Corning Works’ A Seat at the Table
The debut of this intriguing new venture from former Dance Alloy Theater head Beth Corning, featuring Corning and five notable guest dancers, is structured around three processions. It opens with the first, Janet Lilly’s slow, embellished walk across the length of a 25-foot-long table draped in black and placed, horizontally, far upstage from the New…
Bricolage’s B.U.S., Pittsburgh Playwrights’ Valu-Mart
We’re entering high season for Pittsburgh theater, so there’s plenty going on, but here’s a couple last or only chances for this weekend. Both involve smaller companies that consistently do good work in the shadow of much bigger cultural institutions Downtown. The last chance is for Valu-Mart, a Pittsburgh premiere by West Virginia-based playwright Sean…
Nathaniel Mackey honors Thaddeus Mosley at Pitt Contemporary Writers
The demise last year of the International Poetry Forum left a gaping hole in the local literary scene. So it’s good to see this series — like the Drue Heinz readings, which recently hosted Elizabeth Alexander — helping to pick up the slack. Mackey, for instance, is a National Book Award-winning poet, for 2005’s Splay…
Ali Spagnola releases The Ego
Working as I do in a clearinghouse for local music- and arts-related information, there’s not a whole lot that blows my mind — most acts you throw at me are things I’ve seen before. But sometimes an artist manages to defy convention to the point where I’m slightly confused, in a good way. Case in…
Short List: Week of March 25 – April 1
To Neal Medlyn, imitation is the sincerest form of art. The stage veteran’s comically twisted shows find their organizing principle in pop music. Like ABBA and Mamma Mia!, Medlyn creates musicals from pop albums, using songs as thematic brackets for his own content. Gawky, pale and less than pitch-perfect, Medlyn is center-stage every time, singing…
Upon Further Review
After more than a decade, the city’s police review board still struggles for respect
Repo Men
In the near future, you can buy a replacement organ for your body, but if you miss a payment, repo men come and take it back. It’s just a job for repo man Remy (Jude Law) — until an accident leaves him wired up with an artificial heart he can’t afford. To avoid dying at…
If It Ain’t Broke, Break it
Given six months to live, Dr. Ravi opts to spend his frantic energies “fixing” the lives of his colleagues, including that of his gloomy attorney (Richard Kind, Curb Your Enthusiasm) and his secretary (Sabrina Bryan). This overly talky, low-budget comedy, the third feature from Pittsburgh writer-director-actor and physician Ravi Godse, suffers from a belabored match-making…
How to Train Your Dragon
The narrative doesn’t break any new ground: A nerdy outcast boy named Hiccup (voice of Jay Baruchel), in an ancient Viking town bedeviled by dragons, secretly befriends his counterpart in dragon form. (An alternate title could be The Dragon Whisperer.) The bond leads to personal growth for both parties, and better inter-species understanding that makes…
Greenberg
Noah Baumbach, who made the coming-of-age dramedy The Squid and the Whale and the less-enjoyable Margot at the Wedding, tackles another minor-key vein of upper-middle-class Gen Y. This film, which floats between dark comedy and unsatisfying character study, depicts a prickly, emotionally stunted star-of-his-own-life who wears his defects as a badge of honor — and…
The Ghost Writer
A ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor) is chosen to quickly finish up the former British prime minister’s memoirs, just as a potentially damaging inquiry about the PM’s role during the Iraq war is unfolding. Thus, there’s high security and super-secrecy as the ghostwriter is sequestered on a Massachusetts island with his subject (Pierce Brosnan) and a curiously…
Fish Tank
Fifteen-year-old Mia (Kate Jarvis) is friendless, and lives with her uncaring single mom in a grubby public-housing project in some drab English town. Her only pleasure is the hip-hop dancing she performs in secret. At least until her mum’s new boyfriend, Connor (Hunger‘s Michael Fassbender), catches her at it, and offers encouragement. Connor is the…
Chloe
If you want to take it seriously, the clue to Atom Egoyan’s melodrama about trust and desire is in the titular character’s opening monologue. Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) explains her role as a prostitute: “I can be anybody you want.” And what insecure middle-aged Catherine (Julianne Moore) wants is to find out whether her charming husband…
The Bounty Hunter
Back in the late 1960s, Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown penned a cookbook for young women: recipes calculated to ensnare that desired man. Unless, of course, that dude was a dud — and then, one flipped to the last chapter: “Goodbye Forever, Thank God! Three Dinners and One Revolting Breakfast.” Yucky food guaranteed to shift…
Faces of Globalization
Carnegie Mellon’s international film festival showcases the effects of our shrinking world
Cassis
A winning combination of familiar comfort food and more creative menu options
Poet Michael Wurster’s The British Detective amuses and intrigues.
Wurster’s terse, often amusing poems manage to be welcoming and accessible even while remaining, on some level, idiosyncratic and mysterious.
This Just In: March 25 – April 1
Highlights from the local TV news: Mounting Washington
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
It’s pastiche for pastiche’s sake, and if you’ve seen one passable production of Joseph, you’ve seen them all.
The Mikado
Director Shane Valenzi has brought a great deal of sprightly energy to this outing.
Beth Corning’s new Glue Factory project brings veteran dance talent to town.
“Part of what Beth is going for with The Glue Factory Project is to highlight the mature and contained power of the seasoned performer.”
For drummer Alex Peck, music is a way to earn a living — and a family tradition
“My dad used to tell us, ‘The only security in being a professional musician is knowing there’s no security in being a professional musician.'”
The 509 Café and Catering
509 Greenfield Ave., Greenfield 412-235-7188 Over the past two decades, Tom Moore says he’s worked pretty much every job in the food industry. He’s been a bartender, a chef, a restaurant manager and, most recently, a salesman for a major food distributor. Throughout those years, however, one title was missing: restaurant owner. “It’s something…
The Smith Westerns bring glam-garage to Brillobox
That balance of adolescent urge and knowing desire informs the album’s most indelible cut, “Be My Girl.”
Chicago improv trio Mako Sica rewards patient, attentive listeners
At its less raucous moments, Dual Horizon is downright worshipful in tone.
Manchester Orchestra plays Mr. Small’s Theatre this Thursday
A unique, post-emo sound incorporating warbling synths, Southern-rock vocal harmonies and the indie-rock sounds of the 1990s.
Real Estate and Woods bring “hypnagogic pop” to University of Pittsburgh
“It’s an appealing idea, being nostalgic about your childhood.”
Hill Slight
Pens say community won’t likely be at table with developers
Savage Love
I’m a 23-year-old bi dude seeing a guy who is intelligent, sweet, attractive — the works. We’ve been together for six weeks. The problem is, after our first night together, I lost sexual interest in him. When I do get horny — which is rare at the moment due to work pressures — I prefer…
Square Deal
Community wants Doughboy development done right
Wood Street hosts Martin Bonadeo’s microcosmic explorations of time and space.
It seems natural that visitors must complete the theoretical circuits in Bonadeo’s works.
