Dear BSR Subscriber,

Here's a summer update for our faithful readers.

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This week, we're looking forward to the 12th annual BlackStar Film Festival, arriving at Center City venues August 2-6. Don't miss Kyle's interview with founder Maori Karmael Holmes. We're also very into a haunting, witch-centric Macbeth in Rockwood Park, a charming Sense and Sensibility at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and more.

Next week, we're resting! The BSR editorial team will be on our annual hiatus from July 29 through August 13. But we have something special for you this year, while we're away: our first-ever essays issue, featuring some of our region's best writers. Look out for a guide in next week's newsletter, and then we'll see you back here on Wednesday, August 16 with a fresh batch of reviews, including productions of True West and The Bridges of Madison County.

We hope you're getting some rest and renewal this August, too.

Alaina Johns
BSR editor-in-chief

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Maori Karmael Holmes is the winner of United States Artists 2023 Berresford Prize. (Photo by Naomieh Jovin.)

Looking forward to the 2023 BlackStar Film Festival, August 2-6

Kyle V. Hiller

Maori Karmael Holmes, founder of BlackStar Projects and recent winner of the 2023 Berresford Prize from United States Artists, talks with Kyle V. Hiller about the award, the film festival, and the power of possibilities.

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Elinor (Sarah Gliko) and Marianne (Arrianna Daniels) share a sisterly moment in Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s ‘Sense and Sensibility.’ (Photo courtesy of PSF.)

Sisters take the stage

Mina Reinckens

With this adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival breathes new life into a literary classic that even newcomers to Austen will love. Mina Reinckens reviews.

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Hecate (Katherine Perry) and the three witches (CJ Higgins, Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez, and Kimie Muroya) greet Macbeth (Mariah Ghant) in Delaware Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth.’ (Photo by Alessandra Nicole.)

Welcoming the darkness

Gail Obenreder

North Wilmington’s Rockwood Park, with its own alleged hauntings, makes an appropriately chilling setting for Delaware Shakespeare’s summer outing with the Scottish Play. Gail Obenreder reviews.

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Ken Lum’s 'The Recounting of the events and experiences in the life of Yasir Khorshed' (2017/2021), framed by Guadalupe Maravilla’s 'Disease Thrower #16' (2021). (Photo by Eric Sucar, courtesy of Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania.)

How do we remember?

Pamela J. Forsythe

At UPenn’s Arthur Ross Gallery, four artists consider what shared memory signifies for marginalized peoples, and how they preserve it. Pamela J. Forsythe reviews.

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William Edmondson. 'Ancient Egyptian Couple' (formerly 'Adam and Eve'), c. 1940. (Photo courtesy of the Museum of Everything, London.)

Still a fascinating figure

Hanae Mason

In its exhibition featuring sculptor William Edmondson, who blurred and subverted a lot of what institutions expect from great artists, the Barnes begins to grapple with ways of seeing the artist’s legacy. Hanae Mason reviews.

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Alice Sheppard (left) and Laurel Lawson dance in 'Under Momentum.' Full image description below. (Photo by Photo by Christopher Duggan, courtesy of Lincoln Center.)

“The access is the art”

Wendy Univer

Disabled artists like Alice Sheppard, Natalie de Segonzac, and Carolyn Lazard prove that access is its own art form, defying a deficit mentality and centering inclusion from the start in exhilarating new art forms. Wendy Univer explores.

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