Category Archives: Poetry

VA SYMPHONY HAS THEM DANCING IN THE STREETS

   On an October evening, fifty-two years, ago a seventeen year old boy wandered into UVa’s Memorial Gymnasium in Charlottesville to hear his first pop concert,  performed by a group called Matha and The Vandellas. Ever since that night, Motown has been my pop music of choice, with some space reserved  for the eternal Bob […]

November 24, 2018 – 10:19 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Current Events, Dance, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Music, Poetry, Uncategorized | Comments Off on VA SYMPHONY HAS THEM DANCING IN THE STREETS

THE VIRGINIA STAGE COMPANY: OUR TOWN AT THE WELLS

Thornton Wilder loved New Hampshire. Thornton Wilder spent parts of the summers of 1924, 1926, 1929, 1932, and 1937 as a resident of the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, the southwestern New Hampshire town known as the “real” Grover’s Corners. As a poet he loved the sounds of the words, the cadences, the tones and hesitations […]

October 19, 2018 – 11:32 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Current Events, from Paul, History, Poetry, Quotations, Theater | Comments Off on THE VIRGINIA STAGE COMPANY: OUR TOWN AT THE WELLS

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY – A THIN PLACE FOLK OPERA

Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan asked Conor McPherson, the world’s greatest English-language playwright, if he would be interested in using his songs in a theater piece. The result is the magnificent folk-opera Girl from the North Country. Critics of the work ignore the key to understanding the work’s deep center: Conor McPherson was most interested […]

October 14, 2018 – 11:23 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Books, Dance, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Poetry, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY – A THIN PLACE FOLK OPERA

NT’S CHICHESTER KING LEAR: A FATHER ABUSED, A FATHER RESCUED

  The recent discovery by University of Roehampton Shakespeare historian Glyn Parry that Shakespeare’s father, John, was driven into debt through betrayal by secret informers, may give insight into the playwright’s depiction of fathers in his plays. John Shakespeare, like Timon of Athens, had large debts and writs against him, including ones authorizing sheriffs to arrest […]

September 28, 2018 – 9:56 am | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, from Paul, History, Men and Women, Movies, Poetry, Quotations, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on NT’S CHICHESTER KING LEAR: A FATHER ABUSED, A FATHER RESCUED

LA SCALA’S GIOVANNA D’ARCO: When an Opera is a Lie

As of 2009, ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.[i] Since then most people probably won’t even guess as to her identity. And where could they learn of Joan of Arc? Schools, where any hint of Christianity is outlawed? In mainline churches, where scientific rationalism filters the majesty and mystery of […]

July 11, 2018 – 1:36 pm | By Paul Kuritz | Posted in Acting, Art, from Paul, History, Music, Opera, Poetry, The Gospel of the Kingdom, Theater, Theology | Comments Off on LA SCALA’S GIOVANNA D’ARCO: When an Opera is a Lie