Even as I accepted the assignment to attend and write about asses.masses—a daylong collaborative video game art installation brought to Ann Arbor on February 15-16 by UMS—I wondered why I’d made this choice.

It would take me away from my family for nearly an entire Saturday (the program ran from 1-9:30 pm); I’d have to drive from Farmington to Stamps Auditorium on a snowy, freezing February day, all too aware that I’d also be hosting guests in my home the next morning; I had no idea what kind of food would be provided at the event; and while I’m an absolute puzzle fiend, I’m decidedly not a gamer. (The whole idea of Twitch, where viewers can watch others play video games, is something I still struggle to wrap my head around.)

If I’ve learned anything in recent years, though, it’s that I should always follow my curiosity, and I’d repeatedly wondered what this collective all-day video game experience would look and feel like.

My short answer, after attending asses.masses? Community-building. But let’s start with the basics.

Created by Canadian duo Patrick Blendarn and Milton Lim, the game’s narrative involves a herd of donkeys who have been replaced, as workers, by machines, so many of them decide to confront their human overlords and push back against their (existential) obsolescence.

Imagine a time in the near future when scientists develop a procedure that will allow some people to become near immortals.

Lisa Sanaye Dring’s play Kairos is an interesting idea but her real subject is how precarious relationships can become when threatened.

Theatre Nova is presenting Kairos as part of the National New Play Network Rolling World Review, which includes stagings by other theater companies in Cincinnati and Los Angeles.

Kairos doesn’t begin as a sci-fi thriller. The challenge of immortal life is offered up as a unique test of human relations. So the play opens not with mad scientists but with two people looking for love.

It begins when two drivers have a minor car accident, which opens the door to romance. David and Gina are in their early 30s. David is black, Gina is white. David is attracted to Gina and she’s interested in learning about him, and so begins their sometimes blissfully happy and sometimes darkly unhappy relationship. Dring tells their story in a series of short vignettes.

Funerals can be sad, yes, but they can also be funny and even life-changing.

The Purple Rose Theatre is presenting the Michigan premiere of Eric Feffinger’s Fourteen Funerals, a very funny comedy with a very serious look at friendship, family, and life from the perspective of two very different women from two very different places.

Sienna is a young Chicago woman with aspirations of becoming a published writer. She has received a confusing call to come to small town Blissfield, Indiana, to present a eulogy for a relative she’s never met. She’s intrigued, she’s curious, she needs money, she needs to escape from Chicago if just for a day. But when she arrives she’s informed that 14 relatives have all died in an explosion of fireworks and she must give a eulogy for all of them at 14 separate funerals.

Millie is the funeral director’s daughter who has asked her to come. Millie is a young woman who loves Blissfield and hates Blissfield. But she’s ever optimistic. She’s learning all the ins and outs of being a funeral director. She’s funny, even a little goofy and leary about the woman from the city.

Corruption collides with confusion and bureaucracy with buffoonery in the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance’s production of The Government Inspector, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher in 2009 from Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 play.

While the original play was set in Russia circa 1836, Malcolm Tulip's version could be anywhere, anytime that corruption is common—but certainly not here or now.

“We’ve taken things from different periods,” says Tulip, who directs U-M musical theater students in the production, which runs February 20-23 at the Arthur Miller Theatre.

The play is set in a small village where everyone in a position of power is corrupt. “Six gymnasiums have been built to get names on buildings they don’t need,” Tulip says.

When the crooked leadership learns an undercover inspector is coming to root out corruption, they panic. They bribe. They flatter. They flirt. The inspector moves into the mayor’s house and receives large “loans” from the local officials. “They fall over backward to make sure he’ll say good things about them,” says Tulip. “On another level, the mistreated peasants come across as the resistance.”

In April 1993, I took my first step into the world of Rocky Horror.

I went with three high school friends to see a midnight screening and shadow cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the State Theatre in Ann Arbor.

Upon arrival at the theatre, I was greeted by one of the shadow-cast actors fully dressed in her costume. She walked over to me and asked, “Are you a virgin?”

Somewhat taken aback, I asked, “Who wants to know?”

The actor just laughed and said, “You’re my very special virgin.”

Being a naïve, clueless teen and new to Rocky Horror, I didn’t get the reference at first. I thought the actor was nosy and wondered why she asked me such a personal question.

Her question didn’t click with me, though, until the start of the show. As the emcee, she made some announcements and invited me to join her on stage as the “Very Special Virgin.”

When you’re a theater critic, you sometimes drive home from a show and think, “Huh. Not exactly sure what I’ll say about this one.”

Nate — A One Man Show, presented by the University Musical Society at the Arthur Miller Theatre, is one of those shows.

Because by its very nature, Nate will be a little different at every performance with its extensive audience participation and thus, some improv. The brainchild of creator/performer Natalie Palamides, the hour-long production focuses on a man who blasts toxic masculinity out into the world while nursing a broken heart.

The show fittingly starts with what feels like a punch to the face: the blisteringly loud opening chords of George Thoroughgood’s “Bad to the Bone” playing as helmeted, shades-wearing Nate rides around the stage on a mini-motorcycle. Absurdly silly, messy, performative demonstrations of masculinity (the consumption of a raw egg, meat, and whey powder) followed, in case there remained any lingering questions regarding the kind of guy we were dealing with.

Every winter, sophomores, juniors, and seniors studying design and production at the University of Michigan’s Department of Theatre & Drama at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance showcase their work. The BFA Theatre & Drama Design & Production Portfolio Exhibition is a free event at the Duderstadt Center Gallery on North Campus that runs January 28 to February 7.

“The goal of the portfolio review,” says Christianne Myers, who teaches costume design and is head of design and production, “is to get students thinking about how they talk about their work and to contextualize their growth.” They also think about what they might want to study next, to fill in gaps or expand on an interest. “It’s helpful to hear their thoughts in the context of the work they’ve done so far.”

To this end, faculty members meet with students before the review is open to others, ask questions, and look over the work they did during their time at the university; this includes summer projects at other venues between school years but not work they might have done before enrolling. 

Students talk about their process and their goals to the whole faculty, even those who haven’t had them in class. Chip Miller, the associate artistic director of Portland Center Stage, will come from Oregon to serve as a guest respondent so students can get an outsider’s take on their presentations.  

“In the end, it’s an occasion, a chance for students to celebrate their work." 

The Monday Mix is an occasional roundup of compilations, live recordings, videos, podcasts, and more by Washtenaw County-associated artists, DJs, radio stations, and record labels.

This edition features an interview with Kerrytown Concert House's Artistic & Executive Director Monica Swartout-Bebow on Michigan Creates; a chat with Ann Arbor cellist Thor Sigurdson on Music Un-Tuxed; two short promo videos for Ann Arbor Art Center's 2024 public art projects; Blue LLama concert live streams; and the numerous arts documentaries created for the Ann Arbor 200 birthday celebration.

It’s been a nerve-wracking year.

The country is divided. Americans say they’re pessimistic about the future, even those who voted for a change in the White House.

Could a little girl be just what we need to make us more optimistic about our future and see that we always have tomorrow?

The Encore Theatre seems to think so and is offering the perfect Christmas musical that just might provide a little lift in our spirits, Annie.  Director Daniel Cooney draws together an excellent cast, combining seasoned stage veterans to young performers giving seasoned performances.

If you're an Ann Arbor District Library cardholder, you receive a weekly email newsletter listing news, upcoming events, and a slew of recommendations from the catalog. Those recs are also available at aadl.org/reviews, and we're always happy to make suggestions for books, audiobooks, streamable content in the catalog, DVDs, board games, tools, etc. if you visit us at the branches.

But our 2024 Staff Picks allow the AADL crew to go beyond the library catalog—and the calendar year.

We don't limit our year in review to things that came out in 2024 or that can be checked out from AADL; the staff comments on whatever favorite media and events they experienced this year, no matter when or where they originated. Maybe a favorite album of 2024 came out in 1973, or the best book someone read this year is so old that it's out of copyright. It's all good, and it all counts.

Here are the categories of AADL's 2024 Staff Picks: