Articles
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 4, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Going in, I knew next to nothing about the material in last week’s mainstage show at Jacob’s Pillow, Life Encounters, Archie Burnett’s personal history of house dance. But I was surprised to see that I knew one of the dancers. Not personally, unfortunately, but I’ve...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 3, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Serge has just purchased an ultra-abstract painting for an outrageous sum and is excited to show it off to his good friend Marc – who looks it over and offers his assessment: “You paid two hundred grand for this shit?” You see, it’s a large white canvas – all white,...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 24, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
My partner is a literature professor, specializing in women writers. She has noted a principle in both scholarship and fiction that she calls the Noah’s Ark Approach: If you want to get attention for your female subject, pair her with a famous man (think Girl with a...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 20, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
I had a theater-going “double feature” planned for last weekend – two outdoor shows in a row with adventurous Berkshire-based companies. But those plans were disturbed by two irresistible forces: Nature and Actors’ Equity Association. At Shakespeare & Company in...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 12, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Shakespeare & Company’s King Lear, the first show to open on its Lenox campus in a year and a half, marks another return of live theater after the long intermission. It’s also the inaugural production in the troupe’s new outdoor amphitheater, a handsome addition...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 7, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
2020 was devastating for performing arts across the region and the world, perhaps none more so than for Jacob’s Pillow, the 79-year-old dance mecca in the Berkshires. Not only did the pandemic kill last year’s entire season, but in November the Doris Duke Theatre, the...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Eleven U.S. mayors — from Los Angeles to tiny Tullahassee, Oklahoma — have pledged to pay reparations for slavery to a small group of Black residents in their cities, saying their aim is to set an example for the federal government on how a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Amherst1 Rise Holdings 169 Meadow St.Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Phone: 413-825-9770Website: risecannabis.com/Products: Offers medical and recreational marijuana. 2 Mass Alternative Care Inc. 55 University...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Northampton Summer Park Series ready to rollNORTHAMPTON — For the sixth year, the Northampton Arts Council will host its Northampton Summer Park Series, live music and dancing throughout the summer in Pulaski Park downtown. Admission is free. The concerts continue a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Summer’s here — how about a road trip? With a wealth of new exhibits on display, MASS MoCA in North Adams and The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown have a lot to offer in the northern corner of Berkshire County, either for a long day trip or over a weekend. Here’s a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
When Charles Neville died in 2018, many mourned the passing of a superbly talented musician who not only played in a variety of styles but who by all accounts was unfailingly generous about sharing his music with fellow players and fans alike.And Neville, a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Sometimes in the course of the past year I despaired of ever again hearing that mantra of curtain speeches in the cyber-era: “Please silence your cellphones.” But in late June it happened, as three western Mass companies greeted live audiences with live performances,...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
It’s a difficult conversation to bring up. It’s a public discourse that some have devoted a large portion of their lives trying to initiate in order to bring about societal change. It’s a conversation that is hundreds of years old. It’s about the 400-year history of...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Dear Yana, I happen to be a bisexual person who found out in high school, and yet I haven’t done anything with other men yet. Could I still call myself bisexual even though I haven’t had sex with men?Thanks, By Bi Guy Dear Bi Guy,As I understand it, sexuality can be...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Why does wine give some people headaches? A commonly sighted cause is a plant chemical found in grape skins called tannins. But tannins are also found in things like tea. Others site sulfites. Sulfur is a naturally occurring element, and while sulfur is sometimes...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
The first Black-owned cannabis cultivation center on the East Coast is, remarkably, located in the tiny hilltown of Cummington — with a population of 875, mostly white, residents.That fact didn’t dissuade Reginald Stanfield from selecting the community in northwest...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 26, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Last week, Barrington Stage Company’s Julianne Boyd greeted the audience for her troupe’s opening production, staged in a socially distanced tent at the edge of Pittsfield, with these long-awaited words: “I want to welcome you to live theater.” This week, introducing...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 19, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Sometimes in the course of the past year I despaired of ever again hearing that mantra of curtain speeches in the cyber-era: “Please silence your cell phones” – or of hearing the words spoken by Julianne Boyd on Barrington Stage Company’s opening night: “I want to...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 11, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Down a pebbled path flanked by tall grasses in an orchard hung with ripening fruit, we come to an archway fashioned of bent branches: The Portal. There, our Guides invite us to hang a slip of paper on which we’ve written something we wish to leave behind, after the...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
It’s been a long year, but how’s this for a bit of uplifting news – shows are coming back, albeit slowly at first. Here is a roundup of some of the in-person and virtual events starting in May. Music Sunday, May 2 Karrin Allyson, Marty Jaffe and Valley Jazz Voices, 4...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
OK, so you’re new to this marijuana thing. You’ve driven by one — or two or three — dispensaries that are popping up like Pez dispensers in communities up and down the Pioneer Valley. You’re curious. You’ve got some stimulus money. Odds are you’re on the “older” side,...
by Chad Cain | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot
By Yana Tallon-Hicks I recently began a new relationship and am something of a late bloomer (I’m in my mid-20s), so I have very little actual experience when it comes to physical intimacy with a partner. My boyfriend and I have discussed it a bit, and he’s very...
by Monte Belmonte | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Rosé is not a grape. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a party or restaurant and someone asks me, “Would you like a rosé?” That question is the functional equivalent of “would you like white wine?” The answer to both questions is “yes.” Follow up questions:...
by Advocate Staff | Jun 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Sheryl Stoodley is standing in the middle of the Workroom, the performance space in the Northampton Community Arts Trust building curated by A.P.E.@Hawley. In time, it will become a fully equipped studio theater, but for now it’s an enormous unfinished cube, more like...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 2, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
The Year of Covid shut down live theater and just about every other in-person interaction, in the arts as elsewhere. In their place: the Year of Zoom. In the circumstances, Zoom was a blessing – a marvel of the age, allowing face-to-face contact and online...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 30, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Newsletter, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Sheryl Stoodley is standing in the middle of the Workroom, the performance space in the Northampton Community Arts Trust building curated by A.P.E.@Hawley. In time, it will become a fully equipped studio theater, but for now it’s an enormous unfinished cube, more like...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 24, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Imagine, if you will, that you suddenly find yourself in a weird netherworld, suspended between the life you knew and an uncertain future. You’re stuck in a confined space that is both familiar and strange; you’re communicating with others via a small glass window,...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 17, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
The election of Kamala Harris as the first woman Vice President of the United States, not to mention the first African American and the first of South Asian descent, is certainly cause for celebration – as well as thoughts of “It’s about time.” But those “firsts”...
by Chris Rohmann | Mar 12, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
The publicity teaser asks, “Why Julius Caesar now?” And why, for that matter, put an all-female cast into Shakespeare’s most male-centered tragedy? The short answer to the second question is that the show comes from Smith College, and the longer one embraces the first...
by Bob Flaherty | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Alex Morse has a new pup — a goldendoodle that answers to Oliver. Can you say inseparable? The Holyoke mayor brought him home from Pennsylvania and claims that the quarantine has afforded him a bit more time to train the pooch. “It adds a bit of perspective,” says...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Smith College Museum of Art will host a series of programs this spring. Among them are:Black Futures, March 1, 7-8:30 p.m., online. Join Kimberly Drew ’12, Thelma Golden ’87, Jenna Wortham and Amanda Williams for a conversation about Drew and Wortham’s recently...
by State House News Service | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured, News
Freshly restocked with three new members, the Cannabis Control Commission is gearing up for a year that will include the implementation of recently-approved regulations that allow for home delivery of non-medical marijuana, continuing to press for legislation that...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
A year ago this week, I filed my review of a new play, “The Pitch,” which had just opened at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield. Two weeks later, COVID-19 closed the production (the run will resume once the theater is able to reopen). The following week, my...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Amherst1 Rise Holdings Inc. 169 Meadow St.Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Phone: 413-825-9770Website: risecannabis.com/Products: Offers medical and recreational marijuana. Massachusetts is one of eight states...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
During the past several years, it is no secret that as a nation, we have become more aware and enlightened to the plights of various minority groups who have been fighting for acceptance within society — and all the intangible glory to which it represents. However,...
by Monte Belmonte | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
I’ve been obsessively watching kung fu movies. I’m not sure why. Perhaps the reason is related to the pandemic. It could be a midlife crisis, or it could be the aftereffects of binge-watching “Cobra Kai.” Regardless, it’s made me think a lot about the mastery of an...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot
Hello Yana! I’m curious about my sexuality. I have, for the majority of my life, thought I was a heterosexual male. But at times I have thought maybe I am bisexual. I’m aware that sexuality is a spectrum. I just don’t know where I land on that spectrum. I have a...
by Advocate Staff | Mar 2, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Armed with an aptly-named recipe book, “Pot Culture,” Chrissy Rivera, one of thousands of budding experts in the fast-growing marijuana industry, can often be found in her kitchen experimenting with different dishes. One afternoon last month, for example, the...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 23, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
A year ago this week, I filed my review of a new play, The Pitch, which had just opened at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield. Two weeks later, Covid-19 closed the production (the run will resume once the theater is able to reopen its doors). The following week,...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 16, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
One of the most adventurous endeavors in the past Year of Zoom has been Stagehand, a live immersive piece from Eggtooth Productions first seen last fall. Another iteration launches this weekend and next, with a new framing concept and novel ticketing options. As...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 17, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
There’s an old story from the early days of television, when the flickering screen was competing for audiences with radio drama. A young boy, asked which he preferred, radio or TV, answered without hesitation, “Radio. Because the pictures are better.” I was reminded...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Between the Lines, Featured, News
For a time, it really looked like the large-scale repudiation of President Donald Trump so many of us had hoped for would come to pass — the polls seemed to predict it and Democrats were racking up mail-in and early vote advantages across the board. But instead the...
by Chris Goudreau | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
All they want is a clean slate. After nine-plus months of dealing with the tumultuous life upheaval caused by the pandemic – on-again, off-again jobs, opening and closing of public schools and the overall anxiety posed by COVID-19 – Paige Spaulding and her husband,...
by Joanna Buoniconti | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
If things smell a bit skunky in the neighborhood, don’t automatically point the figure at those nocturnal creatures. That odor may be emanating from cannabis plants that have cropped up, so to speak, at homes throughout the Pioneer Valley. It’s been four years since...
by Monte Belmonte | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Columns, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines
Almost from day one of the pandemic lockdown, Sharon Swihart has been living with the irony — and a little bit of guilt — that, as a wine manager, she is an “essential worker.” “My life has not changed at all in the pandemic’s wake,” says Swihart, the wine buyer at...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Columns, Featured, The V-Spot
Dear Yana, I’ve been texting with this guy during quarantine and it’s been very fun and hot. I boss him around and give him writing assignments in exchange for photos of myself which he is suitably grateful for. However, recently he sent me an unsolicited dick pic....
by Michael Moses | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, Featured
Dear Readers, The Valley Advocate has always been, and will continue to be, a voice for our community. We are committed to make a conscious effort to spotlight voices that are marginalized and provide a platform to say what needs to be said. I believe we understand...
by State House News Service | Dec 10, 2020 | Articles, News
BOSTON — With the threat of legal challenges looming, state regulators gave final approval on Nov. 30 to new regulations that will reshape the legal marijuana industry to include home delivery businesses initially available only to social equity program participants...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 9, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
MIFA, the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, is a Holyoke-based venture that’s working to restore the city’s venerable Victory Theatre as a regional performance venue while also forging partnerships with the Latinx community. MIFA and the...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 2, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Does theater, by definition, require an audience’s physical presence in a shared space with live actors? Is viewing the video record of a live performance different in a fundamental way from being there? What are we to make of the new online performances in this time...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 19, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
“Thanksgiving is such a lovely holiday. Do we have to talk about genocide during this beautiful American holiday?” That’s the kind of pushback often directed at reassessments that put “the first Thanksgiving” in its true historical context, says Talya Kingston. She’s...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 28, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
It’s the time of year for werewolves and witches, costumes and candy – and, in this especially bloodcurdling season, tricks and Trump – so this weekend, area theaters are offering an autumn harvest of howls and horror. Here’s a rundown (alliteration-free). From UMass...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 22, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
As you approach the theater, you find a note pinned to the stage door. It’s from the director, who says he’s been delayed and you’re to check in with the cast and make sure everything is ready for rehearsal. Then you open the door, and step back in time. You’re in...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 14, 2020 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
It wasn’t planned this way, but the timing couldn’t be more apt. Just as the U.S. Senate is poised to confirm a “pro-life” justice to the Supreme Court, where abortion rights hang in the balance, WAM Theatre is poised to launch a play about Roe v. Wade. Lisa Loomer’s...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Across Court Square in the city of Springfield the words, “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” are painted on Court Street in 20-foot-tall, bright yellow letters — a powerful symbol of a movement that has taken on a new urgency nationally and in our own backyard in this chaotic year...
by Chris Goudreau | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
While Springfield grapples with the fallout of a highly critical U.S. Department of Justice report, other police departments throughout the Valley are implementing changes in the wake of a national wave of protests following the death of George Floyd. In Northampton,...
by Joanna Buoniconti | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
Nearly two years after the first recreational marijuana sales began in Massachusetts, it’s safe to say the budding industry is contributing mightily to the state and regional economy, despite a significant hit to sales earlier this spring when the coronavirus pandemic...
by Dave Eisenstadter | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
I remember when I first got into journalism covering community planning meetings with quaint names like “Vision 2020,” about what this year would be like. Now here we are, and I can honestly say I don’t think any amount of planning would have prepared us for the...
by Advocate Staff | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured
Amherst 1 Rise Holdings Inc. 169 Meadow St. Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Phone: 413-825-9770 Website: risecannabis.com/ Products: Offers medical and recreational marijuana. Massachusetts is one of eight states...
by Brigid Glackin | Oct 8, 2020 | Articles, Featured, News
On the evening of Oct. 29, 1915, a group of 500 women of the Equal Suffrage League, dressed in white, and wearing, across their chests, gold sashes emblazoned with VOTES FOR WOMEN, gathered in the alleys around their headquarters on Center Street in Northampton. At...
