The audience sits blindfolded as novelist and songwriter Josh Malerman performs a scene, with live musical accompaniment, from his horror-thriller Bird Box. As one of several unconventional readings at the 2015 Midwest Literary...
Read MoreThe son of a bluegrass-loving academic, Robbie Fulks paid his dues at the famed folk clubs of New York City and Chicago. “I think the folk thing is so much a part of my hard drive that I’m always going to be...
Read MoreThe almost inconceivable magnitude of the Holocaust makes it a very daunting subject for a movie. Filmmakers have necessarily tended to focus on stories of individuals; think Schindler’s List, or the recent Son of Saul....
Read MoreTime stops just before the music begins. A string quartet is preparing itself for takeoff. Four individuals sit perfectly still, bows pressed against strings. Their eyes glitter as glances are exchanged. Silence is the flint...
Read MoreMany who have lived in Ann Arbor for a while still miss the downtown jazz clubs, the Bird of Paradise and the Firefly, as well as the Sunday afternoon sessions at the Del Rio. But recently there has been a small revival of jazz...
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Think of it as Taste of Ann Arbor–category, theatre; subcategory, U-M students. The Wall-to-Wall Theatre Festival, held in North Campus’s Walgreen Drama Center March 26 and 27, is roaming theater, with the audience,...
Read MorePerhaps the biggest surprise of Brett Story’s film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes–and certainly its biggest stroke of genius–is that a prison is never seen. In the documentary, which will have its world...
Read MoreWhen you think of improv comedy and beer, you think of fun and lighthearted times. And while Jason and Tori Tomalia’s Pointless Brewery & Theatre grew out of a very dark period in the Tomalias’ lives–in...
Read MoreFew musicians carry on the true spirit of American roots music the way Chris Buhalis does. Younger players working in what’s been branded alt-country or indie folk look back on American musical tradition with a sense of...
Read MoreFelix and Oscar, the odd couple of Purple Rose’s current production, began their life on Broadway in 1965 and continued their friendship on TV for five years in the 1970s, gradually acquiring cultural baggage that was not...
Read MoreAccording to soprano Martha Guth and pianist Penelope Crawford, the best acoustics for chamber music in North America are to be found in churches. This is especially true for art songs, which in the Germanic tradition are called...
Read MoreHonestly, I stopped by the Ann Arbor Art Center to rule out the current exhibit, Mid-West Furniture Zoku, as a review subject. Furniture? As art? I left two hours later, tripped out, my art heart pierced. I’d taken 109...
Read MoreThe Everyone Orchestra is, to paraphrase James Thurber, something very much like nothing anyone has ever seen before. The project offers improvisation with a conductor. There are just a few prior examples of this in the whole...
Read MoreJazz in Detroit relies heavily on tradition. This has never been simply a matter of local pride, but recognition of the unique musical history of the city and a consequence of robust community bonds. More often than not, a...
Read MoreIn the middle of a Sunday night snowstorm, tenors, altos, and sopranos trickle into the Northside Community Church. The singers introduce themselves enthusiastically, unwrap their scarved throats, and file into the first few...
Read More“You feel like you’re at a campfire!” says Ann Arbor rec supervisor Pam Simmons of the recently launched Ann Arbor Community Sing. The monthly sing-alongs at the Ann Arbor Senior Center attract grandparents,...
Read MoreWhen Camille Brown choreographed Black Girl: Linguistic Play, she had both personal and political motivations: to “remind myself of the beauty of who I was before the world defined me,” she explained at the...
Read MoreThere’s a good chance that if our era is remembered for any of its literature, it will be as the moment that opened up to new influences on writing done in English. Despite recent nativist screaming on cable news networks,...
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