CultureVulture « Cities

An American in Paris

Toba Singer Theater June 14, 2015 New York,

Is sentimental attachment to Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and George Gershwin, a sufficient guarantor to justify producing the Broadway remake of a 65-year-old film, set in 1945 post-World War II France, with a sub-plot that references the pro-fascist ...

Alex Katz

solo show, Gavin Brown's Enterprise, NYC

Michael McDonagh Art & Architecture May 25, 2015 New York,

We think we know what things are about when we see them. Sure, they are what they are, but how could they not be, and if things were only that we wouldn't need art, and our latest phony "deep" buzz ...

“The Invisible Hand”

That Stockholm Thing

Aaron Botwick Theater January 1, 2015 New York,

Ayad Akhtar, whose excellent "Disgraced" won the Pulitzer last year and transferred to Broadway this year, is quickly becoming one of the most important (if not the most important) new voices in contemporary American theater. His follow-up, "The Invisible Hand," currently running at the ...

“Evidence” and “Mikhailovsky Ballet”—Surprising Similarities

Susan Yung Dance November 22, 2014 New York,

Mikhailovsky Ballet in Flames of Paris. Photo: Costas Ronald Brown's Evidence: A Dance Company, from Brooklyn, and the Mikhailovsky Ballet, from St. Petersburg, Russia, couldn't be more different. Or ...

Retrospective, by Xavier LeRoy

PS1 MoMA, NYC

Michael Wade Simpson Dance November 18, 2014 New York,

French choreographer/artist Xavier LeRoy has staged his “Retrospective” in Singapore, Paris, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro and Hamburg before arriving at PS1 MoMA in Long Island City for a two-month run ...

Panel with striding lion. Mesopotamia, Babylon. Neo-Babylonian period, reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, 604–562 B.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Michael McDonagh Art & Architecture November 4, 2014 New York,

It's important to remind people that the West is the new kid on the block because our narcissistic Euro centric worldview is always telling us that "we" did everything first, and everyone else is a late arrival. But that, of ...

Two Days, One Night (2014)

At the New York Film Festival, October 5 & 6, 2014

George Wu Film September 27, 2014 New York,

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have made many notable films from “La Promesse” to their Palme d’Or winners “Rosetta” and “L’Enfant,” but they had never worked with a movie star as big as Marion Cotillard until now with “Two Days, One ...

This Is Our Youth, NY

by Kenneth Lonergan

Aaron Botwick Theater September 25, 2014 New York,

// // // // // // // // // // // // end){break;}} return true; } // ]]>// // // Let’s Go Outside and Play Kenneth Lonergan’s 1996 ...

Shakespeare-Park-Delacorte_RRbyJosephMoran_650

Everything You Need to Know About Shakespeare in the Park 2014

Much Ado About Nothing" (June 3 – July 6)
"King Lear" (July 22 – August 17)

Aaron Botwick Destinations June 24, 2014 New York,

“Like one swallow,” wrote John Simon when reviewing the premiere of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," “one Shakespeare does not make a summer.” Fortunately, for the first time since 2011, Shakespeare in the Park is eschewing musicals for two revivals ...

Bryan Cranston. Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva

All the Way, NYC

"Everybody’s Out of Step But Me"
Bryan Cranston plays LBJ on Broadway

Aaron Botwick Theater May 2, 2014 New York,

In 1963, Lyndon Baines Johnson (Bryan Cranston) became the first Southern President of the “You-nited States of Am’rica” in one hundred fourteen years—that is, since Virginia’s Zachary Taylor, our twelfth commander-in-chief, who held that position for a total of ...