Arts

Marveling at MECA’s annual MFA Thesis show

Star students
At the 2012 MFA Thesis show at the ICA, the idea of a common thread is gratefully, dizzyingly absent.

By: NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | May 23, 2012

Wit at the Players’ Ring honors life and death

For whom the bell tolls
An array of disciplines have taken on the puzzle of life and death.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 23, 2012

Printmaking continues to matter

Paper, ink, and pressure
Essential to printmaking, and non-digital photography, is the frustrating, annoying time lapse between the creation of the matrix and the final image.

By: BRITTA KONAU | May 16, 2012

A cautionary tale from 18th-century France

Honoring the masses
Though there's no hard evidence that Marie Antoinette actually uttered "Let them eat cake," she remains a larger-than-life symbol of ruling-class decadence and a culture of gaping wealth disparity.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 16, 2012

Emily Nelligan inspires at Bowdoin

Seriously committed
My friend the late Sidney Tillim has been much on my mind in recent weeks.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | May 09, 2012

Circle Mirror transcends theater

Beyond the wall
"Are we going to do any real acting?" complains the one teenager enrolled in a small Vermont community center's drama class.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 09, 2012

Interview: Aziz Ansari is on the fly

Jet setter
It's been a good few months for Aziz Ansari.

By: MIKE MILIARD | May 09, 2012

The Originals explore the soul of America

Go West, young woman
"I savor the boundlessness of it all," exalts life-loving Macon (Sally Wood) to timid Bess (Jennifer Porter), under the vertiginously open sky of 1860s Wyoming Territory.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | May 02, 2012

The Art Department gets rolling

Growth + Development
Since it opened in January, you might have wondered what's up with the Art Department storefront on Congress Street.

By: NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | May 02, 2012

Richard Russo pairs with his artist daughter

Marrying story + art
When the biggest news in the literary community is that the federal Department of Justice is suing Apple and five major publishing houses for fixing prices of e-books, or that the Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to exactly no one this year, it's easy to wonder whether we're getting away from the primary purpose of writing, and reading, books.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | May 02, 2012

A trip to York yields excellent finds

Branching out
The George Marshall Store Gallery is located in a smallish, pale yellow building next to the York River.

By: NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | April 25, 2012

Acorn performs ten plays by Maine writers

Ups and downs in new works
This year, the ten short plays of Acorn Productions' 11th Annual Maine Playwrights Festival, chosen from more than 50 submitted to this year's open call, tends toward the dark: it includes specters of AIDS, the economic downturn, child abuse, and death by wild animals.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 27, 2012

A contemporary artist shows one way forward

Painting past and future
There are many different ways to talk about Lesley Vance's paintings, yet we don't really have the right words yet.

By: BRITTA KONAU | April 18, 2012

Installations at Coleman Burke

Quiet witness
"A Thickening Rhythm" is a show of five artists, one of whom, Julie Poitras Santos, also curated the show, at Coleman Burke in Brunswick.

By: KEN GREENLEAF | April 11, 2012

Freeport Factory gives Holiday her due

Meeting Billie
With its low lighting, cocktail tables, scarlet-draped piano, and old-timey microphone, the scene at Freeport Factory Stage is set as a small club readied for an intimate night of jazz.

By: MEGAN GRUMBLING | April 11, 2012

Victoria Mansion stages an unsettlingly brilliant show

Going back in time
In a prodigious steampunk exhibit, the collective works in "Victoria's Wonderama" compound the motifs and fascinations of the 19th century with a wealth of fresh and fantastic interpretations, updating the genre without limiting its scope to orthodoxies.

By: NICHOLAS SCHROEDER | April 04, 2012