Month: April 2024

Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman seems hardwired never to limit his imagination.  His drive to test the elasticity of dance’s boundaries may have been awakened in his mid-teens while dancing professionally with the Royal Swedish Ballet.  By his early twenties, he was creating his own dances and freelancing as a professional choreographer.  Although the types of …

Joffrey’s Midsummer Night’s Dream Turns Matchless Dance into Phenomenal Theater Read More »

Few musicals can claim as convoluted a backstory as Guys and Dolls.   It’s songs were created before its story.  Its plot grew out of a chance suggestion.  And the person who ended up scripting its storyline had never written for Broadway before.  Despite that, the acclaim the musical received in 1950 when it debuted on …

Drury Lane’s Guys and Dolls a Royal Flush Read More »

Wonder, surprise, incredulity, excitement, joy.  Maybe a rush of adrenaline.  They’re all the things you’d hope to find in a magician worth his or her salt.  And in Look Closer with Joshua Jay at Rhapsody Theater, they’re not only all present, each shine like newly minted gold.  But in this magic show, you’re also enthralled …

Look Closer at Rhapsody Gives New Luster to Magic’s Glow Read More »

Unless you’re English, just the term “choir of man” may sound a little perplexing. More than likely, your mind will race to spiritual or religious connotations rather than beer.  But in the land of monarchs and cricket, there’s a tradition of men coming together to sing in choirs at their local pubs.  That history became …

The Choir of Man Takes Theater to New Heights Read More »

What does it mean to be extraordinary?  After meeting Bill Wilson, a New York stockbroker in the late 1920s, neither he nor the life he leads rings as remarkable.  That’s also true for Dr. Bob Smith, a career surgeon in Akron, Ohio during the same period.  They’re both men pushing through life with a particularly …

Bill W. and Dr. Bob Chronicles the Birth of a Pivotal Movement Read More »