James Nares: In the City and Helen Levitt: In the Street are exhibitions paired in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum.The rationale is they share common ground in their connection to images of a certain place and time that has passed. More than that, there is a strong humanistic undercurrent to the photographs and videos by both artists.To put it in .... Read More
The public is invited to a veteran’s performing arts stage show March 2 at the Milwaukee VA Medical Center. The event is free.The event takes place on the third-floor recreation hall at the medical center, 5000 W. National Ave. in Milwaukee. Performers will be divided into two shows at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Categories include music, dance, drama, poetry and creative writing.Local first-pl.... Read More
Korean sculptor and installation artist Do Ho Suh takes his home with him wherever he goes.In Suh's case, that “home” consists of full-size and scale replicas of his past abodes, which he constructs in art galleries around the world. The replicated spaces are created of translucent, monochrome polyester sewn onto thin steel frames and they offer both the artist and viewers an interpretation .... Read More
A large, half-opened parachute dominates the background of the set for Grounded, which opened at the Milwaukee Rep’s intimate Stiemke Studio on Feb. 24. Behind and in front of it are a number of large monitors. The floor is an expertly crafted — and authentic-looking — series of small sand dunes etched with tracks made by military vehicles.The lights go up on a young fresh-scrubbed woman.... Read More
For “La La Land” composer and songwriter Justin Hurwitz, it’s been a long, laborious ride from dreaming up the musical with his old college roommate Damien Chazelle over six years ago to becoming the toast of awards season.His catchy score and songs have broken through, too, securing their own place in the spotlight and overshadowing the likes of Justin Timberlake and Lin Manuel-Miranda .... Read More
Movie fans, rejoice! You can — for a price — watch about two-thirds of the Oscar-nominated flicks from your couch.Here’s your viewing guide:BEST PICTURE (AND DIRECTING)None of the nine best picture nominees is available through a subscription service.You can rent “Arrival” and “Hell or High Water” through Amazon, Google Play or Apple’s iTunes.You’ll have to buy do.... Read More
Director Baz Luhrmann set his film Romeo + Juliet in modern-day, gang-ridden Verona. Ian McKellen created a memorable Richard III as a 1930s-era mustachioed fascist dictator. And even the 1956 sci-fi potboiler Forbidden Planet is considered an interplanetary retelling of The Tempest.But no one ever recast anything by William Shakespeare in 19th-century Hawaii at a time when the Hawaiian monarchy.... Read More
Ninety independent movie theaters nationwide are screening 1984 on April 4 to protest Donald Trump’s authoritarian approach to government.So far, none of the theaters in Wisconsin has announced participation in the project.The movie 1984 is based on the classic novel of the same name by George Orwell. The setting is a dystopian future in which the government manufactures facts, revises .... Read More
Pulitzer Prize winners Junot Diaz, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Jane Smiley are among 32 authors contributing to a book of letters responding to the election of President Donald Trump.Vintage Books said Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times will be published May 2 as a paperback original.“The anthology offers readers an antidote to despair: it is a salve, a balm, a compass, .... Read More
Many successful actors got their start at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and one of the best known among them is lending her voice to the United Performing Arts Fund’s 50th anniversary campaign.Erika Slezak is most famous for her role as Victoria Lord on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live, a role for which she earned a record six daytime Emmy Awards for best actress. Slezak says her earl.... Read More
