Film
fromVulture
18 hours agoThe Drama Is Too Cowardly to Commit to Its Provocative Premise
The film presents a dark romantic comedy featuring complex characters and a central premise that challenges audience expectations.
Special needs summer camps are specialized programs designed for children and young adults with a range of disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, Down syndrome, and other developmental or physical challenges.
There's something powerful that happens when students step onto a stage and the entire community shows up for them. Events like this bring families, staff, and students together in a way that builds pride, connection, and a real sense of belonging.
Under the ABS challenge system, a team begins each game with two challenges. If a player gets an umpire's call overturned, their team retains the challenge. In effect, this means a team has unlimited challenges until they get two wrong.
The Sesame Workshop resources want the same for everyone. They are meant to help facilitate safe, inclusive group settings by giving children (and adults!) tips and engagement ideas for reaching out to someone, inviting others into your play, and offering encouragement to a kiddo who might feel a little uncertain or left out.
The final show I review below got me looks that made me feel like a fish in a bowl. First, the private security at the door had two Valiant rent-a-cops who scowling at me-and only me-with that same 'Give me an excuse!' glare I've gotten from real cops all my life.
In one hour of drag, clown, and desperation, Señor Babyhead presents his Día de Muertos Especial. It's a journey across the Sonoran Desert in which Babyhead encounters artifacts, mirages, and spirits. Who is Señor Babyhead? Only Mexico's most (washed up) famous sitcom star, desperate to stay relevant and avoid becoming an artifact, himself.
Drawing on childhood memories, folk art, and nature, the London-based illustrator and model maker creates expressive sculptures and puppets that inhabit dreamlike realms. Invoking historical costumes and cartoonish and emotive faces, Johnston's otherworldly cast seems both familiar and strange, as if children's book protagonists have sprung to life or converged with a strange dream.
Research has shown there is a reading for pleasure crisis among children in the UK, where enjoyment of books has fallen to its lowest level in two decades. Not so here at Christ Church primary, a tiny Church of England school tucked behind the maze of HS2 construction works in Camden, north London, where children fizz with excitement about books.
The idea for Canopy really began with a very personal experience. I gave birth to my first baby in New York City on March 24, 2020, right in the earliest days of the pandemic when the city was in full 'shelter in place.' Overnight, there were no playgroups, no mom gatherings, no places to go with a baby. The normal ways that parents meet each other and find support totally disappeared.
Step into the world of expressive mischief, silent stories, and wild transformation! Church of Clown invites you to our end-of-term student showcase-an evening of original performances born from the worlds of clown and buffoon. It's a celebration of what happens when bold imagination meets embodied storytelling.
Through Disney Musicals in Schools' Stage Connect, educators are given free resources like show scripts, music tracks and training that give them the confidence they need to produce a school musical. The program makes musicals and bringing the magic of Disney into public schools more accessible for all.
The production that just opened at OSF, directed by Marcela Lorca, is the best I have seen. Working with a strong cast and a spectacular movement and design team, this production crackles with vitality and originality.
Jackie Smook has spent years crafting characters and props for "Dilly's World," her whimsical web series and touring theatrical show about a girl confronting big issues with the help of some puppet friends. Her life's work was stolen early Monday when thieves swiped a shipping box containing many of her puppets from outside her Beachwood Canyon apartment. Among the missing are Angus the bassist, Phyllis the mail-delivering puppet, Holstein, who was holding an intricate saxophone prop, and Dumont, who had a television stand.
The concept of the BANI World was proposed by Jamais Cascio in 2018 and further refined in 2020 to describe four major characteristics of future society: Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible. Compared to the previous VUCA ( Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and A mbiguity) World, the BANI World more accurately depicts the increasingly complex and volatile global situation and trends. "Brittle" refers to social systems being more susceptible to shocks and damage, often accompanied by the risk of sudden collapse.
When the Academy Award Nominations were announced late last month, you could be forgiven for thinking they were lifetime achievement awards. In the Best Supporting Actor category, 74-year-old Stellan Skarsgård is competing against 73-year-old Delroy Lindo. (Sean Penn, at 65, and Benicio Del Toro, at 58, also in the category, are mere babes.) Amy Madigan, 75, is up for Best Supporting Actress. One of the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees is in their sixties, and one of the Best Original Screenplay nominees is in his seventies.
Worries, fears, hang-ups, and desires are translated through highly skilled puppetry, as interview scenes cast puppet couples talking about their sex lives. Written by Mark Down of Blind Summit, a cohort of exceptional makers and puppeteers expanding the definition of a puppet, this collaboration with the UK's National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles pulls from real-life conversations to get puppets talking dirty.
When Palo Alto Players Artistic Director Patrick Klein learned that a stage version of Dan Brown's 2003 bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code was out in the world, he had to know more. Trekking out to Houston's Alley Theatre last fall for their production provided clarity, leading to his own company's regional Bay Area premiere. How can this dense novel become something to see on stage?