THE BASICS: Cabaret, a touring production of Sam Mendes’s sexy 2014 update of the Broadway musical by Kander & Ebb presented by Shea’s and Albert Nocciolino opened on April 25 and runs through April 30, Friday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 2 & 8, Sunday at both 2 & 7 at Shea’s Performing Arts Center, 646 Main Street (1-800-745-3000). www.sheas.org THUMBNAIL SKETCH: It’s Berlin, 1931, and as the Nazis are rising to power, young American writer Cliff Bradshaw has arrived looking for inspiration for his first novel. He meets a stranger on the train who advises him to forget his…
Author: Peter Hall
On Monday night, as previewed here, the youthful Dover String Quartet presented an all-Beethoven concert at UB’s Slee Hall, and the ensemble playing, the smoothness of sound, the energy and musicianship had me wondering “how long before we can hear them again in Buffalo?” How about next December? We found that out Tuesday night when the long-established Buffalo Chamber Music Society (BCMS) in residence at Kleinhans Music Hall revealed plans for their 94th season (2017-2018). Starting next October, there will be eight (8) evenings of string trios, piano trios (my favorite!), and string quartets performed by seven different established groups plus…
THE BASICS: GODSPELL, the musical by Stephen Schwartz (PIPPIN, WICKED) directed by Kevin Leary, starring Kyle Baran, Timothy Goehrig, Adam Kluge, Kathleen Macari, Nathan Andrew Miller, Lisa Noelle Miller, Lorenzo Parnell, Heather Reed, Valerie Stevens, and Chrissy Vogric-Hunnell opened April 21st and runs through May 7th, Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 and Sundays at 2:30 at the Lancaster Opera House, 21 Central Ave., Lancaster (683-1776). www.lancopera.org THUMBNAIL SKETCH: Another 1970 bible-based musical in the vein of (in the shadow of, in my opinion) Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice shows JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT.…
(Updated from original March 8, article) The UB Music Department’s presentation of the award-winning Dover Quartet tonight, April 24 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on SUNY at Buffalo’s North Campus at 7:30 p.m. is the rescheduled concert #3 in the annual Slee Beethoven Cycle. Originally planned for March 8, when high winds grounded their flight, Joel Link & Bryan Lee, violin; Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt, viola; and Camden Shaw, cello, will play, in order, music defined as “early, late, and middle period” Beethoven: his Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3; the “Grosse Fuge,” Op. 133, and…
Full disclosure: the author is employed by the radio station mentioned below and produces a weekly radio show focused on JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic. Powerful under-30-year-old pianist Natasha Paremski returns to Kleinhans Music Hall to perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on a program that includes Buffalo native Philip Rothman’s energetic “Starsplitter” and two works by Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly. The second of two concerts is this Saturday, April 21, at 8:00 p.m. In this conversation, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director JoAnn Falletta talks about a fifth work she programmed to celebrate local radio station Classical 94.5 WNED’s 40th…
THE BASICS: THE WINSLOW BOY, a 1946 play by Terence Rattigan, presented by the Irish Classical Theatre Company, skillfully directed by Brian Cavanagh, starring Robert Rutland, Kate LoConti, Pamela Rose Mangus, Matt Witten, Kevin Craig, Ben Michael Moran, Todd Benzin, Lisa Ludwig, introducing Gianna Palermo, and Collan Zimmerman as “the boy” opened April 21 and runs through May 14, Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 3 & 7:30, Sundays at 2, at 625 Main Street (the Andrews Theatre). (853-ICTC) www.irishclassicaltheatre.com Cozy full bar, snacks, coffee. Run time 2 hours 45 minutes with one 10-minute intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: A…
While two movie theaters in Buffalo (the North Park on Hertel Avenue and we can count the Amherst Theater, since it’s right across Main Street from the UB South Campus) are known as “art houses,” there is a third Buffalo movie theater with a strong commitment to “the arts” and that is the Regal Elmwood Center 16. Yes, the multiplex at 2001 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo. Since it’s a “city” theater (with all the baggage that word carries) it doesn’t get the traffic that its suburban cousin on Transit in Williamsville enjoys, but it delivers, among other things, one of the…
THE BASICS: MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET, a musical by Colin Escott & Floyd Mutrux, directed by Randall Kramer, starring Brandon Barry, Steve Copps, Jeffrey Coyle, Arianne Davidow, Joseph Donohue III, Brian McMahon, Andrew J. Reimers, and Dave Siegfried, opened on April 19th and runs through May 28th, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:00 p.m., Fridays at 7:30, Saturdays at both 3:30 & 7:30, and Sundays at 2 at MusicalFare Theatre, 4380 Main Street (easier entrance is off Getzville Road) Amherst. Beautiful lounge with full-service bar, coffee, snacks. (839-8540). www.musicalfare.com Runtime: 1 hour 45 minutes without intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET is…
Perhaps the American Civil War (Apr 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865) defined our country as no other event has, and the issues then are still with us today. Of course, the “great Civil War poet” was Walt Whitman. But there was another poet at the time, living up in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson. She was most serious and unsentimental in her poetry, and most prolific, from 1861 to 1865. While she did not write about war directly, the war affected her and it comes through in many of her 1,789 poems. But, a bit of a recluse, she only…
THE BASICS: THE TRIAL OF TRAYVON MARTIN, a new drama by Buffalo’s Gary Earl Ross, directed by Subversive Theatre founder Kurt Schneiderman, stars Shawnell Tillery for the defense, Brian Brown as defendant Trayvon Martin, Rick Lattimer as George Zimmerman, Kunji Rey for the prosecution, along with Lawrence Rowswell, Leon Copeland, Brittany Bassett, Kajana Stover, and Michael Mottern. It runs through Saturday, May 6th, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. at the Manny Fried Playhouse, 255 Great Arrow Avenue on the third floor. Run time: over 90 minutes with one 10-minute intermission. (408-0499). www.subversivetheatre.org THUMBNAIL SKETCH: THE TRIAL OF TRAYVON MARTIN asks…