[NOTE: This review contains PLOT SPOILERS.]

The response to Trump and his polices are flying fast and furious from the creative community. Only two months into his presidency and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall imagines Trump’s plans to “solve” the “problem” of the millions of undocumented immigrants living in America in this world premiere ripped from the proverbial headlines. ​

The entire one act two-hander takes place in the visiting room of a prison where Gloria (Judith Moreland), an African American history professor, has received hard-to-get permission to interview Rick (Bo Foxworth), a Caucasian, tattooed inmate in an orange uniform. (I guess orange really is the new Black!) The play opens with lots of back and forth: will he/won’t he? talk about what sounds like a heinous crime Rick has been convicted of and may face the death sentence for.

Bowling Green, OH:  The Bowling Green Climate Protectors coalition announced today they are gathering signatures to place their Community Rights to a Healthy Environment and Livable Climate City Charter Amendment on the November 2017 ballot. The measure is the first of its kind in the state. Similar measures are being advanced in Spokane, WA, and Lafayette, CO. Each community is fighting fossil fuel activities.

The Bowling Green amendment was drafted by Bowling Green students and City residents, working with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). The student-resident coalition formed when Spectra Energy Corporation requested an easement from the City for the Nexus pipeline to cut through City limits. Community members crowded City Council meetings, urging their representatives to deny the easement. While the easement was not granted, residents learned the pipeline would pass under the Maumee River, threatening the City’s drinking water source and located perilously close to the Bowling Green Fault.

Declarations of support for student fasters at OSU flood in as fast enters Day 4: National Farm Worker Ministry, T’ruah, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee send blistering statements to Wendy’s, OSU administration;

CIW welcomed back to Chicago on Return to Human Rights Tour! We begin with an update on the progress of the 19 courageous OSU student fasters, who today cross the halfway mark of their weeklong fast calling on the university to cut its contract with Wendy’s unless the fast food giant joins the Fair Food Program.

We have a president who is belligerent towards Iran, who is sending “boots on the ground” to fight ISIS, who loves Israel passionately and who is increasing already bloated defense budgets. If one were a neoconservative, what is there not to like, yet neocons in the media and ensconced comfortably in their multitude of think tanks hate Donald Trump. I suspect it comes down to three reasons. First, it is because Trump knows who was sticking the knife in his back during his campaign in 2016 and he has neither forgiven nor hired them. Nor does he pay any attention to their bleating, denying them the status that they think they deserve because of their self-promoted foreign policy brilliance.

This U.S. premiere at Long Beach Opera is no hagiography of one our country’s most beloved folklore and pop culture heroes. Based on Peter Stephan Jungk’s novel, composer Philip Glass and librettist Rudolph Wurlitzer’s ironically named opera The Perfect American takes an often scathing look at animation icon Walt Disney (baritone Justin Ryan). When thinking of “Uncle Walt,” as he was rather euphemistically dubbed (and I should add marketed), color pops immediately to mind. From his classic cartoons such as 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the 1960s TV series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, a richly vivid palette of hues has long been associated with this pioneer of motion picture cartoons and theme parks.