Arts

Arts

Thriving On the Outskirts of Fame: Shawn Mullins Returns to Infinity Hall

By Robert Burke Warren You cannot keep a good troubadour down. While naysayers bemoan the difficulty of convincing couch potatoes to invest in live music, a dedicated breed of singer-songwriters still grace stages in small-to-medium sized venues, connecting with appreciative audiences as if the Internet and basic cable never happened.

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Arts

Beyond Borders: The Art of Kenro Izu

By Robin Catalano After three decades of seeking his muse in far-flung locales, from the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria to Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, photographer Kenro Izu is looking for inspiration closer to home — as in, his backyard. The peripatetic artist, renowned for capturing sacred places in

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Arts

Where the Wild Things Are: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Live at MASS MoCA

By Robert Burke Warren When Ronen Givony, director of New York City’s Wordless Music Orchestra, saw Beasts of the Southern Wild, a mythic tale of devotion and loss that was nominated for four Academy Awards this year, he knew the majestic, Cajun-inflected, occasionally edgy score belonged onstage, fleshed out

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Arts

Islam Contemporary? A Journey Into Past, Present, Future, and Action

By Nichole Dupont Don't let the New England landscape fool you as you ascend the corner steps to Pittsfield's Lichtenstein Center for the Arts. There is nothing about what's happening inside — the recently opened Islam Contemporary curated by Brandeis graduate and native of Pakistan,

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Arts

All’s Welles That Ends Welles: A New Book From Chatham Film Festival's Peter Biskind

By Sam PrattOne afternoon in Los Angeles in 1983, Richard Burton cautiously approached Orson Welles’ usual table at Ma Maison, to ask if he could bring Liz Taylor over to meet him. Welles rudely shooed both away. Now, with the publication of Vanity Fair critic and Chatham Film Festival honcho

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Arts

A Broadway Star Glistens at the Litchfield Jazz Festival

By Sarah Ellen Rindsberg It’s summertime and the living is easy. The opportunity to hear top quality jazz is also easy, thanks to the presence of the Litchfield Jazz Festival. From August 9 - 11, notes of bebop, flamenco, gospel, and a slew of other styles will fill the

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Arts

Risky Russians: Stravinsky & Company at Bard

By Robert Burke Warren “We try to inform listening without guiding it," says Bard president and resident Renaissance man Leon Botstein. Botstein’s Bard Music Festival, inaugurated in 1990, offers top-notch performances of a selected composer’s works — many conducted by Botstein — while also enticing audiences with lectures and

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Arts

Olympia Dukakis Still Has the "Courage" in Her

Play photos by Enrico SpadaBy Jeremy D. Goodwin When tackling the works of its namesake playwright, Shakespeare & Company puts the text of a play at the forefront but otherwise makes no obeisance to inherited notions about how a given play is "supposed" to be staged. So as

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Arts

Pygmalion at Williamstown: Tis Pity She’s A Short Run

Photos by T Charles EricksonBy Scott Baldinger An impressively scaled neoclassical facade representing the opera house at Covent Garden, painted in a combination of pastel colors with mauve-toile surrounds, is the foreground of the first scene of Williamstown Theatre Festival’s brilliantly fresh and tantalizing production of Pygmalion, where Professor

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Arts

No Witnesses: Karen Allen Goes To Necessary Extremes

All photos by Abby LePageBy Nichole Dupont If you're looking for a light comedy or an offbeat musical to cap off a perfect summer night in the Berkshires, then Extremities (directed by Karen Allen at Berkshire Theatre Group's Unicorn Theatre now through July 27) is not

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Arts

At Vassar: "Pictures of Nothing" Is Really Something

By Robert Burke WarrenMary-Kay Lombino, curator for the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, is confident that visitors to the acclaimed museum are ready for Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art from the Permanent Collection. The show runs from July 12 to September 8, and features nine decades of

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Arts

At Shakespeare & Company: Much to Love in This "Labour"

Photos by Kevin SpragueBy Jeremy D. Goodwin Near the top of Shakespeare & Company's stylish, urbane production of Love's Labour’s Lost, a mysterious warrior goddess enters a king's richly appointed study, cueing an enchanting, slow-motion sword fight. (Susan Dibble and Edgar Landa are

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