All stories by Bill Marx on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Fuse News World Book Review: “The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra” — A River of Consciousness by Bill Marx

"The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra" is a compelling celebration of art as a force of nature, a fragile yet indomitable demand for possibility despite the constraints of a torpid existence.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:06AM
Thursday, July 18, 2013

Fuse News: Who Will Fight for the Survival of Arts Education in Our Schools? by Bill Marx

Efforts to ensure that arts education is a significant part of our schools is not the kind of glamorous activity that prys dollars out of the wallets of donors or drums up tourism.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:49AM
Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: CSC’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” — A Cuddly Pair of Rats by Bill Marx

The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is spunky and engaging -- but the play is spun in one direction, away from its weird edginess.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:34PM
Monday, July 8, 2013

Fuse Book/Theater Review: Vladimir Nabokov Does That Shakespearean Rag by Bill Marx

Nabokov will become much more seriously playful about extinction and the nature of love in the increasingly complex fables to come. "The Tragedy of Mr. Morn" is his initial earnest fairy tal…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:08AM
Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Fuse Book Review: Building “The Wired City” — Journalism’s Future? by Bill Marx

Dan Kennedy could have written a book that extols the "Huffington Post," WGBH, or Patch as the future of serious community journalism. He doesn't, which means that he is on the side of the a…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:55AM
Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Fuse Editorial: The Magazine Heads into its Seventh Year — The State of the Fuse is Strong by Bill Marx

It turns out that budding arts writers are anxious to learn how to master the demanding nuts and bolts of reviewing, especially given how few examples of first-rate criticism can be found in…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:03PM
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Fuse Jazz News: Happy 99th Birthday Sun Ra! A Local Celebration Tonight by Bill Marx

Come celebrate the music of Sun Ra: legendary jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet, theatrical ringmaster, and lyricist of the extra terrestrial.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:13AM
Monday, May 20, 2013

Fuse News: How Loud Does David Koch’s Money Talk in Boston? by Bill Marx

Mayer's report deals with David Koch throwing his weight around at WNET and PBS. Unfortunately, she does not talk about whether Koch's powerful presence has influenced WGBH.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 05:02PM
Friday, May 17, 2013

Fuse News: The Perfect Book Review — Making Things Hot for Dan Brown’s “Inferno” by Bill Marx

Deadpan sarcasm perfectly pitched, absurdity of target (and publisher) punctured with a minimum of muss and fuss.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:44AM
Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Fuse Commentary/Review: “Writing the Record” — Making Rock Criticism Safe for the Seminar Room by Bill Marx

Any American arts critic worth his or her salt is part of a bohemian fringe, is aware of the political resonance of their reviews, and is dedicated to sparking serious dialogue about arts an…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:43PM
Saturday, May 11, 2013

Fuse News Theater Review: Lord of the Flies, A-levels version by Bill Marx

The Zeitgeist Stage Company provocatively lives up to its name by taking audiences into the netherworld of horrific violence via a powerful production of Simon Stephens' drama "Punk Rock."

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:25PM
Thursday, May 9, 2013

Fuse Theater News: Richard Foreman’s Bewitching Box of the Unconscious by Bill Marx

Something emotional (perhaps even passionate) whirls underneath the well-worn modernist pieties of "Old-Fashioned Prostitutes," though not to the point of disrupting the daffy routine.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:01PM
Friday, May 3, 2013

Fuse Commentary: Arts, Criticism, and the Search for a Serious Space by Bill Marx

Criticism is vital to our time because it is a form of witnessing, testimony to the possibility that the richness and joy of the arts can be articulated in ways that invite intellectual cont…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:31PM
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Fuse Book Commentary: Two Cheers for British Poet, Book Artist, and Visionary William Blake by Bill Marx

Susanne M. Sklar's study is the best exploration of William Blake's miraculously bewildering masterpiece that I know of — thoughtful, scholarly, imaginative, and supremely sympathetic to t…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:30AM
Saturday, April 27, 2013

Fuse News: Extra! Extra! Nobody’s Minding the Store at the NYTimes by Bill Marx

A system in which no one takes responsibility for editorial decisions works out great for the inside gamers, like Nathaniel Rich.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 09:39AM
Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Fuse News: Speaking Truth to Waning Power by Bill Marx

Nowhere do I say in the piece that The Arts Fuse is all good and everyone else is all bad.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:19PM
Monday, April 22, 2013

Fuse Commentary: Why is Boston’s Arts Coverage So Bland? by Bill Marx

According to our docile mainstream media, Boston enjoys a perpetual Renaissance -- the merchandise in the cultural window is always worth buying. And that predictability makes for very borin…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:43AM
Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Fuse Film Interview: “Secundaria” — Learning the Art of Ballet in Cuba by Bill Marx

Ballet program administrators in Cuba will be happy I'm telling the true story in "Secundaria," the one they're not allowed to tell themselves.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 04:02PM
Monday, April 15, 2013

Fuse Commentary: What Does the End of Newspapers Mean for the Arts in Boston? by Bill Marx

Recent changes in Boston's media landscape do not bode well for substantial coverage of the arts. What do those in the arts world think about what is happening?

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:36PM

Fuse News: Forget the Insufferable “Mr. Selfridge” — Turn to Zola’s “The Ladies’ Paradise” Instead by Bill Marx

Mr. Selfridge drives me nuts because the storyline, the rise of a mercantile empire, calls for edgy  Darwinian conflict rather than paternal benevolence sprinkled with layers of powered soa…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:29AM
Saturday, April 6, 2013

Fuse News: Wednesday Concert Series at Boston’s Church of St. John the Evangelist Ends by Bill Marx

All is not well with the classical music scene in Boston. Boston's Church of St. John the Evangelist has pulled funding from its Wednesday Concert Series.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 12:26AM
Monday, April 1, 2013

Why You Should Support The Arts Fuse by Bill Marx

If we are not diligent in maintaining high editorial standards, arts coverage will morph into misshapen forms of infotainment and advertising. Once those monstrosities are set in profitable …

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:42PM
Friday, March 29, 2013

Fuse Interview with Peter Wortsman: The German Imagination of Fear by Bill Marx

"There is a difference between blood and guts, as celebrated in the current vogue of horror-slasher flicks, and the capacity of the darkest of the Grimms’ tales to pierce the thin skin of …

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:17AM
Monday, March 25, 2013

Help The Arts Fuse Take Flight — On the Top of Taxi Cabs by Bill Marx

With your help, The Arts Fuse will launch its first-ever advertising campaign atop taxi cabs this spring. We want to encourage Greater Boston's arts and cultural communities to see the artsf…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 08:20AM
Sunday, March 10, 2013

Fuse Stage Interview: Turf Wars — “A Raisin in the Sun” and “Clybourne Park” by Bill Marx

"Clybourne Park" was expressly written to be in conversation with Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun." The former gives us a new perspective — actually new perspectives -- on the la…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 10:38AM
Saturday, March 2, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: The Indiscreet Indifference of the Bourgeoisie by Bill Marx

Both authors generate humor out of the casual inhumanity of the bourgeoise, dramatizing how the farce of middle class success distorts its victors and victims.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 02:53PM
Monday, February 18, 2013

Fuse Book Review: Bringing Nathaniel Hawthorne Home by Bill Marx

Unlike fellow apostate (and friend) Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne didn't have the chutzpah to be a proto-existentialist -- for him, it was better to cling to questionable moral pietie…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:33AM
Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Fuse Theater Interview: Israeli Dramatist Joshua Sobol on the Shock of “Sinners” by Bill Marx

"As a white atheist male I am told it is none of my business to deal with what‘s going on in the so-called de-colonized societies enforcing their religious laws on their citizens." -- Josh…

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 06:44PM
Monday, February 4, 2013

Fuse Book Interview: Sherwood Anderson — The American Bard of Inchoate Longings by Bill Marx

"What Sherwood Anderson knew and understood was the nature of inarticulate lives and what people do when they’re in the grip of strong feelings and words fail them."

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 03:13PM
Saturday, January 19, 2013

Fuse Theater Review: “Other Desert Cities” — Bridging the Great Cultural Divide? by Bill Marx

For all of its earnest interest in healing some of the great divides in American life, Other Desert Cities ends up slighting the desert spaces that lie between us.

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 11:49AM
Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Fuse Theater Feature: Bread & Puppet Theater Turns Fifty by Bill Marx

For me, the fact that Bread and Puppet Theatre has survived for 50 years is very hopeful, essentially because company members have never wavered from their principles. Imagine that. You can …

SOURCE: The Arts Fuse at 01:27PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 15, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
TBA: Titanic