In March, while reviewing the Boheme Opera New Jersey’s production of “Carmen,” I mentioned a “stand and deliver” approach to the performance, saying the singing was generally excellent, but the direction was static and lacked the passion inherent in Bizet’s work. Now, the Princeton Festival is showing the opposite side of “stand and deliver.” James […]
Blatancy never tops subtlety. A lesson for today and this era of self-appointed reforming firebrands is a message that preaches, shouts, badgers, demands conformity, and insists it and it alone is right is bound to annoy more than it persuades, let alone convinces. A play version of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” subtitled “A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, […]
Juneteenth — the United States’ “second Independence Day” marking the end of the Civil War and of slavery in the country on June 19, 1865 — became a federal holiday in 2021, though it has long been celebrated in African American communities. Here is a rundown of Juneteenth-related festivities taking place in the Mercer County […]
Central New Jersey’s burgeoning bakery scene received a fresh boost in March when L’Annexe de Mamie Colette opened the doors to its brand new building on River Road in Titusville. A good number of bakeries have opened in the past 10 years in the region, a welcome rebound for a business model that had once […]
Listening to the news these days can bring unspeakable sadness. For Princeton Junction resident Lee Goldberg, it was a radio report about presidential bad behavior shortly before the 2020 election that caused him to snap. Realizing that he was “tired of feeling scared, helpless, and angry,” he decided he was “going to do something about […]
This week marks the opening performances of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Princeton Festival, which runs through June 22. While the headlining event of the annual musical celebration is a fully staged opera — this year, Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” — additional programming ranges from Baroque classics to Broadway tunes and modern takes on old favorites. […]
Though the drama and humanity of August Wilson’s best piece, “Fences,” is glimpsed at New Brunswick’s Crossroad Theatre, Ricardo Khan’s production had not reached full potential by opening night. The right elements are there, especially in the performances of Jammie Patton, Justin Withers, and the shining star of the production’s late sequences, Dominique Skye Turner, […]
Morpeth Contemporary in Hopewell presents “Mystery, Memory and Magic: The Art of Lyanne Malamed.” An opening reception takes place Saturday, June 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. for this posthumous exhibition of paintings by the New Jersey artist (1931-2022). The show remains on view through Sunday, June 30. Enigmatic and alluring, Lyanne Malamed’s work is, […]
Princeton Makes, a Princeton-based artist cooperative, and Ragged Sky Press, a local publisher focused on poetry, hosts its monthly Second Sunday Poetry Reading on June 9 at 4 p.m. The readings take place at the Princeton Makes store in the Princeton Shopping Center. Poets Phyllis Frakt and Marie Gray Wise read from their work, followed […]
With a uniformly magnificent cast and a will to take Michael Frayn’s hilariously constructed farce, “Noises Off,” to its most precarious physical degree, director Hunter Foster escalates and escalates Frayn’s intrinsic mayhem until it erupts into unstoppable comic uproar that totally engulfs the Bucks County Playhouse stage and turns its audience hoarse from well-earned laughter. […]