Kane had a house in Margaretville, Town of Middletown, Delaware County, during the 60s and 70s. His son and archivist, musician Jonathan Kane, will give a talk and slide show of Art Kane’s work at the Historical Society of Middletown on Saturday, July 21, at 7 p.m.
Mamma Mia!, opening July 14, will run three weekends. The production unites local theater regulars, former professional actors, and stage newcomers, aged from 16 to 91, in an upbeat show set to the music of Swedish pop group ABBA. Phoenicia is hosting what may be the first community theater production of the long-running Broadway musical, the rights having been made available for the first time just a few months ago.
Even before the lights come up it’s obvious this is a magnificently audacious production.
Seventy six trombones came marching into Woodstock this past week, or at least the rousing Meredith Willson song of the same name from his classic musical The Music Man, which opened last weekend at the Woodstock Playhouse as the repertory theater’s second offering of what’s shaping up to be another spirited season.
Trio con Brio Copenhagen’s playing of Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio, Op. 70, No. 1 was about as fine a version of that piece as I’ve ever heard, vigorous and energetic with powerful accents, appropriately creepy in the second movement, and with very good balance.
Artistic director Matt Mitler said he is fascinated by the mythological archetype of the trickster, an entity who destroys to make way for the new. “In some spiritual practices, it’s considered ‘holy destruction,’” Mitler explained, “from Baldr in the Norse myths to Jesus.” In the search for a text that would embody destruction leading to creation, the company turned to Macbeth. They approach the play’s violence as a kind of ritual combat, designed to create a purifying catharsis for actors and audience. Dzieci Theater Company will present Makbet, their Eastern European-flavored version of the Shakespeare tale of ambition and revenge Saturday, July 7.
Clarence Schmidt’s House of Mirrors, a legendary outsider architectural wonder that existed on Woodstock’s Ohayo Mountain from the 1940s into the early 1970s, burning twice during its last half decade, has risen back to life this summer in a New York City art gallery.
When the Center for Photography at Woodstock kicks off its Woodstock Summer Love with a huge framed art sale, tintype photo booth and special programs Saturday, June 30 for a two week celebratory run through July 16, it won’t have quite the impact that last year’s 40th anniversary bash of the same name had. But according to all involved, it will likely be even better, given that it will have been more finely tuned this time around.
This year, the theme is “Americans in Paris,” seven concerts concentrating in part on the work of Ned Rorem, the American composer who turns 95 in October.
There are quite the number of striking non-representational and Abstract paintings (with a capital A) that Tom Fletcher has assembled for his 23rd annual spring Fine Art Auction kicking off at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 23, at the Woodstock Community Center. Yet one work by the man the longtime art dealer, who formerly sold books, says was Woodstock’s only true Abstract Expressionist — Walter Plate — stands out.
The business of media is changing, but local, on-the-ground, fact-checked journalism is needed now more than ever.
