Behind every great piece of artwork, no matter the form, there is deep emotion. An artist (painter, musician, actor, etc.) simply cannot perform or create something beautiful if there is no fiery passion behind it. That is why the greatest of the greats in each respective art division, such as Midori, Andy Warhol and Martha Graham attract such large audiences. When people can relate to a piece, whether they can explain why or not, I think it is largely due to the fact that they feel a connection emotionally to it somehow; if the work of art is passionate, whether it stems from the artist’s feelings of remorse, sadness, elation or any other strong emotion, it will speak to many.

The reason I bring this up is because of an article I came across in the New York Times about Denis O’Hare’s role in the TV show “True Blood.” O’Hare, who is a tony-award winning actor, will now be playing an ex-mental patient in the new show “Elling.” From what I read about his emotionally charged, intense performance on HBO’s show, I think that he will be phenomenal in this type of extremely high strung character (who was described as a “frightened obsessive, afraid of answering the telephone or leaving his apartment, and who frequently loses his temper”).

Connecting to what I said in the first paragraph, O’Hare’s celebrated acting was especially noted in True Blood during a scene during which O’Hare rushes into a meeting for equal rights and gives a manic monologue saying that vampires are superior to humans. The point here is that O’Hare discussed that for the emotion for this scene, he conjured his own angry feelings about gay marriage laws because he is gay and this is extremely important to him. Using feelings from such a very serious and pressing matter in his life is why I believe this particular scene is so passionate and remembered. I would love to see O’Hare perform in a Broadway show with as much fervor as that frightening, electric scene in True Blood.

See him in both roles below:

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See the article here.

I really wish this show was not sold out because, even though 7 hour run time may seem daunting, I would have loved to see this performed live. I first heard of Angels in America when my school put on a production of The Laramie Project. It is mentioned in a monologue by one of the characters. I was interested and saw the seven part HBO mini-series of the play.

The play is a powerful piece that can be considered a historical piece. It is strange that something set in 1990 is considered historical but that was already 20 years ago. Anyway, I love the play because it is so relatable. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight or whatever, everyone has relationship problems, everyone questions themselves and everyone has problems. I actually like that the play is a full seven hours in two parts. It really does give the piece time to develop unlike a two our piece. Also, it is one long day spent in the city… which could never hurt.

Granted, the play is kind of weird, but hey, who isn’t a little weird?

Click here for the Time Out New York Review

Everybody has their traditions for the holiday season. Some go on family vacations, others bake cookies together. For me, I have seen the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” show almost every year. This seasonal outing began to disinterest me once I started high school, because I believed that I outgrew its charming nature to young audiences. But then I thought, it’s called tradition for a reason.

I am sure that many of us have heard about the show on the radio and the television. After 78 years, it certainly has the money to afford it. How has it remained so successful? It preserves the show-stopping scenes that caught the public’s attention originally, and amends minor elements in order to reflect the taste of the time. For example, when I saw the show about ten years ago, there was no 3-D sleigh ride, nor was there a background screen that displayed hundreds of dancing Santas. The show “upgraded” along with the technology of the age. However, art must do this if it hopes to keep an audience’s attention. Such development can be seen in other mediums of art as well, such as dance and music. Audiences today have shorter attention spans than ever, and demand modernized entertainment.

Many scenes of this classic show remain the same. Numerous audiences are pleased with stories about both Santa Claus and baby Jesus. Elves help the white-bearded man send toys to all the well-behaved children in the world. A scene from the Nutcracker is beautifully performed. And of course, the Rockettes grace the stage with their high-kicking legs in perfect unison. Their meticulous attention to detail is baffeling, considering how many of them there are:

As a freshman in college, I look forward to seeing this show again after an unnecessary hiatus. This artistic tradition warms the hearts of many New Yorkers every year, and hopefully it will continue to do so for a long time.

“Saying nothing…sometimes says the most.” That is a quote by Emily Dickinson that reminded me very much of the plays that I read about today in the theater section of the NY Times. There are three plays being performed at the Boston Center for the Arts called “Circle Mirror Transformation”, “Body Awareness” and “The Aliens” by Annie Baker. Just as Alyssa wrote about how Rowling makes the world of Hogwarts come alive through her literature and screenplays, Baker apparently makes the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont real for audiences with it’s specificity and tangibility for audiences. It’s defining characteristic is how quiet it is, with emphasis on miscommunications between people that is an everyday problem for people everywhere.

A major point in these plays, which it is applauded for doing so well, is that even when words are exchanged between people there is always a gap that is “separat[ing] them, filled with frustrated thoughts and hopes of connection.” I would like to see how this is done because I would imagine that it would be hard to consciously portray this. One third of the play “The Aliens” is actually performed in silence. Living in NYC, I wonder after thinking about this: do we fill too many of the silences in our everyday lives with useless words? Another of the plays by Baker, “Body Awareness” even goes so far as to suggest that people involved in the most intimate relationships, who think they know one another, could be virtual strangers because of the way that words are often misused and misconstrued.

The theater, especially Baker’s works, has the capacity to make us really think and I believe that this is what leads people to respond and create more artistic things. Are these plays as interesting to you as they are to me? Find out more about them in the article here.

High school was rough for almost everybody. There were countless classes to take, schools to apply for, tests to pass, and so on. But if these trivial issues were the only things that were bothering you at the time, consider yourself fortunate.

“To Be Heard” is a new documentary that exposes the rough lives of three high school peers. Karina Sanchez, Pearl Quick, and Anthony Pittman all live in the Bronx and have more on their minds than just next Monday’s math test: Sanchez is abused by her mother, Quick struggles with obesity and financial issues, and Pittman deals with his past gang affiliations and his imprisoned father. These dilemmas, on top of ordinary high school woes, stress these students beyond comprehension. How in the world were they to release such emotion in a healthy and controlled – and beautiful – manner?

An optional class at University Heights High School called “Power Writing” was the perfect solution. The instruction intended to educate the students about self-expression and how to do it effectively. This way, they students could resolve (or at least lighten) their prevalent issues themselves; no therapist or school can fix anything better than they can. The students are encouraged to be as honest and as real as possible, even if this involves explicit and informal vocabulary. The verbal art is usually recited in competitions afterward, which helps the students convey their passions more clearly; the way a text is read can be completely different from the way it is recited. Through performance, the students become aware of the beauty within their own words, and become inspired to polish the new-found skill.

The poetry helped Sanchez, Quick, and Pittman connect to who they truly are. Since they could better understand themselves, they gained an awareness of their fellow peers’ emotions. Unbreakable friendships developed in the process. Although much time has passed since the documentary was filmed, their lives have not gotten any easier (the students are now in their early twenties). However, they all continue to write. It was and will remain a huge part of their lives because it helped them cope with life. And as they gracefully age, their writing ability flourishes and becomes bolder and stronger. The three artists hope that their stories inspire students with similar troubles to find refuge in writing.

A preview of the documentary mentioned in the article is featured below:

‘The Scottsboro Boys’ is a new musical to recently hit Broadway. The Broadway musical portrays the event in histroy when 9 boys from Scottsboro, Alabama were wrongly accused of raping 2 white women. What makes this Broadway show unique, however, is that it is performed in Minstrel theater style. The minstrel style of theater was originally meant to “debase and sentimentalize slavery”. This style of theater was chosen specifically for the purpose of creating the tone of the era’s racism. As well, an African American actor plays the role of Samuel Leibowitz, the white Jewish lawyer who defends the nine boys in 1931. For the actors in ‘Scottsboro Boys’, who are African American, they must reincarnate this style of theater, while also creating an extremely dramatized, “buffoonish” version of the events of history through the use of language. These bold and innovative ideas were the creations of theater veterans John Kander and Fred Ebb (who passed away in 2004). Kander said to one of his actors about the performance, “You cannot go too far. Just go.” This is exemplified by young actor Jeremy Gumbs, 12 years old, who performs a tap dance titled “Electric Chair” which reveals the disturbing nature in a comic light.

Not all have accepted this style of theater as well as the nature of the show. Actor Colman Domingo, who plays the sheriff and prosecuting lawyer, recalls that a woman once booed him during the show’s run on Off Broadway when he quoted a famous line from the case, “Is justice in this case going to be bought and sold in Alabama with Jew money from New York?” And during its short time on Broadway, there have already been a few walk-outs. In The Amsterdam New‘s review of the show last week, the reporter claims that she was “offended” by the show.

Personally, I think that this is an extremely brilliant idea to weave the racially charged nature of the show with the Minstrel theater style, which creates an ironic, yet eye-opening, tone for the production. Not everyone will accept it, and some will surely find it offensive; however, it is important for Broadway to bring up important events in history through the performances and to be constantly reinventing the meaning of a “good show”.

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One of my absolute favorite books is making its debut on NYC’s stage: C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters has recently been adapted into a blockbuster theater production, and will be running at the Westside Theatre through January 9th.

In this wickedly (my sincerest apologies for the pun) hilarious play about spiritual warfare from a demon’s perspective, actor Max McLean takes on the role of “His Abysmal Sublimity” Screwtape, whose job it is to oversee the entrapment of human souls down the “soft, gentle path to Hell.” Costarring is Screwtape’s bumbling assistant Toadpipe, (played alternately by both Beckley Andrews & Tamala Bakkensen) a demon capable of molding herself into the various vices and temptations Screwtape requires to lure his “patients” away from the “Enemy above.”

I couldn’t possibly be looking forward to seeing this more, and I hope you all check it out.

For more info, visit the official site HERE.

Adaptations through media can be hard to pull off. There are some people that love the Harry Potter series of books, but hate the movie franchise because many significant details were lost in translation, from print to film. The same issue is common with theater and film. The musicals made based on a movie have been hit or miss. While 42nd Street and the Lion King received critical acclaim, Legally Blonde tanked. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is seen to be grouped with the latter. With a star-studded cast with the likes of Patti LuPone, Sherie Rene Scott, and Laura Benanti, Women on the Verge revolves around women and the men who pursue them, involving themes of the search or loss of love and rejection. The show has not been received with much success, but with acknowledgment for its potential. I haven’t seen this production, but based on the preview, I am not sure if feminists would appreciate the show. It looks like Sex and the City gone awry, with an emphasis on sex, because of a constant tearing of costume to show off a bra. I don’t think women really rip their clothes off when they have a nervous breakdown.

One thing I found interesting is that Justin Guarini, made famous in the first season of American Idol, plays one of the leading men. I am happy for his success, but it makes me wonder on the question of education and training versus being scouted for talent. Are all contestants on reality TV competitions really that talented? Is it to those who invest time and money in schooling for their craft? Fame is a mysterious concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLOzK8rNnQU

Source

If you like stretching your limits and extending your boundaries, you might like “The Ride.” “The Ride” takes everything conventional about the experience of theater and revolutionizes it. Who says you need to be inside a theater to enjoy Theater? On “The Ride,” instead of your seat being in a theater, your seat is on a bus. And instead of the actors performing on stage, the actors are on the street and the bus. It combines the experience of taking a tour of New York, watching a stage show, and so much more.

This is definitely not your ordinary tour bus. While it takes a route through Manhattan very similar to an ordinary tour bus, the bus itself and all of its amenities are much cooler. First of all, it has 40 video screens, 850 Watts of sounds, the seats move underneath it, and it has a command center similar to an IMAX theater. If that’s not enough for you, one side of the bus is a huge window that let’s you have a view of the city like no other, and let’s outsiders see the riders as they go by.

It’s also definitely not your ordinary show. On “The Ride,” you will be entertained by music, video, actors on the bus, and actors on the street. The bus is so thrilling that not only will you literally become part of the show, but regular New Yorkers walking by join in on the action too. It’s the show of all shows. The riders watch the actors and the pedestrians, the pedestrians watch the actors and the riders, and both the riders and pedestrians become actors themselves. When it’s not obvious who the audience is and who the subjects of the show are, you know it’s something special.

“The Ride” also attempts to teach riders interesting facts about the people, the customs, and the history of New York City. For example, some “fun facts” that riders learn about are that “the grime cleaned off the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal in 1998 was a thick layer of tar and nicotine. The Chrysler Building’s spire was secretly prepared and mounted so the result could surprise rivals as the world’s tallest building — but then it was trumped by the Empire State Building.” Overall, this must be a uniquely riveting experience for all riders, especially tourists. One negative aspect of it is that tourists will learn about a very stereotypical perspective of New York. The show kind of feeds into the Hollywood depiction of what New York is, and not necessarily the reality of the City. Regardless, it is definitely an entertaining ride for all.

Read The New York Times Article

Check out “The Ride” website and watch a video about it

Since we were just talking about opera in class, I thought it would be cool to write about a fairly new program at the Met called “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD.” In this program, a few operas are chosen to be transmitted live in select movie theaters. There are a bunch of cinemas in the five boroughs, as well throughout the country and overseas, that transmit live and encore performances. The best thing about the program is how cheap ticket prices are. An adult ticket only costs about twenty dollars, while an adult ticket for a live show at the Metropolitan Opera can easily go over 400 dollars. This is definitely the way to go if you’re a fan opera on a tight budget.

The whole point of “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD,” which is currently in its fifth season, is to attract a wider audience to opera. Many people may not be able to afford a ticket, or can’t get to the Met, or just may not want to spend so much money on a show that they may not be able to follow/understand (if it’s in a different language). I think this program is great because it provides an answer to all of these excuses that people may have for no going to an Opera performance. It’s also a great way for someone to become more familiar with opera before taking the plunge and going to a live performance at the Met.

Some people may argue that nothing can compare to seeing the performance live with your own eyes and actually being in the Met. I do agree with this argument, but if you have a choice of watching it in a movie theater or not watching it at all, I would definitely choose to watch it at a movie theater.

This season, “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD” has 12 live transmissions, including Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, and others.

The Official Site for the “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD” program

When I came across this article in the NY Times I was extremely saddened. Alan Champion, a sign language interpreter on Broadway, was recently diagnosed with cancer. I personally have no connection to Champion, but what saddened me was the fact that the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience of Broadway musicals may lose an invaluable interpreter. I was attracted to this article at first because I myself speak some sign language (although it is a little rusty). There aren’t very many interpreters out there and the loss of one will hit the deaf community hard. It is a very special thing to be able to have deaf people attend the theater, which is almost entirely performed vocally. Sign language interpreters like Champion don’t sign word for word what the performers are singing. Instead, they sign to convey the feelings and emotions that go along with the words so that it makes more sense (and is much faster). It takes much skill and many years of practice to be able to sign on the spot like Champion and these other interpreters do because they may feel compelled to perform themselves, so-to-speak. As Mr. Champion has said, “Rule No. 1: You never want to upstage the performers or clutter the storytelling with your own acting.” So Mr. Champion has learned over the years to control his own impulses and leave the performing to the actors on stage.

I think it is a beautiful thing that the theater world has a separate section for those with disabilities to be able to come and see these shows. Its a wonder that there was a time when people with disabilities were discriminated against. As someone who has learned the importance of sign language in the deaf community, I hope that Mr. Champion overcomes his cancer so that he may continue to interpret on Broadway.

The first and only circus I have ever been to in my life was about five years ago at Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. It was an enjoyable experience being that it was the first circus I have ever been to, but it was not an event I believed to be worth going to yearly. But after reading an article in the NY Times about Big Apple Circus’ “Dance On”, I have changed my mind.

About a week ago, Big Apple Circus debuted their first show of “Dance On”, and this is not the typical circus we all think of. This particular show incorporates a different array of elements that do not revolve around just animals. The circus artists for this show have to be booked well in advance. From the daredevils of the monocyling Wuqiao Acrobatic Troupe to the signature clown, Barry Lubin, this show definitely possesses edge as well as maintaining the comedy intact, the original element of circuses. Besides the jaw-dropping performances made by these talented circus artists, the fueling music during the show, led by Rob Slowik, should also be noted.

This would definitely be an event I would be interested in seeing live.

NY Times Article Here.