LINCOLN CENTER

David Geffen Hall
New York Philharmonic

Juanjo Mena - Conductor
James Ehnes - Violin

Beethoven - Violin Concerto
Bruckner - Symphony No. 6

When James Ehnes plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, “the Mount Everest of violin concertos,” his playing is “as creamy as could be. ... I could have listened to the cadenza all day long” (San Diego Reader).One thrilling work follows another: Bruckner’s majestic Symphony No. 6, filled with his signature compelling soundscapes.

THEATER

Winter Garden Theater
School of Rock

Trailer for the School of Rock...

Based on the hit film, School of Rock follows Dewey Finn (Alex Brightman in what The Hollywood Reporter calls “a hilarious, star-making performance”). A failed, wannabe rock star, Dewey decides to earn a few extra bucks by posing as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school. There he turns a class of straight-A students into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band.

Featuring 14 new songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber and all the original songs from the movie, School of Rock is a full-throttle tribute to the power of music. The Huffington Post raves, “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new musical blows the roof off the theater!” and Time Out New York cheers, “School’s in – FOREVER!”

“For those about to love School of Rock, we salute you!” (Time Out New York). This hit Broadway musical is a New York Times Critics’ Pick and “an inspiring jolt of energy, joy and mad skillz!” (Entertainment Weekly). Reuters raves ”Andrew Lloyd Webber has Broadway rocking!”

LINCOLN CENTER

Jazz at Lincoln Center - Rose Hall
Our Love is Here to Stay: The George Gershwin Songbook

A true giant of American song, the music of George Gershwin is celebrated by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis in a program that makes evident Gershwin’s perpetual significance in American culture. While Gershwin’s hundreds of compositions span the sweep of American music, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will treat you to a contemporary feast of jazz-influenced pieces by one of the most inventive and iconic songwriters of all times.

But Not For Me arranged by Sherman Irby Embraceable You arranged by Bill Finnegan Fascinating Rhythm arranged by William Russo I Got Rhythm arranged by Don Redman
I’ve Got A Crush On You arranged by Andy Farber
Lady Be Good
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off arranged by Vincent Gardner
The Man I Love arranged by Andy Farber
Nice Work If You Can Get It arranged by Ted Nash
Rhapsody in Blue arranged by Billy Strayhorn
Rialto Ripples George Gershwin & Will Donaldson arranged by Christopher Crenshaw
They Can’t Take That Away From Me George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin arranged by Carlos Henriquez
Who Cares? (So Long As You Care For Me) arranged by Victor Goines

“George Gershwin wanted to expose him- self to and explore as many different genres or forms as possible. He was a Tin Pan Alley guy, a serious orchestrator, a student of the piano. He had a wonderful gift for conjuring melodies directly out of the American experience, and could put these American sounds into a classical structure or framework. The American-ness of his thematic material is why his songs are easy to improvise on; the repetitive nature of his themes gives you a lot of room for manipu- lation and syncopation and imposition of rhythm. You hear these themes a million times on ‘Rhapsody In Blue,’ but they don’t become boring, because they are so fresh and audacious.” —Marcus Roberts

“George Gershwin’s early experiences of New York’s musical melting pot greatly shaped his musical abilities. He listened to various stride pianists and jazz pianists in his formative years and had a very powerful left hand. Sometimes the chord progres- sions came first, from which, especially in the early days, he’d sometimes construct the melodies, which have stronger ‘jazz changes’ than, let’s say, Richard Rodgers or Sigmund Romberg or whomever. The songs are indestructible. They contain an essence that still has a musical pertinence and can be interpreted for any time.”
— Michael Feinstein 

Jazz at Lincoln Center Performs Night of Gershwin

The rhythm was absolutely fascinating at the Rose Theater over this past weekend as the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by its virtuoso artistic director Wynton Marsalis--the Pied-Piper trumpeter of America's signature musical art form--reinvigorated the George Gershwin songbook with all its ragtime and stride-piano splendor. 

Gershwin may have been one of the progenitors of the Jazz Age, but he is remembered mostly for his popular songs and Broadway show tunes ("Embraceable You") and orchestral compositions ("Rhapsody in Blue"), many of which were steeped in the improvisational time signatures of jazz--but, unlike the manic chord changes of "I Got Rhythm," were not actually jazz.

But that's not true when Marsalis and his merry band of Dixieland tricksters took the Gershwin classics and reinterpreted them into the swinging, groove melodies and blue note harmonies of a genuine jazz concert. The Rose Theater was bathed in the echoes of another era, when swing was king and big brass bands and New Orleans jazz found common ground in New York. It was as thrilling to watch and toe-tap as it was to simply listen and marvel at how Gershwin's Tin Pan Alley days led to this majestic evening at the Rose Theater.

Our Love Is Here To Stay: The George Gershwin Songbook, was co-directed by Victor Goines, a tenor saxophonist and longtime Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra member, and Chris Crenshaw, a trombonist who, along with Vincent Gardner (who also sang) and Elliot Mason, made sure that their trombones, so often consigned to the blue collar section of the orchestra, finally received their due. The audience was reminded that Gershwin's music could dispense with violins and depend instead on big brass sounds and not miss a beat. Goines and Crenshaw introduced each song with lively anecdotes about the Gershwin brothers, including the musicals and movies in which the songs first appeared, and who performed them.
For a couple of musicians, Goines and Crenshaw made for charming emcees. 

There were some wonderful improvisational solos by bassist Carlos Henriques, especially on "They Can't Take That Away From Me," alto saxophonist Sherman Irby on "But Not For Me," and a stirring sax instrumental from Goines on "Summertime" from Porgy & Bess.

It was a treat to hear the orchestral masterpiece "Rhapsody in Blue" all jazzed up, and an early ragtime song from the Gershwin catalog, "Rialto to Ripples." Many of the Gershwin classics were performed with fresh arrangements, some by members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra itself. 

It was an elegant evening befitting the man who has come to personify the velvety jazz cool of the Roaring Twenties. Gershwin would have been enchanted by what Marsalis and his instrumentalist friends had done with his music. And for a moment, the hip-hop haze of this millennium, with its beat-boxing and pilfered sampling, was drowned out by the magic of pure musicianship performed at the Rose Theater.

Sensational nights of memorable music have become a ritual at Jazz at Lincoln Center, a true jewel of the New York cultural arts scene. With Greg Scholl as its Executive Director, and Marsalis, the soul of the American jazz scene, providing the artistry and marquee name, this is one New York City attraction that is becoming more relevant each year it rolls out its roster of sumptuous performances.

RECITAL

Marble Collegiate Church
Organ Recital Series

RECITAL

Carnegie Hall
Denis Matsuev

• Tchaikovsky - The Seasons
• Schumann - Kreisleriana, Op. 16
• Stravinsky - Three Movements from Pétrouchka

  Denis Matsuev to perform his 10th solo recital at Carnegie Hall

  Russian virtuoso is no stranger to the Big Apple.

  
  

  Today, on January 27, Russian virtuoso pianist Denis Matsuev will give his 10th solo recital at Carnegie Hall in New York in the United States according to the TASS Russian news agency.

  
  

  “My American tours have been some of my favorite performances over the past 15 years, especially on such a significant stage as Carnegie Hall,” Matsuev says. “Today’s performance is special. This is my 10^th solo recital at this venue.”

  
  

  According to Matsuev, every performance at this theater is a special honor for him. “It opened in 1891 with a concert of the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky also performed here,” he recalls. “Carnegie Hall has its own special aura.”

  
  

  Every time Matsuev plays Carnegie Hall, he draws up a new program for the audience, never repeating himself. At today’s concert the musician will perform Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana and three fragments from Stravinsky’s Petrushka ballet. “This is one of my favorite programs,” Matsuev says.

  
  

  The pianist says that he has a “warm long-term relationship” with the U.S. “I love American audiences, New York City especially and look forward to our meetings with enthusiasm and impatience,” Matsuev adds.

  
  

  A Carnegie Hall spokesperson stated that it is always a great honor for American audiences to welcome Matsuev. “He is a virtuoso in the grandest Russian tradition of pianism,” the Carnegie Hall website reads.

"Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons is a collection of pieces that depict each month of the year. From January’s “By the Fireside” to the sleigh bells of November and December, Tchaikovsky’s sweet melodies and gentle tone delight. Schumann’s Kreisleriana is a collection of eight miniatures inspired by Johannes Kreisler, a fictitious character who appears in the writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Like the mercurial Kreisler, the music’s moods shift from the tempestuous to the darkly pensive. Stravinsky’s piano transcriptions of the “Russian Dance,” “Pétrouchka’s Room,” and “Shrovetide Fair” from his great ballet are stunning showpieces that make daunting technical demands of the performer."

The Barcarolle from the Tchaikovsky piece...

Since his triumph in 1998 at the 11th International Tchaikovsky Competition, Denis Matsuev has become a virtuoso in the grandest Russian tradition of pianism and has quickly established himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation.

Mr. Matsuev appears with the world's best-known orchestras, such as the Chicago, Pittsburgh, and London symphony orchestras; the New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles philharmonic orchestras; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Berliner Philharmoniker; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; the BBC Symphony Orchestra; and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Mr. Matsuev also collaborates with the world's most prominent conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov, Kurt Masur, Paavo Järvi, Leonard Slatkin, Myung-whun Chung, Antonio Pappano, Semyon Bychkov, Iván Fischer, Ádám Fischer, Gianandrea Noseda, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, James Conlon, Vladimir Spivakov, Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yuri Bashmet, and Yuri Simonov, among others.

Mr. Matsuev is a frequent guest at such music festivals as the Verbier, Lucerne, and Montreux festivals in Switzerland; BBC Proms and Edinburgh International festivals in Great Britain; Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, and Baden-Baden festivals in Germany; Chorégies d'Orange and Festival de la Rogue d'Anthéron in France; Ravinia and the Hollywood Bowl in the US; Chopin Festival in Poland; Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and MITO Festival in Italy; Enescu Festival in Romania; Baltic Sea Festival in Sweden; and Stars of the White Nights in Russia. Mr. Matsuev has also been a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra since 1995.

Mr. Matsuev has led numerous musical festivals and educational projects. Since 2004, he has organized Stars on Baikal in Irkutsk, Siberia, and in 2009 he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Irkutsk. Since 2005, he has been the artistic director of Crescendo, a series of events held in international cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Tel Aviv, Kaliningrad, Paris, and New York. In 2010, he became the artistic director of the Annecy Classical Festival in France; in 2012, he became the artistic director of the first International Astana Piano Passion Festival and Competition; and in 2013, he became the artistic director of the International Festival and Competition Sberbank Debut in Kiev. In addition, Mr. Matsuev is the president of the charitable Russian foundation New Names, which discovers and supports talented children and helps develop music education throughout regions of his native Russia.

At the invitation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's grandson Alexander Rachmaninoff, Mr. Matsuev has collaborated with the Sergei Rachmaninoff Foundation, performing and recording unknown pieces by Rachmaninoff on the composer's own piano at his house in Lucerne, known as Villa Senar. Mr. Matsuev has since become the artistic director of the foundation.

Mr. Matsuev is the recipient of awards that include the Presidential Council for Culture and Art's Honored Artist of Russia, the prestigious Shostakovich Prize in Music, and the State Prize of the Russian Federation in Literature and Arts. He is a People's Artist of Russia and an honorary professor at Moscow State University, and was recently appointed head of the Public Council under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. In February 2014, he performed at the closing ceremony of the XXII Winter Olympics in Sochi. In April 2014, Mr. Matsuev was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY  The Seasons, Op. 37b

Although comparatively little-known and seldom heard in the concert hall, this suite of 12 short character pieces—one for each month of the year—is among Tchaikovsky’s most exquisitely crafted creations. When they were first published serially in a Russian music magazine in 1876, each piece was accompanied by a seasonally evocative snippet of poetry, selected by the magazine’s editor with Tchaikovsky’s approval.

ROBERT SCHUMANN  Kreisleriana, Op. 16

The eight fantasy-like pieces that make up Schumann’s Kreisleriana were inspired by Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, a fictional half-crazed musician created by the great German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann. The workpays homage to Kreisler and also reflects the contrasting personalities of Schumann’s fictitious alter egos: the stormy, impulsive Florestan and the dreamy, ruminative Eusebius.

IGOR STRAVINSKY  Three Movements from Pétrouchka

Pétrouchka is the second of three wildly successful ballets inspired by Russian folklore that made Stravinsky a household name in Paris before World War I. After the war, the composer collaborated with Arthur Rubinstein to create the brilliantly virtuosic piano suite Three Movements fromPétrouchka, based on episodes from the ballet. Rubinstein recalled that when Stravinsky played the work, he made “it sound as I heard it by the orchestra more than as a piano piece.”

LINCOLN CENTER

Alice Tully Hall
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Four Pianos

Alessio Bax - Piano
Juho Pohjonen - Piano
Orion Weiss - Piano
Wu Qian - Piano

Arensky - Silhouettes, Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 23 (1892)
Bartok - The Miraculous Mandarin for Piano, Four Hands, Op. 19 (1918-19)
Lutoslawski - Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Two Pianos (1941)
Rachmaninov - Symphonic Dances for Two Pianos, Op. 45 (1940)


Four exceptional CMS pianists share the stage (and sometimes, piano!), performing works that range from playful to fiery. Symphonic sonorities and astounding technical skill are sure to guarantee a mesmerizing evening.

Website about performance...

The day after the big snow storm.  It's clear, cold, and white.

LINCOLN CENTER

David Koch Theater
New York City Ballet

Balanchine II

Today is the first winter storm in NYC and it's a doozy.  Cold, snow, and wind.

I'm up early, before sunrise, and I cannot see the lights of buildings nor than 3-4 blocks away.  The snow is thick and blowing.

We followed the NYCB website and all was well regarding today's performances.  We walked to Penn Station, rode the 1 train to 66th and Lincoln Center.  When we got to the door they told us the show wasn't going to happen.  The reason... Subways were all closing at 4:00 PM.

Then a bit of video from our building's terrace...

The Governor closing New York City down!

The performance we didn't see!

• 

  Walpurgisnacht Ballet

  • Music by: Charles Gounod
  • Choreography by: George Balanchine, staged by Brigitte Thom
  • 
    

  Balanchine once famously said "ballet is woman," and in Walpurgisnacht Ballet he sends 24 women soaring across the stage with wild abandon.

  
  

  
  

  • 

    Sonatine

    • Music by: Maurice Ravel
    • Choreography by: George Balanchine
    •  

    The polished simplicity and emotional interplay of the rarely-seen Sonatine evokes the elegance of the French artists on which it was made.
  • 

    Mozartiana

    • Music by: Peter Ilyitch Tschaikovsky
    • Choreography by: George Balanchine 
    • 
      

    Mozartiana’s prayerful opening will touch your spirit and the upbeat theme and variations that follows builds to pure exhilaration.
  • 

    Symphony in C

    • Music by: Georges Bizet
    • Choreography by: George Balanchine
    • 
      

    Culminating with a grand classical showpiece, Symphony in C sparkles with over 50 dancers covered in Swarovski elements, a spectacular finale to a brilliant program.

    
    

    
    

  
  

  
  

RECITAL

Symphony Space
Steinway Salon

Azusa Ueno - Piano

4 Impromptus, D. 899 (1827) by Franz Schubert
No. 1 in C minor
No. 2 in E-flat major
No. 3 in G-flat major
No. 4 in A-flat major

Jeux d'eau (1901) by Maurice Ravel

Sonata no. 6 in A major, op. 82 (1940) by Sergei Prokofiev

"The White Peacock" from Roman Sketches (1915) by Charles Griffes

"Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" from Four North American Ballads (1979) by Frederic Rzewski

"Known for combining artistry and creativity in her performances, Azusa Ueno has made concert appearances in New York City (Steinway Hall, The World Financial Center, Trinity Church of Wall Street, The Harvard Club of New York City), Los Angeles, Connecticut, New Jersey, and internationally in Japan and the Czech Republic. She has won numerous awards including top prizes in the Miecyslaw Munz Competition, Hartford Symphony Orchestra Young Artist Competition, and the Juilliard Gina Bachauer Competition. She was also the recipient of the Jepheson Educational Trust and Doctoral Teaching Fellowships at the Manhattan School of Music.

Azusa received her doctoral degree from Manhattan School of Music in May 2015, where her dissertation was a psycho-biography that explored the music of American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes. She has studied at the Juilliard School and holds a degree in social psychology from Yale University. Her teachers have included the late Zenon Fishbein and Herbert Stessin.

In June 2014, Azusa was sponsored by the Embassy of Japan to perform for the Japanese Ambassador at the National Opera Ball in Washington, DC. A sought-after lecturer, she has also presented on the works of Charles Griffes at Manhattan School of Music, Steinway Piano Gallery in Westport, Connecticut and at the Clemens Center in Elmira, New York in 2015.

An avid collaborative pianist, Azusa has performed the complete Schubert song cycles. She was also appointed Assistant Music Director of a contemporary chamber opera, A Certain Quiet by Haim Elisha, that received 12 successful performances at NYC's Theater for the New City in May 2015."

On the subway ride home we had a second performance.  Watch...

Notice the man behind and between them.  He was and remained asleep!

PERFORMANCE

Morgan Library
Young Concert Artists Series

The Hermes Quartet

Mozart - Quartet No. 14 in G Major, K. 387 “Spring” 
Schubert - Quartet No. 14 in D minor “Death and the Maiden”

    ‟Young Concert Artists has acquired a special status in the musical world, and deservedly so. Its auditions and concerts have brought to public attention a steady stream of remarkable musicians.

          It is extremely doubtful that any organization anywhere could have matched the YCA record for spotting great talent and helping it along.”

                                                                                      – THE NEW YORK TIMES

The quartet was wonderful!  Carolyn described it as one of those sought after transcendental moments we seek in NYC.

Following the performance in the auditorium we went to the Morgan Library upstairs where we saw the actual manuscript written by Schubert of the piece we'd just heard.  Amazing!

LINCOLN CENTER

The Appel Room
Fred Hersch & Friends - Intimate Moments

It was a wonderful evening.  There was a small reception in which 14 people got to spend about 30 minutes with Doug Hosney, the man who runs all of the venues at Jazz at Lincoln Center.  He's from Kansas and just a decent, great guy.

Fred Hersch is a very talented, gentle man.  Here you can hear his encore.

Encore by Fred Hersch...

The other musicians that played with Hersch were also just wonderful.  We are swimming in a sea of talent.

"Mr. Hersch, a sensitive and lyrical pianist, has cultivated a tradition of inquisitive duologue, often over the course of a club booking. This weekend he’ll take that premise to a grander setting, working with two younger virtuosi, the clarinetist Anat Cohen and the guitarist Julian Lage. Opening each concert is one of Mr. Hersch’s accomplished former piano students, Sullivan Fortner, with Stefon Harris on vibraphone."

Acclaimed pianist and composer Fred Hersch has put forth some of the most arrestingly beautiful solo and trio projects in the last ten years. To that, add the most gorgeous backdrop in New York City via The Appel Room, and you’ve got the recipe for an evening of unmatched elegance. The eight-time GRAMMY® Award nominee enlists a multigenerational ensemble of world-class players in a variety of combinations, including several intimate duos. At the start of the show, Sullivan Fortner – Hersch’s protégé and winner of the 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship – will perform both solo and in duet with vibraphonist extraordinaire Stefon Harris. Hersch will then take the stage for the rest of the evening, treating audiences to one of his renowned solo performances as well as duets with two exemplary musicians: clarinetist Anat Cohen and guitarist Julian Lage. It’s “You and the Night and the Music” on one of the most sensuous evenings of the season.

Here you can hear Fred Hersch...

From our seats you are sitting in the Appel Theater at Columbus Circle in the Time Warner Building looking eastward down 59th toward 5th Avenue.  Central Park is to the left of 59th while Midtown is to the right.  We often walk down Broadway, or another Avenue, from 59th to our apartment on 32nd.  Or we simply go down into the subway station under Columbus Circle and ride 3 stops until we get to Greeley Plaza which is 32nd Street where we live.

THEATER

Playwrights Horizon
Marjorie Prime

A video trailer for Marjorie Prime...

"Here’s one of many questions raised by Marjorie Prime—Jordan Harrison’s 2015 Pulitzer finalist play—about artificial intelligence. Assume it’s the year 2062, and technology has advanced so far that exact physical replicas of beloved dead folks can be created, allowing them to sooth the grieving hearts of those left behind. Moreover, while they can be brought back at any age one chooses, those who’ve obtained them need to provide all the memories required in order to maintain purposeful communication. Do you think you could tell such a creature everything it would need to know in order to convincingly replicate the person it represents? And could that being ever reciprocate with real feelings? But that’s one of many other questions.

In Marjorie Prime, Harrison confronts the emotional and psychological ramifications of what such intimate relationships between flesh and blood humans and technological humans might entail. The play introduces us to octogenarian Marjorie (played by octogenarian Lois Smith), born in 1977, a role she created for the play’s 2014 premiere at Los Angeles’s Mark Taper Forum. Marjorie, suffering from dementia but more or less still in command of her faculties, engages in pleasantries with a handsome, polite, but ever-so-slightly odd, 30-year-old man who, we discover, is the “prime” (a clone-like robot) of her late husband, Walter (Noah Bean). He’s been provided for her comfort by her tense, middle-aged daughter Tess (Lisa Emery) and Tess’s more grounded husband Jon (Stephen Root).

Walter shares memories, some of them uncertain, designed to comfort Marjorie in her declining years and keep her brain exercised; he also absorbs the memories that Marjorie feeds him so he can become ever more companionable. Tess has doubts about his usefulness; Jon believes his presence has great value, at least at first. Eventually, a prime of Marjorie herself, as she was before she died, but without her ailments, will serve Tess’s needs, and, when Tess is gone, Jon will have a prime of her. What happens to the primes themselves forms the most interesting scene in the play.

Futurism is barely noticeable in the show’s subtle look. The 80-minute production unfolds in a mint green and white, sparsely decorated, antiseptic open plan apartment (facility?), designed by Laura Jellinek. A large kitchen is upstage, a lone Lazy-Boy recliner (later replaced by a more stylish chair) is downstage, and there’s a sitting area. Jessica Pabst’s costumes look like what people wear today. Daniel Kluger’s chilly sound design and Ben Stanton’s evocative lighting create a sinister mood, especially during transitions, when furnishings are shifted almost invisibly. (For some reason, though, headphone-wearing stagehands do the job toward the end, damaging the illusion.)

Since there’s a general coolness to director Anne Kaufmann’s production, and the backstories of the characters aren’t particularly engrossing, the difference between the humans and the primes might have worked better if the characters were more down-to-earth or unusual than the superficial ones in the play. The musically voiced Smith offers in Marjorie a precise picture of an intelligent woman watching herself descend into physical and mental frailty. When she reappears as a prime, her appearance is better and spirit livelier, but there’s the same subtle artificiality about her as we saw in Walter as she seeks the knowledge required to fulfill her mission. Bean, who resembles a young David Bowie, makes a perfect human simulacrum, and Root and Emery do what they can with characters who seem more like attitudes than people.

Harrison wisely remains opaque about the androids’ technical details, forcing you to fill in the dots. His premise is wide open for speculation and debate; if you go with someone you’ll surely be talking about it afterward, regardless of how much the play itself did or didn’t dramatically satisfy you.

THEATER

The Pearl Theater
The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis

C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters is a smart, provocative and wickedly funny theatrical adaptation of the C.S. Lewis novel about spiritual warfare from a demon’s point of view.

The play, set in an eerily stylish office in Hell, follows the clever scheming of one of Satan’s senior tempters, Screwtape. He advises his nephew, a junior tempter, on enticing an unsuspecting human “patient” toward damnation. In this topsy-turvy, morally inverted universe, God is the “Enemy” and the Devil is “Our Father below.” The stakes are high as human souls are Hell’s primary source of food.