Kaleidoscopic colors, flashy lights, exhilarating moves
The two-hour show is filled with color, spazztastic music and moves, and enough hooting and howling from the fanatical audience to fill up the MIT night scene.
La La Land: a fresh style of musical for the big screen
For those who frown upon the illogicalness of random fits of song and dance, La La Land with its mix of the trivial and the real dares to reinvent the musical as a genre.
The Brand New Testament surprises with a refreshing twist on religious satire
The film follows Ea, God’s disgruntled 10-year-old daughter, who is of course, Jesus Christ’s (JC for short) younger sister. Groyne instills each dead-eyed stare with both weariness and willfulness, playing the role with a quiet gravity that belies her age. Her voice-over narrations are pitch perfect, too, in their monotonous tone and quintessentially blasé teenage demeanor.
D.C. drama casts light on shady lobbying
If 2016 has taught us anything, it’s that politics today is all about performance — a conclusion inescapably reached in Miss Sloane, the new Beltway-based political thriller from John Madden.
Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition comes to life
What Makes It Great? with Rob Kapilow and NEC Philharmonia — Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition Presented by Celebrity Series of Boston NEC Jordan Hall Dec. 2, 2016
Revenge is a dish best served cold and with magical rain
It’s not the first time that Prospero’s gender was switched in an adaptation. In 2010, Julie Taymor’s film The Tempest cast Helen Mirren as the protagonist Prospero (known in the film as Prospera), a role traditionally acted by a man in Shakespeare’s original play of the same title. Here, the Actors’ Shakespeare Project has cast Marya Lowry, who juggles the various sides of our protagonist seamlessly and fits naturally into the script.
A holiday tradition of ballet and Tchaikovsky
Notable performances include those of Angie DeWolf and Spencer Doru Keith, who danced the powerful, sensual Arabian Variation, and Janelle Gilchrist and Junichi Fukuda, who leapt across the stage in the Russian Variation. Concluding the night was the Grand Pas de Deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy (Madeleine Bonn) and the Cavalier (Stephen James), both of whom danced with beautiful poise and strength through its multiple variations and coda.
Moana is a delightful new breed of empowering Disney princess movie
Like any good Disney movie worth its salt, Moana tethers its lighthearted comedy and rousing action to a central, uplifting theme.
Dutilleux’s 'Tout un monde lointain…' transports its audience to a new world
Thursday’s concert opened to the quaint charms of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The prelude conjured the image of a forest in the natural, rural world and the flutes carried this atmosphere well. The main themes of the clarinet and flute parts were dreamlike and serene, a strange juxtaposition with Zander’s animated conducting during the more invigorating passages.
A painting sets into motion a disturbing tale of eternal youth
Quite a bit of thought was put into the libretto and the performance itself — for such a philosophical novel, this adaptation is palatable for audience members who have not read the source material. In the lecture prior to the performance, Liebermann commented that he was particularly cautious while writing because he wanted the opera to be self-sufficient, not even requiring the program notes to understand the story.
“Urine” for a good show
In the world of Urinetown, urination isn’t a right, but a privilege. It’s a place without privacy, where you simply cannot ever hope to “pee in peace.”
A passionate and dedicated performance
The MIT Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Adam K. Boyles, presented classical music in a beautiful way and with great passion.
Wiesner Student Art Gallery revitalizes MIT’s art scene
The Wiesner Gallery reopened this past Wednesday to the public, featuring over 70 pieces from 18 of the Arts Scholars. The gallery’s organization was spearheaded by curator and manager of MIT Student Arts Programs Sam Magee and student curator and Arts Scholar Carmen Castaños G.
Arrival offers an original and mesmerizing take on extraterrestrial interactions
Contingent on a successful suspension of disbelief, Arrival delivers a thought provoking and understated drama with an astonishing denouement.
Sharply funny comedy, terminal illness, and 17th century poetry take center stage
Wit is a tour de force of human experience that dares to pose difficult questions about life, death, and the uncertainty of human mortality
A convoluted installation that explores history, culture, and society
The MIT List Visual Arts Center’s newest exhibition, Written in Smoke and Fire, feels as diverse and free-formed as the many sources of inspiration that artist Edgar Arceneaux is known to traditionally draw upon. A contemporary artist hailing from Los Angeles, Arceneaux often finds inspiration in history, science fiction, social movements, philosophy, and architecture, for the creation of his immersive installations that artfully synthesize diverse media like video, sculpture, and painting together.
Tiger Style follows two siblings as they explore their identites
The myth of the “tiger mom” took flight in the American imagination with the publication of Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which sparked a nationwide controversy about the merits of Asian vs. Western parenting styles. Playwright Mike Lew “felt that it wasn’t being represented [fairly] in the media,” so he decided to write a play about it. He explores not only the myth of tiger parents and the question of what happens after the alleged Carnegie Hall recitals and Ivy League college graduations, but also the identity conundrum that faces Asian-Americans in the 21st century.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
As the lights dim in La Sala on the second floor of the Stud, the spotlight focuses on a quiet scene in fair Verona (crafted by set designer Jakob Weisblat ‘18), where the age-old tragedy of star-crossed lovers is about to unfold. With their rendition of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble brings forth the time-worn themes of fate and free will, love and lust, that Shakespeare introduced in theaters centuries ago. The famed tragedy, directed by long-time theater veteran Francine Davis, brings the audience many laughs, tears, and the entire spectrum between the two.
Thuggery takes the stage and refuses to give it up
In this telling of political thuggery, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is injected with humor in a way that makes it easy to forget the seriousness and wrongness of what is unfolding in the play.