Spy Garbo (3/6/11)

Sheila Schwartz’s Spy Garbo, an innovative multi-media production, takes place in history’s limbo, the eternal resting place of three prominent twentieth century political players. The first is Generalissimo Francisco Franco Bahamonde, played by Steven Rattazzi with a perfect mix of pomp, arrogance, and affability.

Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community

When Tamara Mose Brown had her first child in 2004, she began going to different Brooklyn, New York parks on sunny afternoons. In each, she found dozens of West Indian nannies caring for the babies and toddlers of the largely White middle- and upper-income denizens who lived nearby. Questions about both the nannies' work and the race, class, and gender dynamics of their lives prompted Brown—the Canadian-born daughter of Trinidadian immigrants—to begin spending time with these women. Their conversations were eye-opening. For one, Brown came to realize the centrality of paid childcare to U.S.

An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country

Twenty-seven years ago, activists Susan Rosenberg and Timothy Blunk were caught transporting explosives to a New Jersey storage facility. Although the pair had no immediate plans to use the incendiary materials, they—and their comrades in the May 19 Communist Party—were stockpiling them for a revolution they believed was imminent. Rosenberg’s searing memoir, An American Radical—a chronicle of sixteen years spent in four U.S.

Blood From A Stone (1/22/2011)

Tommy Nohilly’s first play, Blood From A Stone, treads the familiar terrain of family dysfunction, zeroing in on the return of oldest son Travis [played with anguished complexity by Ethan Hawke] to the family’s ramshackle Connecticut home. What exactly ails this prodigal child is a mystery. We know that he is jobless, broke, single, and addicted to pain killers, but the demons that hover near him are never fully revealed. At first, the reasons he’s returned home are also unclear. Is he looking for solace? Hoping for a financial handout?

Hapgood

Tom Stoppard’s 1988 espionage thriller, Hapgood, addresses the insanity of the Cold War by zooming in on a band of British spies. Alongside the CIA, the group engages in crosses and double-crosses, the end result being little more than a game of chicken. Led by Mrs. Elizabeth Hapgood, AKA Betty, AKA Mother--played by actor Elise Stone with a perfect mix of sass and sadness—the reconnaissance team’s efforts are a showcase for three distinct plot lines: The juggling of employment and child rearing responsibilities for single mothers; the temptation of forbidden love; and the competitive race for scientific knowledge between the “free world” and the Communist bloc. While the first two themes are presented with straightforward punch, the latter is muddled, perhaps emblematic of the Cold War itself. As Hapgood says near the denouement of the play, “It’s them or us. We’re keeping each other in business. We should send each other Christmas cards.”

A Man’s A Man

If playwright Bertolt Brecht were alive today, he’d likely blanch at the contemporary tendency to seek common ground with those whose ideologies are diametrically opposed to one’s own. His dozens of plays speak truth to power in daring, direct language and, while farce and sarcasm are employed, his repeated denunciations of colonialism, war, and militarism are boldly presented. A Man’s a Man (sometimes called Man Equals Man) was first staged in Dusseldorf and Darmstadt, Germany in 1926. Eighty-four years later, The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s beautifully-presented staged reading of the play is so relevant that the audience quickly forgets the age of the work.

Going Away Shoes

The protagonists of Jill McCorkle’s exciting collection of stories, Going Away Shoes, are middle-aged heterosexuals deep in the doldrums of life’s disappointments. Whether because of a stalled career, a divorce, a death, or simply the exhaustion born of juggling family, work and social obligations, these are women who’ve been battered by everyday tragedies and everyday pressures.

The Two Horses of Genghis Khan

When actor Urna Chahar-Tugchi was growing up, her grandmother showed her the hand-carved neck of an ancient violin—all that was left of a precious family heirloom. On it were a few words from a once-popular song called "The Two Horses of Genghis Khan." "No other song touches the soul of the Mongolian people like this one," Chahar-Tugchi says in Davaa Byambasuren’s powerful documentary, a tribute to cultural legacies called The Two Horses of Genghis Khan.

Meredith Monk: Inner Voice

Dutch Filmmaker Babeth VanLoo’s compelling tribute to sixty-seven-year-old choreographer-musician-teacher-composer-artist Meredith Monk does many things. In addition to introducing us to this enigmatic Jane of many trades, it showcases the artist’s creative processes and worldview. Along the way, it looks at the ways Buddhism has infused Monk’s work. “Silence is her source,” VanLoo explains. The engrossing eighty-two-minute film includes footage of Monk performing, writing, and living in both upstate New York and New Mexico.

Prophecy (6/6/2010)

Forty years ago, Edwin Starr’s “War” was a Billboard Top 100 hit, an explicit denunciation of armed conflict. “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing,” he trilled. Karen Malpede’s Prophecy takes this sentiment as her starting point. Her latest play, an ambitious, layered look at the damage wrought by centuries of strife on the battlefield—and in the personal relationships that ensue once military action is over—is bold and dramatic. It’s also shrill. Numerous stories unfold simultaneously.

MILK (5/1/2010)

Emily DeVoti’s provocative two-act play, MILK, opens in a spare farmhouse kitchen. It’s 1984. Ronald Reagan has just been elected US president and local newscasters seem to have nothing good to report. Meg (played by Jordan Baker), a former mathematician who loves precision and order, and her husband Ben (Jon Krupp), a former investigative reporter, are sitting at the table and talking, but it’s the kind of tense conversation that can quickly turn from controlled anger to fierce argument. Things are bad, very bad.

Conversate Is Not A Word: Getting Away From Ghetto

I admit it: I bristle when my students talk about conversating. At the same time, I try to catch myself, remembering that decades back no one spoke of googling or used the word text as a verb either. Language, like social mores, constantly changes. African American author, provocateur, blogger, and lawyer Jam Donaldson understands this, and her message is simple: Everyone, but especially people of color, needs to know the difference between slang and proper grammar, and everyone needs to take responsibility for the things they can control.

Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House

In the 1940s, thousands of adventurous young women flocked to Washington, DC to take wartime jobs in federal agencies.

The Things We Do To Make It Home

When Beverly Gologorsky’s powerfully written and beautiful novel, The Things We Do To Make It Home, was first released in 1999, most U.S. residents weren’t thinking about war. The Vietnam conflict had ended decades earlier, the Cold War was over, and for at least a fraction of a minute, world peace seemed possible. Then 9-11 happened, and a world without armed conflict became the stuff of pipe dreams. In short order the U.S.