It’s no coincidence that Election Day comes so close to Halloween. Frequently on both, the one who convincingly tells the scariest story wins. After all, fear has been a staple of politics since–well, nearly since fear began. Richard Cheney’s transparently desperate promise of a nuclear inaugural should Kerry win has nearly outstripped anything Uncle Jesse […]
Byron Woods
Bio: Byron Woods is the INDY's theater and dance critic.Email: [email protected]: http://twitter.com/byronwoods
Posted inNews
The cold walk home
Ten miles out on a frozen lake is no time to learn that you can no longer rely on the equipment that brought you there–or the person you came out there with. For this excellent reason, if you plan to see Burning Coal Theatre’s production of The Dead–and I strongly think you should–my best advice […]
Posted inNews
The road(s) of excess
Maybe it was that last time you squared off against a bottle of cheap tequila in a fight to the finish. Or perhaps it was that open half-gallon of ultra-premium ice cream instead: triple chocolate fudge, with a calorie count somewhere in the low five figures. To hell with the consequences, you said, as you […]
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The discriminating classes
It’s clearly discrimination based on gender. Its sponsors are also hoping it will help save ballet. That’s why the Ballet School of Chapel Hill is giving boys between the ages of 8 and 12 preferential treatment this fall: free tuition for the school year. During the same period, girls the same age enrolled at the […]
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Dead reckonings
Now we have a Spoon River Anthology to call our own, a work whose scope and insights begin to suggest an Our Town for our generation. The only question left involves what we do with the information. It is a fearsome enough thing. Its name is Sonnets for an Old Century. Much as Edgar Masters […]
Posted inGuides
No show tonight?
Why focus on the things Triangle audiences won’t be seeing on regional stages this year in a season preview? No disrespect intended to the myriad of live artists and presenters in the area, but the factors and forces keeping certain acts out of the spotlights this year are just as interesting–and as legitimate a subject […]
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Promissory note
Had it really been that long–over three years–since theater had a regular home at Carrboro’s ArtsCenter? Look at the present condition of the stage. Look at its tattered curtain. The answer is yes. True, guest companies have occasionally darkened the door of the Earl Wynn Theater in recent years. A memorable Flying Machine production of […]
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The settlement
Of course, everybody settles. Sooner or later. The only questions left are where they settle–and for what. That’s what Alceste is in revolt against at the start of Moliere’s The Misanthrope. It’s more than enough to place him in a long line of passionate (and temporary) one-man revolutionists whose ranks have included Albert Camus’ Caligula, […]
Posted inGuides
Dance: In medias res
The dance is already in progress, no matter when we join it. The soloists and the groups, the residents and the summer pilgrimages are all in motion. Each adds to the strangest of constellations, an alternative zodiac whose nodes stretch from Raleigh’s BTI Center to the Ark, Duke University’s amazing 105-year-old dance studio, from Carolina […]
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Creature comforts?
Some say it’s a mistake to look back. An absent friend in anthropology would remind me that an observer’s presence changes the habitat, not always as intended and not always for the better. Both are part of the critics’ dilemma then, since both form a part of their duty. I returned to see Nixon’s Nixon […]