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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Free July events: Shakespeare on the Common, Art on the Plaza, plus the Moth Ball
The Boston Landmarks Orchestra will perform free concerts every Wednesday through Aug. 27. Michael Dwyer Advertisement PARK PHILHARMONIC Boston Landmark Orchestra performs free concerts every Wednesday on the Charles River Esplanade. This week's program includes familiar favorites by Leonard Bernstein and John Williams, and highlights works by Florence Price, a pioneering Black female composer. The concert will be preceded by a performance from the Boston String Academy, a primarily middle- and high-school-age student ensemble, at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 7-9 p.m. DCR Hatch Memorial Shell, 47 David G. Mugar Way. Advertisement Shakespeare on the Common's performance of "The Tempest" in 2021. Ben Stas for The Boston Globe ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE For the 29th year, July 23-Aug. 10, performance times vary. Boston Common, Parkman Bandstand. 139 Tremont St. CURB APPEAL School may be out for the summer, but some campuses still have plenty on offer. The MassArt Art Museum's yearly Art on the Plaza offers family-friendly musical activities to get the blood pumping. Grab a complimentary scoop of ice cream, join a follow-the-leader dance session, play a game of hopscotch, or jam out to featured artists July 24, 6-9 p.m. RSVP required. MassArt Art Museum, Arne Glimcher Plaza, 621 Huntington Ave. Need to show off your Shark Week knowledge? Try your luck at Craft Hall's shark-themed trivia night. Uncredited/Associated Press AS SEEN ON TV Can't get enough of Shark Week? Test your chops on your favorite elasmobranchii with a shark-themed trivia night. Winners of each of the four rounds will win a prize. The competition is free, but participants can choose to order food from the Craft Hall's restaurants, including a selection of wines, beers, IPAs, and batch cocktails from a self-pour tap wall for 21+ contestants. July 25, 6-8 p.m. RSVP required. Craft Food Halls, 35 Cambridgepark Drive, Cambridge. Advertisement SAND ART Looking for a beach day with a view? Over the weekend, the 21st annual International Sand Sculpting Festival will bring participants from around the world to compete over three days to make the most impressive sculptural art piece out of Revere Beach sand. This year, contestants are encouraged to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in their sculptures. If you want to make a day of it, the beach's vendors sell a variety of treats, from lobster rolls to egg rolls. July 25-27, 10 a.m. Revere Beach, Revere. The Boston Race Amity Festival will return to Faneuil Hall on July 26. Boston Race Amity Art and Music Festival INCLUSION AND ICE CREAM Faneuil turns musical on Saturday for the annual Boston Race Amity Festival, which features a wide variety of music with the goal of inspiring cross-cultural unity. The eclectic list of performers includes folk-rock band Fantastic Cat, African diasporic music group Zili Misik, and Cambridge DJ Trigga Tre, among many others. Attendees can contribute to a big collaborative mural all day, and Ben and Jerry's, the event's cohost, will be serving free ice cream from noon-5 p.m. July 26, noon -6 p.m. Faneuil Hall, 4 South Market St. Send info on free events and special offers at least 10 days in advance to . Ryan Yau can be reached at
New York Times
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
I Took 58 Walks in My 58th Year
It was an odd scavenger hunt, to be sure. Four of us wandered Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, searching for tombstones of notable New Yorkers. With every wrong turn on our way to Jean-Michel Basquiat or Leonard Bernstein, we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we were increasing our step count. Bob, the resident comedian of our group, cried out for 'Lenny!' when the paper map his wife, Hope, held proved useless. Eventually Bob, as well as Hope, my husband, Jay, and I found our way to Bernstein's tomb. We snapped a few photos, declared victory and laughed our way to Industry City, adding a few more miles — plus some delicious Korean food — to our outing. The day — exploring, laughing and talking with friends — was exactly what I'd envisioned when I turned 58 and decided to take 58 walks with friends, each one at least 5.8 miles long. My dad had died suddenly, at 59, and our regular walks are a memory I cling to over 35 years later. As I approached a stage of life he never experienced, I wanted to honor him. But I had other goals, too. I hoped to pair two favorite activities — walking and talking — with small excursions around New York City, where I live, and during my travels elsewhere. Some walks went much farther than the 5.8-mile goal. Sarah and Tony, longtime walking buddies, organized a breathtaking 12-miler, traversing the Hudson River on the longest footbridge in the United States. Sarah brought fantastic chocolate chip cookies. As a bonus, I learned how to spell Poughkeepsie. I didn't hold others to the Sarah-Tony standard, though. A few people, because of injury or a lack of appetite for long walks, did their 5.8 miles in stages. Some were creative with the prompt: Patrick, an artist, took me to see a Käthe Kollwitz exhibit at MoMA, where we visited the fifth floor, found Gallery 8 and snapped a photo. I wanted to widen my circle, not limit it. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
He's Bringing Rossini to Philadelphia and ‘West Side Story' to Rome
It was the morning of the dress rehearsal for Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story,' at the Baths of Caracalla, the ancient ruins that are the traditional summertime venue for the Rome Opera, and the show's director, Damiano Michieletto, was concerned. 'Some of the Jets have problems with precise pronunciation,' he said. After deciding to do the musical in English rather than in translation, he did not have the funds to hire a full American cast for the Jets, a gang rumbling to take the streets of New York. You could tell, he fretted. (The diction was less of a problem with the Sharks, the rival Puerto Rican gang, he said, 'because Italian, you know, that works.') That might have been his least concern. This year, Michieletto was given free rein to come up with the program for the Rome Opera's summer Caracalla Festival, which runs until Aug. 7, keeping in mind that 2025 is a Jubilee year for the Catholic Church expected to draw millions of pilgrims with varying musical tastes to Rome. In a break from past programming, he decided that the first major new production would be 'West Side Story.' A musical — gasp — was headlining one of Italy's most highbrow cultural stages and was an unusual choice in a country where musicals are considered a minor genre and often dismissed. That did not faze Michieletto, who over the past 20 years has built a reputation as a visionary, nonconformist, at times over-the-top, director whose work is in demand across Europe. In September, he will make his debut at a major American opera house with Rossini's 'Il Viaggio a Reims' at Opera Philadelphia. There he will be presenting a revival of a much-lauded version first staged in Amsterdam in 2015 and reprised several times since. For his new work at the Caracalla Festival — which this year is titled 'Between the Sacred and the Human' because it casts a wide musical net, from a staged production of Handel's oratorio 'The Resurrection' to 'West Side Story' — he opted to focus on the electric energy of a work that was directed and based on an idea by Jerome Robbins, one of the great choreographers of his generation. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Man Who Made a Brooklyn Cemetery the Place to Be
Do you remember Roy Smeck, guitarist and banjo legend from the 1930s? 'We have him here,' said Richard J. Moylan the other day, in a cluttered office that looked about three weeks from moving-out day. It is a phrase Mr. Moylan — 70, with a robust head of white hair and a pleasantly chatty manner — uses often, or did until recently. Last Friday, he retired from Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where he had worked for the last 53 years, first as a lawn cutter and since 1986 as president, and thus de facto mayor to the grounds' 570,000 permanent residents. Around the office were a half-dozen Roy Smeck signature guitars that Mr. Moylan had collected for the cemetery, along with books, CDs and artwork associated with other people interred there. 'We have Leonard Bernstein,' he said. Also F.A.O. Schwartz (toys), Eberhard Faber (pencils) and Samuel Morse (code). But of the filmmaker Jonas Mekas, who was cremated at the cemetery in 2019, Mr. Moylan lamented, 'I don't think we have him.' (It is a sore spot with Mr. Moylan that so many families choose to scatter their loved ones' remains rather than entomb at least some of them at Green-Wood, where future generations might gather to visit them.) Green-Wood, which sits on 478 rolling, tree-filled acres in a semi-industrial neighborhood that real estate agents call Greenwood Heights, occupies a distinctive place in New York City and in the development of American cemeteries. First opened in 1838, it was in the 19th century the second-most-popular attraction in the state, after Niagara Falls, and inspired the competition to design Central Park and Prospect Park. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Gizmodo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
How the Quick Turnaround of ‘Jurassic World Rebirth' Became a Good Thing
Writing, development, pre-production, casting, filming, editing, visual effects, scoring, sound, and more. The process of making a movie, especially a big, expensive movie, is a long one. According to director Gareth Edwards, who has made his share of big movies like Rogue One and Godzilla, normally it would take two and a half years from when he, the director, would be hired until the film is released in theaters. But, when it comes to Jurassic World Rebirth, the process was anything but normal. Edwards was hired onto the film in February 2024, and now, in July 2025, the film is set for release. It's an insane, superhuman timeline for a film of this size, one that Edwards both tried to fight against but ultimately had to embrace. 'I knew basically the July 4th weekend is what they were gunning for,' Edwards told io9 over video chat. 'And I thought, 'That's just something they say,' and then they'll push it. And at the first meeting, I put my hand up and they're like, 'Gareth at the back.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, can we push the release date?' And they're like, 'No, next question.' We just weren't allowed to. We weren't even allowed to consider it.' So, that meant Edwards would have to make a Jurassic Park movie in, basically, a little over a year. 'My editor, Jabez (Olssen), put a quote on the front door of the edit suite,' Edwards continued. 'And it was from Leonard Bernstein, and it just said, 'Art is when you have a plan and not quite enough time.' And it felt like a weird thing was happening where you couldn't second-guess yourself, and nor could anyone else. You had to go with your first instincts every time.' After being hired in February, shooting began in June, and by December, they had a rough cut. 'Essentially, when we did the director's cut and we screened that at Universal, you look at the timeline ahead of us and it was like, 'We've only got two weeks to do notes.' So there's not much anyone can really say,' Edwards said. 'And they did give us this feedback, and we did it, and everyone was happy. And that was kind of the movie. It was such a weirdly straightforward process. And I think the reason for that is because it began with the screenplay David Koepp, who wrote the original Jurassic Park, had written. Everybody was pointing at that going, 'Go make that; that's what we want.' And so it was just quite a relatively smooth ride, to be honest.' Did the smooth ride pay off, though? We think the film is fun, but flawed, and other critics seem to agree, with it currently sitting at 58% on Rotten Tomatoes as of publication. Sounds like you'll have to see for yourself. Jurassic World Rebirth opens July 2. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
