia Cawlings, Los Angeles,” 1980. (© Estate of Sarah Charlesworth; courtesy the Estate of Sarah Charlesworth and Maccarone.)

Sarah Charlesworth: Stills at the Chicago Art Institute

Falling

The value of the photographs in Stills rests in the artist’s metaphysical accomplishment: bringing reverence to the act of falling.

Nov 25, 2014 Articles 6 minute read

Scowling, grinning, and glowering: Elizabeth I in "Shakespeare's Sonnets."

Berliner Ensemble’s ‘Shakespeare Sonnets’ and teamLab’s ‘Flowers and People’

Hold your applause

Considering why we applaud and how our applause transforms our experience through the lens of two very different artistic experiences: avant-garde theater and ultra-technological art.

Oct 30, 2014 Articles 7 minute read

David Lynch painting "Small Boy in His Room" with "Pete Goes to His Girlfriend’s House," 2009 (Photographer unknown; Courtesy of the artist)

David Lynch's Unified Field at PAFA

David Lynch, film artist

David Lynch’s words indicate a traditional aesthetic. Where he becomes untraditional is in portraying the stuff of dreams and nightmares as if it is reality.

Sep 30, 2014 Articles 6 minute read

The Philadelphia Athenaeum (Photo by Beyond My Ken, via Creative Commons/Wikimedia)

Athenaeums of the Northeast

A library pilgrimage

Eighteen Athenaeums, stretching from Portland, Maine to La Jolla, California, continue to thrive in architecturally significant buildings holding special collections. A year ago, I determined to visit all 18.

Aug 26, 2014 Articles 7 minute read

Dale Chihuly installation at Denver Botanic Gardens (photo by the author)

An art-lover's road trip from Colorado to Indiana

Nature and the art of nature

A trip home from a meditation retreat offers a variety of perspectives on nature, art, and spirituality.

Jul 29, 2014 Articles 6 minute read

Tiffany was perfectly satisfied with this window at Wade Memorial Chapel in Cleveland. (Photo by Jon Dawson via Flickr/Creative Commons)

A James Garfield themed road trip

Monuments and landscapes

Cleveland was the main stop — but not the only stop — on this art-lover's road trip.

Jun 29, 2014 Articles 5 minute read

Art Deco grandeur: Cincinnati's Museum Center is a repurposed train terminal. Photo by wrightbrosfan, via Flickr/Creative Commons.

Wheeling to Columbus to Cincinnati

Road trip to art

Venture beyond the Boston-to-D.C. axis for your next art-lovers' road trip.

May 30, 2014 Articles 5 minute read

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