The lives of actors are idiosyncratic things, and you just never know when (or if) a big break is going to come along. It happened to Michael Keaton with his breakout role in Birdman. And if Caddyshack hadn’t come along, Rodney Dangerfield would never have gotten a chance to make Easy Money and Back to School. (And we all know what a loss that would have been.)Read More
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In this month’s Sponsor Spotlight, we’re shining a light on Music Hall Presents series sponsor Hampton Ford-Hyundai. This season, our Music Hall Presents series has featured everything from the Big Apple Circus to explosive Japanese drummers in Tao: Seventeen Samurai. This month, we’re looking forward to Music Hall Presents shows Celtic Nights: Spirit of Freedom, The Moth Mainstage, and Moscow Festival Ballet: Sleeping Beauty. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Hampton Ford-Hyundai on this series, and I recently had the opportunity to learn more about the dealership from its president Jay McFarland.Read More
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I’m a big fan of the shows at the Loft, it’s like being the first one to know a secret. As I scan through the many lists of the Best Artists You Haven’t Heard of Yet I alway smile to myself as I count the ones that we’ve welcomed to our intimate theater on Congress Street.Read More
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Documentary movie maker Michael Moore is a mess. He looks like an unmade bed, except when he dresses up, and then he looks like the pillow-man that escaping convicts leave in their cells to fool the guards. His films are also frequently a mess. But when a director has Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine (which won the 2003 Oscar for Best Documentary) among his credits, it makes sense to pay attention when a new film of his appears.Read More
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When I first came to The Music Hall I thought that I was going to spend my days marketing upcoming shows and expanding my music taste. For me, The Music Hall was a concert venue that brought in a lot of shows and filled the town with tourists. I quickly learned that the theater is so much more than that. While we bring in so many amazing concerts, authors, and comedians, we also work to start and facilitate conversations on issues that impact our community.Read More
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So, Spike Lee.
Spike Lee is a filmmaker who loves to put a burr under people’s saddle. From She’s Gotta Have It in 1986 through Do the Right Thing in 1989 (arguably his masterpiece, at least in terms of controversy) to Malcolm X in 1992 and Bamboozled in 2000, Lee produced a string of accomplished films on black themes that got crossways with lots of people.Read More
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Sitting in a coffee shop in Portsmouth earlier this week I was discussing our upcoming Let’s Talk About Poverty event with the panelists, Beth Mattingly Director of Research on Vulnerable Families at The University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Carsey School of Public Policy, Kristy Martino, from Results.org, Deborah Anthony, Executive Director of Seacoast Family Food Pantry, and Craig Welch, Executive Director of the Portsmouth Housing Authority. The topics: what each of these four panelists would be presenting; how the event was going to work; how we were going to talk about what can seem like an overwhelming problem, and how we can take action. We talked for over an hour and a half about everything from causes to challenges, from simple fixes to systemic problems.Read More
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