Arts
Staff picks: Lilith of the Valley, ‘Resonate Sessions’, the THE BAND Band, June Millington
Lilith of the Valley: Sea of Change // SATURDAY “Lilith of the Valley,” a music series celebrating female artists, musicians, and business owners in the Pioneer Valley (presented by PRIA Music Marketing), returns for its sixth series this Saturday at Bishop’s Lounge...
Stagestruck: Assassination Rituals
Sometimes, in your darkest fantasies, when you’re struggling to process the latest outrage from this trumped-up president — you might just entertain visions of the regicides that feature in two Valley productions. One of them is about presidential assassins, the other...
Staff picks: Scary Jane Jones, ‘Embodied Landscape,’ the art of dyeing, Whiskey Treaty Roadshow
The Scary Jane Jones at Progression Brewing // THURSDAY On Halloween night, be prepared to lose your soul to The Scary Jane Jones, the All Hallows Eve alter ego of local vintage soul band The Mary Jane Jones, which is putting on a special spooky show of two sets at...
Stagestruck: Women in the Lead
Three productions by women-led theaters are playing in the Valley this weekend, and another opens in the Berkshires. They echo themes around gender – from activities women aren’t “supposed” to engage in, to a trans transition, to young men of color in the...
Stagestruck: Live from London, in Amherst
National Theatre Live began its eleventh season this month and the Amherst Cinema has been there from the start, screening live-capture HD broadcasts from the London stage. First up is a transgressive, immersive Shakespeare (Oct. 19 & 30). That’s followed by...
Staff Picks: Royal Frog Ballet, Gallery exhibits, That 1 Guy, and Strong & Pleasant ‘Rocktober’ Music Fest
The Royal Frog Ballet’s Surrealist Cabaret // FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY Framed as a sunset walk through Park Hill Orchard in Easthampton, the Royal Frog Ballet’s Surrealist Cabaret is a collection of performances which in the past have included music, puppetry,...
Joining the Fold: Easthampton artist presents paper art celebrating women at her debut solo show
Sitting in her home and studio in Easthampton with a collection of vibrant white paper roses, and a paper dress inspired by curved architecture nearby, artist Marguerite Belkin, a 75-year-old self taught “paper sculptor,” said 15 years ago when she started doing...
Staff Picks: Mill River Rounders, Skate or Paint 2019, Indian classical music, and a ‘Diversity in Art’ exhibit
Mill River Rounders at Mill 180 Park // Friday The Mill River Rounders will be bringing its blend of banjo, washtub bass, and guitar old-timey/bluegrass stylings to Easthampton’s Mill 180 Park this Friday night. Mill 180 features lawn games and a cafe, which works...
Stagestruck: Forced to the Border
Two Latinx plays in the area revolve around themes of dislocation — displaced neighborhoods, populations, and minds. Quixote Nuevo, at Hartford Stage, transplants Cervantes’ demented knight errant to a Texas border town, and Not for Sale, in Holyoke, puts the gente in...
Fall Arts Preview
Who says the arts have to stop when summer is over? The Pioneer Valley, as always, delivers when it comes to creative nights out and interesting things to check out. Here is a sampling from the Advocate staff. -DE Arcadian sounds Date: Sept. 28 Though summer is prime...
Staff Picks: Out! For Reel, Quinn Sullivan, Northampton Record Fair, and Juan Wauters/Jesus Vio/Stoner Will
Out! For Reel LGBTQ Film Fest // SATURDAY Out! For Reel screens films featuring LGBTQ issues throughout the year, and this latest collection looks to be a great one. Showing both shorts and a featurette, the evening at the Academy of Music will have a film about a...
Stagestruck: Badass Women
These days it seems you can’t put on a play without your publicity assuring the public it’s going to be funny – no matter what play it is. (“Hamlet, a timeless tragedy with doses of wacky humor.”) So it might be a little suspect to report that Silverthorne Theater...
Stagestruck: On the Border, and Beyond
Two shows coming to this area have Mexican echoes. One is a children’s-story allegory of the current border crisis, the other a Mexican dramedy with an international range. Ropes, by Bárbara Colio, has been performed extensively in Spanish-speaking countries,...
Staff Picks: Midsommar, Bread & Puppet, Weege & The Wondertwins, and Country Music
Midsommar: Director’s Cut at Amherst Cinema // THURSDAY My favorite film of the summer is director Ari Aster’s sophomore film, “Midsommar,” a folk-horror movie in the vein of classic 1973 British horror flick, “The Wickerman.” Without spoiling too much, this is a...
Stagestruck: Summer Snapshots
Thinking back over the summer theater season just ended, images from memorable shows are passing before my mind’s eye, and ear — from striking moments in performances to sets and soundscapes. Here are some Valley snapshots. Chester Theatre Company celebrated its 30th...
Staff Picks: Munio Makuuch, Elmer’s open mic, From the Woods, Lonesome Brothers
Smith College Museum of Art // TUESDAY-SATURDAY The Smith College Museum of Art has just opened a new exhibit on the late Japanese-Amercan poet and printmaker Munio Makuuch, who with his family spent much of World War II in an internment camp in Idaho for Japanese...
Stagestruck: Dancing While Black
It wasn’t intentional, but thinking back on the programs I’ve seen at Jacob’s Pillow this summer, and forward to one that’s on this week, I realized that every concert on my dance card this year is by African-American-led companies. Unintentional, perhaps, but not...
Stagestruck: In Company with Shakespeare + a truly Bazaar production
Shakespeare & Company’s name has threefold associations. It’s a theater that works in the company, as it were, of its eponym. It shares the name of the legendary bookshop on Paris’s Left Bank, lending an air of bohemian audacity and camaraderie to the enterprise...
Stagestruck: Curve of the Season
Summertime is winding down, and so is the Valley’s theater season – but not quite yet. Chester Theatre Company opens its final show this week (see below), Double Edge Theatre continues the month-long run of its perambulating epic I Am the Baron (reviewed here), and...
Stagestruck: Child’s Plays
Both of the longstanding children’s theaters that enliven the Valley’s summer schedule tickle the funnybone while feeding the imagination, but they go about it in quite different ways. Tom McCabe’s PaintBox Theatre specializes in twisted takes on treasured tales, with...
Basemental: Ugly Realities of Sustaining Life in the Cul-de-Sac
Woodblock printmaker, sculptor, and quilter Eli Liebman and I went for a walk recently. Traversing the edge of North Street to the dike in Hadley, Liebman was fixated on the implied violence lurking beneath the surface of quaint, suburban life — from the colonial...
Stagestruck: Getting Sticky
In the final week of this year’s Ko Festival of Performance, Sabrina Hamilton is looking forward to this weekend’s performance by the Ugandan musician-humanitarian Samite (see below) while musing on the season-so-far. Attendance is high and season subscriptions are...
Stagestruck: Ripped from the Headlines
Three plays now on area stages were inspired by real-life events: a superpower scrimmage, a mass shooting, and a nuclear disaster. These timely dramas humanize the headlines and highlight the power of theater to hold a mirror up to our best and worst natures. ...
Stagestruck: All the Livelong Eons
Two shows now playing on the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Stockbridge stages look at who we are as humans. One goes up close to delve into folks’ working lives, the other takes a long view – very long, from the dawn of time to the day after tomorrow. Working, subtitled...
Easthampton’s Artisan Welder: Michael Poole’s work inspires whimsy and reflection
In some ways, it all started with pothole season. “People were on the Easthampton Facebook page complaining about the potholes. None of it is new, but then it took this turn about how the DPW (Department of Public Works) sucks and nobody is doing anything about it.”...
Stagestruck: Past, Present and Prologue
Two timely dramas are playing in the Valley this week and next, while a timeless tragedy is prequelled in the Berkshires, all of them grappling with essential questions of life and death. New Century Theatre’s comeback season, which opened with a riveting performance...
Stagestruck: The Shrew Problem
The Taming of the Shrew is Shakespeare’s trickiest play to perform these days – a thoroughly misogynistic tale in which daughters are auctioned to the highest bidder and the “shrew” of the title is “tamed” by a cunning fortune hunter. He (of course, he) is Petruchio,...
Stagestruck: Total Immersion
It’s summer, folks, time to get off our butts and take some exercise. A little stroll, perhaps, to enjoy the scenery – and a play. That’s the current invitation from two hilltown theaters. Double Edge Theatre presents a brand-new Summer Spectacle on its Ashfield farm,...
Stagestruck: “Culture is my food!”
This year’s through-theme at the Ko Festival of Performance, is Habitat (human) – a topic that also runs through two more current Valley offerings: How I Learned to Drive, from Ghost Light Theater in Holyoke, and Moving Water, a work in progress at Serious Play...
Stagestruck: Out of the Shadows
“Who knew?” is the question in the air these days at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. For example: Who knew that many of the great Duke Ellington’s compositions were written by someone else? And who knew that the pious religious community known as Shakers had...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Brazilian folk-pop and music in the morning
Brazilian folk-pop with Sessa at Historic Northampton // SATURDAY Historic Northampton will kick off its Parsons Lawn Concert Series with Brazilian folk-pop artist Sessa this Saturday, who will be accompanied with three vocalists and a percussionist. Sessa is a...
Stagestruck: Dreams Deferred
More than any other summer theater festival in these parts, Williamstown thrives on stars. For the theater it’s a sure-fire audience and income generator, but for the stars it’s an opportunity. Here they can dig into roles they might not otherwise be offered, and...
Stagestruck: Upstarts – A brand-new theater and a newly minted king
Last weekend, Strident Theatre strode confidently onto the Valley stage. The brand-new company debuted at Smith College with The Final Say, a dramedy by local playwright Meryl Cohn. According to founder Susanna Apgar, who co-directs the show with Shakespeare &...
Stagestruck Abroad: The National Theatre, London
When I was in England recently, I saw two shows at the country’s flagship playhouse, the National Theatre. One is a new play, the other a timely revival, both of them responding to current hot topics. Small Island, the premiere, reflects the crisis of...
Journeys Through Fact and Fantasy: Peter Sís at the Eric Carle Museum
Aptly named and thoughtfully installed, The Picture Book Odyssey of Peter Sís (at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art through October 27), lets us follow the artist’s footsteps on a pathway that is anchored in fact but also spins off into fantasy. Born in...
Stagestruck: Ghosts on Summer Stages
The best thing about summer theater in this region is its variety. Last weekend, for instance, I saw an Irish drama, an American musical and a world premiere. The premiere, at Barrington Stage Company, is a metaphor within a satire that becomes an indictment. America...
Stagestruck Abroad: The Bard
When I was in London this month, I saw two Shakespeare plays. No, make that two and a half: the Bard’s most popular comedy, one of his least performed, and a new play in which he’s a character – and a plagiarist. Just a stroll along Thameside from the National...
Stagestruck Abroad: Norway
One of the first things I noticed about Norway when I was there earlier this month – along with the brisk air, the clean streets, and the tall blondes (and taller blonds) striding along those streets – was the 19 hours of daylight. Not quite “midnight sun,” but it...
Cinemadope: Lost and Found
Living in the age of Instagram has meant — for better or for worse — that everyone is a photographer, or thinks they are. Which in the end has been a great win, I think, and one that has opened the door to creativity for an untold number of people who otherwise might...
Stagestruck: Grand Openings – Summer theaters busting out all over
The summer season has been slowly gaining momentum, and this week it explodes, with 10 shows in the Valley and Berkshires opening or already up and running. Among these are a pair of classic musicals, two uncommon love stories set in Ireland, a satirical look at...
Is Drag Really Just a Drag?: A Q&A with local genderflux drag performer Hors D’oeuvres
The month of June means that it’s officially LGBTQ+ Pride Season, with pride marches moving across the country from the east to the west coasts of the U.S. Here in our humble rainbow Valley, we got started early with Northampton’s pride march and event on May 4,...
Staff Picks: Drag Brunch, Breastless, Hip Hop and ramen,
Drag Brunch with Hors and Friends for Franklin County Pride at Hawks & Reed // SATURDAY You can support Franklin County Pride and your local drag queens on Saturday morning in downtown Greenfield with a special drag brunch featuring the always magnificent and...
Summer Arts Preview 2019
Summer is a time for the arts, especially here in the Valley. From the myriad theater groups who put on their summer plays to the collection of music festivals and outside performances that grace our part of the world while the sun shines high in the sky. Without...
Stagestruck: Hot Topics – Summer theaters reflect the times
Hamlet, we recall, reminded the players visiting Elsinore that the theater’s job is to reflect “the very age and body of the time.” Times being what they are, it’s no surprise that quite a number of shows this summer do just that. The schedule in the Valley and...
Review: ‘Daydreaming’ at the Elusie Gallery
The work of two artists are on display now through June 30 at Easthampton’s Elusie Gallery in an exhibit titled “Daydreaming,” which features surrealistic illustrated pieces by Samson E. King with images of nature and everyday objects colliding in a kaleidoscope...
Stagestruck: Classics Revisited – Masterpieces coming to summer stages
In a season studded with world premieres (five at Williamstown Theatre Festival alone and three at Barrington Stage Company, for example), I’m equally struck by some of the revivals coming up in the Valley and Berkshires this summer. I don’t mean chestnuts from the...
Stagestruck: The Flamingo Kid cruises into Hartford
I missed The Flamingo Kid when the Garry Marshall movie came out in 1984, but I recently caught up with it. It’s a coming-of-age story that takes place in the summer of 1963, the era of Marshall’s TV series Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley. Although it was...
Staff Picks: Global Groove Fest, Dissident Voices concert, Bee Fest
Global Groove Fest // FRIDAY Multi-instrumentalist Matthew King organized a mini festival celebrating the musical roots of Caribbean culture. King’s musical project, soulful fusion band TapRoots, are slated to perform. Also on board to perform, the Valley’s ska jazz...
Stagestruck: Summer Theater Preview – New & Different
I’m looking at my summer theater calendar and counting over 60 productions due up over the next three lively months in the Valley and beyond. Some dozen world premieres, along with even more regional premieres, stand alongside classics from Ibsen to Albee, not to...
Stagestruck on Broadway: Family Squabbles – the Clintons and the Lears
Two plays now on Broadway for limited runs, a world classic and a world premiere, revolve around fractured families whose dynastic dreams turn sour. One involves the ambitious daughters of an English king, the other the ambitious wife of a former U.S. president....
New Holyoke Art Space PULP Kicks Off With Pop Art Exhibit
Along the canal district in Holyoke on Race Street is a new art gallery, PULP Art + Object, which held its grand opening on May 4. The gallery’s inaugural exhibit is by self-taught artist Dave Laro, whose work is inspired by Andy Warhol’s pop art aesthetic. Laro’s...
Stagestruck: Pre-Season Previews – Summer begins, spring continues
There’s usually a bit of a lull between the end of one theater season and the start of the next – the spring pause before the summer rush. But the pause keeps getting briefer and the seasons are starting to overlap. Take this week, when three Berkshire theaters open...
Cinemadope: Summer season means outdoor movies
All of us have our seasonal touchstones. As New Englanders, especially, we seem to have a compulsion to carve up our years (maple season, mud season, mosquito season) and mark the moment that one quarter melts into another. For many, the spring-to-summer transition...
A Street Fair Named Desire: Valley festivals you can find downtown
It can be hard to remember it based on the cold, rainy weather we’ve had recently, but the middle of May is here. That means being outside, enjoying the flowers, and looking ahead to months more of being out and about before the temperature inevitably drops again and...
Q&A: ‘Rafiki’ film hopes to spark change in Kenya
The 2018 film, Rafiki, by co-writer/director Wanuri Kahiu, follows Kena and Ziki, two friends who encourage one another to follow their dreams by going to college and starting careers as young women in Kenya. Their friendship blossoms into love, but in their home city...
Stagestruck: Scully, Scandal, and Buckets of Blood – National Theatre Live in Amherst
Two revisioned classics, a brand-new political drama, and some audience favorites are on tap in the Amherst Cinema’s series of broadcasts from the London stage via National Theatre Live. First up, this Saturday and again on the 14th, is Shakespeare’s most lyrical...
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Maniac, Valley Winds Cinco de Mayo, and Motherhood Out Loud
Motherhood Out Loud at STCC // FRIDAY-SATURDAY Stagestruck columnist Chris Rohmann recently wrote about this production and described this play as 14 vignettes that “traverse the full terrain of the mom experience, from the throes of labor to the empty nest.” While...
Stagestruck: Liaisons, both neighborly and dangerous, at the Bushnell
When the twin towers crumpled on September 11, 2001, American airspace was closed for fear of further attacks and all U.S.-bound flights were diverted to other airports. One of these was Gander International, i n Newfoundland, where 38 airliners landed, carrying...
Stagestruck: Around the World in 80 Minutes
Jules Verne’s 1873 novel/travelogue, Around the World in 80 Days, is best remembered these days from its movie versions, including Disney’s in 2004 and the Oscar-winning three-hour blockbuster from 1956, both of them teeming with exotic multitudes and spectacular...E-Edition
Best Of 2024
Readers Choice 2024
