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 […]
Most lists of states likely to end prohibition within the next couple of years do not include Rhode Island, mainly because there is no opportunity for popular initiative referenda on the ballot, the proven route to success so far elsewhere: If Rhode Island is going to do it, the impetus will have to come from […]
A new and original work of prodigious audacity, Planet Christmas by Contemporary Theater Company playwright-in-residence Andy Hoover, is unlike any holiday-themed stage production you’ve ever seen. It draws from a diverse variety of sources ranging from H.G. Wells to Leonard Cohen, sometimes planting allusions so obscure that, like James Joyce, Hoover seems to be playing […]
I’ve long contended that the overwhelming factor that accounts for the consistent increase in college tuition at about three times the rate of inflation over at least the past 30 years is, paradoxically, the availability of financial aid: By increasing the supply of financial aid money, the government created a perverse incentive for colleges to […]
An impressively minimalist take on a very familiar story, Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol, written by playwright Tom Mula and performed by the Rhode Island Stage Ensemble (RISE) employs four actors, almost no props and a set consisting of nothing more than a few boxes, a platform, a table and a chair. It, therefore, throws all-in, […]