Guides
For anybody under 30 (or maybe even 40), it must feel as if God wrote "White Christmas" on the eighth day of Creation - right after He took a quick rest and cranked out "Silent Night." But, like everything else, "White Christmas" really does have a story - an unusual
Stage
I love jokes. I love to listen to them and tell them. I especially like the way that something so quick and short establishes a believably unreal world that pops with the punch line. It creates its own kind of sense; we call it non-sense. So I liked playwright Sarah
Stage
David Mamet's 1988 play "Speed the Plow" is a profane, high-powered satire of the movie business and the unrelenting cynicism and underlying fear of those who pursue money and power at all costs. It takes an equally high-powered cast of three to pull off its sudden changes in mood and
Music Articles
Singer Michael Feinstein says, "When I choose a song, I go with my gut. It's hard to do because there are so many brilliant songs to choose from." Although he includes current songwriters in his performances and recordings, and has recently toured and recorded with Jimmy Webb ("Wichita Lineman," "MacArthur
Stage
It's important to write about Blackfriars Theatre's appealing new theater and "Zorba," the 1968 John Kander-Fred Ebb musical that opens the troupe's 60th season. But I want to hold off for a minute to single out one member of the company. Ken Harrington has been a mainstay of Rochester theater for
Stage
Stephen Temperley's "Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins," now at Geva Theatre Center, may not be much more than half a play, but the long-admired Judy Kaye as the real-life Jenkins is all that a playwright and an audience could hope for. A serious actor and
Guides
Fall signifies beginnings in classrooms and on stages. So, like a lot of people, maybe more than most, I'm always eager for the first curtain to rise. When I read the press releases from Rochester's different theaters, though, the first thing I did was screw up my nose and scratch
Stage
You wouldn't expect somebody who has sung with the New York City Opera to have created the role of Rosie in "Mamma Mia!," but Judy Kaye gets around. She has been getting around professionally for more than 40 years, working in opera and cabaret, and with symphony orchestras, but mainly
Music Articles
"Exciting!" That's the word that keeps recurring when you talk to Amy Sue Barston and Edward Klorman, the founders and artistic directors of the Canandaigua LakeMusic Festival. That's not because they're inarticulate, but because they're true believers in chamber music, that supposedly dowdy music intended for the blue-rinse crowd. Barston,
Stage
What better way to mock or deride than to attach "immortal" to somebody's name? Such has been the fate of eponymous William Shakespeare, who lent his name to the Shakespearean Age, rather than selling the rights as we would probably do. He was also burdened with "The Swan of Avon,"
