Reviews

Catskills Photographer Uncovers Forgotten World of Borscht Belt

  (AMHERST, Mass.) – Photographer Marisa Scheinfeld will speak about her years-long project documenting the ruins of the once vital resorts in the Catskill Mountains and sign copies of her new book, “The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland” (Cornell University Press) at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass., on Sunday, April…

Leonard Cohen’s Mystical Midrash

by Seth Rogovoy This article was originally published in Hadassah Magazine in the April/May 2015 issue. Subsequently, I was awarded a 2016 Simon Rockower Award from the American Jewish Press Association for excellence in arts and criticism for this piece.   ARTIST OF THE YEAR, songwriter of the year, and “fan choice” of the year. Katy Perry?…

(Book Review) “My Life as an Animal” by Laurie Stone

by Seth Rogovoy “My Life as an Animal” (Triquarterly Books) by Laurie Stone features a series of interconnected and comic stories that blur the lines between memoir, fiction, and cultural criticism. Through the book’s impressionistic style, it builds a narrative via seemingly unrelated anecdotes and observations. Its tantalizing challenge to readers is that what is…

(Book Review) Eleanor Reissa’s Voice Fully Realized in Her Plays

by Seth Rogovoy Perhaps best known as a singer, actress, and theater director, “The Last Survivor and Other Modern Jewish Plays” makes the case that Eleanor Reissa’s playwriting is perhaps her strongest mode of expression. These six plays are rich and full of life’s learned lessons. While forged out of the horrors of the Holocaust…

(Concert Review) New Works by John Zorn, Miller Theatre, NYC, 10.20.16

Composer Portraits: John Zorn Miller Theatre at Columbia University October 20, 2016 by Seth Rogovoy (NEW YORK, N.Y.) – In the program notes for the powerful and stunning concert of new works, including five world premieres, presented at the Miller Theatre on Thursday night, composer John Zorn writes of a few of them: “These pieces…

(Concert Review) Benjamin Clementine, MASS MoCA, 10.15.16

Benjamin Clementine Hunter Center MASS MoCA North Adams, Mass. October 15, 2016 by Seth Rogovoy (NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – About once every few years, if I’m lucky, I see a performer for the first time who leaves me breathless and reminds me why I got into this business in the first place. Over the years,…

(Concert Review) Boston Pops Orchestra with the B-52s, Tanglewood, 9.2.16

Boston Pops Orchestra with Special Guest the B-52s Tanglewood Lenox, Mass. Saturday, September 2, 2016   Review and photos by Seth Rogovoy (LENOX, Mass.) – In one of the odder and perhaps less successful pairings in a series of such performances, new-wave rock avatars the B-52s joined the Boston Pops Orchestra as “special guests” in…

(Theater Review) ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ Shakespeare & Co., 7.31.16

The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare & Company Lenox, Mass. July 1 – August 21, 2016 Review by Seth Rogovoy (LENOX, Mass., July 31, 2016) – This summer’s production of “The Merchant of Venice,” directed by Tina Packer and starring Jonathan Epstein as Shylock, is Shakespeare & Company at its best, combining a skillful presentation of…

Howard Fishman’s Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Seth Rogovoy (October 1, 2010) – For a guy who has won the praise of critics from the New York Times to the New Yorker, the Village Voice, and NPR’s Terry Gross, Howard Fishman has done a pretty good job of not becoming a household name. With a half-dozen albums to his credit, and…