Arts
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,...
Hidden Figures in the Silent Sky
When Robert Freedman tells people about Silent Sky, the play he directs this weekend at the Shea Theater, they often think he’s talking about Hidden Figures, the recent movie about black women mathematicians who worked as “computers” for NASA in the 1960s. But, he...
Go See: Museum and Gallery Exhibits on Sept. 14-20, 2017
Alumnae House Gallery: Greenhouse Panoramas — A Process of Reinvention. Large-scale greenhouse images by photographer/artist Esther Pullman. Through Jan. 8. Free. 33 Elm St., Northampton. (413) 585-2190. mhobbes@smith.edu. Amherst Town Hall: Changing Landscapes. By...
Northampton’s ‘Beefcake’ Scandal
Fifty-seven years ago this month, agents of the Anti-Smut Unit of the Massachusetts State Police raided the Northampton apartment of Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin and discovered copies of “beefcake” magazines he had collected and shared with friends....
The Sacred Space in Between: Auferoth Exhibit in Easthampton
The paintings in Susannah Auferoth’s exhibit at the Grubbs Gallery in Easthampton, have one thing in common: They all use the template of three exact lines, two thick, the middle one thin, in colors with cavernous depth. But that’s it. Within this framework Auferoth...
Interview: The Pixies On Music, Reuniting, And Annoying The Neighbors
There’s no band quite like the Pixies with its blend of dissonant noise pop, psychedelic hard rock, surf-drenched reverb, punk rock-ish DIY leanings, and surreal lyrics that cover bizarre topics from extraterrestrials to biblical violence. Since the band’s 1986...
Michael Ruffino of the Unband: All Rock, No Bullshit
Unband bassist Michael Ruffino doesn’t bullshit. Outside on the deck at Northampton Brewery, I ask the rocker with a new memoir about music, the Valley, LA, the creative process, his book; and he’s refreshingly candid. How do you feel about the music in the ‘90s,...
Between The Lines: Will Greenfield Get Hooked Up Like The Shea?
Forty years ago, the Shea Theater building in downtown Turners Falls was a shell about to collapse in on itself. But Montague leaders saw the building’s potential to boost the village’s economic fortunes and acquired the Shea. With help from grants, Montague...
Tundrastomper’s Psychedelic, Math Rocking ‘O’ Reviewed
Easthampton-based basement rock band Tundrastomper is an experimental psychedelia mutant grown from a vat of math rock that explodes into a storm with manic ferocity. There’s more than a glob of progressive rock stylings thrown into the mixer with the band’s new...
Staff PICKS! Lady Snowblood in Amherst, Freak Folkers, Orchard Ballet, and Yucks
Lady Snowblood at Amherst Cinema // FRIDAY Ah, the classic story of bloody and brutal revenge. There’s nothing quite like it. Although many think Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films are the peak of stylized action in the sub-genre, there is another film...
Blandford Fair: All’s Fair in Love and Corn Dogs
What can you say about how much fun the Blandford Fair is that hasn’t been said 150 times before? The four-day agricultural fair has been going strong for a century and a half, tweaking the format a little every year to keep up with the times while staying...
Go See: Exhibits at Local Museums and Galleries
Amherst Town Hall: Echoes of the Past — Photographs of Abandoned Places explores the beauty of decay and what’s been left behind. Through Sept. 4. Free. Amherst Town Hall, 4 Boltwood Ave., Amherst. (413) 222-4924. echoesofthepast2014@gmail.com. A.P.E. Gallery: The...
On Repeat: DJs, Karaoke, and Open Mics, R-SU
THURSDAY 8/31 Buccaneer Lounge: DJ. 86 Maple St., Agawam. Christy’s Lounge: DJ. 278 Main St., Indian Orchard. Doc’s Place: Karaoke. 1264 Granby Road, Chicopee. Froggy’s Saloon: DJ karaoke. 846 Airport Industrial Park, Westfield. Hawks and Reed Performing Arts Center:...
The Futuristic Art of Christina Gusek
2050 and Beyond Christina Gusek is a futurist. She looks to what will be instead of what is. Her exhibit at Holyoke Hummus Company, Year 2050 and Beyond, is a vividly terrifying vision of people distorted with machines on a psychedelic event horizon. This exploration...
Chicopee Downtown GetDown All Weekend
Chicopee’s Downtown GetDown The Downtown GetDown is funneling people in this weekend to check out all the cool stuff going on in The Pee. This year’s GetDown will feature a Bike Rodeo, an event usually for kids under age 13 that teaches them good ridership...
Cinemadope: Human Smuggling Just to Get By
Shelburne Falls Pothole Pictures continues its summer movie series with something frosty: a screening of Frozen River. This 2008 film, written and directed by Courtney Hunt, was the hit of the festival circuit when it debuted, winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance...
The Button Lady: Wearing Dissent on Your Sleeve
Print artist Leni Fried is standing over a silk-screen printer flipping through a stack of stencils of peace signs and words such as “nasty,” “peace,” and “freedom,” but she’s looking for the stencil she uses most often these days: “RESIST.” Fried, a printmaker and...
Valley Roller Derby Superbowl SMACK DOWN Saturday
Don’t Disappoint Halle PAIN Yo; To the Derby We Must Go On Saturday what may be the most anticipated rematch of the roller derby season is going down in Wilbraham when the Western Mass Furies go head-to-head against the Hartford Wailers. Hailed as the “Superbowl” of...
149th Cummington Festival TODAY through Sunday
A Fair-ly Long Run Celebrating its 149th year, the 2017 annual Cummington Fair will feature music, movement, agriculture, and competitions. Spanning four days, each date has a theme: Thursday is truck night, Friday is children’s night/cruise night, Saturday is...
What To See at Local Museums and Galleries: Aug. 24-30, 2017
Amherst Visitor’s Center: Pioneer Valley Perspectives II. Susan Dion will share art depicting local scenes in Western Mass. Portion of proceeds goes to Trustees of Reservations. Aug. 3-25. Free. 35 South Pleasant St., Amherst. sue1952us@yahoo.com. Anchor House of...
Gotta Get ‘Back To The Future’
Northampton Community TV’s Crowdsourced Cinema project has spawned shot-for-shot remakes of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Princess Bride. But this year’s title — the time travel epic Back to the Future (aka my favorite movie OF ALL TIME) — meant the...
Stagestruck: Angels & Obsessions at NT Live
If there is a genuine epic in American drama − its ideas as expansive as its scope − it is surely Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s two-part, eight-hour “gay fantasia on national themes.” And if there is a consummate example of cross-disciplinary provenance on the...
Stagestruck: Two Women, Intimate dramas explore shifting connections
A pair of two-handers, playing through this month and just next weekend respectively, examine intimate, intricate relationships between women. Harbor Stage Company, one of the region’s most reliably stimulating summer theaters, premieres its adaption of a cinema...E-Edition
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