(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 7, 2020) – Williamstown Theatre Festival has cancelled its 2020 summer season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.…
by Seth Rogovoy I wake up. Should I have tea or coffee? Can’t make up my mind. Should I…
by Seth Rogovoy Bob Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul‘, a newly released, 17-minute ballad about the assassination of President John…
by Seth Rogovoy (PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Berkshire Theatre Group will not begin its summer 2020 season before August 1 as…
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 7, 2020) – Williamstown Theatre Festival has cancelled its 2020 summer season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No plays will be mounted at its home in the ’62 Center for the Arts on the Williams College campus. The festival will, however, record the plays that were to be staged for the digital…
by Seth Rogovoy I wake up. Should I have tea or coffee? Can’t make up my mind. Should I have a shower first? Can’t make up my mind. Such are the existential dilemmas brought about by life in quarantine. I skip the shower and have tea. Should I take a walk or do…
by Seth Rogovoy Bob Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul‘, a newly released, 17-minute ballad about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is not only a work of epic genius – formally, structurally, and otherwise – but, like the Talmud itself, it veritably demands a close reading in order to comprehend fully what the Nobel…
by Seth Rogovoy (PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Berkshire Theatre Group will not begin its summer 2020 season before August 1 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of now, BTG is planning to open its 2020 season on Saturday, August 1, with a staging of the iconic rock musical Godspell at the Fitzpatrick Main…
(BECKET, Mass., March 31, 2020) — Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival announced today that it is canceling the 2020 summer season, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jacob’s Pillow is the first major performing arts organization in the Berkshires to announce the cancellation of its summer season. Presumably in the coming days and weeks other venues, like…
by Seth Rogovoy World-renowned Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki – widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the last half-century — died on Sunday, March 29, at the age of 86. While you may have never heard of Penderecki, you almost definitely have heard his music, and probably more than once. Penderecki has…
by Seth Rogovoy (HUDSON, N.Y., March 26, 2020) — Concerts are cancelled. Movie theaters are closed. Performing arts venues are shuttered. What’s a culture vulture to do? While nothing beats live performance or seeing movies on a big screen, we’re all learning to make do with the new normal: staying at home and consuming…
by Seth Rogovoy Blow the Man Down is a quirky, indie film that I’ve seen described variously as a black comedy and a regional noir. I like both those genres, and I suppose Blow the Man Down combines a bit of both, along with a hefty dose of feminism and New England gothic (think Stephen…
by Seth Rogovoy Don’t let the provocative title of Eva Hoffman’s How to Be Bored fool you. Hoffman’s book is not a how-to for being bored, but rather a how-to of how to be when one finds oneself being bored. Or, more precisely, a manifesto in favor of “boredom” as opposed to its opposite…
by Seth Rogovoy As soon as I awaken these days, before I am even fully conscious, I take stock of how I am feeling. In that twilight state between sleep and wakefulness, I automatically take inventory: Do I feel feverish? No. Do I have flu-like aches, or that all-around crappy feeling of being attacked…
by Seth Rogovoy (HUDSON, N.Y., March 25, 2020) – Today was the day I had long feared and dreaded – when I would have to break down and walk into a pharmacy to get my prescription for … anxiety. Here’s a case where the cure exacerbated the symptoms. I’ve known for the last few…
by Seth Rogovoy Concerts are cancelled. Movie theaters are closed. Performing arts venues are shuttered. What’s a culture vulture to do? While nothing beats live performance or seeing movies on a big screen, we’re all learning to make do with the new normal: staying at home and consuming our culture via streaming on digital…
by Seth Rogovoy I’ve been working on a Spotify playlist I call “Soundtrack for the Apocalypse” over the last week or so. You can listen to it here. Please listen to it in shuffle mode. As you will hear, the criteria are for both music and lyrics to somehow address an emergency, if…
By Seth Rogovoy In the past few days, since so many schools shut down for the foreseeable future, I have already seen and overheard many parents commenting in frustration on how difficult it is to “homeschool” their children. After half an hour alone with their kids, trying to jam into their brain some data points,…
by Seth Rogovoy On paper it sounds like a car crash, a horrible disaster, or worse – a gross indecency that violates the memory of those who died in the Shoah. But in practice, Hunters, a new Prime Video 10-episode TV series starring Al Pacino leading a vigilante band of Nazi hunters and executioners,…
“Beyond Flamenco,” a mini-festival of contemporary flamenco, kicks off the spring season at PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., on Sunday, March 15, at 6pm, with Proceso Eterno (Eternal Process), featuring dancer-choreographer Patricia Guerrero. flamenco guitarist and composer Dani de Moron, vocalist Sergio El Colorao, and percussionist Agustin Diassera. On Friday, March 20, at 7pm, Eduardo Guerrero,…
(CHATHAM, N.Y.) – “Beyond Flamenco,” a mini-festival of contemporary flamenco, kicks off the spring season at PS21 on Sunday, March 15, at 6pm, with Proceso Eterno (Eternal Process), featuring dancer-choreographer Patricia Guerrero. flamenco guitarist and composer Dani de Moron, vocalist Sergio El Colorao, and percussionist Agustin Diassera. On Friday, March 20, at 7pm, Eduardo Guerrero,…
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Hudson Valley-bred roots-rock band The Felice Brothers will bring their folk- and country-tinged sounds to the Arts Center Theatre at Columbia-Greene Community College on Saturday, April 11, at 7pm. The group is touring behind their latest album, Undress, which was recorded in nearby Germantown and nominated for Best International Album of…
