Music/Theater

LOVE AND LONELINESS: Cowboy Bo Decker (Tyler Crosby) courts the chanteuse Cherie (Veronica Siverd) in the only way he knows how in a publicity shot for Princeton Summer Theater’s production of William Inge’s 1955 dramatic comedy “Bus Stop,” playing at the Hamilton Murray Theater on the Princeton University campus through July 6.

PST Offers Blend of Dark and Light, Romance and Comedy, in High-Powered Staging of William Inge’s 1955 “Bus Stop”

Donald Gilpin

A blizzard rages outside Grace’s Diner, 20 miles west of Kansas City. It’s 1955. The bus to Topeka pulls in, but can go no further until the road ahead is cleared. During the next five hours, three locals and five travelers are stranded, thrown together. The diner is a kind of oasis amidst the desolation of the Kansas plains and the pervasive loneliness of the landscape of the human heart, as three very different romances emerge in the hours between one and six a.m.

Youthful String Quartet Refreshes Audience at Richardson Auditorium

Nancy Plum

The Princeton University Summer Concerts Series prides itself on bringing new and relatively unknown chamber ensembles to Richardson Auditorium in these warm weeks of June and July. Last Thursday night’s concert of the Escher Quartet was no exception; named after the 20th century Dutch artist M.C. Escher, the quartet has made its way through young artists’ programs to bring their own style and repertoire to the chamber music arena. For Thursday’s program, violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Wu Jie, violist Pierre Lapointe, and cellist Andrew Janss focused on an “Eastern European” theme, including a piece from the ensemble’s new favorite composer, Czech Alexander von Zemlinsky.