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From the moment actor Randolph Mantooth steps on stage in the Purple Rose’s superlative production of Superior Donuts, he takes total control of both the stage and the material of this extraordinary play by Tracy Letts...

Both liberals and conservatives will find something to like about Khalid Hanifi’s new album, A Brief Respite from Shooting Fish in a Barrel, described by the Ann Arbor singer-songwriter as a collection of “resolutely...

Bassist Dave Holland began his musical life in his native England, but when he was just in his early twenties, Miles Davis asked him to join his quintet. He played with Davis on some of the pioneering recordings of the movement...

Iris DeMent sings and plays the piano, often in the style someone once called church-house ragtime. For the most part she’s drawn to styles that predate country, rock and roll, and even Broadway pop; old white gospel is...

What do the rich and powerful have to say?As a recent incident proved, one way to learn what the elite talk about is to stash a video camera behind a votive candle and a vase of flowers at a $50,000-a-plate political fundraiser....

By the time this issue of the Observer is out, we will have begun to see the reaction to the new movie made from David Mitchell’s wonderfully odd novel, Cloud Atlas. The movie has been getting some early attention because...

Flaming arrows fly. Jumping, twisting, hurling, whirling bodies brandish swords. Warriors die in many inventive ways: impaled through a wooden door, decapitated by sword, caught by the sudden thrust of a thrown dagger....