In making the poem into a ballet with original music, much has been gained, both for the significance of the new ballet and for a fresh appreciation and engagement with its source.
Theater
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ‘Assassins’ & ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ — the three ghosts of the 2021 Christmas season
Seeing these shows, I was reminded of Dickens’s famous ghosts, warning us about where we have been, where we are and where, if we’re not careful, we may be headed.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Broadway is (finally) embracing Black writers. But the work of diversifying theater is just getting started.
Can Black writers flourish in a marketplace dictated by white tastes?
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
Review: In Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story,’ every element sings — and every moment counts
What this quintessential stage musical needed, apparently, was a thoroughgoing cinematic makeover.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Why do so many Jesuits love Stephen Sondheim? His art was a costly vocation.
Sondheim’s stories and lyrics always seemed to be addressing you personally. You couldn’t simply watch his musicals. Eventually you had to contend with them.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
Netflix’s ‘Tick, Tick…Boom!’ is a miraculous resurrection of an artist we lost too soon
“Tick, Tick … Boom!” is also a soul-deep tribute by Lin-Manuel Miranda to an artist who inspired him at a formative age.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Jesus found me on Broadway. I can’t wait to go back.
Musicals are not merely a passion of mine—they were often my most profound experiences of prayer.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Shakespeare in the Park’s “Merry Wives” brings back the joy of live theater
Transcendent, communal moments like these, so long denied us by this still raging pandemic, have been worth the wait, and they are more than worth the trouble.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
On Broadway ‘In the Heights’ broke barriers and took chances. Can the film do the same?
The new movie version of “In the Heights,” directed by John M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”), will be a must-see for fans of “Hamilton.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Director Mike Nichols told beloved stories onscreen. His own life was a story of resilience and transcendence.
The highest tribute I can offer this biography is that it is not unlike a Nichols film itself: incisive, dense with detail yet somehow brisk.