When Karl Sikkenga was teaching middle school students, he began writing pared-down scripts of Shakespeare’s plays. He developed a plan to make it easier for his students to understand Shakespeare’s plays by streamlining the Bard without changing the language or meaning of the plays.

“When I had the idea of doing it in community theater rather than in school, I thought if I’m going to do this, I might as well see if it will work or not,” he said.

In 2019, Sikkenga launched Brevity Shakespeare in Ypsilanti with a production of Hamlet in 2019, just as the pandemic hit. When the theater started up again in 2023 with As You Like It, Sikkenga had a clear vision of a new approach to Shakespeare and community theater.

“The idea behind Brevity is threefold,” he said. ”One is we are deep lovers of Shakespeare, but for me, frequently when I’m watching Shakespeare, I don’t have any idea what people are talking about. The language is the most gorgeous and at times the most obscure. When I was doing Shakespeare with secondary students, I started distilling the play, retaining the language, retaining the plot, and telling the stories in ways that we make sure everyone there understands what’s going on at all times.”

Trimming scripts also meant weeding out nonessential characters.

When the Russo-Ukrainian War intensified with the invasion and occupation of Ukraine starting in 2022, the conflict not only permeated the news but also people’s lives. The stories of the Ukrainians affected by the war are what historian Danielle Leavitt tells in her new book, By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine.

By the Second Spring begins with a preface in which Leavitt describes how she found the stories and corresponded with the storytellers. She shares that through an online platform provided by her parents’ project, the Leavitt Institute for International Development, Ukrainians wrote online diary entries. Leavitt got in contact with some of the diarists, who then began communicating about their lives directly with her.

As Leavitt writes about her subjects and the book, “They would recount, in intimate detail, their first reactions to the invasion, why opposition to Russia was so fierce, and why and how such a sudden and shocking spirit of mass volunteerism arose. I concern myself less with the movement of military forces and more with exploring the daily realities of war in a relatively developed country.”

Leavitt’s time growing up partly in Ukraine and studying Ukrainian history informs her book, too. To give context as the events of the year unfold around her subjects, Leavitt intersperses the history that led to this moment in time.

After the preface is the “Dramatis Personae” listing the seven names and descriptions of the subjects who are featured by Leavitt: Anna. Maria. Polina. Tania. Vitaly. Volodymyr. Yulia.  

Each Ukrainian in By the Second Spring makes their choices of how to respond to the war. Some maintain a semblance of life before the invasion:

Comedies come in cycles. There was a time in the late 1990s and continuing through the early 2010s when movie theaters regularly welcomed rated-R-for-raunchy flicks with over-the-top humor. 

But as social mores changed, and movie theaters struggled to get people into their buildings, many of those movies went straight to streaming.

Wolverine Productions' Benjamin Vomastek misses when salty comedies with no-holds-barred japes populated the cineplex, and the University of Michigan grad is doing his part to bring them back.

Vomastek's film debut, 2024's Rosetta Stoned, filmed in Ann Arbor on a $30,000 budget, features a pothead who convinces a socially awkward classmate to exchange homework answers for weed. 

The new Hometown Summer, also filmed in Tree Town, premieres at the Michigan Theater on Thursday, May 22, at 7:30 pm. The cast and crew will appear after for a Q&A session.

In Hometown Summer, three young pals spend the warm months in Ann Arbor, and all kinds of mayhem happen when they get mixed up in a crazy business plan and indulge in all sorts of vices.

Vomastek makes no secret that his films are indebted to outrageous comedies of the past, such as Superbad and There's Something About Mary, so I asked him to discuss some movies that were direct influences on Hometown Summer.

"Each of these films carries a theme of human authenticity and realism that has inspired me as a filmmaker," Vomastek said.

Jess Merritt no longer silences her inner voice.

The Ann Arbor singer-songwriter follows her instincts and unleashes her authentic self on Wild in Me.

“It’s been a big journey,” said Merritt, aka Jess Oberholtzer, about her new folk-rock-soul EP.

“Over the past five years or so … I went through a divorce, the pandemic, and coming out. It’s been a real transformative time. I look back, and I’m so grateful that I took those steps because I feel so much closer to my true self now. Even though things are a little bit scary as far as what the future holds, I just feel solid in myself.”

Merritt embraces that bold mindset through an honest and inspirational collection of songs about self-discovery, growth, and freedom. The four tracks on Wild in Me come to life through soulful vocals, cathartic lyrics, and soaring instrumentation.

Joe Reilly has been a big hit with the Ann Arbor-area kids for nearly two decades. They know him from his many performances at local schools, libraries, and music workshops, and they love him for his songs celebrating awesome animals, the wonders of nature, and the importance of our connection to the earth and each other.

On Saturday, May 17, he’s throwing a free family concert at The Ark that will pair his big-hearted, interactive show with a celebration of Indigenous culture. Joe Reilly and his band, the Community Gardeners, will perform alongside the All Nations Dancers, a group of Anishinaabe pow-wow dancers from Mount Pleasant.

The University of Michigan grad's music is gentle and generous in spirit, drawn from traditional folk and blues to encourage sing-alongs, and spiked with the lyrical flow of hip-hop to keep it real. His easy rapport with his tiny audience members leads them to learn while they play, like a Buddhist Mister Rogers whose essence is his greatest lesson.

Sponsored by Ann Arbor Public Schools, The Ark event launches at 11:30 am with a catered lunch provided by local Indigenous vendor Anishinaabe Meejim, followed an hour later by music and dance. Per The Ark, pre-registration is “strongly encouraged.”

I asked Reilly a few questions about "There’s a Place for You in the Circle" featuring Joe Reilly and The Community Gardeners with the All Nations Dancers.

"Well, it's 1969, OK
All across the USA"
—The Stooges, "1969"

John Norman Collins was arrested in Ypsilanti on July 31, 1969, for the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, an 18-year-old student at Eastern Michigan University. It made national news because a serial killer had haunted Washtenaw County since 1967, and eventually Collins was under suspicion for five other Michigan murders (as well as one in California).

But the story was knocked out of the country's consciousness just over a week later when Charles Manson and members of his cult killed seven people on August 8-9, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, the wife of acclaimed director Roman Polanski.

The Manson murders were a cultural touchstone that some think helped usher out the hippy era, making way for a grittier 1970s where the idea of peace and love were swept into the dustbin of history.

This overall portrait of America in transition is the backdrop for director Andrew Templeton's new documentary, 1969: Killers, Freaks, and Radicals, which makes its Michigan debut on Friday, May 16, at Cinetopia Ann Arbor (Michigan Theater and State Theatre, May 15-18). It features new interviews, vintage footage, and re-creations.

The film focuses on Collins' crimes, but unlike John Keyes' 1974 book The Michigan Murders, Templeton analyzes the story through the lens of social upheaval and how the local police force stumbled through its investigation by targeting the "freaks and radicals" when looking for suspects.

What does it truly mean to "become the best version of yourself?" To find meaning, to overcome obstacles?

In Ann Arbor author Omar Hussain's debut novel, A Thousand Natural Shocks, a charismatic figure offers a unique solution: Don't try to overcome trauma, but excise every trace from the conscious mind. To "detonate the past" you must "liberate the future," but only the most devout followers will access this obliterating salvation.

Dash, a reporter intent on forgetting no matter the cost, is determined to rise through the ranks of the faithful. But who will he be when he comes out the other side of his altered history, and how will Dash cope with the revelation of the cult's true purpose?

Under Hussain's pen, Dash's narration is frenetic, rich with ripe anxiety, and fractured by our hero's sleep deprivation, self-medication, and general mind-destroying tactics in his pursuit of erasure. From the very first pages, it's clear how the cult's mantra would resonate with a man in his state: "God is love. God is life. God is a bomb."

I spoke with Hussain about A Thousand Natural Shocks, which he is reading and signing at Literati on May 13, and his work with Defy, the communications company he co-founded.

Every so often, I find myself daydreaming: As the members of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) watch their stock portfolios plummet because of Trump’s tariffs, or as they observe the president ignore decisions by other justices, including those he appointed, they have second thoughts about giving Trump unprecedented power—and they find a way to save us.   

I was disabused of this fantasy when I read Leah Litman’s marvelous new book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. The University of Michigan law professor, who clerked at the high court, will discuss her book with Barbara McQuade on May 14 at Literati Bookstore.

I loved the book—well, as much as I can love something that convinces me that radical right justices are ruling from their feelings instead of the law. Litman’s style is accessible, and her book is full of pop culture references: American Psycho, Arrested Development, Game of Thrones, Taylor Swift. The story she tells is bleak, but there’s comic relief, mostly in the form of snarky comments of the sort some of us are driven to these days.

This story was first published on February 27, 2024. We're highlighting it because Zilka Joseph and Isaac Pickell will read from their work for "Jewish American Poets of Color" at AADL's Downtown branch on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 6:30 pm.

“From tumbled sands and shattered bark / blurred shadows dragged us,” writes Zilka Joseph in her new poetry collection, Sweet Malida: Memories of a Bene Israel Woman. 

These poems are immersed in the history, customs, and food of the Bene Israel people. The Ann Arbor poet shares about their shipwreck on the shores of India, worship of the prophet Elijah, and subsequent dispersing across the world. While Joseph imparts facts about the culture and community, she also makes the poems personal with her memories. 

This cultural and familial history informs Joseph’s poems, such as “Leaf Boat,” which is a longer poem that receives its own section of the book. Joseph describes “my body a leaf boat / lamp floated on water” in the context of the heritage of her ancestors, grandmother, parents, and herself who moved from place to place. Even her birth was during unsettled weather: “I was born Thursday in monsoon rain / night time East coast time / in Bombay a baby opens her eyes.” Water, especially oceans, flows through the lines, and “in my dream / the whales are singing.” 

Joseph focuses less on what is lost, though she does pay tribute to her parents, and focuses more on the richness that the traditions and foods of the Bene Israel pass along. One such food is “draksha-cha sharbath. Sherbet of raisins” for Shabbath, which Joseph writes about replicating on her own after moving to the United States. Earlier, she had prepared it with her grandmother and mother. As she writes in one of the short essays or prose poems that are interspersed throughout the book, making this recipe is like time traveling for Joseph:  

Barbara Neri has worked to get her movie, Unlocking Desire, made for several years while dealing with the pandemic, writers’ and actors’ strikes, and her own busy schedule.

And she's still working on it.

"I've more than one thing going on, so it’s not the only iron in the fire,” said Neri, an Ann Arbor creative who has worked in dance, theater, performance art, and education in addition to being a writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. “I try not to think of the amount of time too much, because I think things will happen when they’re going to happen. … But it’s a wild ride. … Some projects take 10 years, so you just have to stay in the moment as much as possible. That’s really what I try to do, and enjoy the journey, enjoy each step.”

Unlocking Desire, which won the Marfa Film Festival's best screenplay award in 2017, tells the story of an institutionalized woman who believes she’s Blanche DuBois, Tennessee Williams’ tragic heroine from A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche grows convinced that another inmate, Raoul, is Allan Grey, the young man she married as a teenager, and whom she later found in bed with another man.

In Williams’ play, Blanche’s reflexive disgust in the moment leads to Allan’s suicide, but in Unlocking Desire, Raoul is a gay man whose failed suicide attempt causes his wife to institutionalize him.