CULTURE

Callum Jenkins, a singer/songwriter based in Brooklyn, performed a heartfelt performance on stage one of Rockwood Music Hall on Tuesday, April 18. The atmosphere in the room was intimate and cozy, and the music was soothing and soulful. It was a perfect atmosphere to enjoy Jenkins' unique style of music, and the audience was really engaged. As Jenkins performed each song, the audience attentively listened to every word and clapped when the song was completed. 

(REVIEW) The Golden Geese comprises Cameron Mitchell, the lead singer and guitarist, Jamie Alegre, the drummer and singer and Brett Bass, the bassist. These three men captivate the crowd on stage with their upbeat tunes and raspy and smooth voices. From their unique voices to their heartfelt country lyrics, The Golden Geese have something for everyone. Their music is a blend of folk, pop and rock, making it enjoyable for all music lovers. They are able to transform any country cover into a work of art with their unique performance style.

What happens in our present cultural climate when four well-meaning white actors try to present a culturally-sensitive, authentic play about the first Thanksgiving? It’s a clever premise and one that is quite hilariously realized in a production of Larissa Fasthorse’s “The Thanksgiving Play” at the Helen Hayes Theatre.

(REVIEW) Following their 2017 success on Broadway with “The Play That Goes Wrong,” the British comedy group “Mischief” returns to Broadway this month with a new show that also explores how a live performance can fall apart on the stage. “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” is a classic re-staging of J.M. Barrie’s iconic fairytale about the boy who never grew up where everything that can go wrong—does. The mishaps begin innocently enough: a forgotten line, a malfunctioning stage light, but as the evening progresses, things go (quite hilariously) from bad to worse.

Popular K-Pop group, NCT DREAM, began their first US tour in Newark at Prudential Center on April 5. As a sub-unit of SM Entertainment's NCT, the seven-member group is touring the western part of the world for the first time since its debut in 2016. International fans now have the opportunity to see the group and experience their music live as they tour many big cities across the United States.

(REVIEW) “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will delight Mario lovers of all ages and has officially removed Illumination Entertainment from the one-hit wonders list. The movie is a bright, endlessly colorful, celebration of the games that children and adults across the world have played for decades.

(OPINION) I needed the tiger’s strength, their composure, their fighting spirit. So I finally booked my $25 guided tour at CFAR on a Sunday afternoon. The only thing separating us was the chain link around the enclosure and about five feet of distance. I saw the tiger looking at me, and we locked eyes. Her eyes were the most stunning blend of turquoise and amber. Her face was calm, like she was looking past my eyes into my soul. Some people’s adrenaline levels would shoot up if a tiger ever got within five feet of them. Looking into her eyes, I felt a sense of peaceful reassurance wash over me.

It often goes unrealized that food is always present in both the decisive and mundane moments of life. When celebrating a friend’s graduation, there is food. When mourning the loss of a loved one, there is food. When you invite the person you want to get to know better over to your house, there is food. When you celebrate the start of spending the rest of your life with someone, there is food. In a way, food signifies important parts of life.

(REVIEW) Broadway has long been pulled between commercial, “theme-park” shows and philosophical, artistic works. The former tends to draw larger box office returns, and the latter greater critical acclaim. Occasionally a show is able to achieve success in both categories and this spring one such Oliver Award-winning production transfers from London to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre by the title of “Life of Pi.”

(REVIEW) For those among you wondering how many retellings of the Cinderella fairytale is too many, we may have finally hit a breaking point. The latest retelling of the classic Brother’s Grimm story opens on Broadway this month at the Imperial Theatre as a brand-new musical. This new incarnation is entitled “Bad Cinderella,” a title that, despite the promising list of people involved in the show, is not ironic.

(REVIEW) The country artist, AJ Kross, performed a four-hour set at Blake Shelton’s Bar, Ole Red, in Nashville, TN, on Thursday, March 16. AJ Krossis a country singer and guitarist. Kross sang a total of 48 songs in four hours during his set. As he continued to play some of the greatest country hits, Ole Red continued to have more and more people enter the bar.

(REVIEW) In the late 1970s, Fosse conceived and staged a musical completely his own. It lacked a narrative arc or cohesive theme, consisting of a series of vignettes told mostly through dance (with a little bit of singing mixed in). The spectacle, entitled “Dancin’,” opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1978 and ran for over four years. This month, “Dancin’” returns to New York City under the direction of Wayne Cliento, a cast member of the original 1978 production. 

Originally staged in 1998 at Lincoln Center, Jason Robert Brown’s “Parade” returns to Broadway this month at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre as the musical event of the season. Set in the deep-south state of Georgia fifty years after the Civil War, “Parade” tells the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent falsely accused of the murder of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old factory worker. It stars Tony-Award winning actor Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen, The Book of Mormon) as Frank and Micaela Diamond (The Cher Show) as his wife Lucille.

Originally set in 19th-century Norway, a new production of “A Doll’s House” – adapted by Amy Herzog and directed by Jamie Lloyd – opens this month at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. The story of “A Doll’s House” is centered around an exploration of the power dynamics between a husband and wife. This production is a bold departure from the dense, maximalist visuals that ordinarily accompany a play set within an affluent Victorian home. Instead, the play is performed with no costumes, sets, props or effects apart from simple lighting, a few wooden chairs and a hidden turntable in the stage floor.

(REVIEW) The four-person rock band Velvet Rouge performed nine original songs at Rockwood Music Hall in the Lower East Side on Saturday, Feb. 25. Zo and her band took the stage wearing vibrant outfits. At first, Zo had trouble with the mic, but her ease on the stage made up for it. They played their hearts out and owned the stage. It was an experience worth witnessing.

(OPINION) My visits to art museums cause serious fatigue on the extremities, especially my feet. I try to keep my focus from wandering from the art to the pain of walking through the endless rooms of the exhibits. Even when I can focus on the art at hand, my mind should not dwell on its realism. Nobody thinks that the painting of “Washington Crossing Delaware” or the “Mona Lisa” are exact representations of that event or person. Paintings are not considered that realistic. The nature of paintings spans a spectrum from completely bogus (modern art) to realism.

(OPINION) Art generated by AI has been an ongoing topic of discussion for several years, with content generators dominating social media and becoming the subject of many philosophical debates about art. Despite the growing excitement surrounding AI-generated images, there are concerns about their authenticity and ethical implications. Many artists argue that AI-generated art is unethical as it relies on being fed pre-existing art and recreating it until it is indistinguishable from the original. The fundamental question remains: can AI create art, and what does it mean for the future of the art industry?

(REVIEW) Goat Yoga indeed has its own musical genre attached to it, and the Academy of Powerful Music with Positive Energy’s 2021 album “Baby Goat Yoga” is a prime example. This album represents a journey into the spiritual self like no other and is most notable for its focus on woodwind ambiance, development of abstract melody and redefining the ancient art of yoga with goats. “Baby Goat Yoga” is, overall, an experience you will not want to miss.

(REVIEW) The cover band Twisted Charm played their hearts out at Prohibition on Saturday, Feb. 18. They do not play original music and do not have an album or an EP because performing covers is what the band proclaims to be all about. They twist on stage every which way and charm the audience with their beautiful voices and perfect rhythm.

ChatGPT Plagiarism became available to the public in February, a software designed by Tomer Tarsky to differentiate between original work and ChatGPT writing. Tarsky created his software to specifically detect ChatGPT usage and is consistent with its results. With the unreliability of other plagiarism checkers and the rise in ChatGPT usage in school, Tarsky’s software will prove invaluable for educators.

(ANALYSIS) I stood at my friend Monique’s kitchen counter and complained about pharmaceuticals. After encouraging me to trust my doctors, she lent me the book “Health through God’s Pharmacy: Advice and Proven Cures with Medicinal Herbs.”  Little did she know that this book would launch me on a hilly, forested journey into the world of herbalism.

(HUMOR) My first romance started at the beginning of the fall semester of 2019. I had just moved to New York to begin college, and my heart was afire with the possibilities this new independent life afforded me. At Target, across the street from my apartment, I first ran into her. She was, by far, the most beautiful desk lamp I had ever seen, and I immediately became infatuated with her. 

The Spring 2023 Broadway season kicks off this week at Studio 54 with a touching tribute to the messy, complicated and beautiful relationships between parents and their children. Inspired by Larry Sultan’s photo memoir of his aging parents, “Pictures From Home” tells the story of how Sultan crafted his deeply personal memoir through eight years of photographing and observing the surroundings, marriage and lives of his retired father Irving and semi-retired mother Jean. The show is nearly perfect in its construction and presentation, and it’s one not to be missed or overlooked by theater-goers this spring.

(REVIEW) ‘Knock at the Cabin,’ a horror, mystery and thriller by director M. Night Shyamalan, arrived at theaters on Friday, Feb. 3.  ‘Knock at the Cabin’ addresses a specific question of ethics that a College student might contemplate: the Trolley Problem. The central question of the movie is one you might prefer to contemplate during office hours with a philosophy professor rather than in a dark theater for an hour and forty minutes.

(REVIEW) “Everybody in New York hates cops. Even cops hate cops,” says Pops, a retired police officer and the protagonist of “Between Riverside and Crazy,” a 2014 play making its Broadway debut this season at Second Stage’s Helen Hayes Theatre. The play is about the complex relationship between the New York Police Department and the African-American community in New York City. While the story has a lot of potential, it can’t seem to get many plot lines off the launch pad.

Most people familiar with modern art in New York City are probably familiar with painters Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. This season, Warhol and Basquiat appear on Broadway, portrayed as artists collaborating on a series of paintings that reflect the convergence of their contrasting approaches to art in “The Collaboration.”

Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald returns to Broadway this holiday season in “Ohio State Murders,” a dark tragedy about the racially motivated murder of a new mother’s infant African-American daughters. “Ohio State Murders,” is directed by Kenny Leon. This play is a short seventy-five minutes on stage, but McDonald gives a tour-de-force performance as Alexander that is spell-binding to witness.

This December marks the finale of the two-month running of “Straight Line Crazy”, a play written by David Hare and directed by Nicholas Hytner on the legacy of the one and only Robert Moses. Moses, a larger-than-life enigma of a man captured for the stage by British star Ralph Fiennes, is portrayed as an eccentric genius of a builder hampered by the inconveniences of American democracy. However, Moses’ legacy has a darker side.

“Some Like it Hot,” a new musical comedy opening this week at the Shubert Theatre, is returning to the feel of a classic Broadway musical. And they have the full brass orchestra, tap-dancing ensemble, big-budget sets and glittering costumes to prove it.

There is no better way to spend a winter evening in New York than at a Broadway show. Thirty-six Broadway shows will perform during the Christmas break, but I will save you some trouble and narrow down the best options. These five have something for everyone, offering a variety of genres, lengths and prices.