A solo visit to Florence

Sorrows of a Florentine traveler

Nestled in the cradle of the Tuscan hills, this city of light, good food, and tiny medieval streets has a history as extraordinary as its beauty. Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance, secularism, liberalism, rationalism, and the pagan world.

Thom Nickels

Mar 10, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

Pennsylvania Ballet’s ‘Coppélia’

Tried and true

Leo Delibes’s comic rural fable Coppélia provides a rare opportunity for ballet dancers to demonstrate their acting ability.

Dan Rottenberg

Mar 09, 2014 · Articles · 1 minute read

EgoPo does Ibsen’s ‘Lady From the Sea’

A woman in need of assertiveness training

In the rarely performed Lady From the Sea, the heroine is more poetic but also more perplexing than most of Ibsen’s women.

Steve Cohen

Mar 08, 2014 · Articles · 3 minute read

That cross at the 9/11 Memorial

God and propaganda at Ground Zero

The new 9/11 Memorial Museum is planning to exhibit, among other artifacts, a pair of girders recovered from Ground Zero in the shape of a cross. It’s a bad idea for several reasons.

Robert Zaller

Mar 08, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read

Alain Resnais, God, and ‘Providence’

God as a novelist who’s losing his touch

Alain Resnais used the film medium to trample constructs like time, space, and memory with impunity — most notably, in my opinion, in his brilliantly inventive, provocative, and beautiful 1977 allegory, Providence.

Dan Rottenberg

Mar 07, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

‘Pride and Prejudice’ at People’s Light

The delicate dance of courtship

Dance plays a large part in the dramatization of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice currently playing at People’s Light & Theatre Company.

Bill Murphy

Mar 06, 2014 · Articles · 2 minute read

'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' by James Agee and Walker Evans

Let Us Now Praise James Agee

This is a book of stunning honesty and self-awareness and inspired observation. Its humanity is as blinding and magnificent and humble as its prose is magesterial.

Bob Ingram

Mar 06, 2014 · Articles · 5 minute read

'Circle Mirror Transformation' at Theatre Horizon

Getting to know you

Circle Mirror Transformation is an unusual play that demands close attention, as an instructor in a community-center adult acting class leads her students in intricate theater games.

Steve Cohen

Mar 06, 2014 · Articles · 2 minute read

The Johannes String Quartet plays Mozart, Dutilleux, and Brahms

Mingling and schmoozing

Theater producers are discovering the value of audience interaction. Classical music organizations have been offering it for years.

Tom Purdom

Mar 04, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read

Further thoughts on immersive theater

Audience participation? Let’s call it something else.

Carol Rocamora might have come across as a curmudgeon who rejects all immersive theater. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Carol Rocamora

Mar 04, 2014 · Articles · 4 minute read