Spoiler Alert: This post may contain minor spoilers for “Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph Breaks the Internet.” There are a myriad of reasons why the new follow-up to “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney’s animated movie about video game characters facing existential crises, shouldn’t have worked, besides the fact that most sequels fall flat. It’s mainly because it chose, as […]
Ron Shalom ’16 presented his master’s thesis, a collective colonoscopy, “The Orifices of Time” in Memorial Chapel. He talked about his digestive tract, campus security, and the pornography, among other things. Shalom has colitis, an autoimmune disease in which his colon slowly digests itself, so his relationship with his body is complicated, to say the least. Two years after […]
Hi Jonah, I hope you are doing well, perhaps buying a new mustard yellow colored beanie, or drinking a green-looking beverage. You see, I’m not a huge comedy nerd. I don’t pride myself on following your career particularly closely or memorizing the lines of any of your iconic roles. In fact, your presence in my […]
One of the most memorable recent contestants on hit reality television show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Chicago-based drag artist The Vixen made a lasting impression on many viewers last season thanks to her insistence on openly—and somewhat controversially—discussing the show’s previously unaddressed racial dynamics. However, while her time on “Drag Race” may have catapulted her further […]
When it comes to its politics, “Supergirl” has been a reliably simplistic show. The story of Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El (Melissa Benoist), presented its progressive lessons to the audience in a manner similar to how old Saturday morning cartoons would. Generally speaking, the antagonists would express the views of real-life right wing cultural figures in […]
Editor’s Note: The writer of this piece is close friends with the director and several crew members of this Second Stage show, which may have affected his opinion of the production. The difficulty of producing “Cabaret,” in some sense, is carving out a space for it. With most shows, there is one hegemonic production, one […]
“Larger than life” is an almost criminally overused descriptor, especially when applied to rock stars and celebrities, but if anyone is truly deserving of the title, it’s Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen and subject of the recent biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Everything about Mercury—a semi-closeted South Asian man whose monumental vocal ability […]
Hermes blows a train whistle, and a station car comes up the road from Hell. This is just the beginning for “Hadestown,” a genre-defying, Greek myth-based new musical, currently being performed at London’s National Theatre. Hermes–part messenger god, part eccentric jazz singer (André De Shields)–works with the Fates (Carly Mercedes Dyer, Rosie Fletcher, and Gloria Onitiri) […]
“Widows” does not begin as we might expect a heist movie to. It does not begin with our protagonists planning their robbery, but instead, an uncomfortably intimate, close-up shot of Veronica and Harry Rawlings (Viola Davis and Liam Neeson, respectively) passionately, aggressively kissing. It’s a disconcerting scene in its own right, but however unsettling the […]
Despite being fairly well-acquainted with both musical theater and “The Simpsons,” I was completely unprepared for this University Theater Department fever dream. “Mr. Burns, a post-electric play”, an American dark comedy play written by Anne Washburn, went up in the CFA theater the weekend of Nov. 16 for four sold-out performances. The story, told through […]