Donnie Welch speaks love at poetry slam
At Emerson Shakespeare Society’s Feb. 10 event “Speak Low If You Speak Love,” poems came to life as visual artist Zoe Fisk illustrated with Sharpie markers what he saw in Donnie Welch’s work.
The Berkeley Beacon
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Street art exhibit draws misfits, intellectuals, and eccentrics
You know you’ve made it to Fourth Wall’s Street Wall: An Exhibit of Street Art show if the dizzying scent of beer is tickling the hairs inside your nose, and soft whispers about “existential expressionism” cloud your hearing.
Joseph Freeman blasts off
Though Joseph Freeman’s recent album release keeps an airy tone as his characters “tiger kick” their way through the galaxy, the Emerson comedian’s motivations for the quirky creation comes from an unexpectedly personal and cathartic place.
Review: Joseph Freeman's The Space EP is intergalactic treat
Loaded with good-natured camp and nostalgia, Joseph Freeman’s The Space EP is a brief but captivating journey through the tropes and traditions of classic science fiction
Emerson Comedy Workshop pushes some buttons
Emerson Comedy Workshop (ECW) celebrated their 35th anniversary Friday in the Cabaret with a 16-piece sketch show — suggestively and tellingly titled Love is in My Hair — that leaned toward the uproarious and racy.
Wax on Felt melts hearts with Valentine’s Day show
Those at the Cabaret Tuesday night will remember Valentine's night as one of music and community, as Wax on Felt hosted its annual show Get Felt Up.
Adjusting to the decline of theatrical distribution
We all know how important the digital technology revolution has been for filmmakers and film schools. The challenge for a lot of filmmakers — and a number of different fields at Emerson — will be embracing this change to gain an audience. No matter how good a film is, it doesn’t do much good if you can’t show it off.
Alumni-run theater company gets In-Yer-Face
The Brown Box Theatre Project produces shows that might be hard to sit through, but that’s the point. The company wants to challenge audiences even if that means churning some stomachs.
Review: This Means War can't balance rom-com and action tropes
A good romantic comedy is like a well mixed drink. There needs to be just the right amount of romance and comedy, not too much of one ingredient. Adding action can throw off the whole equation and leave to a bitter taste. In This Means War, a simple Gin and Tonic is turned into a frat party punch bowl.
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Literary legends talk Good Prose
The audience filling the cinema seats didn’t come for a movie, but for the three tall men who sat in front of the screen, arranged in a mix of turtlenecks and tweed. The literary threads were fitting; Two of the men form the nonfiction world’s dream team, and the third was a former student who had waited 28 years to host their conversation on writing, editing, and what makes literary relationships tick.
Getting down to business
No one is surprised to hear lyrics on the radio about sex and violence, or a combination of the two. In fact, it’s pretty much expected in modern rap. However, rapper Juma Inniss, a senior marketing communication major, is using his business savvy to spread a different message.
Away we go with the monologue showcase
At the monologue showcase Sunday, eight Emerson comedians gathered to tell their stories. And sometimes, storytelling means pretending to vomit a liter of Diet Sprite onstage.
EmStage’s spring dance show sews together separate stories
Five dancers stand perfectly aligned at the front of the stage, motionless and silent. Suddenly, they snap their heads to the right, in a rippling fashion. So begins this year’s production of X Dance.
The instrument you play when nobody’s looking
Truly learning how to play an instrument never ends . Don’t hold yourself back from playing piano, bass guitar, or didgeridoo simply because you think there’s a standard you need to meet.
EBONI jazzes up the Cabaret with Speakeasy event
Fingers snapped, banjos plunked, and an audience of about 15 people gathered around small round tables for a journey back to the 1920s. Emerson’s Black Organization with Natural Interests (EBONI) Speakeasy at the Cabaret brought a taste of African American jazz culture on Thursday night.
Review: Woman in Black relies on Radcliffe and cheap thrills
Daniel Radcliffe has made looking worried and fighting evil CGI spirits into a profession. Pluck The Boy Who Lived from the stony halls of Hogwarts, stick him into a dusty haunted house, and the result will be just the same: a very nervous and frantic Radcliffe fighting the malevolent ghosts that just can’t seem to leave him alone.
A Marionette Mission
The audience is bombarded by the constant stream of images and sounds that makes up Phantom Limb’s 69˚ S: The Shackleton Project, a multifaceted art performance that will combine puppetry with exploration on Emerson’s Paramount Mainstage Feb. 7 to 12.
The Tell Tale Har-Har: Chocolate Cake City takes on Poe
Chocolate Cake City’s presentation Friday of The Incomplete Works of Edgar Allan Poe blended murder, madness, and humor during the hour-long performance in the Cabaret.
Broads and brogues in Mercutio’s Dancing at Lughnasa
In a dark theater, a film projector hums a family’s silent black and white home movies project onto a screen. Before any lines are spoken, it is clear the performers have embodied emotionally passionate characters. Monday and Tuesday in the Cabaret, Mercutio Troupe offered an uncompromising portrayal of family life with Dancing At Lughnasa.
When Shakespeare dependence hits point of diminishing returns
I don’t care if he’s the Greatest Writer in the History of the English Language — it is time to reevaluate our relationship with William Shakespeare.
Comedian Ben Kronberg deadpans his way to Emerson
Ben Kronberg strolled into Emerson’s Café covered head to toe in denim, a guitar strapped across his back, thick black-framed glasses resting on his nose, and an unruly gray beard that could have belonged to Rip Van Winkle. This winter, the Colorado native is bringing his raunchy, deadpan humor to college campuses across the Northeast.
VMA department kicks off Bright Lights series with "Visual Storytellers"
Through both fiction and non-fiction, local filmmakers showed what it means to be a visual story teller last Tuesday night during the first installment of the visual and media arts department’s Bright Lights Series.
The Proposed Posed Poes
Last Thursday, the Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston held Poe’s 203rd birthday celebration at the Boston Public Library and detailed plans for the construction of a memorial at Boylston and Charles streets.
Show Times: The Theatre Bizarre with co-director and alum David Gregory
A woman licks the blood from a human heart. Blood trickles down the face of a shaking, restrained man. A demented woman stabs herself in the eye. Graphic images stick in your mind after watching the trailer for The Theatre Bizarre, a horror anthology that premieres in Boston this weekend.
Green Eyes checks in on a dysfunctional honeymoon
Emerson sophomore Sheldon Brown’s death stare isn’t easy to escape in the close quarters of Green Eyes, which premiered Jan. 18. Foregoing the stage, the characters expose their naked passion and fear in an actual hotel room in the Financial District’s Ames Hotel.
Finding some variety in gay TV relationships
Slowly but surely, gay TV characters of both sexes are gaining fleshed-out identities instead of one-dimensional stereotypes, with strong plot lines and story arcs unanchored to sexual orientation. And while this is all well and good, there are still a few kinks to be ironed out, specifically in the portrayal of the homosexual relationship.
Professor tackles personal and racial struggles in Sugar
Robbie McCauley has staged a war against an invisible enemy. It lurks in conversations between old friends, at evening galas, and in dining halls. It’s the unspoken misunderstanding, politically incorrect and impolite. With Sugar, her new one-woman show, McCauley has staged a war on silence.
Uncommon Commons
Polly Carl and David Dower have a vision for theater — one that encourages new work and makes it easily-accessible. They’ve decided Emerson is the place to bring that vision to life.
Events: Comedian Geoff Keith
When Geoff Keith isn’t busy signing the body parts of his eager admirers, he laughs for a living. Keith, an up and coming actor and comedian, is coming to Emerson as part of his current cross-country tour.
Show Times: Bright Lights, Visual Storytellers
Photojournalist Rick Macomber was at ground zero on 9/11, the beaches of Normandy for the 50th anniversary of D-Day, and Cambodian refugee camps in the wake of the Khmer Rouge. Now he is bringing those images and their stories to the Bright Family Screening room at the Paramount Center.
Academy Awards move backward amid a changing industry
On Jan. 12, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced its decision to require any film trying to qualify for Best Documentary Feature be reviewed by The New York Times or Los Angeles Times. The unofficial “papers of record” have, bewilderingly, become official.
Students learn the art of curation with "profiles of the [dis]connected"
The art occupying two skinny white floors of the Huret and Spector Gallery is the final product of 400-level visual and media arts class, “What is Contemporary Art?”, taught by Joe Ketner. Ketner, who occupies the Foster Chair in Contemporary Art, sought to provide his 18 students with an answer to the provocative question by leading them through the curating process.
Child's voice shines through in Sara Zuckerman's Yuck
Leo Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with the oft-quoted words: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The dysfunctional family in Sara Zuckerman’s 79-page Yuck is no exception.
Show times: Area premiere of The Swell Season
Fiction became reality when Glen Hansard and Makéta Irglová fell in love after playing a couple in the Irish musical film Once.
Shakespeare Society blends Bard and Big Easy
The audience roared with delight this past Thursday and Friday night as the Shakespeare Society rocked the Cabaret with their two-night, four-performance tour de force in the Shakespearean Jazz Show.
Holy T&A, Batman!: Sexism in DC New Universe
Sex sells, even in comic books. So when DC Comics announced a reboot, the chances of our favorite female characters, heroes, and villains alike, escaping the restructuring unbludgeoned by the brutal bat of misogyny were slim.
First-time director invigorates cast of Mercutio’s Fool for Love
Watching Neher, a performing arts major, direct a rehearsal of student theater troupe Mercutio’s upcoming Fool For Love, illustrates what it means to “coach” actors. The play driving Neher’s manic energy was originally written by American actor and playwright Sam Shepard, and first performed in 1983 at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco.
Sara Zuckerman on Yuck
Sara Zuckerman’s Yuck is the latest work to be released to be released by Undergraduate Students for Publishing’s Wilde Press.
Ending the worst musical generalization
“What kind of music do you listen to?” It’s the question we hear all the time in get-to-know-you questionnaires, organization ice-breakers, or awkward conversations searching for possible connections.
A Fight to the Clef
After 26 acts submitted, it’s down to five. On the line: a one year recording contract with Emerson College’s student-run record label, Wax on Felt.
Acappellics Anonymous steps up to competition
Acappellics Anonymous, one of Emerson’s two main a cappella performance groups, will be putting their vocal talent to the test against Boston’s best a cappella performers.
With slam, Poetry Project reviews hopeful bards
<p>As the Emerson Poetry Project’s (EPP) eve
Show Times: Reason to Hope doc goes behind headlines of earthquake
Filmmaker Theodore “Regge” Life, Emerson’s director-in-residence, teamed up with CBS journalists, correspondent Bill Whitaker, and producer Erin Lyle George, who were able to stay in Haiti for an entire month after the earthquake.
New media visionaries immerse audience in technological art
To artists Brooke Knight, an interactive and digital media professor at Emerson, and Russell Goldenberg, a third-year MFA media arts student, art is an illusion.
