October First Saturday Horror Series Draws Community Around David Cronenberg

Since 2012, the First Saturday Horror Series at Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas has offered movie-goers a monthly horror film selection. Pulling from a deep well that includes both well-loved classics and lesser-known gory gems, the programming highlights the diversity of form, subject matter, and aesthetic style that exists underneath the horror umbrella. Every October, the…

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Festival Unbound’s The Most Beautiful Home…Maybe Asks Poignant, Painful Questions About Our Housing Crisis

From September 27th-October 1st, Touchstone Theatre held its fifth annual Festival Unbound, a hyper-local arts celebration full of community workshops, theatrical performances, and visual art exhibitions. Since its inception in 2019, Festival Unbound has used the arts to explore the identity of the Lehigh Valley. Guided by this mission, the festival seeks to understand our…

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Review: IceHouse Tonight’s “Dogcatcher”

As national news outlets highlight the efforts of lawmakers to protect voting rights, artists and activists from Bethlehem’s IceHouse Tonight have created a thought-provoking virtual play that responds to these attacks on democratic processes and the racism that still shapes election and voting participation. The seven part series, called Dogcatcher, follows a small-town PA football…

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BAPL Feature Movie of the Month: A Review of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”

Joe Talbot’s debut film, “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” is a whimsical love letter to Talbot’s childhood friend Jimmie Fails and Talbot’s home, the San Francisco Bay Area. Closely mirroring the life of Jimmie Fails, who played himself in the film, the story takes up considerations of male friendship, toxic masculinity, identity, home…

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Iso/Nation Presents: A Radio Play by Touchstone Theatre

As part of their digital events series during the Covid-19 period, Touchstone Theatre is offering “deep listeners of the Lehigh Valley and beyond” an absurd, hilarious, and suspenseful radio play called “Iso/Nation Presents.” The radio play is part of Touchstone’s “Fresh Voices” program and is made by Sean Patrick Cassidy and Adam Ercolani, Touchstone Theatre’s…

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Chaos Controlled in Jet Black Sunrise

“When the war began, Whitman was despondent, but the violence of those years seemed to strengthen and clarify his faith in democracy, a faith that would take on a transcendent dimension.” I read this passage from Jet Black Sunrise’s playbill, quoted from Ed Simon’s New York Times article “Why We Will Need Walt Whitman in…

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