Arts

‘Chicken Little’ and ‘Manchester Tracks’ at the RISD Museum

Discomfort and joy
The star of New York painter Nancy Chunn's epic installation "Chicken Little and the Culture of Fear" at the RISD Museum (224 Benefit Street, Providence, through April 15) is the fabled fowl — you know, the one who mistakenly thought the sky was falling.

By: GREG COOK | January 10, 2012

Shrek the Musical charms at PPAC

'Toon time
Talk about your franchises.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 04, 2012

Raise the curtain

From classic to contemporary
There's plenty of theater to keep us warm in Rhode Island through the winter. From the professional companies to the colleges, there are shows for every taste and mood.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 28, 2011

Shows worth seeing in the new year

Eyes wide open
From centuries-old Taoist visions to the ways technology can channel emotions, local exhibits this winter prompt comparisons between then and now.

By: GREG COOK | December 28, 2011

A decidedly dramatic year (with a bit of comic relief)

Seriously!
This has been a good year for theater around here, from the reprise of a "Were you there when . . .?" rendition of a Shakespeare classic to a sprinkling of notable original productions.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 21, 2011

Exhibits worth buzzing about

Vivid visions
After a couple of shaky years, 2011 saw the local gallery scene blossom again.

By: GREG COOK | December 20, 2011

Trinity Rep’s It’s a Wonderful Life

More comfort and joy
For theatergoers not sufficiently uplifted this holiday season by Trinity Repertory Company's production of A Christmas Carol , the troupe is presenting a second annual feel-good offering, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play , in the downstairs theater through December 31.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 14, 2011

Cirque Dreams gets seasonal at PPAC

An acrobatic Holidaze
There is plenty of color and spectacle for the little ones and dexterous skill for the big kids (aka adults), as Cirque Dreams Holidaze dazzles at the Providence Performing Arts Center through December 18.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 14, 2011

Museum of Natural History’s new ‘Curiouser’ collection

Into the wild
A fact underlying the exhibit "Curiouser," in the lobby of the Providence Museum of Natural History (Roger Williams Park, 1000 Elmwood Avenue, Providence, through September 2012), is that less than two percent of the institution's collection of 250,000 preserved birds, insects, mammals, rocks, fossils, and Native American baskets is on view at any time.

By: GREG COOK | December 13, 2011

Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium’s Parade

An unfortunate man
Parade might be the best musical, as well as the most unlikely one, that you've never seen. Its one-line plot description isn't exactly alluring.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 07, 2011

‘NetWorks 2011’ is good — but it could be better

Incomplete picture
In 2008, local art collector Joseph Chazan partnered with the Newport Art Museum and AS220 to present the first "NetWorks" project.

By: GREG COOK | December 07, 2011

URI stages Chekhov’s head-spinning Seagull

Writing what he knows
A loves B but marries C because B loves D, who loves E but eventually returns to B. Meanwhile, K, L, and M . . . . It's that sort of plot.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 07, 2011

Staying hardcore in the land of the stripmall

The way we were
Some of us enter this world prematurely. After peaking on parent-approved science fiction, you find yourself with a pocketful of quarters pedaling your PK Ripper toward the inviting glow of a neon ARCADE sign.

By: MAX G. MORTON | December 01, 2011

2nd Story serves a pair of frisky farces

French ticklers
How generous. With its latest production, 2nd Story Theatre is giving us a hilarious double feature.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 30, 2011

Trinity’s compelling Christmas Carol

Comfort and joy
The more things stay the same, the more they change. At least that's the way they've been having it with Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol at Trinity Repertory Company for 35 years.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 30, 2011

Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong’s dazzling new work

A sense of wonder
Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong were at the center of the gang of artists who pioneered the rascally psychedelic art that boiled out of Providence's screenprinting/postering/comic book/puppet show/wrestlemania/noise rock underground in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

By: GREG COOK | November 29, 2011

“Nostalgia Machines” at Brown’s Bell Gallery

Reconsidering the future
Jonathan Schipper's Measuring Angst (2009) might be a complicated machine built to help you ponder whether your life would be better if you could take back the stupid thing you did last night.

By: GREG COOK | November 21, 2011

2nd Story’s inspiring Little Women

Timeless acts of kindness
Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is so beloved a morsel of American literary optimism that it would be hard to do badly with an adaptation of the 1868 novel. And there have been numerous ones, from films to an opera and a musical.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 21, 2011

Come You Back at Roger Williams University

Bloody lessons
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. And those who can do both do so with enthusiasm, as professor of theater Peter Wright is proving with the well-acted Come You Back , which he wrote and directed. It's at Roger Williams University Theatre through December 3.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 21, 2011

Rebecca Macri, Dan Talbot, and Betsey MacDonald at AS220

Contrasts and comparisons
Some time back, Rebecca Macri embroidered a pillow with the rainbow bars of the old terrorism alert chart ("severe" to "low").

By: GREG COOK | November 15, 2011

Fusionworks unveils its new moves

Viva la difference!
Once again abiding by their motto — "Different is good " — Fusionworks Dance Company has engaged two guest choreographers, in addition to artistic director/choreographer Deb Meunier, for their Fall Concert Series at Rhode Island College on November 18 and 19.

By: JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | November 15, 2011