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Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring A Classic at the MFA

Earlier this week I took advantage of one of my membership privileges at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and checked out the Members Preivew of their new exhibit, “Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring A Classic”. The exhibit features over 200 works mostly from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London,  and has a variety of letters, original drawings, and photographs. This exhibit is UTTERLY charming, and I was glad to have a chance to see this early. I can’t wait to go back and see it again!

There’s a little bit of something for everyone in this show; you can see everything from examples of Pooh in Pop Culture to Ernest Shepard’s original drawing of the Map of the 100 Acre Wood.

There are photographs of the Milne family, including a particularly tender photo of a Christopher Milne with his teddy bear.

One of the most special items in the exhibit, in my opinion, is the recording of A.A. Milne reading an excerpt of Pooh and Piglet go hunting, and nearly catch a Woozle. It dates from 1929, and is the only known recording of Milne reading from his Winnie-the-Pooh books. To listen to the recording, you pick up the “telephone” installed on the wall and can sit in the comfortable window seat directly adjacent to enjoy this delightful piece of the exhibit.

There are areas of whimsy and fun that will appeal to children of all ages as well as the young at heart. Want to ring the bell at Pooh’s house? Go for it.

Pretend to throw Poohsticks at the Poohstick bridge? They’ve got you covered.

There’s a table for drawing, as well as comfy rugs and spots for reading, and my favorite, Christopher Robin’s stairs where he sits, “Halfway Down”.

There are Instagram-worthy photo-ops galore so don’t be afraid to live a little and let your inner child come out and play. (There’s even a small slide if you feel like you need some extra movement!)

I have to say this exhibit is full of heartwarming moments that make you harken back to childhood memories of frolic and play. Shepard’s images are so classic, so iconic…don’t be surprised to find yourself time and again standing in front of a drawing and saying “awwww…” It’s delightfully sweet!

Give yourself plenty of time to meander your way through this exhibit. I spent just about 90 minutes there and could have easily stayed longer. Because of the tickets’ timed entry (more on that below!) the crowds in the exhibit are kept to a minimum. There’s room to explore, to drink in and enjoy all the Winnie-the-Pooh magic.

Have I inspired you to visit? The MOST IMPORTANT THING to keep in mind when planning your visit is that entry to the exhibit is TIMED, and tickets are REQUIRED for entry. All the information you need on tickets can be found here: https://www.mfa.org/tickets/winnie-the-pooh/ticket-information

The MFA highly recommends purchasing your tickets in advance. (Are you a member? Members see the exhibit for free, but still need to reserve tickets.) When you purchase your ticket, it covers your admission to the Museum for the day as well as the ticket for your specific time window to see the Pooh exhibit.

Other things to note:

– Children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by an adult at all times while visiting the Museum.

– Strollers are permitted at the MFA,but due to the limited space and interactive nature of the exhibition, strollers will not be permitted in “Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic.”

– Photography is welcome and encouraged, but no flash photography is allowed.

This is a really fantastic exhibit, and one that’s worth taking the time to plan and purchase your tickets in advance. The MFA Signature Gift Shop, which is located across from the ticketing desks at the Huntington Avenue entrance, has the main collection of memorabilia and Pooh related gifts. If you’re looking for the Catalog from the show, you’ll have to head to the Signature Gift Shop. (It’s $39.95, members price is $35.95!)

And for my environmentally minded friends, the large blue balloons in the hallway outside of the Torf Gallery where the exhibit lives are made of fiberglas, and are not floating helium balloons. They are an art installation that hangs from the ceiling.

Looking for more info on Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic? Visit the exhibit’s page: https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/winnie-the-pooh

If you aren’t a member, now may be a great time to consider membership at the MFA. In addition to seeing special exhibits like this one for free, members get discounts on parking, dining, and the gift shop. It’s easy to become a member! https://www.mfa.org/membership I love being a MFA member especially when it comes to seeing exhibits during the Member Preview week!

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TedxCambridge at the Boston Opera House- Tickets On Sale!

I think it’s safe to say that most people have heard of TED conferences and TED talks, and have watched at least one (or more!) YouTube videos of a speaker’s presentation. I love the idea behind gathering a wide array of society’s current thinkers and do-ers, and offering them space and time on a stage to present their ideas. Given a time constraint (typically less than 18 minutes), the speakers condense their thoughts into the most relevant, most concise, and often most entertaining form possible.

TEDxCambridge is happening at the Boston Opera House in Boston, MA on Thursday, May 3rd at 7:00pm. Tickets are now on sale through the TEDxCambridge website: http://www.tedxcambridge.com/ (FYI- If you go to the Boston Opera House official website, it looks like you can’t buy tickets yet, but if you click on the “Coming Soon” button it redirects you to the TEDxCambridge website, where tickets are available)

Do you know what TED stands for? It’s Technology, Entertainment, and Design. The first TED conference was held in 1984, and featured up and coming ideas such as the compact disc, the ebook, and 3D graphics from Lucasfilm. The event wasn’t as successful as the organizer’s had hoped, and they didn’t run another TED conference until 1990. This time the idea took off, and became a yearly conference held in Monterrey, California. In 2006, realizing the power and global reach of the internet, the first six TED talks ever were posted online. In three months, they’d reached more than one million views. In 2008, TED reorganized their website to meet the growing demand for access to the videos of TED talks. By 2009, the number of views on TED talks had grown to 100 million.

In case you’re curious, here’s the link to the TED website and the first six TED talks: https://www.ted.com/playlists/168/the_first_6_ted_talks_ever

2009 was the year the organizers launched TEDx , opening up the program to  local, independently organized events. The TEDxCambridge evening is one of these events! Follow this link to the TEDxCambridge website to see information about the speakers for this year’s event: http://www.tedxcambridge.com/speakers/

Speaking at the 2018 TEDxCambridge are: Andrea Lauer, Symbiotic Designer; Andrew McAfee, Digital Economist; Erez Yoeli, Behavioral Scientist; Joel Salinas, Sensory Neurologist; Lisa Feldman Barrett, Cognitive Psychologist; Sebastian Buckup, Global Convener; and Tony Luciani, Documentary Caregiver. In addition to these seven diverse presenters, the TEDxCambridge audience will also be entertained by a performance by the Boston Ballet! All in all it sounds like an incredible evening, and excellent seats are still available!

Here are a few of my favorite TED talks…

 

 

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Thoughts on The White Card

Walking into the amazing set of The White Card, staged at The Paramount Theatre’s Robert J. Orchard Stage, is an incredible experience. The stark whiteness that surrounds you is at once soothing and disconcerting. This blank slate of a space has the right balance of elegance and sparseness to accommodate Claudia Rankine’s play, The White Card.

First, before I share my thoughts, I want to make sure you know this show is only running for another two weeks, through April 1st. An extremely limited number of tickets are still available! The advice from ArtsEmerson to score tickets to a performance is as follows:

  • Check online or call the box office 1-2 days before the date you wish to attend; we regularly see tickets become available in this window due to cancelations.
  • Show up at the box office 1-2 hrs before curtain. We may have last minute openings that aren’t available online. If nothing is available, we can put you on the waitlist which starts 1 hr prior to each curtain.

Your best chance at seats is likely the Sunday March 18th show at 7:30PM, which was just added this week. For more information about the play, visit the ArtsEmerson website at:

http://bit.ly/artsemersonwhitecard

I went into this show hoping and expecting to be challenged. I wanted to be a little bit uncomfortable. I wanted this show to make me think! And it certainly did. My whole ride home I kept re-hashing bits and pieces of dialog and considering the interactions between these 5 characters (six, if you count the art).

The main character in this play is Charlotte; an up and coming African American artist whose work has piqued the interest of rich, white socialites Charles and Virginia. They aspire to collect socially relevant works of art both by and about African Americans. But is their desire for this art truly well-intentioned, or merely a way to look racially aware? I felt like Charles’ desire to purchase these racially charged pieces of art were a way for him to appear to seek absolution from his complicity in the American Penal system. He’s working to build jails that in some cases are filled predominantly with African Americans. Charles wants to be relevant; he wants to look outwardly like he’s purchasing the right art, reading the right books, knowing the right issues, but I think he wears ALL of that as a cloak. It’s not who he truly is. I’m not saying he’s a closet KKK member, just that Charles isn’t really connecting with the issues surrounding racism in America today; he only ends up looking like he is.

Even Charles and Virginia’s son Alex, who is very involved in Black Lives matter and wants to be an aware citizen, still struggles in a conversation with Charlotte when he referred to other African Americans as, “your people”. Charlotte points out he could have just said, “people”. Alex still feels that ingrained difference. How does one acknowledge the perception of that difference and then move past it?

The final image of the show has really stuck with me. The image of the photograph that Charlotte takes: Charles, shirtless, facing away from her. Charlotte herself, standing in mock chains, facing him. I’ve been considering Charles’ pose. He’s turned away from her. At first I’d just assumed he’d turned his back because there’s more smooth skin exposed for her to photograph. But the more I think about this, the more it occurs to me that his choice to turn away is representative of his inability to face the issue of race that is between Charles and Charlotte. Even in that moment when he submits to being the subject of her art, he is turning away from the realities of her life as a black woman. He could have faced her, he could have looked her in the eye, but in the end he still chose to turn away.

“Can American Society progress if whiteness stays invisible?” is what The White Card asks. Diane Paulus, Artistic Director of the American Repertory Theater, asks in her Welcome in the playbill, “In difficult conversations about race, how do we stay in the room?” Both these questions are stirring, and stimulating, and I hope this play will help further the discussion of race in America today. I really enjoyed what the entire ArtsEmerson team did here with The White Card, and I’m glad the thoughts and questions are still percolating in my mind.

If you do attend a performance of The White Card, I recommend you stick around for the Act II facilitated discussion about the play. It felt good to have some space for the audience to publicly digest what we’d just seen.

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Boston Flower Show 2018

March can be a tough month; we’ve started to taste some milder weather, but in reality Winter still has us in its grasp. This is the perfect time to be dreaming of sunny warm days and green growing things. What better way to fulfill the desire for dreams of springtime warmth than by visiting the Boston Flower Show! It’s been a few years since I’ve been myself and I’m looking forward to attending again (the photos I shared here are from 2015).

The Boston Flower Show takes place every year in the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, MA. This year’s show is happening from Wednesday, March 14th through Sunday, March 18th. The hours of operation are as follows:

Wednesday, March 14: 10:00AM-8:00PM
Thursday, March 15: 10:00AM-8:00PM
Friday, March 16: 10:00AM-9:00PM
Saturday, March 17: 10:00AM-9:00PM
Sunday, March 18: 10:00AM-6:00PM

The Box Office closes one hour prior to the end of the Show each day. The best hours to attend the Show for ease of parking and smaller crowds is in the late afternoon and early evening. (And in fact, you can get $5 off your admission if you attend after 5:00 pm on any day of the show!- see the tickets page for more info.)

If you aren’t interested or able to attend after 5:00 pm, you can still get a $2 discount on admission by using the promo code FLOWER18. This discount code is only valid through 3/13.

There’s a little something for everyone at the Flower Show. You can get inspiration for your garden plantings, landscape design,  and edible gardens; as well as experiencing some fabulous examples of floral arrangements. There are numerous vendors on site selling everything from Adirondack chairs to felted floral hats and everything in between. There are concession stands with food available for purchase, but you are also allowed to bring your own drinks and snacks, if desired.

For more information about the show including directions, parking, and to purchase tickets, visit the Boston Flower Show website at: http://bostonflowershow.com/

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Lottery Alert: Waitress The Musical at the Boston Opera House

The online lottery to win the opportunity to purchase discounted tickets to see Waitress The Musical is now open! Entries will be accepted until Noon on Friday February 16th. If you win, you’ll be able to purchase up to 2 tickets for $60 each. This is the most expensive I’ve ever seen for a ticket lottery, but it’s still discounted from the $225 for orchestra seats. This is a super popular show!

Enter the drawing here:
http://www.luckyseat.com/waitress-boston/

Want to know more about the show? Check out the official Boston Opera House – Broadway in Boston website:
https://boston.broadway.com/shows/waitress-baa/

Good luck!

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Lottery Alert: Love Never Dies at Boston Opera House

The online lottery to win the opportunity to purchase discounted tickets to see Love Never Dies at the Boston Opera House is open right now! You’ve got less than 24 hours left to enter, as the lottery is only open until noon on Monday January 29th. If you win, you’ll be able to purchase up to 4 tickets at $49 each. These are typically premium seats! You can only win the lottery once, so choose only the performances you can attend.

Enter the drawing here:
http://www.luckyseat.com/loveneverdies-boston/

Want to know more about the show? Check out the official Boston Opera House – Broadway in Boston website:
https://boston.broadway.com/shows/andrew-lloyd-webbers-love-never-dies-phantom-returns/

Good luck!

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Ticket Alert: The White Card – A New Play by Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine’s new play, The White Card,  is set to open at the Emerson Paramount Center in Boston, MA on February 24, 2018. The production will run through April 1, 2018, and tickets are selling fast! Many performances are already sold out.

From the ArtsEmerson website:
At a dinner party thrown by an influential Manhattan couple for an up-and-coming artist, questions arise about what—and who—is actually on display. Claudia Rankine’s 2014 New York Times best-selling book, Citizen: An American Lyric, unpacked the insidious ways in which racism manifests itself in everyday situations. Now, this world-premiere play poses the question, “Can American society progress if whiteness stays invisible?”

I’ve got my ticket purchased, and I’m excited to experience what this play has to offer. I’m very intrigued by the note on the ArtsEmerson website which states, “The White Card will utilize non-traditional seating at the Emerson Paramount Center’s Robert J. Orchard Stage. Patrons will be assigned specific seating locations at a later date.” I’m curious to see if we’ll all be part of the fictional dinner party, seated cabaret style, a la Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812? However we are seated, these tickets are HOT and this production promises to be engaging and thought provoking.

ArtsEmerson has added several performances, and they continue to sell quickly. If you think this show sounds like something you’d like to experience for yourself, get your tickets sooner than later, because I’m convinced this will sell out completely! Tickets can be purchased at the ArtsEmerson website:

http://bit.ly/artsemersonwhitecard

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Dan Rather: A Hopeful American Patriot

Last night found me at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, MA for the Boston tour stop of Dan Rather’s new book, “What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism”. Rather, at 86 years old, is an American Icon. He has interviewed every U.S. President since Eisenhower, anchored the CBS news for 24 years, and is still hard at work in the media world as founder and CEO of News and Guts.

I was grateful for the opportunity to hear this living legend speak. He was interviewed by WBUR’s Anthony Brooks. Dan Rather has had a long, full lifetime of reporting on the American political landscape; this offers him a unique perspective on which to discuss where we are in America today.

Rather talked about the differences between patriotism and nationalism, and how it can be dangerous for leaders to equate the two terms. While Rather and Brooks did touch on certain inflammatory comments made by President Trump that very day (about sh*thole countries), Brooks noted that Rather did not mention Trump’s name once in the book.

Rather took a moment to read a passage from his essay on Immigration, noting it echoes how he feels at this moment:

“We all have come here from somewhere else, and the vast majority of us are only a few generations removed from another land. Whether that is one generation or ten, it seems rather sanctimonious to claim that there is much of a difference. Not many of us can trace our arrival back a few hundred years, let alone millennia. But even the ancestors of the Native Americans are believed to have come across a land bridge from Asia — a reminder that we are a species of migrations, and always have been. Of course, not all migrations have been voluntary; many are here because their ancestors were ripped from their homelands in Africa and carried across the ocean in bondage.

Too many times the term “American” has been used as a weapon against new immigrants, especially those who look, speak, or pray differently. And yet one of the noblest ideals of our country is that anybody from anywhere can be an American. This has been, and continues to be, an eternal battle between our demons and angels for the soul of the United States. And it was present at the baptism of a nation that proclaimed “all men are created equal” but defined many men as three-fifths of a whole, never mind women of all races.”

Rather’s message was ultimately one of hope; his words last night were full of hope for the people of America and our country as a whole. When asked by a college professor what advice he would give to worried students, Rather suggested three things: 1. Find a way to help another person 2. Find a way to help your community 3.  Be active, organized, and get out there and vote.

The evening ended on a lovely note when a former Army Nurse arrived at the microphone to speak to Mr. Rather. She mentioned she had been stationed in Vietnam at the same time that he was there reporting, and remembered him coming to visit the hospital where she worked. She stated she’d been unable to see him back then, so she was thrilled to have the opportunity to hear him speak here in Boston now. The entire audience let out a collective, “awww”.

The only thing that could have made the evening more perfect was if the copy of “What Unites Us” included with admission had been signed by Rather. Seeing as how there were close to 1100 people in attendance last night, I’m willing to cut Rather some slack!

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Sensational Sense and Sensibility!

Last night I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend Bedlam’s Sense and Sensibility at the American Repertory Theater’s Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, MA. This adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel has been brought to the stage by writer Kate Hamill, with Staging and direction by Eric Tucker. The entire cast and creative team really brought their A-Game to this production, it was an incredible evening!

Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, and I wouldn’t hesitate to say that Ang Lee’s 1995 film Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite movies of all time. I went into the theater last night with high expectations, and the production did not disappoint!

From the fresh and clever staging and choreography, to the spot-on acting, this show brought new life to a timeless story. I was surprised at how much I laughed throughout the evening! The actors knew just when to emphasize the humorous moments, yet they were equally accomplished at making the poignant, serious moments play out quite effectively.

Bedlam’s Sense and Sensibility runs through this Sunday, January 14th. There are still a limited number of tickets available for both the Saturday and Sunday 2:00pm shows. Head to the American Repertory Theater’s website RIGHT AWAY if you want to scoop up tickets for yourself!

https://americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/bedlams-sense-sensibility

I drove to Alewife for my visit, using the Redline to go to the Harvard MBTA stop. The Loeb Drama center is just a short walk up Church Street to Brattle Street. Easy-peasy! There is a parking lot close-by the theater on Church Street, and a handful of other parking lot choices within walking distance for those that would rather drive in to the city.

Go see Sense and Sensibility. Get lost in early 19th century England with Austen’s iconic characters, as they are skillfully, artfully,  and playfully brought to life by this energetic, fantastic team!

(All photos are from the American Repertory Theater website; photo credit: Ashley Garrett)

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Lottery Alert: Wizard of Oz at the Boston Opera House

The Wizard of Oz – The Musical is playing at the Boston Opera House next weekend, January 12th- 14th. The online ticket lottery is open NOW through January 10th!

It’s really easy to enter the ticket lotteries for shows at the Boston Opera House, and a great way to get premium seats at discounted prices if you win! Good luck!

From Broadway in Boston: A limited number of tickets for all performances will be sold to winners through an online lottery drawing. Tickets are $49 and limited up to four (4) tickets per winner. Entries accepted through 12:00pm on Wednesday January 10th ONLY! Enter here:

http://www.luckyseat.com/wizardofoz-boston/

About the show: Click your heels together and join Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, Dorothy and her little dog Toto, as they journey through the magical land of Oz to meet the Wizard and obtain their hearts’ desires. Watch out for the Wicked Witch of the West and her winged monkeys as you rediscover the real story of Oz in this fantastic musical treat for the whole family. See Broadway in Boston for more info: https://boston.broadway.com/shows/the-wizard-of-oz-baa/