Fresh off the successful and widely acclaimed introduction of a new logo and slogan, “Size Doesn’t Matter,” the state tourism agency announced plans to convert Rhode Island into a theme park. “Once we discovered that the Rhode Island economy was so far in the tank that we couldn’t afford electricity, we decided to make the […]
Racism is the curse of American history and slavery was America’s original sin. Abraham Lincoln warned that expiating the sin of slavery might demand that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.” Seven score and 11 years later, #BlackLivesMatter is a hashtag adopted as the […]
The first warning Burbage Theatre Company’s Titus Andronicus was not to be the usual Shakespeare performance was seeing everyone in the front rows at a sold-out show covering themselves with dark green, plastic, 30-gallon trash bags because they were in the “splatter zone.” Although the play is notoriously Shakespeare’s bloodiest, Burbage presents the extraordinary goriness […]
Rhode Island-based independent film director Richard Griffin knows how to make movies, and he’s made over 20 of them. In his latest outing presented at a sold-out world premiere at the Route One Cinema Pub in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, on Sunday, February 21, he set out to recreate his beloved 1980s schlock horror even more […]
A large crowd, initially about 100 but growing to about 150 despite wind-whipped bitter cold and light snow that began falling an hour into the event, assembled on the Smith Street side of the Rhode Island State House for a scheduled rally at 4pm on Tuesday, February 23, to protest Governor Gina Raimondo’s proposed changes […]
Combining a screening of the film Deli Man with an actual “pop-up” deli traveling from New York City, the Jewish Alliance of Rhode Island will host the aptly-named “A Night at the Deli” on the PVD East Side on Thursday, Feb. 18. Deli Man is a documentary about, according to its web site, “More than […]
Few issues have proven hotter controversies than the proposal by Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo to impose per-plant taxes and other restrictions on individual growers of medical marijuana. As a journalist, I’ve been asking fundamental questions about the proposal, and I’m not getting a lot of answers. Spokesmen for the state have pushed back against […]
The Rhode Island medical marijuana law has been on the books since 2006 but still remains controversial. As part of the fiscal year ending 2017 state budget proposed by Governor Gina Raimondo on Feb. 3, although structured as a budget bill, H. 7454 Article 14 (pages 194 through 229) makes numerous substantive changes to the […]
Despite its Homeric inspiration, Happy Birthday, Wanda June is not a play that wallows in subtlety, as emphasized in its opening lines: “This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing – and those who don’t.” In the hands of Burbage Theatre Company, it’s a well-acted, viciously funny comedy, a dark satire that shows […]
It was, fittingly, early December when I began to contemplate my own mortality. There was always a vague awareness that nothing lasts forever, but I am descended from a family of hardy stock, a number crossing the century mark. Bad luck can fell anyone, but in my relative youth I had no expectation that I […]