Blogs from local experts

Joyce Kulhawik, best known as the Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic for CBS-Boston (WBZ-TV 1981-2008), is currently lending her expertise as an arts critic/advocate, motivational speaker, and cancer crusader. Kulhawik is President of the …

This weekend is a mixed bag and involves Mick Jagger and William Shakespeare. If only they had worked together. MOVIE “THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY” I couldn’t wait to see the THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY a Sony Classics release beginning August 7 at West Newton …

These two films couldn’t be more different and I liked them both– one in spite of its being outright awful and ridiculous, the other because it pretty much accomplished what it set out to do. THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM stars Katie Holmes as a down …

THIS WEEKEND YOU MUST WATCH one of the most inspiring films I’ve ever seen, and one that speaks directly to this moment: A MOST BEAUTIFUL THING . This profoundly uplifting documentary by award-winning director and Olympic rower Mary Mazzio, absolutely …

Toxic and intoxicating: two films to consider this midsummer weekend! RADIOACTIVE: Beware its unstable script and the resulting half life it sketches of one of the world’s great scientists and the first woman ever to win the Nobel Prize. Rosamund Pike …

You are in luck– a fresh, exhilarating new film opens on YOUR screens this weekend: WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES. A buzzy hit at Sundance last year, it’s the debut feature film by writer/director Makoto Nagahisa and sparkles with inventiveness and style, …

Who said you can’t put theater on TV? The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical HAMILTON has made the quantum leap from stage to screen and the result is a stunning, exhilarating, technical and artistic triumph. The musical’s power, brilliance, …

Jon Stewart who left his groundbreaking TV show THE DAILY SHOW 5 years ago to Trevor Noah, is back again in a larger format, but his sights are still laser-focused on the lunacy of the broken system in which we’re trapped. A cross between a movie and a …

JUNETEENTH It’s a date whose history, because of the sweep of recent historic events, has been thrust into sharper focus. JUNETEENTH commemorates June 19, 1865 the date on which slaves in Texas were finally informed not only of the end of the Civil War, …

YES! FINALLY a summer movie–and it’s a good one. “The King of Staten Island” stars that tall gawky SNL cast member who dresses like a 12 year-old, was engaged to Ariana Grande for a minute, and sometimes plays the shallow, slack-jawed pool boy next …

“A DREAM DEFERRED”… photo: carl van vechten, © van vechten trust. beinecke rare book and manuscript library, yale university Harlem by Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a …

This is a tough weekend. MINNEAPOLIS looms large and soul searching goes deep as we come to grips with the festering wound that is racism in this country. And so I begin my round-up of virtual diversions with a magnificent piece of theater that gets …

Every once in a Wednesday, we Zoom with someone who is inspirational, fun, spirited and fearless – four words that easily describe Joyce Kulhawik. Joyce is best known for her 25-year stint as the Emmy Award-winning Arts & Entertainment Critic for CBS …

Pink Pages is an annual event at the American Repertory Theatre hosted by author Alice Hoffman to benefit the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 situation, the June 1st Pink Pages event …

Looking for real entertainment on a virtual holiday weekend? Check out these suggestions including a theater opening night, music from one of the world’s greats, a new movie, and some true tales out of Gloucester. THEATER: The Dog Lives Productions …

I have been FLOODED with virtual offerings by the creative artists among us. Here’s the tip of the iceberg for this weekend! ***MOVIE: The executive producer for BLOOD AND MONEY, Jeff Stearns, reached out to me about his new crime thriller which opens …

This pandemic has got me firing on all cyber cylinders! I have never been busier and will catch you up over the next few days on my various virtual outings. Among them, this podcast interview conducted by my pal and radio diva Candy O’Terry , best …

By Joyce Kulhawik – Joyce’s Choices The BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA is back! Here are next season’s highlights along with a personal message from Maestro Andris Nelsons who can’t wait to reconnect with all of us music lovers and unite us with the beauty, …

By Joyce Kulhawik @ joyceschoices.com Cyberspace is blowing up as the artists among us create virtual offerings for “Entertainment in the time of pandemic.” Here’s an uplifting lineup: Check out Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, …

The 38 th Annual Elliot Norton Awards!! ON WITH THE SHOW—VIRTUALLY! Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence Awarded Posthumously to Johnny Lee Davenport ***Virtual Ceremony Set For Monday, May 11, 2020 at 7 pm *** View 2020 Elliot Norton Award …

2020 BOSTON POPS SPRING SEASON CANCELLED BY COVID-19! Visit Joyce’s Choices for more Arts, Entertainment & Life The 2020 BOSTON POPS have been forced to cancel by Covid-19. Not since 1890 has the BOSTON POPS cancelled a season, the second time …

Click here to visit Joyce’s Choices for more details Am hunkered down with lists of things to do that I just can’t make myself DO. Cleaning…organizing (too listless). Reading (glued to online and TV coronavirus updates). Writing. OK. The next few weeks …

This week is like nothing I’ve ever in my lifetime experienced. Along with everyone, I have been juggling, re-arranging, shifting everything I am involved in to the virtual world while the arts and cultural world from Broadway to Boston and beyond shuts …

BROADWAY IN BOSTON: SEASON 2020-2021 The show must go on– NEXT SEASON . So looking ahead to COVID-19 being behind us, Broadway In Boston has unveiled the upcoming 2020-2021 Lexus Broadway Season. Nine theatrical productions will take center stage at the …

THE ITALIANS HAVE IT RIGHT! Despite their hardship, they are connecting through their isolation by singing from their balconies in a remarkable show of spirit and resilience during this global catastrophe. Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad collective in its …