The Ohio Shakespeare Festival has the end piece of its mosaic to create Shakespearean plays as close as possible to how the Bard would have done them. Now it has a permanent stage — and it looks awesome. Shakespeare wrote with one place in mind. The Festival has managed to recreate such a space outdoors in the […]

One of the most interesting features of GroundWorks Dance Theater, a Knight Arts grantee, is its ability to stage performances just about anywhere. Historically, GroundWorks had a series along the idea of dance in unusual settings, like museum lobbies, libraries, an old-fashioned icehouse. It holds to that tradition by appearing regularly during the Heinz Poll […]

Whoever would have imagined the famous Martha Graham Dance Company  performing this weekend in a field in east Akron in Goodyear Heights Metro Park? Apparently — and fortunately — Jane Startzman did. Startzman, director of the Heinz Poll Dance Festival, which is being held for the sixth year in Akron this summer, said that on […]

Summit Artspace will make it “plein” as day when it hosts the second urban outdoor landscape painting contest. On July 27-29, artists will plant their easels, pull out their paints and participate (some for the second time) in a plein air competition as they congregate at designated sites in downtown Akron to produce works of […]

Dancing in the parks. It’s a great summertime activity – and it’s free. The City of Akron has been putting on free dance performances for 37 years straight now since the former Ohio Ballet offered to tour the metropolitan park system and dance out of doors. It’s been a rousing success all that time. Since […]

Eight plays that all use a vintage microphone as part of their narrative gave some funny and ironic takes on the device in Weathervane Playhouse’s 8 x 10 Theatrefest held July 13-15 — a precious historical object of the dethroned Tsars in Joe Lauinger’s “The Silver Bullet,” a brandished sword in Barbara Bleier’s “Goodnight, Sweet […]

Old Will Shakespeare was onto something when he said, “the play’s the thing.” At the Ohio Shakespeare Festival’s  stage at the Lagoon area in Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, director Nancy Cates and company keep things to a minimum during current performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — much as plays would have been produced […]

Eight plays each lasting 10 minutes. That’s a heap of theater variety. It gets better. You can watch all eight plays for $10. That’s a no-nonsense bargain. Weathervane Playhouse, a Knight Arts grantee, will be holding its 2nd annual “8 x 10 Theatrefest” this weekend. The key to the whole thing, according to Eileen Moushey, […]

Citified music in a rural setting. Sounds great. It’s not exactly taking art to rural places for people who can’t get to the big city music halls. No one really lives all that close to where some of the musical performances are being held. It seems more about getting people out and about, luring them […]