How Water Speaks to Rock @ Meymandi Theatre at the Murphey School Auditorium www.howwaterspeaks.com Through Oct. 12 The N.C. Arts Council provides funding for theatrical endeavors in various ways, as evidenced by the NCAC logo on many playbills, but not often do we see the results of that funding as a distinct whole. Last year, […]
Kate Dobbs Ariail
Bio: Kate Dobbs Ariail writes about the arts.
PlayMakers’ strong take on rare Shakespeare
Pericles PlayMakers Rep Through Oct. 12 In Pericles, Shakespeare’s absurd yet lifelike tragi-comedy, we follow the Prince of Tyre through many adventures in love, loss and shipwreck, before arriving at what we all are longing fora happy ending to a tale of woe. PlayMakers Repertory Company’s producing artistic director Joseph Haj could not have foreseen […]
John Rosenthal turns his photographic eye on the Lower Ninth Ward
Chapel Hill photographer John Rosenthal has shown his distinctive photographs often and widely for many years, but this week he opens the most significant exhibition of his career. Thursday, Aug. 28, marks the third anniversary of the last day of life-as-they-knew-it for the residents of New Orleans, and Rosenthal will be at the African American […]
Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern says yes
The Triangle is rich in theater, but there is one theater company that is different from all the others: Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern. Inspired by Martin McDonagh’s play The Pillowman, in which one little green pig holds out against the conformist pressures of all the pink pigs, this Concern takes on the broadest ideas […]
PlayMakers demonstrates Amadeus is really about Salieri, Mozart’s mediocre rival
Amadeus PlayMakers Rep Through April 20 As its final main stage production of the spring season, PlayMakers Repertory Company at UNC-Chapel Hill has revived Peter Shaffer’s deeply touching 1979 play Amadeus. “Beloved of God,” that was Wolfgang Mozart’s middle name. It was the state of being so desired by contemporaneous composer Antonio Salieri that he […]
Change is a constant in the Triangle arts scene—and (mostly) for the good
The day the first issue of the Independent came out, in April 1983, I was working in the office of UNC-TV’s Stateline program at the General Assembly. One of the reporters came in, brandishing the new paper excitedly. It was all politics, all the time, in the first years. In 1989, I published my first […]
Two separate Carolina Ballet programs offer dances good and less good
“Balanchine Favorites” Through March 2 Cabaret Closed Feb. 10 Carolina Ballet The Carolina Ballet continues its 10th season this week with another run of its “Balanchine Favorites” program. Included is the choreographer’s Raymonda Variations, which the company had not previously performed, and his grand Apollo. Other selections, and casts, vary. The Feb. 24 matinee opened […]
UNC continues its yearlong examination of the death penalty
In recent years, UNC-Chapel Hill has been taking seriously its obligation to educate its students in the art of civil discussion of contentious issues that will require their understanding as they move into leadership roles. Going far beyond simply requiring all incoming students to read and discuss a book espousing controversial ideas, for the 2007-08 […]
After 10 years, the Carolina Ballet has become an institution
Cinderella & Peter and the Wolf Carolina Ballet Progress Energy Center Nov. 21 and Nov. 23-25 In late 1996, Robert “Ricky” Weiss answered an advertisement placed by J. Ward Purrington in Dance magazine, seeking a person of vision to start a new ballet companyin Raleigh, N.C. Purrington, a Raleigh attorney, was spearheading the creation of […]
A fresh take on Romeo and Juliet; a beat happening in Durham
Romeo and Juliet Playmakers Repertory Company Through Oct. 14 “Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?” Davis McCallum is the man, come to wield his art among the Playmakers, and so to spill fresh light on the gleaming surfaces of old words. Playmakers Repertory Company, with McCallum as guest director, has opened its main stage […]

