Arts Roundup

It has been awhile since I have written anything of any substance. I can’t promise you this one will be any great shakes either, but at least it won’t be a meme or some cut and paste photo or video. Not that you care but it really is hard coming up with regular blog content when you’re brain dead at the end of a work day and the weather is starting to get nice outside again. Maybe that’s grist for a future blog.

In any event, living in New York has certain advantages not the least of which is the abundance of cultural offerings constantly available. I know I need to get out more and see something interesting, so I thought I’d pass along some of the arts events that have caught my eye.

Regrettably, I missed this one and if you are just hearing about it now, you will have as well. But the distinguished South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona recreated roles they first performed more than 30 years ago in a revival of Athol Fugard’s Sizwi Banzi is Dead which was in limited engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A tale of South Africa’s apartheid system and the hardships Black residents faced, Kani and Ntshona were once jailed for performing the play in their homeland but later won Tony Awards when it was first presented in New York. With their closing performance on April 19, it will be the last time they do the play together.

Television actor Boris Kodjoe (Soul Food) stepped into the role of Brick this past week in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, taking over for Terrence Howard through May 4. Howard left to fulfill a contractual obligation on a movie role. He’ll return May 6 and finish the show’s expected run through June 22. The play is receiving quite favorable notices and Kodjoe is delighted to have the opportunity.

On April 30, Laurence Fishburne stars in a one-man-show about the life of the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, in a limited engagement at the Booth Theatre. Fishburne, who has a Tony for his work in August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” sees the part as a great challenge, in this interview he did with Theatermania.com.

The Broadway musical Passing Strange (which I have yet to see) recorded its cast album last week. Normally that’s an all day affair in a recording studio, but a show that tells “the coming-of-age story of a middle-class youth seeking to find ‘the real’ by embarking on a journey of escape and exploration,” couldn’t do things in the conventional manner. Instead they performed the songs from the show live in front of an audience at the Belasco Theatre. Playbill.com has pictures.

Warmer weather means festivals and there are several on the horizon.

The Tribeca Film Festival gets underway next Wednesday, April 23 and runs until May 4. Fifty-three world premieres will be screened at seven different venues. It’s usually a tough ticket to snag but they are on sale online.

The Joyce Theater—a wonderful place to watch a dance performance—holds its 123 Festival April 29-May 11. It will showcase some of the finest new dancers and most exciting dance companies in the country. Among the companies is Ailey II, the “junior” unit of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Finally, here’s an early heads up for two June festivals. The Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts (for those of us who like leaving NYC in the summer) opens June 18 for a ten week run. One of my favorite companies, Garth Fagan Dance, performs during the opening week. The JVC Jazz Festival takes over New York during the last two weeks of June, with performances by some of jazz’s biggest names in the city’s concert halls, nightclubs and outdoor performance spaces.