Jennifer Platow

Teacher

Like many teachers, I pitch poetry around my classroom precariously, like it's an egg toss at a child's birthday party. I don't want to drop it, turn it, or spend too long holding on to it.

Penelope Andrew

Women Film Critics Circle

Charcot's interventions with Augustine run the gamut -- from gentle, sensuous spoon-feedings to physical torture using a device of his own invention, known as the ovary compressor.

David Galenson

Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Marie Laurencin's life spanned two world wars and a great economic depression, but these left no trace in her art. For most of her life, her art portrayed an unchanging dream world. The popularity her art enjoyed during her lifetime has now receded.

Tanisha L. Ramirez

Freelance Lifestyle & Pop Culture Journalist

Erykah Badu, in addition to being the reigning Queen of Soul, is a doula herself. And more than that, she's a strong role model for women who want to do it all, and then some.

William Robin

Musicologist and journalist

The Rite of Spring had a very different trajectory in Russia than it did in Western Europe. Though conceived in St. Petersburg by a trio of Russians the famous original ballet was never performed in Russia itself.

Steven Suskin

Drama critic

This is an edgy, gimmicky, nouveau musical wrapped in a gaudily immersive, dinner theater atmosphere; "an electropop opera ripped from a slice of War and Peace," in their own words.

Jenny Block

Columnist and author of 'Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage'

It began with the opening of an exhibit of the works of Georgia O'Keeffe. But it quickly became a pilgrimage to discover the woman behind the work.

Brian Horay

Classical Music Blogger

My apologies in advance for dropping an F-bomb so soon in this review, but there's just one word, and one word only, that can adequately describe this opening number... a word that more conservative and learned reviewers usually avoid: fun.

Annette Insdorf

Director of undergraduate film studies, Columbia University, and author of PHILIP KAUFMAN

The first few days of the Cannes Film Festival have been marked by surprises -- whether in the shifting national identity of movies, or peace-making efforts between towering directors -- and parties that defy the rain.

Susan Eley

Director of the contemporary art gallery Susan Eley Fine Art

Artists enjoy their most private moments in their studios, where the creative energies flow and the demons emerge in full force. Artist studios--backstage to the galleries, museums and other places of public art displays--are sadly, so little explored by the public.

George Heymont

San Francisco-based arts critic

With nice supporting work from Mitchell Lewis and Gustav von Seyffertitz (I just love the sound of that man's name!), The Docks of New York proved to be a highly atmospheric surprise.

Hoyt Hilsman

Journalist, screenwriter, critic and former candidate for Congress

The distinguished Antaeus Company, L.A.'s classic theater ensemble of extraordinarily talented actors, presents Arthur Miller's tale of the Salem witch trials, his parable of mass hysteria and the dangers of theocracy, or any blind ideology, for that matter.

Constance Valis Hill

Author, 'Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History'

Twenty-four years since the passage of the U.S. Joint Resolution declaring May 25 to be "National Tap Dance Day," tap dance is regarded as a national treasure, a veritable American vernacular dance form celebrated annually in big cities and small towns.

Michael Kaiser

President, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The situation facing the Nashville Symphony is sad and frustrating. Unfortunately, it is also not atypical. Symphony officials recently announced that it would default on the bonds for its performance hall -- the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

Vanessa Pinto

Blogger, Vanessa L. Pinto

Artist Steven Johnson Leyba is no stranger to pushing limits artistically. At times he and his art make some people uncomfortable and others enthralled. Leyba's newest piece of performance art is called Project #9.

Daniel Maidman

Artist

Everything that crosses the boundary from ordinary life to the universe of Brehm's stage is examined and animated. Animate things on her stage are not characters alone, or objects alone, but the qualities of things as well: space, perspective, light, size, rate.

Robert J. Elisberg

Screenwriter and columnist

I've written about Mike Stoller a few times before, always with his longtime partner Jerry Leiber of 60 years, one of the great songwriting teams in music history. When I say "legendary," and one of the great songwriting teams in music history, that is not hyperbole.