This header refers to American Ballet Theatre's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, which I saw last week. What else could I possibly mean? Maybe Donald Trump taking over and appointing the likes of Laura Ingraham to the Kennedy Center's board? OK, yes. I can see
In the span of eight days in late November, three stories that I'd been sweating over for months all went online. I'm deeply proud of all three, which collectively represent much of my work since June. Ideally, I'd have gotten this newsletter out promptly.
First, some housekeeping: by default, I'm shifting What/If Arts to every other week, and hope readers will bear with me as I try to figure out the best way to promote my work, make some extra money and get more of my content out into the world.
It shouldn’t have taken a war for me to see ballet in 3D, but here we are in 2024, an unprecedented year of global conflict, artificial intelligence and mass-market robots. Of course the ballet is 3D. What I'm Seeing National Ballet of Ukraine launched its 16-city American
What I'm Writing Finally! Some bylines to share. For Washington City Paper, I reviewed The Comeuppance at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. It's not a profoundly disturbing play, but it is a profound sleep disturber. I was up most of the night after seeing Brendan Jacobs-Jenkins play
It's been a week. (Actually two! Sorry!) I've worked for four news organizations and one nonprofit, all of which I've unsuccessfully applied to for full-time jobs at some point. As grateful as I am for editors who value my freelance work, the dynamic can
What I'm Writing This week I wrote about the trifecta of tap, ballet and contemporary dance. Mini-previews of DC Tap Fest and The Washington Ballet's Sept. 5 performance at Wolf Trap appeared in Washington City Paper's "So Long, Summer" edition of City
It was a tough week for arts journalism here in Washington. On Tuesday, news broke that The Washington Post was cancelling the long-running "In the Galleries" column featuring DMV art exhibits. On Wednesday, a local choreographer whose work I negatively reviewed 11 years ago confronted me at a
My 12-day, four-stop Northern travels of 2024 came to end late Tuesday, when I drove home from Narragansett, RI. Sincere apologies that there was no What/If Arts last week. What can I say? I was at the beach and couldn't risk getting sand in my laptop. But
When you're an arts journalist, there is no experience quite like attending an arts festival for the first time and experiencing the summertime trifecta of outstanding performances, scenic views and conversations that will solve all the performing arts world's problems. Or try to. So oui, I
July 27, 2024 Here goes something... What I'm Writing Since June, I've been working on a story about #MeToo 2.0 in classical music. There's a lot of reporting involved and not a lot of money, but it's important to highlight the
This is What If Arts, a brand new site by Rebecca Ritzel that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is