Posts by Rachel Borders

Have you ever looked at a painting and wanted to know the story of the painter or the people in it? If your answer is “Yes!” or “Duh, I’m an art history major,” then seeing MF’s current production of Sunday in the Park with George is the perfect way to spend your weekend.

Sunday in the Park with George, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine, takes the audience straight into 1884 France as crazed painter Georges Seurat works on “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” This work, pictured above, is done in Seurat’s complex pointilistic style (aka all tiny dots). The first act of the musical focuses on Seurat and the many people in the park — including his love interest Dot and their dysfunctional affair.  Then the second act jumps to the 1980s where Seurat’s alleged great-grandson is putting on an art exhibit of his own. Sunday focuses on what it means to be an artist, what it means to see light and beauty in unseen places, and how to keep moving on in an ever-changing world. [Read more →]

The Ivy Film Festival has done it again.  This year the group is bringing in an advanced screening of Oscar-award winning director Barry Levinson’s new film “The Bay.”  This screening is so exclusive they haven’t even released a trailer yet!  What can you expect from the first look at this new film by the director of “Rain Man” and “Good Morning Vietnam?” The limited information that exists about the movie thus far says that it’s a horror film told through a series of recordings on camera phones, 911 calls and other scraps of video. Two biologists come to a small seaside town and discover that their water is contaminated. The mayor refuses to inform the citizens and soon the town has descended into horror as mutant parasites take over people’s minds and bodies.  Sound creepy?  It should.  It’s from the crew and production team that brought you “Paranormal Activity.”

The Creative Coalition has assisted the Ivy Film Festival in getting Levinson as part of their Spotlight Initiative. The Creative Coalition is a nonprofit organization that aims to mobilize leaders of the entertainment community to address issues such as freedom of speech and arts in public education. The organization was founded in 1989 by a group including Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon. Barry Levinson is just one of the many celebrities the Creative Coalition has joined up with over the years.

The screening is tonight, April 12^th at 7pm at the Avon!

Is it free?  DUH!  Just show up to the Avon before 7pm.  Seats will go fast.  You can also get tickets in advance on the Main Green today.

Missed out on Laura Linney’s speech on Tuesday?  Well, it’s not too late to catch everything the Ivy Film Festival has left in store. Lena Dunham will be screening her new HBO show, Girls, on Saturday at 1 pm in Salomon. Tickets will be available on the Main Green today from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Producer George Hornig will be here for a screening of his new Sundance-selected documentary Atomic States of America on Saturday from 6-8pm in Granoff, and all the amazing finalist film screenings will be shown Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!

Boardwalk Empire set in Chicago in Italian? How Brown of us. This weekend brings Brown Opera Production’s (BOP) spring performance of Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti. Directed by Michelle Migliori ‘14 and musically directed by Jacob Klapholz ‘13, this opera puts a 1920s spin on this opera from 1810.

The BOP board decided to take on Don Pasquale in December 2011 knowing that it was one of the most musically difficult operas. However, under the musical direction of Klapholz, an untrained ear would never know the underlying difficulties of the music. The cast makes it seem almost effortless. The cast received its music back in December and the preparation shows wonderfully.  The real strength of this production is the vocal talent of Don Pasquale (John Brakatselos ’15) and Norina (Kathryn Cohen ’13).  Brakatselos’ voice is as big as his fat suit. And the only response I can give to Cohen’s performance is: “Darn that girl can SANG… and act!” [Read more →]

There is no shame in having sex, watching porn, and masturbating. Watch out, Department of Gender Studies: Shame, directed by Steve McQueen, is challenging these assumptions. Shame, written by McQueen and Abi Morgan, is an unconventional film that tells the story of the sex-addicted Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender). The film questions the value of emotionless sex and considers where the line between addiction and preference should be drawn.

This is the second joint project of Fassbender, McQueen, and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt. Their first film, Hunger, is equally worth watching. McQueen’s films are more art than anything else — he takes uncomfortable subject matter and displays it in such a beautiful and composed manner that the audience questions the assumed negativity of the film’s content. Cinematographer Bobbitt helps McQueen to achieve this end: Shame is visually stunning. Bobbitt keeps the film in a constant white and blue color palette that expertly contrasts with the emotional ending scenes of the film. McQueen was originally a film installation artist, and his films constantly push the boundaries of traditional film narrative.

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Have you ever wanted to see a live version of Dora the Explorer, American Idol, Kidz Bop, and a Disney Channel TV show all rolled into one? Well, that is probably impossible, BUT this weekend’s production of Spring Awakening, book and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by Duncan Sheik ‘92, is the closest you’re gonna get. Some of the most accomplished theater students at Brown have come together to fill this year’s PW Week in the Space.

Inspired by the work of theater company Fiasco Theater, created by Brown Trinity Rep graduates, Sami Horneff ’12 decided that she wanted to spend her last semester at Brown creating a musical theater company. As Horneff says, “[Brown’s theater department] pushes us to be theater artists instead of just performers.” After setting on Spring Awakening as the show of choice, Sami began to gather performers and artists on campus who were also passionate about creating a student company.  [Read more →]

Girl Scout cookies are being sold outside the SciLi right now!

Go get them while they last… study break anyone?

Every two years, a student-written musical is selected by Brownbrokers, the original student-written musical theater organization, and then put on the main stage. This provides one of the only opportunities for students to see their writing performed in the Stuart Theater. This year, it is We Can Rebuild Him by Deepali Gupta ’12. The piece is musically directed by Andrew Hertz ’04, an adjunct lecturer, and is directed by Talya Klein MFA ’12. (Some of you may recognize Hertz and Klein from their time teaching such courses as History of Musical Theater or TA30, respectively).

We Can Rebuild Him is an unconventional musical about a disconnected family that tries to put back together the body parts of their dead son, Sam. As the story goes, Sam’s heart somehow kept beating, even after his body was cut into pieces. This heart is what keeps the family moving forward, trying to connect his body and rebuild the connection to each other. [Read more →]

Who is this old guy hosting? Why is it suddenly okay to make jokes about racism? Dogs can go to the Oscars?

These may be the questions you ask yourself tonight during the Oscars if you haven’t been following Hollywood closely this season. Not to fret! I’m here with everything you need to know to follow the show and understand all the poorly-delivered presenter jokes. [Read more →]

Either you’ve been living under a rock all break, or you’ve heard that there’s a black and white movie out there that is actually entertaining. This silent film is making a lot of noise as Oscar Night approaches. The Artist is the first English film by French writer/director Michel Hazanavicius and is nominated for 10 Oscars – including Best Picture. The Artist already won the Golden Globe; can they do it again?  Scoring a staggering 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, this may be the best film The Avon shows all semester.  Nothing feels more vintage than sitting in an old style theater, eating popcorn and watching a silent film.  Sounds like hipsta-heaven to me.

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Yesterday was a sad, sad day for Brown University. The Princeton Review rolled out its annual batch of Arbitrary College Enumerations, and our beloved Brown University was shockingly absent from the #1 spot on the  Happiest Students list. Sure we are still number three, but we were dethroned by Rice University (?) and Clemson University (double ?).

What the Princeton Review doesn’t realize is that we Brown students have never been as unhappy as we were yesterday when our crown was stolen. Jenny Bloom ’12 wept over a Meeting Street cookie wondering if “it [were] just a self-fulfilling prophecy.”  Other students have taken to the streets crying for the rightful reclamation of our title. But most students have just sat on windowsills wondering what Rice and Clemson kids have that they don’t, besides the absence of a snowy, long, depressingly cold winter–who smells unfair advantage? Huffington Post voted us the 6th most hipster school (aren’t hipsters perpetually happy rubbing their egos?) and GQ took us out of the running for douchiest college, but this doesn’t seem to have helped us. Is it because we’re the next Ivy behind Princeton, Harvard and Yale in the 2011 Forbes rankings? Why oh why, Princeton Review, would you assume that we’re even a fraction as miserable as the students at those highly depressing regarded institutions? See BlogDailyHerald’s happiness solution after the jump [Read more →]