Sunday, May 1, 2016

About last week … April 23-29 by Deborah Jones

I could be wrong but I think the only Jonathan Dove opera to have made it to a professional stage so far in Australia is Flight, which I saw in 2006 when the Adelaide Festival presented the …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:20AM
Thursday, April 7, 2016

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Deborah Jones

Queensland Ballet, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane, April 1. The second act of Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins with deliciously controlled chaos. At the behe…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:26AM
Wednesday, April 6, 2016

About last week … March 26-April 1 by Deborah Jones

A CLASH of ballet opening nights saw Queensland Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake go head to head – well, from my perspective. They were in dif…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:40AM
Monday, April 4, 2016

About last week … March 18-25 by Deborah Jones

British director Matthew Warchus had two musicals open within about four months of one another. One was Matilda the Musical, the Royal Shakespeare Company production that premiered in Stratf…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 07:54AM
Wednesday, March 30, 2016

About last week … March 10-17 by Deborah Jones

I STARTED this blog in January 2013, not long after retiring from a 25-year career at The Australian spent largely in the arts, writing, editing and reviewing. I’d been writing and reviewi…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 07:38PM

Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream arrives in Brisbane by Deborah Jones

There wouldn’t be too many 29-year-old men who know exactly where they are going to be in five years. Not in a general sense, as in being pretty sure about being promoted, or settling down…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:10AM
Friday, March 25, 2016

Daniel Gaudiello exits The Australian Ballet by Deborah Jones

When The Australian Ballet stages Stephen Baynes’s traditional Swan Lake in Sydney from April 1 for 21 performances it will field six couples in the leading roles of Odette-Odile and Siegf…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 04:14AM
Wednesday, March 16, 2016

HUANG YI & KUKA by Deborah Jones

Seymour Centre, Sydney, March 16. CAN a robot dance? It can move, of course, doing whatever its programmer has decided upon and is able to achieve technically, but is that movement dancing? …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 03:58PM

80 Minutes No Interval, Swansong by Deborah Jones

Old Fitzroy Theatre, March 15 “A SHORT show’s a good show,” critics carol to one another, pleased to discover that what we’re about to see will all be over in 60 minutes, 70 minutes,…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:19AM
Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Vitesse by Deborah Jones

The Australian Ballet, State Theatre, Melbourne, March 11. VITESSE presents three certified hits from three of the biggest names in contemporary ballet and turns the dial up as the evening p…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:59AM
Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Nelken by Deborah Jones

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Adelaide Festival, March 9. Peter Pabst’s set for Nelken is one of the most beautiful created for any theatrical event. A dense field of thousands of sil…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:21PM
Saturday, March 5, 2016

Sydney Dance Company by Deborah Jones

CounterMove. Roslyn Packer Theatre Walsh Bay, Sydney, February 29. LUX Tenebris – Light in Darkness – is the name of Rafael Bonachela’s new work but it could well have been chosen …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 09:43PM
Thursday, March 3, 2016

Royal New Zealand Ballet: Speed of Light by Deborah Jones

Auckland Arts Festival, March 2. Francesco Ventriglia was named artistic director of Royal New Zealand Ballet back in September 2014 but hasn’t been able to put his stamp on programming un…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 04:48AM
Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Apocrifu by Deborah Jones

Perth International Arts Festival, February 25. “In the beginning was the Word,” begins the Gospel according to St John, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” But whose …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 06:54AM
Sunday, February 28, 2016

Little Shop of Horrors by Deborah Jones

Luckiest Productions & Tinderbox Productions. Hayes Theatre Co, Sydney, February 23. RESISTANCE is useless Earthlings. Little Shop of Horrors is back and roaring for warm blood. Human bl…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 10:42PM
Tuesday, February 23, 2016

New work at Queensland Ballet by Deborah Jones

Dance Dialogues, Brisbane, February 20. Classical ballet is the oddest thing. It has a tiny core repertoire – fewer than 20 works; perhaps less than 15 if you’re being very strict – th…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:01AM
Monday, February 22, 2016

Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company by Deborah Jones

Perth International Arts Festival, February 11. Mostly when we see Kathak dance it is in the exhilarating contemporary form created by Akram Khan. Khan, who is of Bangladeshi heritage but bo…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:22AM
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Claire Cunningham’s Guide Gods by Deborah Jones

Victoria Hall, Fremantle, February 12 It would be so easy, one imagines, for Claire Cunningham’s Guide Gods to be bristling with anger and reproach as it considers how religion deals with …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:19AM
Sunday, February 14, 2016

Ballet at the Quarry by Deborah Jones

Five by Night, West Australian Ballet, Perth, February 10 The Quarry Amphitheatre is one of the loveliest performing arts venues in the world. The former limestone quarry is situated in bush…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:34AM
Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Double Blind by Deborah Jones

Stephanie Lake Company, Carriageworks, January 19. Melbourne, February 15-20; Brisbane, February 22. Stephanie Lake has danced with most of Australia’s best contemporary dance-makers and …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:33AM
Thursday, January 28, 2016

Meow Meow’s Little Mermaid by Deborah Jones

Sydney Festival, January 8. The Hans Christian Andersen tale on which Meow Meow has based her new show is typically gruesome: an innocent young creature gladly endures unspeakable agonies in…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:25AM
Monday, January 18, 2016

Sydney Theatre Awards 2015 by Deborah Jones

AT the Sydney Theatre Awards no one need ever fear a journalist asking them “who are you wearing” or indeed have any need of a stylist. There is no red carpet at the Paddington RSL, ther…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 10:08PM
Thursday, January 14, 2016

Michelle’s Story, a film by Meryl Tankard by Deborah Jones

In 2011 the Brisbane Festival program included the celebrated Belgian company Les Ballets C de la B with Out of Context – for Pina, a tribute to the towering choreographer who died in 2009…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:42AM
Sunday, January 10, 2016

Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich by Deborah Jones

Sydney Opera House, January 9. In 1999 Jack Anderson reviewed Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich for The New York Times, reporting that Flemish choreographer Anne Teresa De Kee…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 08:05PM
Wednesday, January 6, 2016

The festive season by Deborah Jones

THE last crumbs of Christmas cake have scarcely been brushed from the lips, the last Champagne bottles are not yet in the recycling bin and New Year’s resolutions are still full of shiny p…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:06AM
Thursday, December 31, 2015

Theatre artists of the year (and my inaugural Artist of the Year) by Deborah Jones

One person’s best is another person’s “I can’t believe we saw the same show”. Which if course we never do or can. We each bring to the theatre our history, our personality, our exp…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 12:39AM
Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Thrills and spills: the year in dance by Deborah Jones

We’ll get to the year’s most interesting work and dancers shortly but 2015 was also notable for offstage developments, particularly at Australia’s three leading classical companies, Th…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:56AM
Thursday, December 24, 2015

The Sound of Music by Deborah Jones

Capitol Theatre, Sydney, December 17. A new production of Fiddler on the Roof has just opened in New York, directed by Broadway revival rainmaker Bartlett Sher. The musical, created in 1964,…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 01:56AM
Monday, December 21, 2015

Beauty in the eye of the beholder by Deborah Jones

Revelations in New York, stars made at The Australian Ballet, Alina Cojocaru in Brisbane and more … The Australian Ballet dubbed its 2015 season A Year of Beauty. Giselle, Swan Lake, Cinde…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 07:11PM
Sunday, December 13, 2015

Taking the gift of music to Sri Lanka by Deborah Jones

Serendib, also spelled Serendip, Arabic Sarandīb, name for the island of Sri Lanka (Ceylon). The name, Arabic in origin, was recorded in use at least as early as AD 361 and for a time gai…

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 06:02PM
Friday, December 11, 2015

New Breed, Sydney Dance Company by Deborah Jones

Carriageworks, Sydney, December 9. SOMETIMES it’s about getting experience, sometimes it’s about getting the kind of exposure that can really pay dividends. Sydney Dance Company’s New …

SOURCE: deborahjones.me at 05:54AM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards