Video: Kasey Chambers, "Not Pretty Enough"
Nothing new to report, just a Kasey fix:
« December 2006 | Main | February 2007 »
January 31, 2007
January 30, 2007
Tri-County Players' "A Gown for His Mistress"
SHOW DATES
Don't miss the hilarious cast of charactors in Tri County Players productions of "A Gown for His Mistress" A Farce, by Georges Feydeau.
Directed by Burt McCollom, Co-Produced by Nancy Hughes & Patt Robb.
Performers are: Greg Agnew, Clint Bramkamp, Lynn Helmers, Garry Hohnecker, Becky Kelley, Kathleen Labanz, Jeff Nieman, Kasmira Oar, James Robb and Sharon Rose Tyahur.
The show will performed at Cincinnati State Workforce Development Center, 10100 Reading Road, Evendale, Ohio 45241 on February 2,3,9 & 10, 2007, all shows 8:00pm.
Ticket Price: $10 adults, $9 seniors & students, $5 children under 12.
Ticket Phone Line: 471-2030
January 29, 2007
Know Theatre Company: "Hamlet"
PRESS RELEASE
Know Theatre of Cincinnati continues its 2006-07 Season “Entertainment Outside the Box” with one of the most ambitious productions, a reinvention of the most famous play of all time, Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In this new adaptation from artistic director Jason Bruffy, the classic tale of sex, lies, ghosts and murder utilizes a mix of live action, music and original video and features Christopher Guthrie as the tragic Dane. Know Theatre is proud to present the World Premiere of Hamlet from February 22 – March 17 at Know Theatre, 1120 Jackson Street. Tickets are available through 513.621.ARTS (2787) or online at www.knowtheatre.com
Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
Adapted and Directed by Jason Bruffy
Video/Media Design by Big Bang Productions
WORLD PREMIERE
February 22 – March 17
February 22-24, March 1-3, 8-10, 15-17 @ 8:00 p.m.
Sunday February 25, March 4, March 11 and March 18 @ 4 p.m.
My Chemical Romance meets Hamlet
$20 General Admission
$15 Student/Senior
$10 Student Rush Tickets
Reservations 513.621.ARTS
Know Theatre of Cincinnati
1120 Jackson Street
www.knowtheatre.com
513.300.KNOW
Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre: "The Crucible"
SHOW DATES
Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre's production of The Crucible runs 8 p.m. Feb. 15, 16, & 17, and 2 p.m. Feb. 18 at 2:00pm. Ticket prices are $12.
Student and senior discounts are $1 on all performance – door sales only.
Group rates are$2.00 discount for every ticket purchased over 20 tickets for all shows. The show performs at Parrish Auditorium – Miami University Hamilton.
For Tickets call 513-737-PLAY.
Set in 17th century Salem Mass., and based on the infamous Salem witch trials, this Arthur Miller play is an American Classic. A small group of teenage girls are caught in an innocent conjuring of love potions to catch young men and forced to tell lies that Satan has invaded them. Thrown Into the mix are greedy preachers and other major landowners, and one young Woman infatuated with a married man and determined to get rid of his innocent wife. The result is a tale of snowballing hysteria and fear!
The cast includes: Sarah Maraan, Joe Nagle, Cicely Tutson, Nicole Busken, Alli Hershner, Michelle Lewis, Dan Phares, Alexandra Rouse, Rachel Jones, Brian Smith, Shirley Moser, Dick Gentry, Benjamin Turner, Rhonda Lucas, Larry Clines, Sean Jones, Jeff Christian, Mike Maraan, Burt McCollom, Donna Stevens, and Carl Wilson.
The Crucible is directed by Rick Carson, produced by Linda and Wally Getz, And stage-managed by Kevin Brunck. US Bank is the opening night sponsor.
(I won't be covering this for the JN. The Joneses in the cast belong to me!!!!)
Beechmont Player: "Grease"
SHOW DATES
GREASE, the wildly popular rock 'n' roll musical about Rydell High's spirited class of '59 is Beechmont Players’ sure-to-please winter hit. The gum chewing, hot rod loving boys and their wise cracking girls in bobby sox and pedal pushers capture the look and sound of the 1950s in a rollicking, toe-tapping musical.
Beechmont Players’ winter production of GREASE, book, music and lyrics by JIM JACOBS and WARREN CASEY, opens on February 23 and runs February 23, 24 and March 2, 3. Showtimes each night are at 8:00 PM, with a matinee on Saturday, March 3 @ 3:00. All performances are in Krueger Auditorium at UC Clermont
College in Batavia, a five minute drive from Eastgate Mall.
Tickets are $10 for general admission, $8 for seniors and students (with a valid ID). Call (513) BEECHMT (233-2468) for ticket information, or visit www.beechmontplayers.com for more information about the Players.
"Fiction" Pay What You Can
Join Ensemble Theatre on Tuesday, January 30th at 7:30 p.m. for a Pay-What-You-Can preview performance (final dress rehearsal) of Fiction.
Donate as little or as much as you'd like as the price of your general admission ticket! All proceeds from the evening benefit the Cincinnati-based, non- profit organization Women Writing for (a) Change.
Call the box office, (513) 421-3555, for more info.
This production contains some mature language.
January 26, 2007
Andy Narell & Sakésho: Miami University Hamilton Artist Series
Andy Narell began his love affair with the steel pans at an early age.
His father was a social worker in New York and as part of his program created steel drum bands with gang members.
“It was cool,” he said. “I was captured by the whole feeling and sound of it. Everybody who saw it wanted to do it.
“Steel band music is something you can just jump in and do. That’s part of the reason why it’s spreading all over the world. You don’t have to take lessons. Somebody can show you a few things and at the end of an hour, you’re playing music.
“Of course, you can spend the rest of your life trying to improve — like me. But it crosses all kinds of barriers that way.”
The turning point to create a career out of the pans came in college, he said, when he had the choice of getting a real job or staying in music.
“I wanted to be a composer and create original music for the pans,” he said.
His latest project is the band Sakésho, which means, he said, “It’s gonna be hot” in Creole.
The band includes pianist Mario Canonge, a native of Martinique and a key figure in French Caribbean music; bassist Michel Alibo, also from Martinique; and drummer Jean Philippe Fanfant of Guadeloupe. The band is currently based in Paris.
“If you went to Paris in the ‘70s, the scene was dominated by expatriate Americans and the scene was about trying to play at their level,” he said. “Now, there are very few Americans in the Paris jazz scene. The heavy-hitters are the West African musicians, but it’s so diverse that it’s now a really cool environment.”
how to go
WHO: Sakésho.
WHERE: Parrish Auditorium, Miami University Hamilton Campus.
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday.
COST: $18 adults; $16 seniors; $10 students.
MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; tickets.muohio.edu.
A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Ronnie Baker Brooks
Ronnie Baker Brooks began earning money for music before he even started school.
The son of Chicago blues legend Lonnie Brooks, he remembers playing around the house with his father, who would pay him and his siblings a dollar every time they wrote a song.
When he was about 8, he began begging his father to let him play on stage.
“Dad left for Europe for six weeks and I begged him to let me go with him,” Brooks recalled. “He told me that if I learned two songs before he came home, I could play at his next gig when he got back.
“When he came home, he couldn’t even get to the curb before I hit him with those songs.”
The next gig turned out to be a combination welcome home party and a party for young Ronnie’s ninth birthday at Pepper’s Hide-Out. And the kid was nervous.
“I remember I was wearing a mood ring and it was turning all kinds of colors,” he said. “Mom tried to calm me down, she said ‘Just play it like you’re at home.’”
When he and his dad’s band launched into “Messin’ With the Kid,” people began throwing money on stage and Brooks knew that the stage was his home now.
He began to accompany his father to his local gigs. If the club owners wouldn’t let him inside, the elder Brooks would park his car by the front door of the club where the doormen could keep an eye on it, and let Ronnie sit with the windows down so he could hear the music.
He broke his father’s heart a little when he gave up music for sports in high school, but he came to senses soon enough and by the time he was 17, he was a full-fledged member of the band.
“After high school, I had the choice,” he said. “I could either go to college or go out on the road.”
He stayed there for 13 years, and on New Year’s Eve, 1998, he played his last gig as a member of the band. No broken heart for Dad this time. This time, he was striking out to record on his own.
His father, he said, “was the one who told me to go out and give it shot. If he hadn’t told me to leave, I probably never would have.”
Now three albums into his own career, Brooks’ latest set is “The Torch,” where he mixes blues with contemporary urban sounds.
“I’m not saying I’m creating anything new,” he said. “I’m just doing what I hear in my head and feel in my heart.
“I grew up among the best of the best,” Brooks said. “Every time I play, I feel like I’ve got to do it with the authenticity and passion that I saw in guys like Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and my father. But I also have to put my twist on it. None of those guys repeated what came before them.”
Brooks’ twist involves enlivening blues-rock with deep soul and modern hip-hop vocals and funk rhythms. Working with Minneapolis producer Jellybean Johnson, a veteran collaborator of Prince and Janet Jackson, Brooks takes roots sounds and transforms them into something that spans the ages.
“I like to think of how Muddy Waters took the Mississippi blues he heard in his youth and modernized it for his times by making it electric and harder,” Brooks said. “That’s what I’m trying to do for my generation. I want to take what’s authentic and powerful about the music I grew up loving and bring in other influences without losing the heart and conviction of it.”
He draws on the choppy, hip-shaking rhythms of funk, the emotional truth of soul and the forcefulness of rock to bring a distinctive dimension to his groundbreaking sound. Who else would, or could, record a song featuring classic Chicago artists Lonnie Brooks, Eddy Clearwater, Jimmy Johnson and the late Willie Kent with another highlighting rapper Al Kapone.
“I wanted to do something that would bring young people to the blues, and then give them the real hardcore thing at the same time,” Brooks said. “When I grew up, all my friends listened to rap and funk, and I listened to the blues. So I heard their music and they heard mine. I think we both saw some connection between them. I like that line in the movie “Hustle & Flow” when they say this new rap song ain’t nothing but “Backdoor Man” written for modern streets. It’s a hip-hop world right now, but I want to bring a little blues to the party.”
how to go
WHAT: Legendary Rhythm and Blues Revue featuring Ronnie Baker Brooks, Tommy Castro, Magic Dick and Deanna Bogart.
WHERE: Southgate House, 24 E. Third St., Newport.
WHEN: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
COST: $20 advance; $25 day of show.
MORE INFO: (859) 431-2201; southgatehouse.com.
A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Broadway in Cincinnati: "12 Angry Men" by Reginald Rose
REVIEW
In “12 Angry Men,” a jury must deliberate the fate of a young man, a teenager really, born and reared in abject poverty, who has been charged with the murder of his father.
The play takes place entirely in the jury room. We hear the judge giving his instructions as a voice-over when the play begins, and then the jurors file in.
In this case, the jurors include George Wendt, who made his fame as the barfly Norm in the hit sitcom “Cheers,” and Richard Thomas, equally famous as John-Boy Walton in the family drama “The Waltons.”
Wendt plays the jury foreman (the role Martin Balsam played in the movie version) and Richard Thomas is Juror No. 8 (Henry Fonda in the movie).
It appears to be an open-and-shut case. The first ballot is 11-to-1 in favor of a guilty verdict. The hold-out: Juror No. 8. It’s not that he believes the boy is innocent. He’s just not sure.
As they deliberate the fate of the young man, the jurors reveal their own prejudices and foibles.
None of the characters are ever given names. Jurors are referred to by their number. The witnesses and other principals in the courtroom are referred to by their relationship to the case.
The only clue to the identity of the accused is that he is “one of those people,” and while we presume they mean black, it is never stated.
Thomas does a good job of making the role his own. He easily commands the stage when he speaks and blends effectively into the background when it’s not. Wendt isn’t really given much to do, making it seem that his star power has been wasted in a role that is largely administrative.
The real antagonists are Juror No. 4, a man who has issues with his own wayward son, and No. 10, a man whose entire world view is colored, so to speak, by his bigotry.
With no attempt to update it with a multi-cultural cast or some other gimmick, this production of “12 Angry Men” plays like a time capsule piece, nearly word-for-word from the movie with the addition of a few more colorful epithets.
Both an exercise in creative deduction and a meditation on race and hatred, “12 Angry Men” is a sharp and enjoyable theatrical event.
how to go
WHAT: Broadway in Cincnnati presents “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose.
WHERE: Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati.
WHEN: Through Jan. 28.
COST: $18-$48.
MORE INFO: (513) 241-7469; broadwayacrossamerica.com.
A version of this review originally appeared in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: "Pure Confidence" by Carlyle Brown
REVIEW
The acting is good, the story compelling, but there’s something about “Pure Confidence” that fails to ring true.
The title refers to the name of a race horse, but it could also apply to its jockey, Simon Cato, a slave who is owned, via inheritance, by two children. But Simon is also the best jockey of the pre-Civil War South, hired out regularly to Colonel Wiley Johnson, owner of Pure Confidence.
Simon is not only confident, but often downright arrogant about his capabilities as a jockey. In fact, in the opening scene he chides the Colonel’s nemesis George DeWitt, a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, who just lost a race and a hefty wager.
It is in this chiding that the play strikes its first false notes. It’s hard to imagine a slave bedeviling any white man in that era, especially one of such high social standing.
More than anything, Simon wants his freedom, and he embarks on a plan to buy himself back from the tips he earns as a jockey. He cooks up a scheme that would make Lucy Ricardo proud, pitting the Colonel versus the would-be Senator in a high-stakes auction for his services prior to an even higher-stakes horse race.
But he soon learns that, as the Colonel warned him, “freedom ain’t nothing but a piece of paper.”
There’s also a love story tossed into the mix as Simon falls for the Colonel’s wife’s handmaiden, Caroline.
Indeed, Caroline is the first to be free as Simon purchases her while still a slave himself, another plot point that doesn’t ring true.
But realism is not the point of “Pure Confidence.” It could be seen more as an allegory, a pondering of the nature of freedom and friendship, a fable that takes place in a world of fast horses and where there’s more at stake than the wagers being placed.
how to go
WHO: “Pure Confidence” by Carlyle Brown.
WHERE: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati.
WHEN: Through Feb. 16.
COST: $37.50-$50.50.
MORE INFO: (513) 421-3888; cincyplay.com.
A version of this review originally appeared in Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Photo by Sandy Underwood/Playouse in the Park
Ensemble Theatre of Cincnnati: Dennis Parlato and Amy Warner in "Fiction" by Steven Dietz
INTERVIEW
Steven Dietz’ “Fiction” is the exploration of a marriage and the privacy issues that can arise in one’s life and work.
“It’s a complex, subtle story about a married couple who are novelists,” said actor Dennis Parlato, “a story of unfaithfulness and faithfulness, about what’s really important in relationships and what isn’t.
“If we do our job, the audience will be able to take a fresh look at their own lives, how little facts matter when you’ve created your own history and mythology.”
Parlato plays Michael Waterman, a writer who set out early in his career to create the great American novel.
He makes fun of those who write novels expressly for the hope that they’ll be turned into a movie, but eventually turns into one of those and so decides to become the best hack novelist there is.
His wife Linda, Parlato said, is probably the better writer.
“She’s a writer who in her 20s wrote an important book and has never been able to match it,” said actress Amy Warner, “something like Harper Lee, who wrote ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’”
The Watermans have a full and rich relationship, but she finds out that she’s ill and doesn’t have much longer to live. She makes a deal with her husband: She will let him read her diaries after she is gone if she can read his before she goes.
But as she pores over his journals, she discovers that the truth is often distorted, that Michael has created a journal that reflects something other than his real life.
“These people are smart,” Warner said. “It’s fun to be in Steven Dietz’s plays because it makes you feel smart. The dialogue is smart and the characters say witty and elegant things.”
“It’s a little bit of a tearjerker,” Parlato said, “but it’s not sentimental.”
how to go
WHO: “Fiction” by Steven Dietz.
WHERE: Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, 1127 Vine Street, Cincinnati.
WHEN: Feb. 3-18.
COST: $32 adults, $29 students and seniors, $16 children ages 12 and under.
MORE INFO: (513) 421-3555; cincyetc.com.
A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Human Race Theatre Company: "I Am My Own Wife"
REVIEW
One-actor shows are often a tricky affair, especially when it requires the one actor to take on a number of different roles.
But Bruce Cromer manages to create 30 characters with their own voice and body in Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife.”
The main character is Charlotte von Mahlsdorff, born a man but survived both the Nazis and the Soviet oppression of East Germany as a woman.
When the Berlin Wall falls, Charlotte is thrust into the international spotlight and gets the attention of playwright Doug Wright, who appears as a character in this play, which is about his gathering background material to write it.
Charlotte is living in a museum, literally. She leads guided tours of the artifacts that she had collected, mostly from the period known, ironically enough, as “the gay ‘90s.” As the play opens, she speaks to a group of tourists, then to a reporter from the U.S. News. She tells him that the tourists “come to look at me, but some of them look at the furniture.”
She has rescued antiques from the oppressive and destructive governments she’s lived under, including the bar and furniture from a homosexual cabaret, which she recreated and operated in her basement for a time.
But as the events of the play transpire, her past -- especially her connection to the police for whom she served as an informant in regard to the illegal sale of antiques.
Cromer again proves himself to be one of the region’s finest actors as he moves seamlessly between characters, which include the playwright himself, the friend that Charlotte apparently turned into the police and a host of reporters, soldiers and other incidental characters.
Cromer, a Human Race resident artist and associate professor at Wright State University, has a wealth of experience to put into this role of a lifetime. He has appeared in 19 plays with The Human Race alone in the past two decades, with major roles in everything from “Macbeth” and “Angels in America” to “The Drawer Boy” and “I Hate Hamlet.” Most recently, he received a DayTony for his performance as Prospero in “The Tempest,” a role he will revive later in the season with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival.
how to go
WHAT: “I Am My Own Wife” by Doug Wright.
WHERE: The Human Race Theatre Company, The Loft Theatre, 138 North Main St., Dayton.
WHEN: Through Feb. 4.
COST: $28-$34.
MORE INFO: (888) 228-3630; ticketcenterstage.com.
A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
The Outlaws
The guitar army is back and ready to invade Cincinnati.
Known for its distinctive harmonies, double drummers and heavy guitar attack, the Outlaws were on hiatus while bandmaster Hugie Thomasson did an extended tour of duty with fellow Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd.
“I wrote 32 songs with Skynyrd,” Thomasson said in an interview from his Brooksville, Fla., home. “That was a trip, trying to sound like Skynyrd when you’re an Outlaw.
“It was only supposed to be to fill in for six months, but it turned out to be nine years. I was glad to have a chance to do it.”
It wasn’t a totally out-of-the-blue union. The Outlaws and the Skynyrd band have a long history together. Thomasson once played in an early version of the Outlaws called the King James Version with Leon Wilkerson, Skynyrd’s long-time bassist.
“He had been in Skynyrd, then left them to join me,” he said. “Then Skynyrd got their deal, called him back up and he said ‘I gotta go.’”
Then there was the time in Nashville at the bar Mother’s, when Thomasson was sleeping in the back room after a gig.
“Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing the next day,” he said. “They got in about two in the morning and wanted to play.
“I woke up and saw Ronnie Van Zant standing over top of me. I said, ‘Who are you?’ He said, ‘Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Who are you?’ ‘I’m Hughie Thomasson of the Outlaws.’
“We played all night.”
After leaving that band (on good terms), Thomasson set out to recreate the band that gave us “Green Grass and High Tides,” “Hurry Sundown” and “There Goes Another Love Song.”
“It’s all about the harmonies,” Thomasson said. “If we could play like the Outlaws and sing like the Eagles, we’d really have something. Nothing against those fellows in the Eagles about their guitar playing because those boys sure can sing. But we are the guitar army.”
In re-forming the band, Thomasson enlisted Chris Anderson, who played with the Outlaws previously for a time before striking out on his own with the band Black Hawk, and bass guitarist Randy Threet, who leaped into the national spotlight in the “Nashville Star” television show.
“It’s taken me a year to get the band back up to where we need to be,” Thomasson said. “Cincinnati will be the first stop on our tour.”
In addition to playing the expected hits, the Outlaws will also be trying out new songs for its next album, “Full Circle,” which will be out later this year.
“We’ve already been playing three songs from it,” Thomasson said. “I take Charlie Daniels’ advice: Play it live and if they like it, you’re in good shape. So far, everybody’s loving it.
“We’re doing our best to please everybody.”
how to go
WHO: The Outlaws with Big In Iowa.
WHERE: Whiskey Dick’s, 700 Pete Rose Way, Cincinnati.
WHEN: 8 p.m.. Saturday.
COST: $20 advance; $25 day of show.
MORE INFO: (513) 421-6200; whiskeydicksbar.com.
A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
January 24, 2007
Victoria Theatre Association announces 2007-07 Broadway Series
PRESS RELEASE
Victoria Theatre Association has announced the lineup for next season’s Broadway Series, which includes the recent Broadway smash hits Monty Python’s Spamalot and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, as well as the return of BLAST! and Chicago. The nostalgic Broadway hit Say Goodnight Gracie and a brand new production of the classic musical Shenandoah round out the 2007-2008 series lineup.
Victoria Theatre Association has also announced the return of Mamma Mia! as a special Star Attraction during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
“This promises to be another exciting season, with a great mix of new shows, including the Broadway hit Spamalot, which won the 2005 Tony® for Best Musical,” says Victoria Theatre Association President & CEO Dione Kennedy. “We’ve also been able to bring several audience favorites, including the immensely popular Mamma Mia!, back to Dayton for return engagements.”
Victoria Theatre Association is also pleased to announce that JPMorgan Chase will be the title sponsor of the series next season.
“JPMorgan Chase has been an active supporter of our organization for many years, and this new commitment will help ensure that we are able to continue bringing top-quality Broadway entertainment to Dayton,” says Kennedy.
The 2007-2008 JPMorgan Chase Broadway Series opens with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, September 25 – 30, 2007, at the Schuster Center. It’s been called “ONE OF THE LIVELIEST, FUNNIEST, BEST-PERFORMED MUSICALS IN YEARS!” (New York Post). Based on the popular movie and set on the glorious, glamorous Riviera, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a delicious comedy that follows two con artists as they take on the lifestyles of the rich and shameless - and end up with a lot more than they bargain for in the process.
The series returns to the Victoria Theatre with Say Goodnight Gracie, October 30 – November 11, 2007, a fascinating one-man tour through an American century with the perfect comical guide, the wry and charming George Burns. See the world through the eyes a real “character,” one who savored each day of his long life – from his impoverished youth to his career in Vaudeville, from his marriage to Gracie Allen to their rise to success on the stage, screen, radio and TV – and, of course, his “second time around” film career in the 1970s.
The hit musical Chicago returns to Dayton, January 29 – February 3, 2008, at the Schuster Center. This razzle-dazzle tale of sin and celebrity has been one of Broadway’s most popular musicals. The recipient of six Tony® Awards, two Olivier Awards, a Grammy and thousands of standing ovations, Chicago is the sensation that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
BLAST! also returns to Dayton next season, February 19 – March 2, 2008, at the Victoria Theatre. This spectacular performance event – which was the first Broadway Series presentation at the Schuster Center in 2003 – is “music in motion,” ranging from classical to the blues, jazz to rock and roll, and beyond, performed in dizzyingly theatrical style by the top young brass, percussion and visual performers from across the country. If you thought BLAST! was spectacular at the Schuster Center, wait until you see it in the intimate surroundings of the Victoria Theatre!
The Broadway smash hit Monty Python’s Spamalot, winner of the 2005 Tony® Award for Best Musical, comes to the Schuster Center April 22 – 27, 2008. Spamalot is the outrageous new musical comedy “lovingly ripped off from” the film classic Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Directed by Tony Award-winner Mike Nichols, with a book by Monty Python’s Eric Idle and music and lyrics by the Grammy Award-winning team of Idle and John Du Prez, Spamalot tells the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as they embark on their quest for the Holy Grail. Flying cows, killer rabbits, taunting Frenchmen and show-stopping musical numbers are just a few of the reasons audiences everywhere are “eating up” Spamalot.
The season wraps up with a new production of Shenandoah by The Human Race Theatre Company, May 6 – 18, 2008, at the Victoria Theatre. Dealing with one family’s struggle to stay out of the Civil War, Shenandoah is a piece of inspirational musical theatre whose time has come once again. This musical overflows with memories and emotions, strong characters and history-making events, gorgeous songs and exhilarating moments. Based on the 1965 film, Shenandoah debuted on Broadway in 1975 and garnered six Tony® Award nominations.
In addition to the six-show JPMorgan Chase Broadway Series lineup, Victoria Theatre Association has announced the first of next season’s Star Attractions, Mamma Mia!. The popular musical, featuring the music of ABBA, returns to the Schuster Center for a special limited engagement, November 20 – 25, 2007.
Season subscriptions are on sale now for the JPMorgan Chase Broadway Series. Subscriptions may be purchased through Ticket Center Stage, either at the Schuster Center box office in downtown Dayton or by phone, at (937) 228-3630 or toll free (888) 228-3630. Ticket Center Stage hours are Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Saturday, noon - 4 p.m., and two hours prior to each performance. Individual tickets for all Victoria Theatre Association presentations may be purchased online at www.ticketcenterstage.com.
For more information about Victoria Theatre Association, visit www.victoriatheatre.com.
News: Kasey taking a break after delivery
Country music star Kasey Chambers says she wants to be a mum first and musician second after the birth of her baby later this year.
Chambers is due to give birth to her second child in early July, and the 30-year-old singer-songwriter has been taking full advantage of the pregnancy after a busy 2006 schedule.
"I finished touring in the first week of December, and I just pretty much stopped everything completely after that, I've just been at home hanging out," Chambers said after arriving at the Tamworth country music festival on ?Sunday.
"I'm making the most of it, laying on the couch, sleeping in, it's been really good."
The seven-time ARIA Award winner is back on the road for the next few months though, beginning with a free Australia Day concert at the country music festival with Missy Higgins.
The two have been planning the show via email, and even at this stage Chambers is unsure exactly how the performance will work.
She expects a solo performance from 23-year-old Higgins, who has spent the past months recording her second album in Los Angeles, but hopes the two can perform at least a few songs together.
Chambers says she has been a big fan of Higgins ever since she discovered they shared a love for American songwriter Patty Griffin.
"She (Griffin) has been a huge influence on me, and when I first saw Missy Higgins, before she made it big ... she came back for an encore and did a Patty Griffin song," Chambers said.
"I'd never heard anyone in my life play a Patty Griffin song, and I just thought: 'That's awesome!'"
After an acoustic tour across northern Queensland and Darwin with her husband and father in February and March, plus an appearance at the Byron Bay Blues Festival, Chambers will focus exclusively on her expanding family, which includes her four-year-old son Talon.
"I haven't taken anything on for the rest of the year. I'd just rather wait and see how I feel," Chambers said of her post-pregnancy plans.
"I went out on the road not long after Talon was born, and it was good and I enjoyed it, but I think I'd like to spend a bit of time with my family.
"When I go out on tour, I get itchy feet and I just go: 'Oh, I want to be home', I do enjoy being home a lot more.
"I'm married now, and I've got a kid on the way. I'm 30, I'm not a teenager any more."
The Tamworth country music festival concludes on January 28.
Chambers is pregnant with her first child with husband Australian singer/songwriter Shane Nicholson, whom she married in late 2005.
She had Talon in May 2002 with then partner actor/director Cori Hopper.
Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival: "A Winter's Tale"
SHOW DATES
cincyshakes.com
For the first time in the company’s history, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company brings to life Shakespeare’s sad tale for winter, a fantastical fairy tale romance of love, loss and magic. The Winter’s Tale is a little-seen but well-loved play of the Bard’s, and features what is perhaps Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
In The Winter’s Tale, running Feb. 8 to March 4, King Leontes becomes certain that his wife Hermione is having an affair with his best friend. When his jealousy overrides his reason, the consequences tear his world apart. The production is directed by Brian Isaac Phillips and features founding company member Nick Rose as Leontes, Corinne Mohlenhoff as Hermione, Giles Davies* as Autolycus, and guest artist Sherman Fracher* as Paulina.
Director Brian Isaac Phillips finds the play to be packed with wonderful, theatrical surprises. “Audiences enjoy Shakespeare’s romances for the same reason they enjoy a great romantic comedy or love story – it leaves you with a sense of joy, hope, and the belief that ‘happily ever after’ can happen,” says Phillips. “I think for audiences it will be an absolute pleasure to see a play they’ve never seen before. It’s a fairy tale that you’re hearing for the first time, and it really captures the imagination.”
The scenic design by CSC Resident Scenic Designer Will Turbyne will feature Maxfield Parrish-inspired artwork, echoing the dazzling colors and fairytale settings of the American painter. The design team also includes Resident Costume Designer Heidi Jo Schiemer, Lighting Designer Sean Savoie, and Sound Designer Jenny D. Johnson.
Box Office: (513) 381-BARD (2273)
New Release: "Learn to Sing Like a Rock Star" by Kristin Hersh
KRISTIN HERSH
"Learn to Sing Like a Rock Star"
Here's a big, spacious, sumptuous record with emphatic energy ("In Shock" and "Winter"), stripped ballads ("Nerve Endings" and "Ice"), deceptively breezy upbeat numbers ("Under The Gun" and "Wild Vanilla") and dreamy tunes ("Vertigo" and "Sugar Baby").
The album features beautiful strings, played by British friends, Martin and Kim McCarrick. Throwing Muses' David Narcizo, supplies the drums (and also the album cover, starring Kristin's lips!) while Kristin plays everything else. "No sound went down on this record unchallenged," Hersh explains, "if we'd heard it before-- a surf-guitar, for instance--we layered it with piano reverb, tubular bells, and backwards bass to create an unusual hybrid tone with more character."
There will be live dates, with solo songs and a band format: Throwing Muses/50 Foot Wave bassist, Bernard Georges, and 50 Foot wave drummer, Rob Ahlers, plus strings.
And the title - "Learn to Sing Like a Star" - is there a story there? Of course. Kristin traded mixes and fixes on the record via email with engineer Trina Shoemaker. Every time Kristin attempted to download a mix, she reports, "I'd see this recurring piece of spam with the subject line 'Learn to sing like a star!' It was this ludicrous piece of junk mail. I saw it so many times, it started to sound moving to me -- why not sing for the cosmos instead of the music business? And suddenly there wasn't a better name for the record." In an album rich with sad prophecy, might the title offer prophecy of a brighter hue, a reference to the meteoric rise to fame Hersh will soon experience as a result of this record? Hersh laughs, "Yeah, that's probably it."
Here's the video to "In Shock":
Who is Kristin Hersh? Twenty years and fifteen albums into her career, the question reasserts itself. The teenage girl who formed Throwing Muses, who mesmerized sad eighties alternakids with songs like "Delicate Cutters" and "Soul Soldier" did not grow up to scream, "Shut the fuck up" and "I don't feel so sorry" fronting the blisteringly loud and fast 50 Foot Wave, did she? Yes, she did, and managed six solo albums in between. It's been a riveting rollercoaster of a career, one that now offers up her best work yet.
Hersh was in high school when she formed Throwing Muses, the first American band signed to 4AD Records. Throwing Muses offered dazzling musical expressions of psychic chaos. Tempo and mood ricocheted wildly. The songs roamed and startled and defied easy categorization. The young band made eight albums in ten years (1986-1996) during which time Hersh bore three sons. It was a fertile decade for Hersh to be sure, and a tumultuous one. A psychiatric diagnosis, a child custody battle, a lawsuit by a former manager, and step-sister Tanya Donnelly's exodus from the band added up to what Hersh's current manager (and husband; add that to the scandal sheet) refers to as "Kristin's Behind the Music years."
By 1993, Hersh's personal life had stabilized and she found herself hearing songs that, to her chagrin, didn't sound like Throwing Muses songs (Hersh hears a song... and chases it, stalks it, wrestles it to fruition). So she recorded them solo and called the album Hips and Makers. Then something unexpected happened. This small, personal record took off, outselling all of Throwing Muses' albums, and expanding Hersh's fan base at a time when Throwing Muses was ceasing to be economically viable. When Hersh sang in 1989's "Devil's Roof," "I have two heads," she might have been predicting her musical future, as her career would soon require her to move seamlessly between two musical heads: BandKristin and SoloKristin.
As if to complicate matters further, SoloKristin had a few different heads. Hersh released a CD of her favorite Appalachian folksongs (Murder, Misery, and Then Goodnight) in 1998 and some questions about the "schizophrenia" of Hersh's musical oeuvre were answered - "maybe" - by offering fans a taste of the music she'd been raised on. In one song, a young man loves a woman so intensely, he loses his mind and kills her. In another, a new baby brings giddy joy and fantasies of filling his bottle with gin to quiet him.
This musical tradition illustrates the world view that is, perhaps, the one constant through Hersh's multiple incarnations: pure darkness and pure light just don't exist. Love is like a bee sting (Hips and Makers), like kissing gravel (Limbo), like a velvet bed of nails (Sunny Border Blue). Joy and sadness complement and mediate each other. The dazzling disarray of Hersh's early work has given way to mature accomplishment. Her voice has grown deeper and richer and the songs now take flight without leaving artist and listener seasick. The gift that once overwhelmed Hersh, has been harnessed - "with craft, with age" - to magnificent effect.
Hersh conceived another son (her fourth) in 2002 and another band (her second) in 2004. Finding solo artistry often "insular and a bit of a mindfuck," Hersh formed 50 Foot Wave out of a craving to take time away from her solo career and once again play with a rock band. Designed as a DIY, tour-intensive project, the band prioritized the live experience and literally gave music away on Hersh's website, throwingmusic.com.
And then life dealt Hersh another hairpin turn.
"Something was definitely up with me and water," Hersh observes, in perhaps the understatement of her career. When the tsunami occurred in 2004, a month before a band called 50 Foot Wave was scheduled to release an album called Golden Ocean, The New York Times called Hersh for an explanation. Hersh told the journalist he might want call the band Tsunami rather than her.
Then the water got closer to home. In the fall of 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans (one of Kristin and Billy's former haunts). Shortly thereafter, a burst pipe flooded Hersh's home while the family was away on tour. When insurance only paid out half the cost, Hersh and her husband emptied their savings repairing the house. Financially depleted, they were forced to sell their home at a loss and move on.
How to explain, then, Hersh's lyrics on Learn to Sing Like a Star? The songs were written in Los Angeles--before Katrina and before Hersh's house flood. In "Day Glo," Hersh sings of being "twisted in slo-mo by angry water" and screams, "I've lost everything" with palpable fury. From the song, "Ice:" "Damp and sour-skulled, we land with a thud, eight hours off our old life." A song called "Under the Gun" reflects on "our puny savings - "blown." Hersh observes, "It's like the songs knew water would make us really poor really fast, though that didn't happen for another year. Songs don't care about time."
The phenomenon isn't entirely new to Hersh, whose 1988 Throwing Muses album, House Tornado, has been widely interpreted as Hersh's rock n' roll meditation on female domesticity - "marriage, housework, the demands of family." Hersh allows that the album may be just that, but, "I didn't have a house or a marriage yet when I wrote those songs."
Here's a video of "In Shock":
New Release: "Woke Myself Up" by Julie Doiron
JULIE DOIRON
"Woke Myself Up"
We all are driven to doing certain things and making certain decisions in our lives for any number of reasons, be it ambition, fear, greed or love. The last purpose is perhaps the most identifiable to most of us, and so it is no great mystery that that which drives us can both reward us immensely and plummet us into the greatest depths of inconsolable sadness and regret. On Julie Doiron's first album of new material in over two years, she addresses in her signature intimate songwriting style both the heights and the fallout in a way that forces the listener to reexamine their own loves.
One of the most important and greatest loves in Julie's life is that towards her family. The first half of Woke Myself Up details the joy and awe that her family has given her. Immediately, one knows that her unabashed and unaffected lyrics are coming from a woman truly moved. The second half sees Julie making mistakes, blowing second chances, and coming to terms with the sad truth that one cannot live up to expectations set by herself or those she loves. The harrowing untitled final track (recorded and added to the album at the eleventh hour by Doiron) may very well be the most affecting of Doiron's performances ever committed to tape.
Also important to the recording of this album was a reunion of sorts with her musical family. Founding Eric's Trip bandmate Rick White produced and played on the entire album, and a handful of the songs contain the entire original Eric's Trip band nucleus that took the Canadian indie underground by storm 15 years ago. Working with an old friend and collaborator like White was key to this album's intensely vulnerable and emotionally raw tone. What's captured is timeless and universal, in the same way as Cat Power's Moon Pix, Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love And Hate, and Joni Mitchell's Blue.
Julie Doiron began her career in music in 1990 at the age of 18 in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada playing bass in Eric's Trip, a folky yet psychedelic band that were to become the undisputed underground darlings of Canadian music. Eric's Trip were the first of many maritime Canadians signed to Sub Pop and found international recognition, releasing several albums and touring widely. Following 1996's Purple Blue, Eric's Trip announced their breakup and Julie Doiron embarked on her solo career, first releasing songs as "Broken Girl" but later under her own name. She has released six full-lengths and two EPs prior to Woke Myself Up, including the Juno Award-winning Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars album.
Here's the video for "Me and My Friend":
January 23, 2007
Tri County Players: "A Gown for His Mistress"
Tri County Players is please to announce their show "A Gown for His
Mistress" A Farce in Three Acts,by George Feydeau. Directed by Burt
McCollom, Co-Produced by Nancy Hughes & Patt Robb.
Show Dates: February 2, 3, 9, and 10, 2007, all shows at 8:00 P.M.
All perforamce will be held at the Cincinnati State Workforce Campus
located at 10100 Reading Road in the Evendale area.
Ticket Phone: 471-2030. Ticket Price: $10 adults, $9 seniors &
students, $5 children under 12.
Cast performing are: Greg Agnew, Clint Bramkamp, Lynn Helmers, Garry
Hohnecker, Becky Kelley, Kathleen Labanz, Jeff Nieman, Kasimira Oar,
James Robb and Sharon Rose Tyahur.
Mistress" A Farce in Three Acts,by George Feydeau. Directed by Burt
McCollom, Co-Produced by Nancy Hughes & Patt Robb.
Show Dates: February 2, 3, 9, and 10, 2007, all shows at 8:00 P.M.
All perforamce will be held at the Cincinnati State Workforce Campus
located at 10100 Reading Road in the Evendale area.
Ticket Phone: 471-2030. Ticket Price: $10 adults, $9 seniors &
students, $5 children under 12.
Cast performing are: Greg Agnew, Clint Bramkamp, Lynn Helmers, Garry
Hohnecker, Becky Kelley, Kathleen Labanz, Jeff Nieman, Kasimira Oar,
James Robb and Sharon Rose Tyahur.
January 22, 2007
Spot the Clown in this Blondie strip
January 21, 2007
Video: "Overtime" by Lucinda Williams
Dresden Dolls: Sing
News: The Moaners release Blackwing Yalobusha
From the Yep Roc Newsletter
During the fall of 2006 the North Carolina-based garage-blues duo The Moaners decided to revisit their Mississippi roots and travel by van and backcountry blacktop to Yalobusha County, Mississippi.
The mission: to record their latest album, Blackwing Yalobusha, with former Squirrel Nut Zippers founder and producer Jimbo Mathus.
The site of the recording would be the world famous Fat Possum studios now dubbed Blackwings.
Amid the thousand-pound heat and despite the unwanted attention of prickly local cops, the female duo churned out a slow burning collection of songs that chant and spit their way through the spirit world of the old south.
The songs tell tall tales of barstool black belts and monkey tongues while tuned-down slide guitar tumbles through the delta landscapes of Faulkner and O'Connor.
Drummer Laura King delivers a pounding with her steady, heavy-handed rhythmic chug-a-lug.
Blackwing Yalobusha is more incantation than composition meant to, as guitarist/singer and former Trailer Bride front woman Melissa Swingle puts it, "...make you feel happiness, sadness, a little creepy, just as long as you feel and feel passionately."
Pre-order, read their bio or listen to samples at the Yep Roc store. Preorder Blackwing Yalobusha and download two exclusive bonus MP3s - an acoustic version of "Shrew" and "The Elizabeth Cotten Song" performed live with members of the Drive-By Truckers!
Listen to the song "Monkey Tongue."
View the trailer for "Mississippi Moan: The Making of Blackwing Yalobusha." The full version is on the enhanced CD version of the album.
January 19, 2007
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: Studio Series
REVIEW
The Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival proves that Greek drama isn’t just for study with an amazing production of Euripides’ “The Women of Troy.”
“The Women of Troy” takes place after the fall of Troy as the royal women, being divided among the top Greek officers as prizes, await news of their fate. They each get to tell their stories. Some plan to seek vengeance on the Greeks by pretending to be faithful slaves or concubines, while others are more resigned to their fate.
It makes for a great showcase for the women of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, including Miranda McGee as the queen Hecuba, Sara Clark as her daughter Cassandra and Kelly Mengelkoch as Andromache.
Helen of Troy, much despised by the other women because it was for her rescue that Troy was decimated, has been condemned to death and makes a plea for mercy. Hayley Clark plays her as a cunning vixen, playing innocent and dumb but with an undercurrent of wily manipulation.
The acting is done more stylistically than realistically in many cases, giving the production a melodramatic surface, but underneath it bubbles the horrors and atrocities of war.
While still using the trappings of classical Greek theater — including masks and a chorus — CSC puts “The Women of Troy” in a modern context, supplementing Euripides text with excerpts of writings detailing the horrors of war in the modern era, from a child wandering Hiroshima just after the bomb fell to a woman’s story of being raped in Darfur.
“The Women of Troy” is inexplicably paired with “The Dumbwaiter” by Harold Pinter, the story of two hired killers (Jeremy Dubin and Josh Stamoolis) awaiting their assignment in a basement somewhere. They instead receive orders for food, as though they were in the kitchen of a restaurant, and so as to not blow their cover, they try to fill the orders as best they can.
The production lacks the power and focus of “The Women of Troy,” however. There’s not much chemistry between the two actors and director Giles Davies allows too much empty space, especially in the first half of the play. Pinter is all about what comes between the lines, and Stamoolis, especially, provides a lot of business that doesn’t add up to much.
These productions are presented as the first in the CSC Studio Series, an opportunity for the troupe to produce rarely-performed classical works — a most admirable endeavor, to be sure.
But if this evening’s performances were set up as a battle of the sexes, then the girls have won this round.
how to go
WHO: “The Women of Troy” by Euripides and “The Dumbwaiter” by Harold Pinter.
WHERE: Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, 719 Race St., Cincinnati.
WHEN: Through Jan. 28.
COST: $18-$24.
MORE INFO: (513) 381-2273; cincyshakes.com.
A version of this story appeared in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Know Theatre Company: "Gompers"
REVIEW
Everything is going to pieces in “Gompers.”
Richard Dent (Jeff Groh), the superintendent of the apartment building where much of the action takes place in the Know Theatre Company production of the Adam Rapp play, has impregnated a teen-age tenant (Liz Holt) whose mother (Pam George) struggles with sobriety. His roommate Nolan (Aaron Kotte) has discovered the joys of self-mutilation. Another tenant (J.C. Diaz) lies dying of AIDS, while another (Michael Burnham) keeps playing his trombone in the courtyard at 7:30 in the morning.
Meanwhile, a statue of Jesus that vandals have painted blue has apparently come to life and is stalking the town, bringing bad luck to all who see him.
It’s an intricate web in an insulated community, where the steel mill that provided its economic backbone has closed, leaving its residents struggling to survive.
While the story tends to meander and not quite pull everything together, “Gompers” is a feast for the actors. Each part is lovingly rendered, both in script and in performance.
Samantha Reno’s set design puts everything at odd angles, but manages to create four apartments and a riverside park in the Know Theatre’s space.
“Gompers” is an odd piece of drama, but an engaging one that shows a lot of heart and a deep, deep soul.
how to go
WHAT: “Gompers.”
WHERE: Know Theatre Company, 1120 Jackson St., Cincinnati.
WHEN: 8 p.m. through Feb. 3.
COST: $20 adults; $15 students/seniors; $10 student rush tickets.
MORE INFO: (513) 621-2787; knowtheatre.com.
A version of this story appeared in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
January 18, 2007
Wyoming Players: "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery"
Wyoming Players present The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery. Everything that can go wrong, does...with hilarious consequences...when an English women's club attempts to perform a murder mystery.
Produced by Dee Dunn, directed by Lynne Aronson, and featuring Aimee H. Alex, Michael Dean Conley, Dee Dunn, Julia Hedges, and Amy Sullivan. Also falling scenery, mismatched costumes, actors playing multiple parts...and fudge.
At the Wyoming Civic Center, Springfield Pike & Worthington Ave. January 26 & 27 at 8:00 PM, January 28 at 2:00 PM, and February 2 & 3 at 8:00 PM. $12 for adults, $10 for students/seniors/groups of 10 or more. Tickets at the door or phone 588-4910.
January 17, 2007
News: Gore Gore Girls sign with Bloodshot Records
PRESS RELEASE
On the Web
MySpace
Detroit’s Gore Gore Girls joined the Bloodshot Records family and are set to release their third full length, Get The Gore this summer. 
Named for low budget thrill-king Herschell Gordon Lewis’s 1972 film, The Gore Gore Girls, Tucson Weekly described the band thusly, “Just picture the Ronettes and the Marvelettes adding girl-group harmonies and sophisticated soulfulness to a pummeling, raw energy burst not unlike the music of the MC5 and the Stooges. Yes, the Gore Gore Girls are a girl group, but they are the Ramones to the Donnas' AC/DC; they're more Runaways and L7 than the Go-Gos and the Bangles.” Get the Gore was produced by Jim Diamond, known for his work with bands like The Ponys, The White Stripes and The Dirtbombs.
The band are known for non-stop touring and incendiary live performances – they were chosen for Little Steven’s Underground Garage Rolling RnR Show tour by the man himself, joining the Zombies, The Mooney Suzuki and The Woggles for sweat-soaked performances across the nation. "This tour was a real wake-up call for us," says singer/guitarist Amy Gore. "I never realized how much Rolling Rock was too much until now." Beer drinking was only one of the challenges presented by the super-charged tour line-up, but the Girls persevered. As Amy explained, "The sexual tension between the Mooney Suzuki and The Woggles was intense, we just tried to stay out of it." Look for the Gore Gore Girls playing numerous times in Austin at SXSW.
About Gore Gore Girls:
"These Girls take the two best musical movements to come out of Detroit ( Motown and Garage Rock) and smash them together to create a sexy, sultry sound similar to how Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are Made For Walking" would sound being performed by The Runaways. The Gore Gore Girls are a show not to be missed" - Jen Cray, Ink19.com
The Gals of Gore deliver what other contemporaries can’t: a powerful, girl-group sound that will send shivers down your spine and dancin’ heat to your feet. An R&B and punk rock union made in heaven! Gore Gore Girls’ simple yet savage take on hip shakin’ rock-n-roll numbers and ferocious live show make them noteworthy and unique. Influenced by equal parts Kinks, Stooges, Marvelettes and some down home dirty love, Gore Gore Girls know how to deliver caustic yet sweet pop numbers in an original girl-group style.
The Gore Gore Girls’ sensory-shocking show has made them darlings of the modern rock scene, resulting in tours with rock ‘n’ roll legends THE CRAMPS and manic rockabilly preacher THE REVEREND HORTON HEAT. They’ve also shared stages with rock heavyweights EAGLES OF DEATH METAL and THE NEW YORK DOLLS, THE RAVONETTES, THE PRETTY THINGS, THE STROKES and more at LITTLE STEVEN’S UNDERGROUND GARAGE FESTIVAL at Randall’s Island , NY last year.
January 16, 2007
Johnny Puleo and the Harmonica Rascals
Posted to YouTube by Cashin Comedy.
January 15, 2007
Video: "Daddy's Glove" by Kinsey Rose
From the YouTube description: Kinsey Rose performs her sweet song from the album Cincinnati Clutch Hits "Daddy's Glove". Directed by Russ Jenisch, live sound by Alex Luhst/Mind Ignition, mixed by David Storm. From the album "Cincinnati Clutch Hits" available at redscommunityfund.com.
Bicycle Horn Virtuousity
BBC in Iraq
From an Australian sketch comedy show.
January 14, 2007
Video: "Pretty Is" by Liz Larin
Her website: lizlarin.com
MySpace
It's Potty Time
And time to play "Spot the Clown"!!!
January 12, 2007
Bill Irwin on the Cosby show
News: Patty Griffin's "Children Running Through" due Feb. 6
ATO Records is proud to announce the release of the fifth studio album by Grammy nominated singer/ songwriter great Patty Griffin. 
Entitled, "Children Running Through," the album will be released on February 6th.
"Children Running Through" continues the remarkable creative evolution that's quietly established Griffin as a vital and singular musical force. It also belies her persistent sensitive-singer-songwriter image--a limiting perception that fails to fully convey the emotional depth and breadth of her songwriting or the emotive power of her fluid, soulful singing. Indeed, the new disc's 12 Griffin originals maintain a timelessly truthful resonance that echoes a variety of styles, most notably the classic R&B and gospel music that have long been a source of inspiration for the artist.
Entitled, "Children Running Through," the album will be released on February 6th."Children Running Through" continues the remarkable creative evolution that's quietly established Griffin as a vital and singular musical force. It also belies her persistent sensitive-singer-songwriter image--a limiting perception that fails to fully convey the emotional depth and breadth of her songwriting or the emotive power of her fluid, soulful singing. Indeed, the new disc's 12 Griffin originals maintain a timelessly truthful resonance that echoes a variety of styles, most notably the classic R&B and gospel music that have long been a source of inspiration for the artist.
On "Children Running Through," Griffin's seamless songcraft is supported by spare, spacious arrangements and production by Griffin along with Mike McCarthy (Spoon) that emphasize her effortlessly eloquent lyrics, her subtly indelible melodies and her sublimely expressive voice, while making judicious use of such sonic frills as horns and strings.
"I just wanted to write from the heart and let it be," Griffin says of the project. "Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard is when you catch somebody singing to themselves. I wanted to make music that had that feeling."
That sort of heartfelt forthrightness has won Griffin a fiercely loyal fan base that's continued to expand. Among her higher-profile admirers are the Dixie Chicks, who recorded much-loved versions of the Griffin compositions "Top of the World," "Truth No. 2" and "Let Him Fly"; Emmylou Harris, a longtime supporter who's covered several Griffin songs, and who lends her iconic harmony vocals to the Children Running Through number "Trapeze"; and Solomon Burke, who covers "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)" on his latest record. . In addition, Griffin's songwriting has been embraced by a diverse assortment of performers, including Martina McBride, Bette Midler, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Reba McEntire and Maura O'Connell, all of whom have recorded her songs. Also inspired by her work, filmmaker Cameron Crowe personally selected her to appear in his 2005 feature film "Elizabethtown."
While the "New York Times" in the past has called Griffin's music "enthralling," noting that "the down-home and the existential merge" in her songs, "No Depression" has weighed in early on "Children Running Home." In their highlighted review, editor Grant Alden hails: "Every other record she has made - and most of them are quite good - seems to have been a preamble to this work, by leaps and bounds the best of her career....if somebody makes a better record in 2007, it will have been a spectacular year."
Here's her new bio:
Patty Griffin's new album Children Running Through (ATO) continues the
remarkable creative evolution that's quietly established Griffin as a
vital and singular musical force. It also belies her persistent
sensitive-singer-songwriter image—a limiting perception that fails to
fully convey the emotional depth and breadth of her songwriting or the
emotive power of her fluid, soulful singing. Indeed, the new disc's 12
Griffin originals maintain a timelessly truthful resonance that echoes a
variety of styles, most notably the classic R&B and gospel music that
have long been a source of inspiration for the artist.
On Children Running Through, Griffin's seamless songcraft is supported
by spare, spacious arrangements and production by Griffin along with
Mike McCarthy (Spoon) that emphasize her effortlessly eloquent lyrics,
her subtly indelible melodies and her sublimely expressive voice, while
making judicious use of such sonic frills as horns and strings. The
artful instrumental settings are perfectly suited to the soul glory of
“Heavenly Day,” the wistful melancholy of "You'll Remember," the
haunting intimacy of "Railroad Wings," the vivid storytelling of
"Trapeze," the rocking "No Bad News," the steely determination of "I
Don't Ever Give Up" and the healing gospel of "Up to the Mountain (MLK
Song)."
"I just wanted to write from the heart and let it be," Griffin says of
the project. "Some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard is when
you catch somebody singing to themselves. I wanted to make music that
had that feeling."
That sort of heartfelt forthrightness has won Griffin a fiercely loyal
fan base that's continued to expand, even as she's retreated from the
cookie-cutter machinery of the mainstream music industry. Among her
higher-profile admirers are the Dixie Chicks, who recorded much-loved
versions of the Griffin compositions "Top of the World," "Truth No. 2"
and "Let Him Fly"; Emmylou Harris, a longtime supporter who's covered
several Griffin songs, and who lends her iconic harmony vocals to the
Children Running Through number "Trapeze”; and Solomon Burke, who covers
"Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)” on his latest record.
The Maine native first became aware of music's capacity to communicate
while growing up as the youngest of seven siblings, listening to her
mother sing hymns, country songs and made-up ditties. She began singing
during childhood, and wrote poems and songs as a teenager, but was too
shy to make much of an effort to perform in public. After a stint living
in Florida, she moved to the Boston area, where she waited tables and
worked as a telephone switchboard operator at Harvard University. It
wasn't until her guitar teacher coaxed her into joining him on stage in
a tiny Cambridge club that Griffin mustered up the courage to begin
performing her songs in public.
On the strength of a set of unadorned acoustic demo recordings, Griffin
won a recording deal with A&M Records. When an attempt at cutting more
elaborate studio versions of the same material proved unsatisfactory,
the label agreed to release the artist's stripped-down original demos
instead. The result was her 1996 debut release Living with Ghosts, which
won widespread critical acclaim and won Griffin the beginnings of a
passionate and devoted fan following. The following year, Griffin defied
expectations by taking a radically different approach on her noisy
sophomore effort, Flaming Red.
After an album she recorded in 2000 went unreleased due to corporate
shuffles, Griffin found a more hospitable home when fan Dave Matthews
signed her to his new, artist-friendly ATO Records. The change in labels
coincided with Griffin's determination to scale her music back down to
its essence, a direction that was reflected on 2002's sparse, mostly
acoustic 1000 Kisses, which earned a Grammy nomination in the Best
Contemporary Folk Album category. It was followed in 2003 by the live
CD/DVD set A Kiss In Time.
2004's Impossible Dream was Griffin's most ambitious and accomplished
effort yet, encompassing a broad range of musical influences while
boasting some of her most ambitious, emotionally complex songwriting to
date. It also netted a second Grammy nomination for Griffin.
As her own releases have continued to win consistent critical attention
and a steadily expanding audience, Griffin has simultaneously become a
popular source of material for other artists. In addition to the ones
mentioned above, Griffin's songwriting has been embraced by a diverse
assortment of performers, including Martina McBride, Bette Midler, Mary
Chapin Carpenter, Reba McEntire and Maura O'Connell, all of whom have
recorded her songs. Also inspired by her work, filmmaker Cameron Crowe
personally selected her to appear in his 2005 feature film “Elizabethtown.”
In addition to raising her public profile, having her songs covered by
other artists has allowed Griffin the luxury of making music on her own
terms, and her iconoclastic approach is reflected throughout Children
Running Through.
"I invested a lot more time in this than anything I've ever done," she
says of the new album. "After Impossible Dream, I had used up all the
songs I'd been carrying around for years, so it was a challenge to find
out if I had anything left in me. It took some time, but it was a
positive thing to be tested that way."
While her new songs maintain the levels of clarity and insight that
Griffin's fans have come to expect, the new album's organic, deeply felt
performances embody an openhearted sense of directness and simplicity.
"The aim," Griffin states, "was to strip everything down and just give
it a few brushstrokes here and there, to come up with something that's
quiet but powerful. I wanted to be a little less wordy, but I also
wanted to make a record where I didn't hold back and let myself sing as
loud as I wanted to.
"A great part of getting older," she adds, "is not caring so much what
other people think. I feel like I'm allowed to be goofy or whatever, and
I'm allowed not to worry about whether something is cool enough or smart
enough. That's pretty liberating."
Children Running Through, was recorded in the artist's adopted hometown
of Austin, Texas, in a makeshift studio set up in a rented house across
the street from her home. In addition to Griffin on vocals and guitar,
the sessions featured a sterling assortment of Austin, Nashville and New
York players, including longtime Griffin collaborator Doug Lancio on
guitar, legendary Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, and a nine-person
string section conducted and arranged by multi-instrumentalist John Mark
Painter.
"This record was tough, but it was really rewarding," Griffin reports.
"I was more relaxed than I've ever been making a record, and I had a lot
of confidence in the material. But there was also a lot of tension, and
there were definitely moments where we didn't think we were gonna get it
together. But we did.
"One of the most important things to me is avoiding cynicism, and that's
what this record represents to me," she concludes. "For me, the best
songs and the best ideas have always emerged from just thinking, 'Well,
what do I feel like singing right now?' That's always a good, honest
place to start from. For me, this whole record is a little like that."
Broadway Series: George Wendt in "12 Angry Men"
Although “12 Angry Men” has been around since 1954, it wasn’t until 2004 that it appeared on Broadway.
The original production was on CBS’s “Studio One,” an anthology series that presented original works of drama. In 1957, it was made into a major motion picture starring Henry Fonda and directed by Sidney Lumet.
Playwright Reginald Rose adapted his script for the stage in 1964, which has subsequently been adapted into “12 Angry Jurors” in some productions to allow women into the cast, and in 1997, in the wake of the O.J. Simpson trial, Showtime created a re-make with a racially-diverse cast.
But the Broadway production and the current national tour harkens back to the original.
“It’s almost word-for-word the same as the movie,” said George Wendt, who stars as Juror No. 1. “We didn’t update it at all. There’s no diversity, no women.”
Juror No. 1 is the foreman, played by Martin Balsam in the familiar movie version. Richard Thomas, better known to America as John-Boy Walton from the hit 1970’s television series “The Waltons,” plays Juror #8, the Henry Fonda role.
Although Wendt made his fame as Norm in another hit series, “Cheers,” for which he earned six Emmy nominations, he doesn’t think it’s that big a stretch to go from comedy to serious drama, nor has Norm interfered with his ability to play the dramatic parts.
“The roles come and go,” he said. “Norm was very close to plain old me but with way more clever writing.”
Recent work has also found Wendt playing Santa Claus and creepy murderers.
He began his career in the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago after taking a degree in economics.
“I suppose everyone sees a movie and thinks it’d be way cool to be an actor,” he said. “It’s sort of a silly dream to have, but I just wanted to be in Second City.”
That dream began when he was an audience member at the famed improv club.
“It just looked like so much fun, like they were goofing off on stage and getting paid for it,” he said. “So I called up the box office and asked about the workshops.”
After a year of workshops, he was accepted into the cast. What he learned, however, was that the less he tried to be funny, the more the audience laughed.
“It surprises you,” he said. “There’s an Elaine May maxim that goes, ‘Never let the audience catch you trying to be funny,’ and that applies to drama, too.
“You want to play stuff honestly and if the situation and the text support shock or horror or sadness, it’s going to come across.”
how to go
WHAT: Broadway in Cincnnati presents “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose.
WHERE: Procter & Gamble Hall, Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati.
WHEN: Jan. 16-28.
COST: $18-$48.
MORE INFO: (513) 241-7469; broadwayacrossamerica.com.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park: Annie Hendy's "A Catholic Girl's Guide to Losing Your Virginity"
Last-ditch efforts do sometimes pay off.
After graduating from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of music, Annie Hendy first moved to New York then to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actress.
But frankly, it wasn’t going so well for her.
“I was having a difficult time in L.A. getting any notice,” she said. “I couldn’t even get an agent.”
When a friend came out to visit her, she asked Hendy, “What are you doing here?” and tried to talk her into coming back home. Hendy persisted, reluctantly, and said she had one thing she wanted to do before she gave it up and came back home.
“From a moment of deep despair, I wrote a comedy,” she said. “Go figure.”
The result was “The Catholic Girl’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity,” which premiered at The Hudson Guild Theatre in Los Angeles last January for a sold-out 10-week run, and reprises last summer for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, where it played six sold out performances, selected as a “Pick of the Fringe” by audiences and was nominated for two Cincinnati Entertainment Awards.
“It brought me back,” Hendy said.
The play is about 24-year-old Lizzy, “a good Catholic girl” who realizes that her priest has a better sex life than she does. So Lizzy resolves to “do the deed” before her 25th birthday.
She learns that while it may sound easy, it’s not. Her quest for a handsome prince - someone special for her “first time” - leads instead to a plague of toads.
The script, Hendy said, is a collection of her best “party stories,” things that happened to her and to her friends all crammed into one play.
A native of Cincinnati, Hendy graduated from St. Ursula Academy. Inspired by an older cousin, Jessica Hendy, who has performed in several Broadway shows including eight years in the cast of “Cats” and in the touring production of “Miss Saigon,” Hendy’s interest in acting began with pre-teen classes at the Playhouse in the Park.
“So everything seems to have come full-circle,” she said.
WHO: “The Catholic Girl’s Guide to Losing Your Virginity” by Annie Hendy.
WHERE: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park, Cincinnati.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Jan. 18-19; 4 and 9 p.m. Jan. 20; 2 and 7 p.m. Jan. 21.
COST: $30.
MORE INFO: (513) 421-3888; www.cincyplay.com.
Sarah McKenzie: Abstructions
Concerned about housing development had been changing the Colorado landscape, Sarah McKenzie started painting aerial views of subdivisions under construction.
“I am not a big fan of most new subdivisions,” she said. “They look generic and homogeneous with no concern over regional sensibilities.
“I have to wonder why we are building this way when there are abandoned buildings in our cities. Yet our economy is completely driven by home-building. You have to wonder why we are building this way.”
So for five years, she would go up in a hot air balloon and take photos as references for her paintings. Her husband is a professional photographer, so she would borrow his equipment.
But at around the same time he began to use digital equipment, she began to look at her subdivision paintings in a different way.
“The photos had such huge resolution that if I zoomed in close enough, I could see other interesting things happening,” she said. “I became more interested in the abstract designs that I saw and began creating semi-modernist paintings about the shapes and patterns.
“It’s funny that I’m finding these abstract paintings in these not-very-interesting constructions, but the work became less about social commentary and more about painting, about playing with materials and paint handling.”
Although she had spent some time in Cleveland teaching, she has returned to her Colorado roots to paint full-time.
McKenzie was last year’s winner of Miami University’s Young Painters Competition, which in part entitled her to a solo exhibition, which she has titled “Abstruction,” a made-up word that combines “abstract” and “construction.”
“The work in the Miami University show is the beginning of a new direction for me,” she said. “These paintings are relatively new and I’m wanting to explore how these things can become even more abstract.”
January 11, 2007
Ko-Ko the Clown: Ko-Ko's Hypnotism
Show: Pieta Brown, Jan. 18 at the Carnegie
Pieta Brown's own blend of folk, rock, country and blues has garnered numerous comparisons to musical forbearers like Rickie Lee Jones, Bobbie Gentry, and Bob Dylan.
Lyrically and musically poetic, Brown's deceptive simplicity and seductive purity combine to create songs that meet somewhere between the Carter Family and Tom Waits.
The daughter of two preacher's kids, Brown spent her childhood in Iowa and Alabama amidst a bohemian and musical family. In her bare-bones Iowa upbringing Pieta was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her folk-singer father, Greg Brown.
Later, while growing up in the deep south of Birmingham, Alabama with her full-time working mother, Pieta drew on and expanded these musical influences and began writing poetry and composing songs for piano. Rambling, in her early 20s, Pieta Brown picked up a Maybell archtop guitar and honed her influences for what quickly became the songs on her eponymous first album.
Since that self-released CD, Brown has collaborated and toured with highly respected guitarist and producer Bo Ramsey. In fact, Ramsey co-produced her 2005 national debut album "In The Cool,' which was universally acclaimed.
It was named one of the years top 10 by several newspapers across the country (Kansas City, Little Rock and Chattanooga) and was chosen as one of the best CDs of 2005 by Amazon.com. Additionally it reached the Top 20 on the Americana Music Association radio chart and the Top 30 on the AAA radio chart. Brown has recently started collaborations with indie band Calexico and is also currently working on her next album, due in 2007.
An Evening with Outstanding Women Singer/Songwriters
Featuring Pieta Brown, Ellery, Katie Reider and the Newbees
Thursday, January 18, 7:00 pm
Carnegie Visual and Creative Arts Center
1028 Scott Street, Covington, KY.
Tickets $18
Or call The Carnegie box office 859.957.1940.
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati: "Fiction" by Steven Dietz
PRESS RELEASE
How much of our lives is an open book? Accomplished authors Michael and Linda have been happily married for twenty years. When Linda makes the ultimate request—to read Michael’s meticulously kept diaries—how can he refuse? As she pores over Michael’s journals, Linda discovers that the line between fact and fiction, truth and myth, is often blurred.
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC) presents the regional premiere of Fiction January 31 through February 18 and reunites regional favorites Dennis Parlato and Amy Warner (last seen together in The Guys). ETC Artistic Producing Director D. Lynn Meyers will direct.Dietz’s drama examines the fictional undercurrent and startling secrets that can lie beneath the familiar pattern of marriage and asks us to consider how much we really want to know about one another. Fiction challenges the power of memory, its ability to reshape the events of our lives, and the immortality of the written word.
D. Lynn Meyers explains, “this play is not an anti-Valentine; it is a play about love. I chose Fiction to launch the second half of ETC’s season, which is driven by the exploration of relationships.” She continues, “often times, we must reinvent ourselves in the face of adversity or loss, so our creations don’t necessarily negate our realities. Dietz creates a wonderful situation here for us to explore how we live the lives we do, how we envision it differently, and if we can ever love someone enough to let them know us fully.” Meyers is also excited about the idea of Dennis Parlato and Amy Warner working together again, both of whom appeared in 2002’s The Guys. In that play, they played two people brought together by need and tragedy; in Fiction, they’ll play two people brought together by love and passion during a time of personal crisis.
About the Cast
Dennis Parlato (Michael Waterman) returns “home” to ETC, having appeared in The Guys in 2002. Mr. Parlato recently played Lawrence Jamison in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on Broadway. Other Broadway credits include: The Graduate, Oscar Wilde’s Salome (with Al Pacino as Herod), The Sound of Music, Chess, Annie, A Chorus Line. Off-Broadway and Regional credits include the title roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, Barrymore, The Master Builder, Christopher Columbus, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Christmas Carol, How I Learned to Drive, and Guys & Dolls. TV and film work include Law and Order, One Life to Live, and Loving.
Amy Warner (Linda Waterman) also returns to ETC’s stage, having performed in The Guys, The Women of Lockerbie, and in last season’s racially-charged Permanent Collection. More recently, she appeared in A Christmas Carol as Mrs. Fezziwig at Playhouse in the Park. Other regional credits include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, for which she won a CEA award for Best Actress. Off-Broadway credits include: Wild Oats, Danton’s Death, Big and Little, and The Underpants. TV credits include appearances on Ally McBeal, Boston Public, The Guardian, The Practice, and E.R.
Dennis Parlato and Amy Warner will be joined on stage by a third cast member in the role of Abby, TBA.
-MORE-
Production Team
Production team includes Brian c. Mehring (Resident Set and Lighting Designer), Richard J. Sillen (Technical Director), Matthew Hollstegge (Production Assistant & Master Electrician), Shannon Rae Lutz (Properties Master & Design Assistant), Billy Alletzhauser (Composer), and Reba Senske (Costume Designer). The Production Stage Manager is Stephanie Schrock.
Ticket Information
Individual tickets are $32 for adults, $29 for students and seniors, and $16 for children ages 12 and under. Special “Rush” tickets are also available for $15, fifteen minutes prior to curtain (subject to availability). Call the ETC box office, 1127 Vine Street, at (513) 421-3555 or purchase tickets online at www.cincyetc.com. Subscriptions may be purchased throughout the season by calling the ETC box office. Audio enhancement, wheelchair accessible seating, and large print programs are available with advance notice by calling the ETC box office at (513) 421-3555.
Parking and Security
Parking for evening and matinee performances is available directly across the street from the theatre in the new Gateway Garage for $2. Patrons may access the garage via the 12th Street entrance. Security officers are present before, during, and after all performances.
Milford Theatre Guild: Mousetrap
Milford Theatre Guilde will present The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie, directed by Jim Waldfogle and produced by Linda Roll
Featuring: Ginny Utz, Nathan Henegar, David Spitzfaden, Elaine Michael, Bob Tyson, Sarah Hackett, Bill Storch, and Randy King.
Show dates are January 26 & 27, February 2 & 3. All shows start at 8:00pm at Mulberry Elementary 5950 Buckwheat Road Milford.
Tickets are $10 adults, $8 seniors and students. For advance tickets call 513-575-2103.
Koko the Clown: The Cure
I love the Internet!
I'd heard of Koko the clown in my studies of film and animation, but I'd never actually seen one until You Tube showed me the way.
This stuff is pure genius. The animation is pretty basic by today's standards and the jokes are cornball, but there's a sophistication to the set up and the interplay between Koko and the artist, the shifting planes of reality. I especially love the laughing gas-induced hallucinations at the end.
January 10, 2007
The Puppet
Clown Urinal
Beer Clown
I don't watch commercial TV at all, so I've never seen this before. I a spit take all over my monitor.
Another reason why clowns shouldn't drink while in uniform.
Haunted Blanket Box
Le Payasin
This is No. 3 in series of six short Le Payasin films on YouTube. They're pretty weird, and this is the weirdest of all. They look old, but No. 2 features a remote control car as part of the gag (if you want to call it that).
Mostly, they're just one-gag bits, the longest not even a minute. No. 3 has a fun optical gag. The No. 5 and No. 6 are El Payasin moving through a landscape and performing some bathroom function.
I looked in a Spanish-English dictionary and the translation of the punch line (if that's what it is) is "I must release the staple." Hilarious, yes? No.
The dictionary couldn't translate "payasin," however, neither from Spanish nor Portugeus, Italiano or Francaise. "Payaso" is clown in Spanish. That's what they call me at El Mariachi. So either somebody made it up or got it messed up or it's a language that hasn't been discovered yet.
January 09, 2007
Falcon Theatre: To Kill a Mockingbird
PRESS RELEASE
Falcon Theatre is proud to announce its latest production: “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee and Christopher Sergel.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird”, the semi-autobiographical novel by Harper Lee, has been studied by schoolchildren for many years and the film version has been recognized by the American Film Institute (“AFI”) as one of the most inspiring of all time.
Told from the perspective of a young girl growing up in a segregated South, this story of tolerance, compassion and justice is vividly brought to life on Falcon's stage.
Directed by Ted Weil and Tracy Schoster and produced by Ron Cropper, the cast includes: Sydney Ashe, Alec Bowling, Thomas Langlois, Heidi Anderson, Lisa Dirkes, Amy Kurlansky, Jim Bussey, Henry Farfsing, Al McLaughlin, Jerry Borchert, Leighann Goins, Tony Wright, Bob Buchtman, Julie Niesen and Tom Manning as Atticus Finch.
.
All performances are at the newly renovated Monmouth Theatre at 636 Monmouth Street, Newport, Kentucky. Performance dates are February 23, 24 and March 2, 3, 9, 10 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $15.00 for Adults and $12.00 for Students and Seniors.
For ticket information and reservations:
513-479-6783
www.falcontheater.net
January 08, 2007
Looking for 'poems that do work'
The Riverbank Poetry Project will treat the community to some industrial-strength poetry at its next meeting.
Matt Hart, editor of “Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking and Light Industrial Safety,” will be the featured poet 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Fairfield Lane Library, 411 Wessel Drive, Fairfield.
Hart began “Forklift” in 1995 with co-editor Eric Appleby, who takes care of the design and publishing while Hart focuses on the content. It grew out of a poetry journal called they started while undergraduate students at Ball State University.
“We both moved to Cincinnati (after graduation) and decided to start a journal again — mainly to publish the work of our friends,” Hart said. “But now, we regularly publish National Book Award winners and poets of national and international reputation.”
They called it “Forklift” because they were obsessed with the idea of big machines doing hard labor, and added the “Ohio” because they wanted it to be place-based.
“So it began to take on this mythic quality of an actual place in Ohio,” he said. “We added cooking to it because the language of recipes and the language of poetry is related in ways. Both are very specialized — not a language you would normally come across, a collection of interesting words put in an interesting order — and recipes always start with a list of ingredients, and a lot of the poems I like are lists or have lists in them.
“Plus, you lift a fork when you eat.”
In keeping with those ideas, Hart said that they look for “poems that do work” when reviewing submissions.
“I want to be astounded by something,” he said. “I want to feel like I’m reading something I’ve never read before, or it makes me pay attention to something I’ve never paid attention to before, or it takes a non-poetic form and makes a poem out of it.”
While “Forklift” started out as a tabloid, each issue takes on its own form and character. One issue had a sand-paper cover. Another had a bolt inserted in the middle of the page that needed to be unscrewed before
it could be opened, and it obliterated the middle of the poems published that issue. Then there was the issued that included a packet of chili mix.
The turning point to attracting national poets, he said, was taking copies of “Forklift” with him to graduate school at Warren Wilson College and showed it to his teacher, Dean Young.
“He loved the subversive content of it, the playful juxtaposition of poetry, cooking and safety,” Hart said. “He started submitting poems and got other poets to submit, too.”
Hart will read work from his newest book, “Who’s Who Vivid” and some new poems that he’s written.
Following Hart’s reading, the regular open mic portion of the program will begin. Poets can sign up beginning 6:30 p.m.
A version of this story originally appeared in the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame Inductees announced
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation today announces its inductees for 2007. The inductees are:
The five inductees will be honored at a ceremony on March 12, 2007 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Presenters and performers at the induction will be announced in February, 2007. “We couldn’t be more proud to honor this unique, diverse group of rockers, rappers, singers and poets. This is what rock and roll is all about,” said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation President and C.E.O., Joel Peresman.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on March 12, 2007 will also honor Ahmet Ertegun, legendary founder of Atlantic Records. Ertegun, who was a crucial figure in the careers of artists ranging from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin, was instrumental in founding and was the Chairman of the Foundation. The Rock Hall Museum in Cleveland’s main exhibit hall is the Ahmet Ertegun Exhibition Hall.
The 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, R.E.M., The Ronettes, Patti Smith and Van Halen were chosen by the 600 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after their first recording is released.
In addition to being honored at the ceremony on March 12, 2007, each artist who is inducted is commemorated within the I.M. Pei-designed museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame displays the signature of each inductee inscribed in glass. In addition, there is an exhibit of artifacts from this year’s inductees, and a multi-media film presentation with highlights from each artist’s career. The exhibit on this year’s inductees will open in March, 2007 and will run for one year.
- Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (Kid Creole, Cowboy, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness, Raheim)
- R.E.M. (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe)
- The Ronettes (Estelle Bennett, Ronnie Spector, Nedra Talley)
- Patti Smith
- Van Halen (Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Alex Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth)
The five inductees will be honored at a ceremony on March 12, 2007 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Presenters and performers at the induction will be announced in February, 2007. “We couldn’t be more proud to honor this unique, diverse group of rockers, rappers, singers and poets. This is what rock and roll is all about,” said Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation President and C.E.O., Joel Peresman.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on March 12, 2007 will also honor Ahmet Ertegun, legendary founder of Atlantic Records. Ertegun, who was a crucial figure in the careers of artists ranging from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin, was instrumental in founding and was the Chairman of the Foundation. The Rock Hall Museum in Cleveland’s main exhibit hall is the Ahmet Ertegun Exhibition Hall.
The 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, R.E.M., The Ronettes, Patti Smith and Van Halen were chosen by the 600 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after their first recording is released.
In addition to being honored at the ceremony on March 12, 2007, each artist who is inducted is commemorated within the I.M. Pei-designed museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame displays the signature of each inductee inscribed in glass. In addition, there is an exhibit of artifacts from this year’s inductees, and a multi-media film presentation with highlights from each artist’s career. The exhibit on this year’s inductees will open in March, 2007 and will run for one year.
January 05, 2007
Best of the Southwest
Southwest Ohio, that is:
A poem about poetry by Yeats
CLASSICS
From "Adam's Curse"
By William Butler Yeats
We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'
Read the rest of "Adam's Curse" and sign up to have a Classic Poem Daily sent to your e-mail.
Playhouse in the Park's Alteractive series
The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s Monday evening “Alteractive” series kicks off Feb. 19 with a return engagement by performance artist and gay activist Tim Miller.
“Alteractive brings the best of alternative artists, including monologists, performance poets and musicians to Playhouse audiences,” said spokesperson Christa Skiles.
Miller will perform his brand new show titled “1001 Beds”, which has Cincinnati origins, she said.
This raucous and rowdy exploration of Miller’s adventures in a performer’s life chronicles his travels across love, politics and art.
“If I continue to tour for another 20 years, as I have for the last 21, I will end up sleeping in at least 1000 hotel beds in my lifetime,” Miller said in a statement.
One of those hotel beds can be found in room 626 at Cincinnati’s own Vernon Manor Hotel, where Miller started writing the show while in Cincinnati for one of his previous Alteractive performances.
“I titled the book ‘1001 Beds’ partly because I saw in so much of my work what a common thread the bed has been,” he said. “So, this piece gets to jump forward from that metaphor by inviting the audience into four different stories about very specific beds where my truest self, my political self, resilient self, my partnered, married self, came forward.”
The rest of the Alteractive schedule includes:
• “Your Negro Tour Guide,” based on the book by former JournalNews columnist Kathy Y. Wilson, performed
by Torrie Wiggins. Feb. 26.
• “Slam Cincinnati,” coordinated by Obalaye and The Artistic Order of 144K, a collaborative of spoken word artists, authors, playwrights, recording artists, producers, actors, singers and musicians who are, in their own words, “bombing spots with oral tags and spraying down audiences with lyrical graffiti.” March 12.
• “Firecracker,” by the sketch comedy and improvisational group Firecracker. March 19.
• “The Values Americans Live By,” written and performed by Laboratory for Enthusiastic Collaboration. March 26.
• “Simone Perrin Sings Songs Of Love And Love Lost With Her Accordion Pixie,” featuring Simone Perrin. April 2.
Shows are staged in the intimate cabaret-style setting of the Rosenthal Plaza. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with performances starting around 7 p.m.
Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students, on sale by calling the Playhouse box office at (513) 421-3888. Parking is free. Happy Hour drink prices are available.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Show: One More Girl on a Stage
The Rivertown Music Club, a quarterly showcase of regional roots music turns decidedly pink this weekend with the inaugural “One More Girl on a Stage” concert.
“It just kind of happened,” said Kelly Thomas, singer and organizer.
In August, Thomas was the Southgate House’s “artist-in-residence” and organized themes every week for her shows. One week, it was “Girls, Girls, Girls.”
“You couldn’t even get into the lounge that night,” she said. “Everyone has so energized the community that the night evolved into a mutual admiration society, a core group of young, talented female singer/songwriters in the area.”
The event, which Thomas hopes will turn into a twice-yearly shindig, features Kinsey Rose, Jesse Thomas, Tupelo Honey, Lauren Houston, Kelly Thomas & The Fabulous Pickups, Wussy, The Fairmount Girls, Kristen Key, Twisted Wood, The Whitney Barricklow Band, Holly Spears, My Wife The Tiger, Viva La Foxx, Chakras, Foxfire and The Reverend Mother.
Also performing will be New York singer/songwriter Shanna Zell, whom Thomas met at the MidPoint Music Fest.
So many people agreed to perform for the benefit that Thomas said she had to create a waiting list, but one thing missing was a hard-core, traditional country band, so Thomas enlisted members of Straw Boss and Wussy to create a new band, The Tammy WhyNots, complete with big-hair wigs.
The Pink Ribbon Girls (pinkribbongirls.org) is a breast cancer survivor’s organization. This show has personal meaning for many of the musicians involved that have faced breast cancer either personally or with a loved one. There will also be a raffle at the show to help raise money for the organization, Thomas said.
how to go
THE NAME: “One More Girl On A Stage” benefit for the Pink Ribbon Girls.
THE LOCATION: Southgate House, 24 E. Third St., Cincinnati.
THE HOURS: 7 p.m. doors, Saturday.
THE TAB: $7 suggested donation.
THE PHONE: (859) 431-2201; myspace.com/onemoregirlonastage.
A version of this story ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
News: Detroit Cobras' New record in the works
PRESS RELEASE FROM BLOODSHOT RECORDS
"Tied and True" due in April.
"There's retro, and there's old-fashioned gut-busting rock and roll. The Cobras, our greatest current party band, define the latter category. Singer Rachel Nagy has Patsy Clines's pipes and Courtney Love's attitude. The band is raucous and raw. The songs are saucy classics. Hot damn!" Tim Mohr, Playboy
Crawling out from the weed-choked lots of the once proud town, The Detroit Cobras whip out ass-shaking anthems to good times, wild times, and the high and lows of L-U-V; you best believe it and you best not mess with it. Singer Rachel Nagy and guitarist Mary Ramirez are the bad girls by the exit doors at the school dance, all leather and heels, sneaking smokes and passing the flask. They have no time for dewy-eyed love songs or girl group decorum; they’ll take care of business themselves with a bat of the eye or an elbow to the kidney. Rachel’s "warm as the bourbon under the seat of your car" voice can boom to the back pews (Did we say "pews?" We meant "barstools") and Mary’s riffs let you know that love and good times can be found in the tilt of a hip or at the end of a fist.
Rha Goddess: "Low"
The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park launches the first of two special engagements next week with the regional premiere of “Low” by hip-hop star and community activist Rha Goddess.
“Low” is the story of Lowquesha, a young woman who is struggling on a journey through the mental health system and her own descent into mental illness.
“It’s done in a contemporary performance of spoken word, poetry and song,” Goddess said. “The soundscape— the sound, the rhythm, the texture and lighting — act as an additional character in the context of the story.
“As diverse as American theater is, I’ve never seen this kind of character on stage before.”
Goddess said that the story was inspired by a series of personal events, having three or four people in her life diagnosed with mental illness.
“I watched whole personalities change,” she said, “and thought ‘This is scary.’”
Even though Goddess is the kind of person her friends and family turn to for support, she said she felt totally useless trying to navigate the health care system, but the severe learning curve compelled her to talk about it.
The tipping point, she said, was the suicide of her mentor, band leader and composer Weldon Irvine in April, 2003.
“I come from the hip-hop era and he really reached out to our community to bridge the gap between the old school and the new,” Goddess said. “He mentored many artists and had a real commitment to our generation and his suicide was shocking. We had no reason to believe he was in distress or suffering from anything.”
Everyone was so shocked, she said, that no one wanted to talk about it, which reinforced her need to facilitate some kind of discussion.
“I wrote a poem and sat on it for six months because I wasn’t sure if I was ready to do this, to open this can of worms,” she said. “That November, I performed at a dance festival. We did a big concert with an eight-piece band. I stopped the music halfway through and read this poem. I wish I could have recorded the audience.
“I knew I need to do this and that it needed to be more than three minutes and 35 seconds. I knew it needed more.”
She embarked on a process of research and development that not only included interviews with people in her life and in the mental health care system, but also a series of community dialogue sessions and a statistical study to explore attitudes and beliefs about mental illness.
“We’d do a 15-20 minute presentation and people wanted to talk about it for an hour and a half,” she said. “People were really telling their stories about how someone’s suicide affected their lives. It was unbelievable. They’d been holding onto these stories for years.
“To have a theater be transformed into a venue to have this kind of dialogue was incredible. We knew early on that we needed to keep the dialogue component in.”
The study, the first of its kind to be conducted in conjunction with a performance piece, will be released soon, she said, but the results indicate a significant shifts in perceptions and attitudes among the people in the audiences of “Low.”
“The most inspiring thing for me is the way the piece is helping to break through the stereotypes, people whose lives suffer and the ways that life is impacted by having to live with and support someone with mental illness.”
how to go
THE NAME: “Low” by Rha Goddess.
THE LOCATION: Shelterhouse Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
THE HOURS: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Jan. 11-12; 4 and 9 p.m. Jan. 13.
THE TAB: $30.
THE PHONE: (513) 421-3888; cincyplay.com.
A version of this story ran in the Go! section of the Journal-News, Hamilton, Ohio.
Dear Abby: Blackmailed by Sister-in-Law
This guy is screwed. I mean, not because of the sister-in-law thing, but... read the last paragraph....
DEAR ABBY: A few years ago, I had an affair with a woman. I'll call her "Desiree." As luck would have it, a few years later, Desiree became my sister-in-law.
My wife has always been jealous of her "more attractive" sister. She reminds me of that fact every time we visit. Now Desiree is having money problems, and she's threatening to tell my wife about our "history" if I don't accommodate her needs.
My marriage already is on thin ice because I ran over my wife's dog and forgot our anniversary in the same week. What should I do?
— Blackmailed in Burbank
DEAR BLACKMAILED: If you knuckle under to your sister-in-law's threats, her money problems will be over and you will be paying her off for the duration of your marriage. Be smart. Nip this in the bud by telling your wife everything. It isn't your fault that you met her sister first. You should thank your lucky stars that you wound up marrying the right one.
The answer here reminds me so much of the John Prine song:
Dear Blackmailed, Dear Blackmailed
You have no complaint
You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.
Signed, Dear Abby.
Human Race Theatre Company: I Am My Own Wife
I'm really looking forward to this one. Bruce Cromer is one of the finest actors working in the area and this is an amazing script -- although not particularly one that I'd expect to see Bruce performing in, which makes it all the more intriguing.
PRESS RELEASE
One of this decade’s most-acclaimed plays makes its Dayton debut when Victoria Theatre Association and The Human Race Theatre Company present Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife, January 18 – February 4, as part of The Loft Series 1 at The Loft Theatre in downtown Dayton.
Wright’s play invites audiences into the true-life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf: a survivor, a curator, a fascinating character. Prepare to be spellbound by this tale of a heroic man who survived both the Nazi regime and decades of Soviet oppression in East Germany, living as a woman. Von Mahlsdorf daringly rescued antiques and art works that might otherwise have been destroyed in those fearful years of tyranny and terrorism, but at great sacrifice.
I Am My Own Wife won nearly every award possible in 2004, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Awards® for Best Play and Best Actor, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play.
I Am My Own Wife follows this amazing real-life story through the eyes of Wright as he interviews von Mahlsdorf, taking the audience through perilous times with, seemingly, every person with whom she ever dealt. I Am My Own Wife covers half a century of brutal European history, with dozens of characters from a plethora of nationalities and age groups. So, naturally, it takes an immense cast to tell the story: one person. Which works just fine when that one person is acclaimed local actor Bruce Cromer.
Bruce Cromer, a Human Race Resident Artist and Associate Professor at Wright State, has a wealth of experience to put into this role of a lifetime. He has appeared in 19 plays with The Human Race alone in the past two decades, with major roles in everything from Macbeth and Angels in America to The Drawer Boy and I Hate Hamlet. Most recently, he received a DayTony for his performance as Prospero in The Tempest.
Directing Cromer is fellow Human Race Resident Artist Richard Hess, chair of the Drama Department of the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. Hess also received a DayTony, for his direction of last season’s Loft Series 1 production of A Delicate Balance, and he has a long history of successful productions in the region.
The results promise to be one of the theatrical events of the season in Dayton!
Victoria Theatre Association and The Human Race Theatre Company bring this incredible tale – and incredible feat of acting – to The Loft Theatre January 18 to February 4. Performance times are Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
The Thursday, January 18 performance, which was previously opening night, is now a paid Preview Performance, in which audiences will get the first look at the production for a discounted price. The official Opening Night performance will be Friday, January 19 – enjoy the excitement of opening night and mingle with the cast and crew at the post-show Opening Night Party.
Also new this season, Lite Fare at The Loft offers food and drink in The Loft Theatre lobby on the last Tuesday of each Loft Series production. Beginning at 5:30 p.m., Citilites restaurant provides gourmet sandwiches, desserts and other quick items at a reasonable price, with special beers and wines featured at the bar. Lite Fare at The Loft will be held on January 30 for I Am My Own Wife.
Tickets are priced at $28 for the preview performance, $31 for weeknight and Sunday evening performances, and $34 for Friday evening, Saturday evening and Sunday matinee performances. Discounts are available for senior citizens, students and groups. Tickets are on sale now via Ticket Center Stage and may be purchased at the Schuster Center box office in downtown Dayton or by phone, at (937) 228-3630 or toll free (888) 228-3630. Ticket Center Stage hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. and Saturday, noon - 4 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online at any time at www.ticketcenterstage.com. Tickets may also be purchased at The Loft Theatre box office, beginning two hours prior to each performance.
I Am My Own Wife is sponsored by Jim & Enid Goubeaux, with additional support from First United Methodist Church. Media Sponsor for The Loft Series is WYSO Public Radio/91.3FM. The Official Host for The Loft Series is DoubleTree Hotel.
To learn more about The Human Race Theatre Company and The Loft Series, visit www.humanracetheatre.org. For more information about Victoria Theatre Association, visit www.victoriatheatre.com. Be sure to click on the “Invite Friends” link to learn about Victoria Theatre Association’s online invitation service – it’s easy and FREE!
Cincinnati Black Theatre Company: "The Meeting"
The two leading figures of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, never had a chance to have much of a conversation.
But through the magic of theater, Jeff Stetson’s drama “The Meeting” lets us imagine how such a conversation may have transpired.
“There are pictures of them shaking hands together,” said Donald Sherman, artistic director of the Cincinnati Black Theatre Company. “They never sat down and had a meeting, but this show explores what might have happened if they did.”
The Cincinnati Black Theatre Company produced “The Meeting” several years ago and is now reprising it in celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday.
“It’s a classic that could really stand up to an annual production,” Sherman said. “You get an opportunity to see sides of the men that you never knew, not just as leaders but as fathers and preachers.”
In the play, “they find they have a lot in common, although their methods were different, but you get to see that they cared about everyone. They had fun. They both did things with their kids.”
For one thing, both men had taken a pilgrimage to Mecca, and both trips influenced each man’s philosophy and practices.
“The playwright used historical materials, took things from both of their speeches and wove it into the dialog of the play,” Sherman said.
“There’s some light-heartedness to it as well,” Sherman said. “They both had a funny side, but also parts of this play is really intense. It will keep you on the edge of your seats, but the intelligence of both men comes through.”
“By the end, X softened up and King’s views began to change on different issues,” Sherman said.
how to go
THE NAME: Cincinnati Black Theatre Company presents “The Meeting” by Jeff Stetson.
THE LOCATION: Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park, Cincinnati.
THE HOURS: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 12-13.
THE TAB: $20.
THE PHONE: (513) 241-6060; cincyblacktheatre.com.
A version of this story ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Human Race Theatre Company: The Ambition Bird
PRESS RELEASE:
The Human Race Theatre Company has a confession to make – an entire show of confession, in fact. Next in The Human Race’s nationally noted Musical Workshop Series is The Ambition Bird, an intimate chamber musical by Matthew Sheridan about famed American confessional poet Anne Sexton.
Sexton became known for the self-revelation of her work in the 1960s, revelation all the more dramatic because of mental illness so severe she was often hospitalized for treatment. She was a hit on the poetry-reading circuit, but deeply troubled in her private life.
Human Race Executive Director Kevin Moore first experienced The Ambition Bird in 2003 when it was part of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s New Musicals Festival. “It was a spellbinding, one-woman show which I thought would be perfect for one of our resident artists,” stated Moore. So, it immediately went into his “to-do” pile.
In the meantime, The Ambition Bird was selected for the Cardiff International Musical Theatre Festival in Wales in 2005. It was there that Matthew expanded the show, which now includes three additional voices. The Dayton reading will be the first time the new show will have a full reading.
Sexton, a contemporary, friend, and rumored lover of Sylvia Plath, won the Pulitzer Prize for Live or Die, a collection published in 1966. Other notable works were All My Pretty Ones and Transformations, as well as the play 45 Mercy Street. Her later poems turned in a strongly feminist direction. Sexton’s work inspired the opera Transformations and Peter Gabriel’s song, “Mercy Street.” She attempted suicide on several occasions, succeeding in 1974.
The pivotal role of Anne Sexton will be played by Kay Bosse, Human Race Resident Artist and recent inductee in the Dayton Theatre Hall of Fame. Morgan Grahame, Scott Hunt and Scott Stoney will play the three voices. Stoney will also direct the workshop.
The Ambition Bird, with book, music, and lyrics by Matthew Sheridan, will be presented at The Loft Theatre in downtown Dayton January 22 and 29 at 7pm. Tickets are $15. Call 937-461-3823 ext 3118 for ticket reservations.
Know Theatre Company: Gompers
Adam Rapp’s “Gompers” is titled after a small town in Pennsylvania that has lost its identity by the closing of the steel industry.
“Everyone in Gompers knows everything about each other and they’re all connected in some way,” said director Christopher Guthrie. “The play follows 10 characters through two days of their lives. Whatever someone does has consequences they may not see.”
When the plant closed, the residents not only found themselves without identity, but without purpose or anything to do.
“They have to wonder how they will make money and how they will live when no one cares what they do,” Guthrie said. “Many of them make bad and typically American choices — petty crime and involvement in drugs.”
The “very real” characters include a pregnant teenager trying to figure out what to do, her 30-something boyfriend who is a people-user, an angry young black man who everyone else is afraid of and a Korean war veteran who feels as if society has left him to his own devices.
“The texture of the characters goes so deep,” Guthrie said, “and the play is definitely on the dark side.
“Rapp does a good job of identifying new American archetypes for his time in the same way that Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams did for theirs.
Referring to the Paul Thomas Anderson film, Guthrie said the play ends in “a ‘Magnolia’ moment, but without the frogs.”
“All of their stars converge in a very theatrical moment,” he said.
how to go
THE NAME: “Gompers” by Adam Rapp.
THE LOCATION: Know Theatre Company, 1120 Jackson St., Cincinnati.
THE HOURS: 8 p.m. Jan. 11-Feb. 3; 4 p.m. Jan. 14
THE TAB: $20 adults; $15 students/seniors; $10 student rush tickets.
THE PHONE: (513) 621-2787; knowtheatre.com.
A version of this story ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.
Know Theatre Company: Gompers trailer
I'll be there opening night.
Actor's Theatre (Fairborn): John G.'s All-Star Revue
Actor's Theatre, 23 E. Main St., Fairborn OH presents "John G.'s All-Star Revue II", a wonderful retrospective of '60s music. The production features Ayn Wood, John Griffin, Cindy Penny, and Eric Melleby. January 12 & 13 - Fri & Sat at 8 PM for $12, January 14 - Sunday at 2 PM for $8. For reservations, please call (937) 878-3353.
Shows: The Fervor
From Louisville, Ky., playing Jan. 19 at the Northside Tavern.
"Raised on hot buttered corn and cheesey potatoes, the Fervor grew from the fields and the river dividing them. The miles we crossed in search of salty air and a drier climate led us back to the humid heart of the midlands, only to revisit what we had initially overlooked-- the going, always going, and whats ahead, whats happened-- all diffusing in the metaphorical rinse cycle. Dried from the heat of a cosmos in flames, we began to smolder. When the flames reach toxic proportions, its all gonna blow. But dont worry. You wont feel a thing."
Clown Nono's Demo Reel
Clown and Lion Dance
It would be funnier if the lion ate the clown.
January 04, 2007
Co-Coats
2 packages instant oatmeal
1 pakcage instant cocoa mix
1/4 cup raisins
1-2/3 cup water (or whatever the oatmeal packages say)
One big mug (two if you're sharing)
One spoon (two if you're sharing)
Put the raisins in the water and microwave for 90 seconds. It is important to put the raisins in first so that they can plump up a little bit because if you're like me, you don't eat that many raisins and they're usually pretty dried up and chewy. When the water is hot, add the oatmeal and cocoa. Stir. Microwave again for another 30 seconds or so because the oatmeal and cocoa have been sitting in the cave and are pretty cold and really bring down the temperature of the water.
This is an excellent way to get healthy doses of calcuium and fiber, not to mention cocoa goodness and if you buy the stuff on sale, this is a nutritious and delicious meal for less than a buck.
TOMORROW: Ramen Chili.
January 02, 2007
Clown Cameo
Giant Puppets on Parade
January 01, 2007
Bingo The Clowno
From the IMDB comments on this short film:
Surrealistic computer-generated short is an animated wonder., 27 May 1999
Author: Prozzy from Boulder, Colorado
"Bingo" is the latest entry in the arena of increasingly complex and lifelike computer-generated animations. Chris Landreth sought a subject for a short that would aid in the development of Maya, an animation software package by Alias/Wavefront. He found inspiration in the Chicago-based theater group "The Neo-Futurists" who for years have performed an ever-changing series of 30 plays in 60 minutes called "Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind." Greg Kotis's play "Disregard This Play," in which a man is psychologically brutalized into believing he is a clown named Bingo, became the basis for Landreth's animation.
Bingo expands on the original short skit (a filmed portion of which we see at the beginning) by allowing the innate surrealism of the psychological battering to take on realistic imagery. The bizarre nature of the admittedly thin plot will not appeal to everyone. Several people I know simply raised their eyebrows and looked blankly at me when I asked them how they liked it. But all were impressed by the sheer technical prowess of the animation. Facial gestures, human musculature, lighting and shadows, smoke and haze effects are all astoundingly realistic. And Bingo shows why computer animators strive to create incredibly realistic human characters; not to become replacements for human actors, but to give us believable animated characters that can transform into these strange and surrealistic visions.
Classic Clown Video
Members of the 1955 Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown Alley (featuring the likes of Emmett Kelly, Otto Griebling, Paul Jung, Charlie Bell and Prince Paul) perform on a live television special "Christmas with the Greatest Show on Earth" December 16, 1955 from the circus' Winter Quarters in Sarasota, Florida.
Unknown Hinson
Like the boy named Sue, Unknown Hinson can attribute his unusual name to an absent father.
“My mama’s name was Miss Hinson and she thought that she should name me after my daddy, but she didn’t know his name, so they just put it down as ‘Unknown,’” said Unknown Hinson, also known as the King of Country Western Troubadors.
Consequently, the young Unknown had a hard scrabble life in the back-woods country of North Carolina where he was raised. He remains a little oblique about exactly where he’s from.
“Out of respect for the people who live there,” he said. “I’m sure they don’t want to be over-run by a bunch of Unknown Hinson fans making their pilgrimmages.”
His daddy, he said, was “a no-account drunk,” and his only memory of him is actually a Christmas story, albeit not a very heartwarming one.
“My daddy had been over to the house drinking,” he said. “He was drunk as hell all the time. I was about 5 years old at the time and we had no food, no Christmas presents, no tree, no nothing. I woke up with a bad toothache. I’ve always had dental afflictions - you can tell that by looking at my pictures. So I started crying because it hurt so bad and my daddy beat the hell out of me on Christmas day.”
Without much of a family life, Hinson said his mother was his sole influence on his early development, and it was she who got him started on guitar.
“She played real purty and sang real purty,” he said. “She taught me that G chord and said ‘If you want to do this, you’ll figure the rest of it out.’”
Miss Hinson raised her boy all by herself until he was 10 years old (so he said, but he’s told others it was 12 and still others that it was 14), until she mysteriously disappeared, leaving the young Unknown to fend for himself.
“To this day, nobody knows what happened to her,” he said. “But I was scared when she was gone, so I got my pet rooster out of the barn and we just started running for days.”
One night, Unknown and his rooster Pete took refuge in an abandoned barn, and when they woke up, there was a carnival setting up outside.
“It was called Faust Shows and Amusements, a three or four truck carnival that ran around the South run by a feller named Herbert Faust,” he said. “He took me in as a sort of surrogate parent guardian. When he seen me and my rooster, he put us in the show.”
Faust put Unknown and Pete in an act they called “The Snake Pit.”
“Some people call it a ‘carnival geek,’ but I ain’t personally real fond of that name,” he said. “‘Human oddity’ works better for me.
“I was down there in the pit with the snakes and certain barnyard fowl. I never bit the heads off anything, though, it was all a trick, with fake blood and a cooperative chicken.”
Pete, it turned out, was a natural performer.
“For a rooster, he was a genius,” Hinson said. “They built this electric chair with sparks flying out all over the place, and I’d sit there and Pete would come out with his head shrouded like he was the executioner. He’d pull the lever down and there’d be all these electric noises and I’d be executed and that was the grand finale of my act.
“Plus, Hubert knew I played guitar so he let me sing some of my chart-toppers in the snake pit there,” he said. “A record company man showed up one day and offered me a contract. The world was my oyster, but before I could do anything, make any records or go on tour, some fellers had set up and framed on 54 charges that I was found guilty on and 48 others that got throwed out.”
Faust also disappeared around this time, and that fueled the flames of the rumor mill that Hinson, who was in his 20s at the time, was the murderer or perhaps had arranged his death.
The charges brought up against Hinson were prodigious: Three counts of first degree murder, two counts of armed robbery, 19 paternity suits, grand larceny, 28 counts of assault with a deadly weapon, spouse abuse (“Figure that one out,” he said, “I ain’t never been married”) “and 50-odd traffic violations including DWI, reckless driving, speeding, expired license plates, but I never had a drivers license and never owned a car.”
He puts the frame-up job on the local yokels who wanted to take his place in the snake pit.
“Some of them fellers later turned out to be purty famous on their own, with first names like Roy and Gene and Ernest,” he said. “I can’t prove most of that, but I know they done it.”
Hinson spent 30 years in prison until a reporter in Richmond, Va., saw a picture of him and recognized him.
“She stepped forward and proved that I was with her on the night that Hubert disappeared,” he said. “Women tend to remember my face.”
All charges were dropped, and in 1993, Hinson was a free man again.
“I try not to be bitter about it and try to see the good in it,” he said. “A writer needs solitude, you know that, and I got a good dose of it.
“I did get an education. I learned more in the Illinois State Pen than most people do in high school. Dollar for dollar the prison system is a better investment for your tax payer dollars than the educational system, that’s the truth.”
He had accumulated a lot of material and practice time on the guitar while he was incarcerated, so the first thing he did was put together a little band and hit the road, “to make up for lost time.”
Since then, he’s attracted the attention of some high-and-mighty show business people and counts Billy Bob Thornton, Hank Williams III, Marty Stuart and Tom Petty among his supporters.
Hinson does have detractors, and he is constantly fighting off rumors that he is a vampire. The presence of blood in his act is partly responsible, but that goes back to his poor dental health.
“My gums bleed from time to time and get infected, but I have found on my own accord that taking a drink of party liquor will soothe my chart-toppin’ gums,” he said. “Alcohol is a damned good antiseptic. The bleeding ain’t no gimmick.
“I was out on the West Coast a couple of years ago and some of these Goth kids came up to me, going ‘You’re so cool. You spit blood on stage and you’re all dressed in black and you look like Bela Lugosi, you must be a vampire.’ And the press picked up on it. I let ‘em go on and believe what they want to believe. I know what’s in my heart.
“Hell, I ain’t never sucked nobody, I swear.”
(Unknown Hinson is a character created by Charlotte, N.C., music teacher Danny Baker.)
A version of this story originally appeared in the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio, on Dec. 29, 2006.
