It’s finally over.
Last night at Middleton Place was a terrific cap to this year’s Spoleto Festival.
We’ve seen a lot this year.
Some expected, some unexpected, a lot of it memorable, all of it worth doing all over again.
But not for another year.
Meanwhile, it’s time to see what we’ve accomplished.
Here’s the breakdown of what we’ve done, says […]
Original post by John Stoehr
Philip Murphy of Mount Pleasant found fault with Tim Page’s review of Monkey: Journey to the West. The overview critic for The Post and Courier wrote that he had little taste for the circus or for theatrical fare like that offered by Chinese opera director Chen Shi-Zheng, Britpop songwriter Damon Albarn, and Gorillaz illustrator Jamie […]
Original post by John Stoehr
The hits keep on coming from the P&C . . .
TUESDAY
In a review of Vaud Rats: Critic Sandy Katz writes that actor K. Brian Neel “channeled Robert Downey Jr. playing Charlie Chaplin.” I’m pretty sure that Neel was influence by Chaplin, but whether he was influenced by Downey playing Chaplin seems to be another matter […]
Original post by John Stoehr
That’s what I’d like to say to Dan Conover of the Post and Courier. In today’s preview of Taylor Mac (headline: “Modern ‘fool’ shares truths at his own risk”), Conover talked about the cross-dressing performance artist as “the Fool reimagined for the 21st century” who is “a truth-teller in drag” like “Frank-N-Furter,” Tim Curry’s meatloaf […]
Original post by John Stoehr
K. Brian Neel was running a fever the entire time he was performing Vaud Rats on Wednesday night. I found this out afterward while we talked about his interest in the rich history of vaudeville.
As we talked about the play within the play aspect of his show, he asked me what I thought of the […]
Original post by John Stoehr
Dan Wakin, the classical music reporter for The New York Times, observed that “already three productions consciously blur the line between moving images and real life.” In particular, he rightly praises the theater troupe 1927 for its stellar production of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: an “ingenious, macabre little charmer,” he writes. […]
Original post by John Stoehr
ON SATURDAY . . .
In review of Monkey: Journey to the West: Critic George Hubbard writes that Tripitaka, the Buddhist monk, is accompanied in his quest to find the lost sacred scriptures by the Monkey King and the monk’s horses, Pigsy and Sandy. In fact, the monk is accompanied by the monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, and […]
Original post by John Stoehr
Criticism has value in the marketplace of ideas, but the whole enterprise is undermined a little bit more each time a review gets into print like this morning’s P&C review on Amistad. The reviewer, Jeff Johnson, evidently felt uninspired by Spoleto’s restaging of Anthony Davis 1997 opera about the legal battle facing illegally imported African […]
Original post by John Stoehr
The Canadian Press loves us, too. This just in from the news consortium north of the border. Locals have know about this. Even so, it’s nice to have so many people around the continent talking about us.
This year’s Spoleto, which will feature more than 100 dance, music and theatrical performances, is to open with a […]
Original post by John Stoehr
We got this message from a concerned reader about our cover image. The “horrible monkey thing” she refers to is Jamie Hewlett’s illustration of the Monkey King, the protagonist of Journey to the West, the circus opera that gets its America premiere this Friday at Spoleto Festival USA. Hewlett is the illustrator of Gorillaz, the […]
Original post by John Stoehr