Arts
The Face of Children’s Literature: Eighty Years of Caldecott Books
There are three exhibitions on display at the Eric Carle Museum this month, but the one that will tug at the book lover’s heartstrings is Eighty Years of Caldecott Books. It’s a collection of first edition Caldecott medal-winning children’s books that date from 1938...
Pick of the Day 3/1: Arts Night Plus in Amherst
Tonight is Arts Night Plus in Amherst from 5-8 p.m. Check out this free monthly cultural event in downtown Amherst. It’s a mixed bag every month but you can look forward to taking in some visual art, a little poetry, maybe a musical performance, or a...
Pick of the Day 3/3: The Old Deerfield Spring Sampler Craft Fair at the Big E
You know spring is coming when Old Deerfield says it is, and Old Deerfield has spoken. The Old Deerfield Spring Sampler Craft Fair is at the Big E this weekend. The fair features 150 juried artisans in all crafts media, including goodies for garden and Easter-themed...
Stagestruck: Happier Valley Comedy expanding on improv
A troupe of high-spirited performers bound onstage and solicit goofy suggestions for characters and situations from the audience. Then they improvise short, snappy scenes based on those prompts. The comedy flows from the incongruities and the improvisers’ quick wits....
Pick of the Day 2/24: Telluride Mountain Film Festival at Hampshire College
Hampshire College invites you to enjoy a few hours of action packed films from the Telluride Mountain Film Festival. Mountainfilm travels year round and worldwide with a selection of its best short films. This year, 13 films are screening at Franklin Patterson Hall...
Pick of the Day 2/25: Outside Mullingar at the Majestic Theater
As the mighty Shakespeare (or the Martian) might say, “here’s the rub”: Anthony and Rosemary are two clueless, lovelorn neighbors. Anthony’s father Tony and Rosemary’s mother Aoife are locked in a bitter land feud. Rosemary has been...
Pick of the Day 2/23: Flathead Rodeo Celebrates Johnny Cash’s Birthday
It’s Friday and who wouldn’t want to celebrate the legendary man in black: Johnny Cash. Flathead Rodeo plays an original blend of rockabilly and the music that influenced it. Flathead Radio is: Mistress Miriam on vocals, Theo Aronson on upright bass,...
Pick of the Day 2/22: Luvvie Ajayi at Mount Holyoke College
Social media expert, New York Times best-selling author, and pop-critic, Luvvie Ajayi takes the stage at Mount Holyoke College as it continues its celebration of Black History Month. If you’re in the mood for great intelligence, wit, and charm, this is the place to...
The Art of Laughter: A Conversation with Comedian Kim Deshields
Comedian Kim “Boney” DeShields is funny, except when she’s talking about making people laugh. “It’s an art,” she says matter of factly. “You have to be smart to make people laugh. You have to be well read and knowledgeable about a lot of things. But most of all,...
Pick of the Day 2/20: March of the Penguins at the Academy of Music
March of the Penguins Just because it’s school vacation doesn’t mean you have to sit at home and play games on your phone all day. Go see the feel good movie March of the Penguins at KidsBestFest at the Academy of Music. It’s a free film festival for...
Coming Soon: ‘Fields of Flowers’ at the Smith College Bulb Show
For those people who just can’t wait for Spring to come, there will be a sneak peek from March 3 to 18 at the Botanical Garden of Smith College, 16 College Lane, Northampton. Fields of Flowers: The Annual Spring Bulb Show will be open to all. Right now, the...
Pick of the Day 2/19: Hidden Figures at Amherst Cinema
Hidden Figures As Elon Musk’s Space X program soars, NASA’s illustrious history seems a little dull. One way to put back the shine is to see Hidden Figures, the three time Oscar nominated film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae....
Pick of the Day 2/18: Liz Longley at Iron Horse
Liz Longley A subtle Sunday is in order. Go check out Berklee College of Music graduate and award-winning songwriter, Liz Longley. Longley performs at the Iron Horse Music Hall. Some think of Shawn Colvin or Paula Cole when they think of Langley, but recognize she...
Pick of the Day 2/17: Nicholas Ryder Quintet at the Bing
Nicholas Ryder Quintet at the Bing Arts Center It’s a good night to check in at the Bing Arts Center and warm up with some cool jazz. Nicholas Ryder Quintet will dig into some songbook standards and tunes by the legendary likes of “Long Tall Dexter”...
Pick of the Day 2/16: Robin Hood at New England Youth Theater
Robin Hood Sherwood Forest never gets old. Since the 15 century, Robin Hood (dressed in Lincoln green) and his lovable merry band have been roving the forest robbing the rich and giving to the poor in swashbuckling heroic style. Throughout film and theater, this...
Stagestruck: Marx and Sparks
If, like me, you thought the National Theatre’s production of One Man, Two Guv’nors, either on NT Live or Broadway, was the funniest, wittiest farce you’ve ever seen (with Noises Off a close second), chances are you’ll enjoy Young Marx. It’s on this weekend at Amherst...
Poste Nebuleux: Ben Banville’s Life in Art
Bernard “Ben” Banville’s life sounds as if it was an unfettered celebration of creativity. Born in Quebec, for many years Banville made his home in Greenfield. He was a musician, a photographer, and an artist who spent years on the Pioneer Valley artscape...
Things To Do: Love, Anime Style, at Tower Theaters
Valentines Day, February 14, catch Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card. Romance and intrigue, Japanese anime style. South Hadley’s Tower Theaters, 19 College Street, South Hadley. 9 p.m. $12.50 in advance; $14 at the door. towertheaters.com. — Gina...
Introducing the Valley Advocate Podcast – a chat with provocative artist Imo Imeh
Recently, the Advocate wrote about President Donald Trump’s derogatory comments about Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador during an immigration discussion – calling them shithole countries. Now we are pleased to continue the conversation and simultaneously...
Color and Heat: Pan American Prints at Smith College Museum of Art
The great mysteries of the southernmost countries of Pan America lie in the enormity of its territory, its rich history, and the shroud of chaos and human suffering. But Nobel-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz beautifully sums up the artistic heritage of these nations....
Stagestruck: Something Rotten! — a tasty musical dish
I grew up on Shakespeare and musicals, so what was I to make of Something Rotten!, the hit musical that mercilessly lampoons both? Love it for its origins or hate it for its irreverence? Having missed it on Broadway, where it earned a double handful of Tony...
Stagestruck: Love in the Multiverse
Constellations, playing at TheaterWorks in Hartford through Feb. 18, looks at love and second chances through a prism of reflecting and refracting fun-house mirrors – or more accurately, through a spectrum of infinite chances. Nick Payne’s two-hander isn’t exactly a...
Cost of Contentment: The Crossroads of Art, Addiction, Mental Illness
The nondescript building in which Anchor House of Artists is located is misleading. It’s exterior is plain and white, sitting on the very edge of Pleasant Street seconds from the highway. There is no extra signage to alert visitors that they have, indeed,...
Stagestruck: High Drama in the Library
You wouldn’t think a library would be a likely setting for high drama, but here we are with two playing at once. In Hartford, Sharon Washington is telling the story of her girlhood, when she lived, not virtually but literally, in a library. And in West Springfield,...
Review: Forgotten Girls: Lives In Peril
Walking into the genteel Von Auersperg Gallery, one is reminded that Western Massachusetts is truly a bastion for visual arts venues. One is also reminded of how many choose to host phlegmatic collections of New England landscapes rather than those that may court...
Henry Rollins on Travel, Photography, and Running for President
Henry Rollins embodies the punk ethos in more ways than one — he’s well known for his role as vocalist for 1980s hardcore punk band, Black Flag, and he’s also an actor, orator, photographer, writer, television and radio host, as well as a comedian. Rollins is stopping...
Staff Picks: Official After Party of the Women’s March, Thrill Mill Comedy Show, Eric Carle
Lilith of the Valley: Fierce Femmes of the 413 // SATURDAY The official after-party for the Pioneer Valley Women’s March this year being held in Northampton, brings even more woman power to close out the day. A night of music and activism will continue to pump through...
Cinemadope: Different Strokes
Few artists have captured the public’s fancy like Vincent Van Gogh. His richly textured landscapes, interiors, and portraits, built up with a painterly impasto as inviting as a rich ganache, seem to grow in popularity with every passing year. And while the calendar...
Stagestruck: Gender Parity Still Elusive in Theater
In this time of long-overdue comeuppance for sexual harassment and assault, I approached my annual reckoning of gender equity in theater with fresh eyes. Nationwide, women continue to be devalued and underrepresented in almost all areas of theatrical creation, on and...
VALLEY SHOW GIRL: ‘Short Stay’ Here For Long Haul
About a month ago, Valley musician Nate Martel came into the Advocate office to drop off his debut solo album “Short Stay.” Being a fan of his role in rock group, Outer Stylie, I was pumped to get the CD into my car as soon as I left work. And that I did. Recorded at...
Stagestruck: It’s Bedlam on These Stages
“Bedlam” is an apt moniker for the ever-adventurous theater company going by that name. Their whirlwind adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility recently wowed New York (and comes to Cambridge beginning this weekend – see below). Now they’re back on sort-of...
Back Talk: Where do we go with this?
Editor’s Note: Welcome to our letters to the editor page. Here you’ll find reader comments on Advocate articles and other news. We collect readers’ opinions from emails, letters, Facebook comments, and comments to valleyadvocate.com. Want to get in on this? Email...
Stagestruck: Sondheim’s Follies, onstage, on screen
Perhaps surprisingly, the Brits do American musicals really well. The National Theatre, in particular, has a long history of reinvigorating Broadway classics. The theater’s extensive relationship with Stephen Sondheim’s works continues with its current hit production...
Stagestruck: One-woman show ‘Pulse’ shines light on Scottish musical roots
Serious Play! Theatre Ensemble, rooted in the Valley for over two decades, is spreading its limbs. Long the area’s prime site for physical-theater training and performance that explores the reaches of expression through voice and movement, the company has lately...
The Advocate Guide to Open Mics in the Pioneer Valley!
The Pioneer Valley is home not only to a bountiful music scene, but to dozens of open mics where artistic communities blossom. Open mics are places where the generational lines between artists blur while they’re jamming out to a bluesy ballad or talking about their...
Stream Queen: The Film and TV Industry is a Steaming Morass of Iniquity, but I’m Still Thankful
Dearest streamers, as the year draws to a close and we start to gather with our families (chosen or otherwise), it’s customary to take stock of how our lives have changed in the past 365 days. To say that the entertainment industry and all its iterations have changed...
Stagestruck: Not Your Bobble-head Einstein
Though it harks back more than 100 years, Jack Fry’s Einstein! shuns the usual retrospective approach to solo shows portraying celebrities. This one is both timeless and time-stamped. The title character appears to us “from the beyond,” complaining about the popular...
Stagestruck: The Fruits of Poetry
Note: An earlier version of this article contained several errors. They have now been corrected. In 1999, Time magazine named its pick for “the song of the century.” That song was “Strange Fruit,” perhaps an odd choice from the songbook of the era that gave birth to...
Literally, what would Jesus do? A chat with Jesus Christ Superstar’s Ted Neeley
Ted Neeley is not the second coming of Jesus Christ. But he does play one in the extremely popular show and accompanying 1973 movie Jesus Christ Superstar. The show went from being protested in the streets to one of the biggest Broadway sensations, touring around the...
Stagestruck: House of Terrors
The current world-premiere production at Hartford Stage (through Nov. 12) is “based on a true story,” according to the publicity, which is otherwise unforthcoming about its real-life inspiration. No matter. The premise for Sarah Gancher’s Seder is dramatic enough to...
Stagestruck: Babylon in Vermont
As artists, how can one watch the millions of refugees fleeing Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention countries in Africa and Asia, and not want to address this issue? That question provoked the latest handmade production from Sandglass Theater, the world-class...
Get Writing! National Novel Writing Month Starts Soon
Art flourishes in uncertain times. From the critical poetry of World War I and the post World War II Beat Generation to the innovative music of the Beatles and the Stones and beyond, during and after strife, creative types will make art. They rush to prove Jonathan...
Stagestruck: Runaways and Refugees
“Once upon a time / There was a boy or a girl / Who ran far away from home …” But this is no fairy tale. Runaways, which opens this week at UMass, is a grown-up musical about homeless children — kids who have fled from home and are living on the street....
STAFF PICKS: Haunted Evenings, Electronic/Art Rock, and Ukulele’s
A Haunted Evening at Gateway City Arts // SATURDAY The weekend before Halloween is usually when all the fun happens. The Valley is full of events going on, and this just happens to be one of them. There will be many treats in store. Halloween-inspired cocktails and...
This Halloween, Let These Psychological Horror Movies Brainwash You
The leaves are changing, there’s a chill in the air, and every cafe has restocked their pumpkin spice syrup. Fall is finally here, and if you’re interested in movies, that means two things: nearby Oscar season means there are finally some good films in theatres again,...
Stagestruck: Going for Goal
The timing was kind of perfect. Last week, just as the U.S. men’s soccer team was being eliminated from qualifying for next year’s World Cup, Hartford’s TheaterWorks was opening The Wolves, an energetic if puzzling play about women’s soccer. Make that girls’ soccer....
Stagestruck: A Light, a Lake and a Lady
In last week’s column I covered a fistful of shows playing in the Valley, and now it’s the Berkshires’ turn. Shakespeare & Company’s God of Carnage recently completed a late-season run, and three quite varied fall productions are now running on other western...
Stagestruck — Fall Harvest: A Bumper Crop of Valley Shows
At the end of summer, there’s a pause before the fall season unfolds — or rather, explodes. Suddenly, this weekend and next there’s a bumper crop of shows in an abundance of Valley venues. By my count, no fewer than seven productions are on hand — 21 if you count the...
Stagestruck: “Tuna” on Wry − Lake Wobegon, Texas-style
One way to put a big play on a small stage and stay on budget is by having two actors play all the parts. In Silverthorne Theater Company’s current offering, that’s not a cost-cutting shortcut, it’s the key concept. Greater Tuna, playing this weekend and next,...
Valley Advocate Fall Arts Preview of Western Mass
Fall 2017 in the Valley is stuffed with anticipated moments of cultural and artistic profundity; below is just a taste of all the amazing events taking place October into early-December across the three counties, and southern Vermont. Fragile Freedom After the U.S....
Pixies at Smith College
The Pixies rocked out a 31-song set, which was close to 2 hours of non-stop jams last night at the John M. Greene Hall, at Smith College in Northampton. Here’s a sample of some pictures and video from their show. — Jennifer Levesque,...
Stagestruck: Culture Clashes on the Border and on the Island
Two plays in the Valley this weekend couldn’t be more different but at the same time so close to the bone of our current national crisis of xenophobia and identity. Building the Wall, in Northampton, is a tense confrontation that touches on today’s headlines and then...
Stories From The Stoop a Nuanced Look at Growing Up in 1960s New York
I first met Steve Bernstein when I was working at a small library in Marlborough, New Hampshire, a little more than a decade ago. In the newsletter I put a note in for a writers’ group without knowing if anyone from the little town would show up. Steve was among the...
Stagestruck: Summer Theater Wrap Party, in Living Color
The area’s summer theaters have folded their metaphorical tents for the year, though three of the Berkshire companies are also mounting fall shows. For this critic, it was a Sergio Leone season: good, bad, and occasionally ugly. (An example of the extremes —...
BrattRock
In its second year, the Brattleboro Youth Rock Festival has a killer line up of below-the-drinking-age talent. Saturday features a full day of rock with performances by local bands Impending Exorcism, Gabe Brodeur (frontman for Court Etiquette, which P.S. performed on...
Yea-Hoo and Rockabilly, too: Flathead Rodeo Friday in Easthampton
Songs From the Rodeo Flathead Rodeo is Northampton-based roots rockabilly band recently won Mark Sherry’s Valley Musical Showcase in July, a regular, judged competition at New City Brewery in Easthampton. So, now they have the honor of opening and closing this week’s...
Springfield Puerto Rican Parade SUNDAY
The annual Puerto Rican Parade kicks off Sunday in Springfield. The parade, which featured more than 100 marching contingents and floats last year, will start at 11 a.m. and go down Main Street, from Wason Avenue to Boland Way. Expect to get your dance on and enjoy...
Selfie Indulgent? UMass show explores the self portrait
No one gives Picasso shit for all the self portraits he’s painted. And I’m yet to hear someone call Frida Kahlo’s self portraits “navel gazing.” But right now, the self portrait is under fire. People like to heap a lot of scorn on selfie-takers, folks who have read up...
Amherst Emily Dickinson FEST!!!! Now Through the Weekend
Kindly Stopping for Emily Dickinson Amherst’s annual celebration of one of its most famed artists begins Thursday, Sept. 14, and carries on through the weekend with the Amherst Poetry Festival and Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon. The fest, held at various locations,...E-Edition
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