Columns
Stagestruck: What I Did on My Summer Staycation
In the usual summer theater season, I’ll see dozens of plays and put hundreds of miles on the odometer. But in this most unusual summer, the car stayed mostly in the driveway and I stayed mostly in the house. I did get to over two dozen shows – or rather, they were...
Stagestruck: The Hills Are Live – UPDATE
August 13 update: Just as this piece was about to be filed last week, Barrington Stage Company and Berkshire Theatre Group, the first-in-the-country theaters to reopen with live performances, received another blow to their well-laid plans. Following on from the...
Stagestruck: Live Theater Returns, Drive-In Style
In a former life I was a musician – a singer-songwriter in the ’70s mold. One of my most memorable gigs was a drive-in concert, opening for James Taylor’s sister Kate and her band. It took place/was held in a large field in suburban New Jersey, where a raised stage...
Stagestruck: Curtain Up on Stage 3
While most theaters in our area remain closed, some for the rest of the year – and some at risk of closing for good – others are looking past Zoom and toward Stage 3 of Massachusetts’ phased reopening, beginning next week, for ways to offer in-person performances. As...
Stagestruck: In the Zoom Room, Part 2
“A nasty side effect of the pandemic is that performing artists, like so many others, are suddenly in the position of rethinking our careers,” Kyle Boatwright told me the other day. “We still don’t know when we’ll see a stage again, and we’ve been cornered into making...
Stagestruck: In the Zoom Room, part 1
Phase Two of Massachusetts’ staged reopening started this week, lifting some restrictions on public activities such as dining, swimming and hairdressing (really??) but not on live performance. That no-no doesn’t lift till Phase Four, which won’t come along till late...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Uncorked on Netflix
“You like hip-hop? First you got Chardonnay…it’s like the granddaddy of wine. It’s versatile, smooth…it’s like the Jay-Z of wine. This is how Elijah, played by Mamudou Athie, describes wine in the new Netflix movie Uncorked. It follows Elijah on his...
Stagestruck: Summer Stages – The prospects for live performance
“I’ve never missed uncomfortable theatre seats (and airplane seats, for that matter) more in my life,” Angela Combest wrote me recently. She’s the publicist for Chester Theatre Company, which, like almost every other theater in the region, has canceled its summer...
Valley Show Girl: Eavesdrop folk pop trio open up about their personal musical inspirations
Pioneer Valley natives Kara Rose Wolf, Kerrie T. Bowden and Laura Marie Picchi are soul sisters. Their trio, Eavesdrop is musical proof. They combine three-part vocals with percussion and acoustic guitar into their style. A mixture of Americana, folk, pop and soul,...
Monte Belmonte Wines: #Pantsdrunk or “I could drink a case or two”
You may have recently seen the New York Times story about the anglicized version of the Finnish word kalsarikannit. The translation, and the trending hashtag that goes with it, is #pantsdrunk. It’s part of the Finnish of knowing you’re going nowhere, taking your...
The V-Spot: How Do I Successfully Quarantine with My S.O.?
Hi Yana! It’s been a month of quarantine, and my boyfriend’s and my different feelings about it are really starting to show. He’s taking more of a wait-this-out approach by sleeping a lot, playing video games, not keeping much of a schedule, etc. I’m working really...
Cinemadope: Home Movies
As we all navigate our way through this new landscape of isolation and social distancing, most of us have lost the small local connections we once took for granted. The familiar hello of a barista who poured our morning coffee, the nod of the bus driver who brought us...
The V-Spot: Can I Ask for More Sex Without Being a Creep?
Hi Yana, I have a high sex drive and my partner has a low sex drive. How do I navigate this? My sex life has been leaving me disappointed for a while now but I’m afraid of putting pressure on my partner. If I ask for sex I feel like I’m coercing them into it and it...
Stagestruck: Bridging the Social Distance
With campuses closed and classrooms empty, teachers are applying long-distance work-arounds to complete their spring courses, gathering their students in Zoom rooms and juggling assignments on Moodle. Teachers of acting, directing, and other hands-on theater skills...
The Beerhunter: Local Breweries Adapt to a New, Locked-Down World
This article was supposed to be about gathering in large groups. Less than a month ago, I had planned to dedicate this craft beer column to a preview of White Lion Brewing Company’s new taproom and facility in downtown Springfield, which is currently under...
Valley Show Girl: The Valley Needs Doc Westchesterson
One day late last week I scrolled through Facebook to find memes to laugh at and maybe some new music to check out. I came across a video that three or more of my friends shared. “Oh yeah!” I got excited when I saw the preview image of the YouTube video of Agawam...
Cinemadope: Alone Together
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starting to miss the world. Out of work and holed up in the house — half the week in a kind of monkish solitude, the other half with three increasingly stir-crazy kids — is exactly the opposite of what anyone wants out of...
The V-Spot: Five Months of Sexual Unfulfillment
Dear Yana, I’ve been in a relationship for the last five months. Our relationship is hard for me to describe — it isn’t full of issues nor passion. I’m used to being in relationships that are explosive and demanding, volatile. This relationship I would...
Fred Cracklin’s ‘Anxiety Kinship’ — A Mad Science Experiment Gone Right
Western Mass-based experimental/math rock duo Fred Cracklin takes its name from a live action character played by Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore in the 1990s animated science fiction comedy “Space Ghost Coast to Coast.” The series is set up as a surreal...
The V-Spot: Polyamorous During a Pandemic
Hi Yana, I’m writing to see if you have any advice for the polyamorous community during the COVID-19 outbreak. While there aren’t many cases in Hampshire County [as of writing this question on March 20], my partner and I have decided to work from home and...
Stagestruck: Ghost Lights in the Darkness
A ghost light is the single lamp that’s left burning onstage when the theater is dark, the audience has gone home and the cast and crew have called it a night. It’s the light that’s on when all the other lights are off. Ghost lights are shining 24/7 all over the...
Valley Show Girl: Pamela Means is All That Jazz
A few weeks ago, before this whole quarantine thing happened, I ventured over to downtown Greenfield to catch what would be my last show for quite a bit. I parked my car just in time to see two people pass my parking spot with medical face masks on. If only I knew...
Cinemadope: Home Theater
It might seem silly to have a local film column this week. As I write, public schools are shutting down for a three-week hiatus, restaurants are shifting strictly to takeout service, and we’re all avoiding crowds. The long-running Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival...
V-Spot: Kinky and Platonic?
Hi Yana, Middle-aged straight guy here. I’m in a committed, monogamous relationship with a partner who I love very much. We have a great and satisfying physical sex life though naturally there are dry spells, particularly during the winter-time. I love my partner very...
Monte Belmonte Wines: How to open a bottle of wine with a shoe
With the threat of coronavirus, the increasing potential that we will have at least four more years of a demagogue in the highest office, and Tom Brady considering leaving the Patriots, we are living in the End Times. You need to get yourself prepared. “Preppers”...
V-Spot: The non-monogamous rumor mill and me
Hi Yana, After 16 years of monogamy, my wife and I decided to try polyamory a few years ago. It’s going well and we’ve grown a lot. Our marriage is truly stronger than ever. We’ve learned a lot about ourselves, about relationships and, major bonus, the sex within our...
Stagestruck: State of Plays
Yesterday morning I filed my column for next week’s Advocate, previewing upcoming screenings in Amherst Cinema’s National Theatre Live series. Yesterday afternoon I cancelled it when the cinema announced it’s closing until at least April 17th. There won’t be a...
The CD’s You Gave Me: Grunge and indie rock with musical clones
Take one part grunge, another part shoegaze pop, and throw in some indie rock in the vein of Elliott Smith, and you have the building blocks of Taking Space the debut nine-song, full-length album by local songwriter Aaron Noble. What’s immediately striking about this...
The Beerhunter: Road Trip to Southern Worcester County
I was a kid from the Western Mass hills, and proud of it. But at my far-off college campus, where I’d flown in search of a higher education wearing Teva sandals and an Enter the Haggis hat, my college friends would raise their eyebrows when I’d say I came from...
Cinemadope: Dog Days
“All it takes is one bad day,” a famous cartoon villain once said, “to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.” And while Kelly Reichardt’s 2008 film Wendy and Lucy is about as far as one can get from the world of the Dark Knight, it takes that “one bad day” idea and...
V-Spot: Has My Date Been Canceled?
Writer’s note: I’ve added completely random and fake names into this column for reading clarity! Hi Yana, I ran into Sam who is a friend of mine that I have been distancing myself from because I think they’re mean and selfish. Sam invited me out and I said “Oh, I have...
Valley Show Girl: Experimental Noise Fixations
“Our focus is equal parts towards experimental art and hosting great DJ nights,” Ten Forward owner Sarah Lanzillotta told me through an email. “We aim to serve as a home for artists in Western MA to grow creatively, to try out ideas with one another, and as a resource...
Stagestruck: One-Pitch Wonder
In baseball parlance, having “a cup of coffee” refers to a player who is called up from the minors for a brief stint with the major-league team – staying just long enough to have a figurative cuppa. Stan Freeman’s The Pitch is about a fictional ballplayer who barely...
The V-Spot: Can My Clit Learn to Trust Again?
Dear Yana, I recently got out of a seven-year relationship and a five-year heterosexual marriage. Initially, we had a very regular and healthy sexual relationship but over time it disintegrated to an essentially sexless relationship. He had an affair and we divorced....
Stagestruck: Plain Jane
Jane Eyre may be the most-adapted of 19th-century English novels, and that’s saying something, in a field shared with Austen and Dickens. The Wikipedia entry for Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 gothic masterpiece lists over 50 film, radio and TV versions, together with dozens...
Cinemadope: Toon in — animation for the late-night crowd
In the run-up to the Oscars a few weeks ago, you might have seen a flurry of activity from local theaters as they featured the yearly roundup of animated short films that were vying for the golden statuette. It’s always a treat to see that collection of film on the...
Clueless Parent: Another one on the way
For the past three-plus years, I’ve been the parent of an amazing child. In a couple months time, I will be a parent of two. A friend who has two children recently told me that it would be impossible to describe to me the amount of work that will go into parenting...
Stagestruck: Facts & Fancies
In these fake-news days, when fiction rules the cybersphere and truth is called a lie (and vice versa), the lifespan of a fact can be the length of a tweet (if it’s not stillborn). The play now running at TheaterWorks in Hartford (through March 8) can’t help but be...
The V-Spot: How to break the habit of not having sex
Hi Yana, My partner and I get into the habit of not having sex. We have a bunch of kids, full-time jobs, and all of that. It causes emotional tension to build and then we use that as an excuse to not sexually connect. We fall into a very platonic state. However, I’m...
Stagestruck: Peter Pan, Meet Lizzie Borden
Two of the shows coming up on three Five College stages this week and next are family-friendly journeys into Neverland’s backstory. The other is a rock musical about a sensational axe murder. First up is Finding Neverland, the musical based on the 2004 film. It was...
Monte Belmonte Wines: (Gently) trashing California wine
In my last column, I mentioned how my main motivations for writing this column are to justify my habit and to get free wine, and how I’ve succeeded on both counts. I also wrote about some rather good wines that just miraculously showed up on my doorstep, as if...
Valley Show Girl: ‘Soulfly! … Fly High! … Soulfly! … Fly Free!’
Arizona-based metal band Soulfly are coming back to our local music scene here in the Valley on their latest tour. They were here in 2014 when they played to a complete packed house at Maximum Capacity in Chicopee. The same venue under a different name, Poor Richards,...
Stagestruck: The Shape of Silence
In 1981, Ota Shogo had a vision: “A broken faucet center stage. A thin line of water from the spout. The sound of water. A variety of people come by, approach, touch the water, and pass on. In this composition, silence breathes as living human time, not as form.” From...
The V-Spot: We’re BOTH Healing From Trauma
Writer’s note: In this week’s column, we talk about childhood sexual abuse. Hi Yana, I’m a childhood sexual abuse survivor and I worked really hard to put my mental and emotional well-being back in order. I met my husband during the initial stages of my healing and he...
Stagestruck: Filling in the Blank
Brian Stanton, an aspiring actor, is doing a class exercise based on Oedipus Rex, and he freezes. The story of the Greek king who’s tragically ignorant of his real parents strikes too close to home. Brian, like Oedipus, was adopted, and like Oedipus he’s both eager...
Beerhunter: Vanished Valley opens new taproom and kitchen in Ludlow
For better or worse, craft beer fans tend to think like tourists, with an eager eye toward the next brewery opening and a fondness for day-long taproom treks. I can understand the excitement, given how quickly the American craft beer map continues to grow. As I noted...
Cinemadope: Screen Time
I still remember that day, bright with promise, just after the new year had dawned, when my children finally had to go to school again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the little scamps more than I’ve ever loved anything on this earth, but two weeks of holidays, sugar, and...
The V-Spot: Can I open up my relationship to date my ex?
Hi Yana, I’m currently one year and six months deep into a heterosexual relationship with my boyfriend. I’ve long regretted not asking for an open relationship from the beginning. I’m bisexual and I’ve always been in monogamous relationships. For the past two to three...
Stagestruck: Stand Tall, Mi Gente!
The name of the Performance Project’s youth program, First Generation, comes from its entrance requirement. All the participants identify as being a “first” in their family – the first to grow up in this country, to graduate high school or go to college, to be...
Cinemadope: Torch Song
Waiting is hard. Some of us skip ahead in our books, others sneak a peek at a bride before the ceremony. Some of us roar past a minivan going a perfectly reasonable 70 mph on 91 South — I’m looking at you, white Honda Civic. There’s just something about getting an...
Valley Show Girl: Sister Act
“There are stars, there is music, but where are you? I am calling you home tonight.” The beginning lyrics to opening track “Come On Home” from the latest release from Americana duo Ari & Mia welcomes you into their album as if it’s an intimate dinner party, with...
Love Letter to a Nightmare
“I secretly believe that I am a goddess with very brief moments of incarnation,” Jennifer Johnson declares, robed in a long white shift, a pair of ram’s horns set on her head. She’s portraying – or perhaps channeling – Leonora Carrington, the free-spirited...
V-Spot: My long-distance partner doesn’t want video chat sex
Hi Yana, My partner and I are temporarily in a long-distance relationship and he’s expressed discomfort with video chat sex. It sounds like it’s mostly based in discomfort with being naked and vulnerable in front of a camera, feeling unsure about how to make...
Groundskeeper’s ‘Ghost Things’ combs the depths of the psyche
The charred remains of a building smolder in patches of fire as gray smoke drifts over autumnal treetops. That image is cut, and layered multiple times on top of one another for the album cover art of Ghost Things, by Northampton-based Americana-infused indie rock...
Cinemadope: The Short List
Ever since I was first introduced to the tiny hot dog, I have been an appetizer man. Those delectable little morsels — a bite or two at most — can contain a density of flavor that many full meals can only wish to attain. And while many are served ahead of an...
V-Spot: Not The Sex Life I Want
Hi Yana, I didn’t think this was a real problem or, that it was just me. I didn’t think about it until I got into an argument with my husband, when he said “Why don’t you have sex the way when you’re drunk, when you’re sober?!” I really never thought about it till...
Making a Comeback: A preview of Double JJ Presents shows coming up
John Joyce started booking local bands back in 1998 while he attended Westfield State. What started it all was his friends from college — who were in a band called The Infamous Shoeless Joe — had inquired if he could help get them shows in the area. He started booking...
Clueless Parent: Trying to Teach a 3-Year-Old About Justice
As I write this, it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I’ve just finished reading Dr. King’s 6,800-word “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” published in 1963 and written after being arrested for participating in one of his many nonviolent actions to further the cause of...
Cinemadope: Guy Ritchie returns to crime with The Gentlemen
There was a time, once, when British director Guy Ritchie was considered the across-the-pond reflection of Quentin Tarantino. The filmmaker who, four years after Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and six after Reservoir Dogs, started pumping out stylish if patchy tales...E-Edition
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