BlackBook

The last five years of a life is all about those little moments – the pensive glances across a mediocre party, the temporary despair at unexpected romantic loss, the jolt of a second’s success.  And so is the same for the off-Broadway show The Last Five Years, playing until May 18^th at Second Stage Theatre; hovering over the entire production like it’s a fishbowl isn’t going to stir you nearly as much as recalling the tiny dots of sincerity brought by the two stars – the only characters in the show: Jamie, played by Adam Kantor, and Cathy, played by Betsy Wolfe. In a show about the beginning and end of twenty-something love, the completely sung-through musical tracks a relationship in reverse; while Cathy begins at the end of it, Jamie begins at its beginning, five years back. And apart from a rare moment when they meet in the middle on a late-night boat ride in Central Park, they never sing together. The result: a he-said, she-said musical that is full of too many exuberant and heart-trampling songs for you to realize it.

I don’t read a lot of young adult fiction, but when I found out my friend Rachel Shukert was penning a trilogy of novels about young Hollywood starlets in the 1930s, I knew it was right up my alley. Known for her two hilarious memoirs, Have You No Shame and Everything Is Going to Be Great, as well as the fantastic recaps of the ill-fated Smash on Vulture, Shukert brings an astounding voice to her writing, one that is both irreverently raucous and sweetly endearing. Starstruck, Shukert’s first foray into fiction, embodies all of her traits, and it’s a fantastic look at the Golden Age of Hollywood.

There are still people out there who are sore at Yoko Ono for supposedly breaking up the Beatles, but for the rest of the left-leaning world, she's emerged over the years as quite a hero. Say what you will about her, but you can't deny that she's been awfully consistent in her support of peace. Yes, it's kind of a simple, single-issue platform, but it's also hard to argue against it. Who doesn't want peace? Of course, there are other ideas that support the concept of peace, and those include environmentalism, for which she is also a tireless advocate. With Earth Day coming up on Monday (have you done your shopping yet?) she's throwing her considerable influence behind a specific cause that has rallied many in the entertainment industry: the fight against a type of natural gas extraction method known as fracking, which kind of sounds like another bad word. There's evidence that fracking damages water supplies, and since most of us drink water, it's something to be concerned about. And so, she's organizing a celebrity-drenched event on Friday at Manhattan's ABC Carpet & Home to raise awareness and rally support for the anti-fracking cause. 

The mission statement of WAN*DER*LUST—a collaborative exhibition featuring the talents of New York artists Jody Levy, Yarrow Mazzetti, Artem Mirolevich, Reka Nyari, Peter Ruprecht and Dara Young—called to those clustered by the crowded doorway before they even set foot inside 72 Wooster Street. Scrawled in black paint on a wall just beneath the vaulted ceiling of the filling gallery, the objective of the exhibition introduced itself:

Fashion and art have long made goo-goo eyes at each other. But UNIQLO, known for doing good things, is so smitten with MoMA that it's actually gone and made a standing Friday date: as of May 3rd, the retailer will sponsor UNIQLO Free Friday Nights--with the first 1000 art lovers arriving that evening scoring a free tote bag.

A few years ago at the Tony Awards, Neil Patrick Harris famously sang of Broadway's frequently-pigeonholed appeal, pleading with his audience that "it's not just for gays anymore," that the theatre was more than the domain of people of certain faiths or sexual orientations or socioeconomic status. Of course, he was singing this at the Tony Awards, so it was kind of preaching to the choir. Anyway, the Cabaret at Roy Arias Studios may attract some very different audiences with their upcoming limited-engagement production, as Christopher Carter Sanderson directs I Hope They Serve Beer on Broadway, in which a small group of actors re-enact scenes from Tucker Max's frat-lit Bible,  I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. The shows begin June 5th, with talks of main stages and a national tour in the future. And really? I thought we were done caring about this dude after the movie adaptation, America. You know, the one with the totally skeevy and gross and rape culture-enforcing marketing campaign with slogans like "Deaf girls can't hear you coming." Gross. Gross gross gross. 

Matilda, the brand-new Broadway musical imported from the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon (and later on London's West End) and based on the Roald Dahl classic, has been buzzed about in New York for months, and last night's opening night brought much praise from critics all over the country. Ben Brantley's review in the New York Times begins with the word "rejoice," which, you know, is a pretty solid start, and the show has gotten great reviews in pretty much every other publication. (Of course, the show's PR team knew that would happen.) So, basically, good luck finding tickets at a reasonable price. Now for the good news: maybe you can finally get into Book of Mormon?

Keith Haring's art is like a visual punch in the face. A true trailblazer during New York City's street culture movement in the 1980s, the inimitable graffiti virtuoso's playfully subversive imagery slapped society with a unique call-to-action that cleverly commanded open and direct discussions about sex, racism, war, power and violence. Following his untimely death in 1990 at the age of 31, the artist's signature silhouettes, iconic bold lines, and legendary phrases live on through thoughtful brand collaborations managed by the Keith Haring Foundation, as well as exclusive exhibitions at major museums across the globe.