I’m a writer who believes in multiple beginnings. And at the root of one of my origin stories is Jeff Kass’s classroom at Pioneer High School, where I sat nearly two decades ago, age thirteen, and began to love poetry for the first time.
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Set in 1812 Moscow, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 is a musical adaptation of seventy pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Natasha, a young countess, is torn between her love for two men, neither of them Pierre, who is dealing with his own crisis. Among the events in this saga are scandals, a suicide attempt, a duel, an awakening, and the arrival of a comet.
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From March 3 to March 6, LaFrenier ran 213.6 miles across Michigan, averaging fourteen hours and fifty miles per day, with a total run time of ninety-nine hours and fifty-three minutes. An RV with a film crew, made up mostly of U-M students and staff as well as some friends from Grand Rapids, followed him along the way for an upcoming documentary.
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Washtenaw County will continue to offer services, but others weren’t so lucky.
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White Russians will flow April 4 at the Blind Pig for the “Dude Revue,” a celebration of the music of the Coen Brothers’ 1998 cult comedy.
Read MoreI am writing as a concerned Ann Arbor community member and AAPS parent regarding the ongoing stalemate in contract negotiations with our teachers. The continued inability to reach an agreement that fairly compensates the educators who serve our students is deeply troubling.
Read MoreCampers unite! Get ready for a summer of fun, exploration, and friendship with full-day, half-day, and overnight summer camps. Create the summer you want, and tailor themes to best suit your camper. From clay glazing to star...
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I’ve never been much interested in the inner workings of a car dealership, and since watching the Purple Rose Theatre’s latest play, The Classic King, I can’t say that has changed. The comedy, which runs until March 15, follows four car salesmen on a mission to save their failing dealership. Directed by Jeff Daniels, the show is a world premiere and the first professionally produced play by Richard Johnson. Johnson began playwriting after retiring from a career as an automotive journalist, including serving as editor of Automotive News.
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When I try to capture, in charcoal, the foreshortened foot of today's model, the drawing looks a bit like a potato. No time to fix it; we're immediately on to the next 5-minute pose.
Campers unite! Get ready for a summer of fun, exploration, and friendship with full-day, half-day, and overnight summer camps. Create the summer you want, and tailor themes to best suit your camper. From clay glazing to star...
Read MoreWhy is this beautiful sculpture surrounded by caution tape at Gallop Park, Huron River? It has been surrounded since it landed. We are waiting to see it free!
Founded by Werderitsch in 2024, Elemental Ecstatic Dance is inspired by his experience of two decades of Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms classes in California, which combine physical workouts with meditation, along with the West Coast ecstatic dance scene. He combines these two approaches with his own free-form dance history that includes everything from disco roller skating to warehouse parties to grass roots festivals.
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“I put my disabilities right out in front,” says Jacob Barr, who, at twenty-eight, has become one of the city’s most distinctive standup comedians. “That was my cheat code when I started. Comedy is mostly straight white guys. Lots of guys have faces like mine, but not bodies like mine. So I use that to my advantage.”
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A recent report by the Washtenaw County Continuum of Care (CoC), a major player working to coordinate local efforts to end homelessness, paints an urgent picture: as of December 2025, at least 842 people in the county are experiencing homelessness—a 42 percent increase since 2024.
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Elisabeth Thoburn has covered her home on Silver Lake in Pinckney with second-quality tiles from Motawi, creating a home-sized work of art—and a love letter to local clay.
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Brush and Frey fell in love nearly twenty years ago. They first met less than a mile from the Longshore building, while collaborating on Leslie Science & Nature Center’s shift to an independent nonprofit.
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The Zillow listings seem too good to be true: A 2-bed, 2-bath, 800-square-foot house on S. Maple for $125,000. A 3-bed, 3-bath 1,372-square-foot townhome on S. Wagner for $225,000. A 3-bed, 2-bath, 1,232-square-foot home on Jewett for $325,000.
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Public speaking consistently ranks as people’s number one fear. It comes before spiders, the dark, nuclear war, death. Death? Yes, before death.
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“You see vehicles that look suspicious with dark windows and [when] you look inside you see [people] in bullet-proof vests and you know, it’s them: its ICE,” says a community advocate who wishes to remain anonymous. “It’s happening in our lovely county. It’s here.”
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Last October, he retired after thirty-nine years as the Observer’s editor.
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