From AP via Yahoo: Honda's ASIMO robot conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as it performs 'Impossible Dream' during a concert in Detroit, Tuesday, May 13. Honda Motor Co. designed ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. ASIMO can run, walk on uneven slopes and respond to simple voice commands, but Honda says this is the first time ASIMO has ever conducted an orchestra. ASIMO can't respond to the players, but mimicked the actions of a conductor who was videotaped beforehand.
No word on whether ASIMO can schmooze donors or tolerate hot Fresno summers. On the jump: a few more shots of the robot just because it's so darn cute.
Twenty-eight years ago, Fresno's own Marcel Nunis -- Rogue Festival founder and local arts-scene fixture -- wrote the book for a musical titled "Frogway." Back in 1980, Malaysia's Sunday Star newspaper described it as "the very first made-in-Malaysia musical, produced and directed by unknowns in theatre. It was a hit!" The show "re-premiered" last year in Malaysia, and Nunis learned recently that the new production had been nominated for five Boh Cameronian Arts awards. (Think the Malaysian version of Broadway's Tony Awards, Marcel explains.) A description of the musical's plot:
Eddy, a singing frog, is rejected by his pond community because frogs aren't supposed to sing! He leaves the pond, and the love of his life, to seek his fame and fortune downriver at the Swamp. Here Eddy's singing talent propels him to stardom with the help of two cunning agents, a Snake and a Stork. He reaches the top of the entertainment world when he gets to perform on 'Frogway'. But fame, fortune and riotous living take their toll on our star. Blinded by pride and rejection, he turns to the dark side and dumps his best friend Freddy the Toad. To his horror, Eddy stumbles upon a dastardly plot by his agents to rob him of his fortune before killing and EATING him.
On Monday, Nunis learned that the show received one award for Best Group Performance (Voice). Congrats, Marcel. Not even Audra McDonald can say she's won a Boh Cameronian award. Now for the burning question: Does Livingstone's serve frogs' legs?
I'VE GOTTA ECHO my colleague Mike Oz and send a big fat So What? out to the folks on Mindhub and Valley Notebook fidgeting over the so-called "brain drain" affecting Fresno. Memo to those who worry that we're losing our "best and brightest" to major urban areas: Ever since young Marcus Tullius Overachiever bailed on his backwater town of Naples to head for the bright lights of Rome, say, it's been a rite of passage for some members of the younger generation to seek out fame and fortune in exotic locales. (Why is it, by the way, that it is always the best and brightest that we always seem to lament/gnash teeth/rent our clothing in a Biblical sense over and not the average, medicore, barely literate types who shove off for Santa Rosa or Topeka who wound our sense of civic pride?)
Once again, the end of the performing-arts season in Fresno is approaching, and while I will enjoy having more nights and weekends free, I will also miss the frenzy of activity as people have to pick between competing events.
You have one more chance to listen to the Fresno Philharmonic, which concludes its 2007-08 season with one more performance this afternoon (2:30 p.m. Sunday) at the Saroyan Theatre. My colleague George Warren reviews the performance in this morning's Bee.
I went to Saturday night's concert, which I enjoyed. It wasn't my favorite of the season -- I think I'd vote for the January concert featuring pianist Valentina Lisitsa -- and isn't necessarily the event you'd take a first-time Philharmonic-goer to -- but it's a rousing conclusion. Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" is the kind of choral piece that can grow on you: perhaps not as beefy and rousing as some of the choral spectaculars we've heard from the Philharmonic in the past, but something that builds. The Copland symphony -- with its clear, open tones that somehow evoke the promise and sweep of America -- was also a delight.
Looking for a cultural event this weekend that won't set you back any dough? Fresno State's Associated Students is presenting a free concert 7 p.m. Sunday (May 11) by Kybele Dance Theater of Los Angeles. Founded in 2003 by Seda Aybay, it's a contemporary dance company comprised of 8 dancers. The athletic, strength and stamina-requiring movement vocabulary is created by fusing together elements of theatrical, modern, and different ethnic dance forms. The pieces are often enhanced with props such as fans, scarves and folding chairs and are performed to music that combines ethnic with modern melodies.
The concert, co-presented by the Fresno State Tap Tones, will take place at the Satellite Student Union. Could be a great Mother's Day finale. (And you don't even have to tell Mom that it's free!)
Everyone's got to call in sick once in a while. But some jobs are hard to fill. How do you replace an orchestra conductor on short notice?
You scramble.
That's what the BBC National Orchestra of Wales did recently when officials called Fresno Philharmonic music director Theodore Kuchar in a panic and told him conductor Walter Weller was ill. They wanted to keep the program as printed and asked Kuchar to conduct Josef Suk’s Asrael Symphony at that weekend's concerts. A broadcast recording of the symphony, which Kuchar had conducted in Prague only a few months before, had circulated through Europe and caught the attention of the Welsh orchestra. He was the only one who could do it, they said.
(By the way, a healthy Kuchar is in Fresno this weekend for the final concert of the Philharmonic's 2007-08 season, which you can read about in Friday's 7 section.)
So, Donald, you're all done with your theater and arts reviews for the week. Where to now?
I'm going back to "Urinetown." Tonight, in fact.
I don't often make repeat visits to local theater productions, especially more than one time within a span of less than a week, but there are certain shows (especially well-loved musicals) for which I'll make an exception. And with a limited-run production such as Fresno State's "Urinetown," you can't dawdle. The university stages a musical just once every two years, so it's a special event. (You can check out my review here along with reader comments.)
Why go again? There's so much to take in the first time in a show such as this: the costumes, the lighting, the musical nuances, the special little touches. Also, I'm wishing pretty strongly that the sound design, which was the only major flaw on opening night, has gotten better. Wish me (and all those hard-working students and community members at Fresno State) luck. "Urinetown" plays just three more performances: 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you've got a musical-theater bone in your body, you won't want to miss it.
Some things never change: The sun sets in the west. Food from McDonald's tastes worse an hour after you eat it. When Annie sings "Tomorrow," her side-stretched hand will sweep to the sky, and she will end the song in a spectacular, note-crashing climax so inspirational you'll want to rush out and invent some sort of new vaccine.
I like the fact that "Annie" is predictably cheery. There are certain things that just seem right in this happy-go-perky musical: the cute dog; the evil Miss Hannigan; the eternal optimism of the orphans even when Annie gets picked to go live with the rich guy. The national touring production that opened Tuesday night at the Saroyan (and continues 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night for one more performance) might not be the snazziest or most cutting-edge touring musical of the year, but it knows how to get its happy job done.
The 10-year-old Amanda Balon (who has been performing since the age of 2, according to the program notes, and has her own Web site), who plays the demanding role of Annie, has a strong voice and a sassy personality. I think one test of playing Annie well is the ability to pull off the "I love you" scene with Daddy Warbucks in a heartfelt way that is neither too flippant nor too goopy. Scrappy and equipped with a powerful set of lungs, the young Amanda has no problems carrying a two and a half hour musical.
My colleague George Warren offered a review of Fresno Grand Opera's impressive "Porgy and Bess" in Sunday's paper. I saw the matinee performance and wanted to offer a few more thoughts:
The voices: simply amazing. The principals were world-class. Alvy Powell can bore a hole into you with his voice. Marquita Lister is a terrific actress as well as singer. Mary Elizabeth Williams was positively beatific. The growly Ashley Howard Wilkinson was tremendous. Judith Skinner was a feisty crowd favorite. Dwayne Clark oozed charisma. And the list went on and on. A couple of things came to mind: "Porgy and Bess" is hard to stage because the music is so taxing and the settings so varied. But also, you need deep pockets of talent to pull it off. Even when portions of the opera seem a little dated and even stiff, the voices in this production were so strong that they carried the day.
"It's a privilege to pee," the desperate crowd sings in "Urinetown, the Musical," a show about a city so short of water that its citizens have to pay to use the facilities. And it's a privilege to relieve yourself of the cares of the day and indulge in Fresno State's wacky and accomplished production of the acerbic Broadway musical.
Indeed, at the start of the show, as you watch members of the ensemble contorting themselves into various positions suggesting that an immediate restroom break would not only be desirable but essential, you become aware just how dedicated this cast and crew is when it comes to bringing the audience into a bizarre and amusing world. They can't wait to go for it. So to speak.
From the musical's light-hearted self-referential Broadway jabs (complete with "Les Miserables" spoof) and merry songs to its darker impulses involving environmental disaster, corporate greed and the tyranny of the masses, "Urinetown" connects on a number of levels. It's funny, tuneful, sardonic and downright thoughtful, which is quite an accomplishment considering the subject matter.
ArtHop in the spring: what a fine Fresno thing to do. Not too cold, not too hot. And light enough to easily find a parking place. Felicia Matlosz and I headed out in different directions Thursday night to hit some of the big ArtHop venues. At the top of the list is a new show at Fresno City Hall. Felicia writes:
This month's art scene in Fresno welcomes back a beloved figure: Polly Brewer, who owned Plums Contemporary Arts until she closed it in 2003. And I start by mentioning her because she has curated a wonderful exhibit on the second floor at Fresno's City Hall. It's called "Garden of the Sun," a companion event to the Vernacular Architecture Forum conference May 7-10 in Fresno.
It's a show that is rooted in the premise of how our region -- with its heat, rural landscapes and community icons -- is seen by talented artists and how this area influences their work. She freely admits there were many artists who would fit this show, but she wanted to give visitors a richer, deeper experience by focusing on the visions of seven artists in 32 pieces of art. And they happen to be well-known and respected figures: Adam Longatti (whose "House and Dog" is pictured above), Elaine Lynn, Pat Hunter, Robin Gay McCline, Sally DeLap-John, Jerrie Peters and Joel Pickford.
As we head into one of the busiest theater weekends of the year, lots of news to share:
The Woodward Shakespeare Festival is moving across the street from its current performance space. The company will shift from the mammoth Rotary Amphitheater, which in some ways was far too big, across to the activities area of the park, which is best known as the setting for the "Concerts in the Park" series.
The move is one result of the $1.5 million in renovations the city is completing on the underused amphitheater, including a shade structure, pictured. Though it was completed 14 years ago, the concrete amphitheater proved far too hot in the summer for most productions. (Um, you would have thought that someone involved in the design process -- the architects, say, or the folks who paid for it, or any 8-year-old you stopped at random in the park and showed them the plans -- would have anticipated such a problem, but no.) The Shakespeare folks were one of the few to utilize the space the past few seasons (ah, those theater folks are hardy creatures), but even they had to bring in misting machines to keep the broiling temperatures to manageable levels.
On the jump: More on Woodward Shakes' new space, awards for the Fresno State dance program, a memorial service for beloved theater professor Phillip Walker, a Helen Hayes acting award for GCP alum Heidi Blickenstaff and a roundup of the theater riches available this weekend.
I've seen Alfred Hitchcock's famed movie "Rebecca," which was based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, several times, but I hadn't seen the play, which du Maurier also adapted, until Saturday. It turns out that the movie and play are very different but both highly satisfying.
In the movie, which featured performances by Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine and an indelible Judith Anderson as the menacing Mrs. Danvers, we are immersed in a gloomy, Gothic world bearing an unforgettable Hitcockian stamp. In the stage play, which is being mounted by Good Company Players in a nicely shaped production, we get less of that "total immersion movie experience" that you might associate with "Rebecca." The atmospheric machinations of the play are far less strident than the movie. What you do get with the play, however, is a crisp and chilling cerebral experience that can be as tense as the movie in its own way.
The young Mickey Rooney's hair: Gloriously thick and blond. In some scenes of "The Human Comedy," the classic 1943 movie written by Fresno favorite son William Saroyan, Rooney's hair was such a strong presence that it was almost a character all its own: barely restrained at times as it threatened to fly all over the face of its 22-year-old owner, under control at others like a Sunday School 'do whipped into place by a fussy mother.
The old Mickey Rooney's hair: At 87, there isn't much of it these days. But the rest of Rooney, who graced the Tower Theatre Friday night with his presence at a special screening of the film, was in fine form as he joked and joshed with the audience in remarks before the film began. Standing with his wife, Jan, on the Tower stage, the prolific star -- who at last count has made 311 movies -- offered a sweet introduction that ranged from his views on movies today ("There was a time you could go and understand every bit of the dialogue") to his thoughts on why he's still working ("You don't retire. You expire.")
The scene: A great turnout at the 800-seat Tower for this event in celebration of the Saroyan centennial, with the center section pretty much filled and lots of moviegoers in the side sections. The audience was richly represented by members of the Armenian community, and before the screening started, you could hear snippets of folks talking about the Great Man himself: "I remember being just across the street from him," said a woman with very tall hair.
In Friday's issue of 7 I have an interview with Nancy Miller, director of "Rebecca" at the 2nd Space Theatre. Here's a continuation of the interview:
Did Daphne du Maurier adapt the play after Hitchcock made the movie from her novel?
The play was first produced in London (with Margaret Rutherford as Mrs. Danvers!) the same year the movie was released, so it would seem she was at work on it pre-film.
I'm a day late for the official Earth Day, but I was really taken with yesterday's Web pick from Very Short List. It's a site called Swaptree that lets you trade away CDs and DVDs you don't want. Instead of throwing them away, you mail them off to someone who does:
Swaptree — started by Greg Boesel and Mark Hexamer in 2004 to help people barter things — is remarkably simple to use: You sign up for an account (“join us in 8 seconds”), then rifle through your books, CDs, DVDs, and video games to find the ones with which you’re dying to part. Put them up on Swaptree (by typing in the UPC code or ISBN number), and the site instantly shows the items you can get in return — you pay only shipping, which Swaptree handily calculates for you. Wondering what to do with that dismal M. Night Shyamalan film you bought on DVD because you assumed it would be as good as The Sixth Sense? Put it up. Maybe you can acquire Fritz Lang’s M in exchange.
I like the idea of recycling those unwanted copies of "The Lake House" instead of chucking them in a landfill. I'm definitely going to try it out.
The Fresno Philharmonic is scoring a coup this weekend by bringing in the world-renowned percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who has been profoundly deaf since age 12 and "hears" music in a fascinating way. I have an interview with her on the cover of Tuesday's Life section, and in it she has some fascinating things to say about music, life in Scotland, her recent concert tour and taking advantage of our senses. For those looking for more information about Glennie, here's an interesting news segment:
There are lots of perks that come with being parents, but for Robynn and James Reilly, this one was unique: They got to be movie stars. (Sort of.) In "Ball Point," a short film that won last weekend's Best in Show award at the Get Reel Film Festival held at the Tower Theater, the Reillys played a pair of screaming/arguing parents. ("Hey, we've been married 21 years and figured we could adlib something," Robynn Reilly says.)
Her daughter, Hannah, was one of the creative forces behind the two-minute film, along with J. Ross Holly and Peter Thronson. Here's the clip on YouTube:
On the jump: More about the festival and a complete list of winners.
UPDATE 4/21: Check out the amazing photo from the event, above, provided by Bee photog Tomas Ovalle. It shows Tim Shaghoian, Paul's son, performing under the "acoustical cloud" in the new concert hall.
There were many stellar moments Wednesday night at the official grand opening of the stunning new performing arts building at the recently opened Clovis North Educational Center -- a complex that includes the 750-seat Paul Shaghoian Concert Hall -- but the first real throat-gulper came when the basses sang.
The low, rumbling voices of the Clovis East High School Timberwolf Choir, soft as a rustle of leaves, introduced the song "Sure On This Shining Night" with such tenderness and musicality that it almost felt otherworldly. As the young men sang, their sound seemed to creep out at first from them, then slowly fill the hall with a sturdy warmth, much like a pleasant fragrance wafting in on a breeze. The choir (which is headed to New York City next week for a schedule that includes a performance in Carnegie Hall, by the way) sounded terrific. So did the other performing groups on the program.
It was all part of a celebration of one school district's spectacular dedication to the arts. The $17.5 million building, which includes the 150-seat Dan Pessano Theater, has to be one of the nation's finest high school performance facilities. For that, the school's governing board and administration, along with the pro-education Clovis district residents who approved the bond measures that made the building possible, deserve congratulations.
You probably meant it in fun but I found it offensive and demeaning to the Idol contestants. Brooke White is a refreshing example of what a genuine and humble person is and a sharp contrast to the Hollywood celebrities we regularly see. I only hope people don't believe you are reporting actual words from these contestants.
A Fowler reader writes:
After reading “What a tangled ‘Idol’ we weave,” with its blatant use of bigoted stereotypes, in Sunday’s Spotlight, I have one rhetorical question. Good grief, Donald, could you be more mean spirited?
Here's the scary thing, oh Fowler inhabitant: Yes, I could, absolutely. "American Idol" can do that to me.
The scenic design in "Glengarry Glen Ross" is the best I've seen at the newish Severance Building theater space.
As this chipper yet gratifyingly dark production of Artists' Repertory Theatre's production of David Mamet's classic script opens, we're confronted with a cramped, claustrophobic jumble of vividly red upholstered restaurant booths. They appear smashed together, as if someone has moved all the furniture to one side of the room for carpet cleaning. Behind the gaudy booths, separated by a few desultory Chinese-restaurant-type screens, we see the guts of a sad and tired real-estate office: a few clunky metal desks shoved together, a coat rack on the wall for the salesmen to hang their inevitable off-the-rack suit jackets, several feeble parcel maps showing the "choice" Florida lots being offered to unwitting investors.
The practical benefits of the scenic design are obvious: It's as if you get the two settings called for in the play with the ease of a single unit set. All you have to do is remove the restaurant tables after the first two acts and expand the office furniture. But the effect of the set (designed by Jeff White) is more than just expediency: there's an Expressionistic impact -- a visceral emotional draw -- as well, particularly in the opening of the play. It's as if the cramped furniture is somehow paralleling the hemmed-in lives of the characters, who seem to be trapped in a never-ending, Sisyphean task of unloading worthless real estate on the same unsuspecting march of naive people.
Fresno State's Petrelli: Can she reach acting gold?
(UPDATE 4/20: Brad Myers reports Saturday from the Kennedy Center in Washington that Ferin Petrelli didn't win, alas. The top two awards went to students from Montclair State University in New Jersey and California State University, Fullerton. But congratulations to her for making it to the nationals!)
Fresno State's theater department has a stellar record in recent years sending students to the most prestigious student acting competition in the country: the Irene Ryan Acting Competition held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. This year it's the talented Ferin Petrelli, who is competing on Saturday for a national title at the American College Theater Festival. She and her acting partner, Danny Cobb, made it to the nation's capital by winning the five-state Western regional finals at Laramie, Wyo., and have spent the week in D.C. in a variety of acting seminars and competitive exercises. Petrelli (pictured with co-star Adam Schroeder) originally was nominated for her role in Fresno State's "Polish Joke."
Fresno State theater prof Brad Myers is jetting out to to Washington for a whirlwind trip (he's also directing the upcoming "Urinetown") to watch his students compete. He says that Petrelli is planning scenes from "Laughing Stock" by Charles Morey and "Two Truths and a Lie" by Mary Michael Wagner, along with a monologue from Shakespeare's "The Two Noble Kinsmen."
On the jump: a list of Fresno State's regional American College Theater Festival winners.
What are the odds? Not one but two 17-year-old pianists will be offering classical concerts this weekend:
Michael Delfin (pictured) will perform at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Fresno Piano Recital Hall. He was recently selected for the Young Artists Guild of the Music Teachers Association of California, which represents the association's highest performance honor. He'll play an original work along with pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmoninoff and Prokofiev. Details here; scroll down for item.
At the Fresno Art Museum, the San Joaquin Music Society presents a concert 8 p.m. Saturday by the up-and-coming Joseph Arax, who won the MTAC's Fresno Branch junior and senior solo competitions. He'll play Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and several works by Chopin. Details here; scroll down for item.
And if you're looking for slightly older players (yes, I think they check in at a few years north of 17), don't forget the expert professional sounds of Susan Doering, Claudia Shiuh and Dieter Wulfhorst, who make up the chamber group Musica Viva. They perform 6 p.m. Friday at San Joaquin Gardens and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church. Details here; scroll down for item.
in Friday's 7 section, I chat with director Michael J. Peterson about his new Artists' Repertory Theatre production of "Glengarry Glen Ross," which opens Friday at the Severance Building. Here's a continuation of the interview:
What is the play about?
The play concerns the ups and down of several men in the city of Chicago (although the setting really could be anywhere) who are trying to sell Real Estate, specifically some possibly worthless unseen parcels which are located in “Glengarry Highlands” Florida. Some of these guys may have once been at the top of their game as far as the sales racket goes, but now there’s a couple of “young Turks” in the office who seem to have taken over the action and the older guys are starting to feel the heat. To crank up the pressure a little bit more the management has instituted a sales contest in which the winner gets a Cadillac but the loser gets fired. The desperation this creates results in various alliances, clashes and betrayals which we see as the story plays out. A break-in and robbery of the best sales leads, probably an inside job, and the subsequent investigation add to the tension during the second act.
I can't tell you how many times people ask, "Why doesn't Fresno ever get any good independent/art/foreign films?" My answer, and it's almost always gracious, is to reply: "We DO get those films. Quite often, in fact. You just have to work at it a little to find them. You can't expect to sit on your duff and rely on prime-time TV commercials and slick marketing campaigns that guide you by the hand. These kinds of films tend to slip in, often almost unannounced, and might be here for limited runs. You have to make it a priority to see them right away, because they aren't going to hang around for two months."
But there are times, thankfully, when it's downright easy to find these kinds of films in Fresno. This weekend is one of them. In what is becoming one of the high film points of the year, the Fresno Filmworks fourth annual film festival unleashes a slew of intriguing titles from all over the world. My colleague Rick Bentley and I have a big cover story on the festival in Friday's issue of 7, and I urge you to get your hands on it or check it out online to read news, reviews and a complete schedule.
Here's an added online bonus: a review of a powerful documentary titled "The Betrayal," which plays 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Tower Theatre.
American Idol: Is Syesha out tonight? TiVo says so
File this item under either a) the intriguing use of technology to reflect the wisdom of the masses; or b) the incredibly disturbing specter of Big Brother in our living rooms. Salon reports that TiVo has a new way to predict the loser on each week's "American Idol":
TiVo anonymously monitors usage statistics in a pool of 20,00 of its users. The company can tell when viewers replay an "Idol" contestants' songs, and when viewers skip over it. Replaying, obviously, is a good sign. If people are fast-forwarding through your songs, you're going home.
TMZ says TiVo has predicted the "Idol" loser for four weeks straight. And tonight, TMZ says, TiVo's method predicts that 24-year-old Syesha Mercado is going home.
Or you could go with my interpretation of the results: Stunned viewers, when confronted with the sheer boredom of Brooke White's performance, were rendered in a momentary coma as she sang, which prevented them from using their fast-forward fingers. We can only hope.
In today's Bee, my colleague Mary Lou Aguirre has an amusing take on "American Idol's" David Archuleta from a mom's point of view: He'd be the perfect boyfriend for her teen-age daughter. She writes:
I believe it was David's third appearance on the show when I turned to Natalie and told her, "That's the kind of boy you can bring home."
Aside from bemoaning the fact that I can remember buying Natalie a BABY present (time sure does fly), I'd like to point out to Mary Lou my recent prediction on the Beehive about Archuleta's prospects:
I have this scary flash forward of Archuleta at 30, after winning "American Idol," winding up as a pudgy, washed-up reality show host struggling with substance-abuse issues, a marriage to a lapsed Mousketeer and the slow dissipation of his squeaky-clean fame.
If I were you, Mary Lou, I'd be mother-in-law dreaming for the founder of the next Google.
It sounds like a mistake that Peter would make on "Family Guy": Leave it to William Dean Singleton, chairman of the Associated Press and powerful newspaper magnate (known more for slashing budgets than his papers' strong foreign coverage), to betray "liberal news bias" at an event featuring Barack Obama. The Los Angeles Times reports that Singleton yesterday asked the presidential candidate:
Asking about redeploying troops from Iraq, Singleton asked Obama if, as president, he could envision shifting "a substantial number to Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been gaining strength and Obama bin Laden is still at large."
"I think that was Osama bin Laden," the candidate corrected.
Any doubt who the Denver Post will be endorsing for president?
Here's a happy little story I found by the theater writer for the Kansas City Star bragging about how vibrant his city's theater scene is these days. Robert Trusell needed three hands to count all the performances available on just one night in his city: 12 performances in eight hours with a potential audience of 7,900-plus. He writes:
It’s tempting to chalk it up to a long-awaited alignment of the planets, but the reality may be that seeds planted 40 years ago are finally bearing fruit ... In short, nobody — including this critic — has seen this level of activity in the theater scene here before.
What really strikes me about this story is the line about planting seeds. In Kansas City, the catalyst for a chunk of the theater growth was the $1 million conversion of old movie theaters into a 240-seat space that is used by various small theater groups. It sounds like our own Severance Building project. Who knows? Sure, Kansas City is something like twice the size of Fresno in terms of metro population, but the success of the local theater scene there is encouraging. If audiences here can continue to grow and support local productions, those seeds might grow in ways we can't even imagine. A new ART (Artists' Repertory Theatre) production of "Glengarry Glen Ross" opens at Severance this Friday, by the way.
Shout-outs to two very talented Fresno-area artists who are showing in other parts of the country:
NANCY YOUDELMAN has a new show opening today at the Eight Modern gallery in Santa Fe, N.M. "Threads of Memory" includes examples of this longtime Fresno State prof's (and contemporary of feminist artist Judy Chicago) penchant for transforming items of clothing into art by attaching such found objects as buttons, costume jewelry and zippers and then slathering them with layers of acrylic metallic paint. She's had many shows at Fresno's Gallery 25. You can read a 2006 column I wrote about Youdelman here.
KAREN LE COCQ, a Mariposa artist and another member of Gallery 25, is now showing at the prestigious Gallery 10 in Washington, D.C. A mixed-media artist known for her assemblage pieces, LeCocq work gained international recognition after she was selected for the Absolut Vodka Signature Artist campaign. She's been displayed in museums across the country. Here's a recent blog entry I wrote mentioning one of her Gallery 25 shows.
On the jump: Large-size examples of each artist's work.
OK, perhaps it's a little much to say that his demise on the show was a real shock. That word should be reserved for the truly surprising and implausible, such as the odds of Paula Abdul delivering 10 cogent sentences in a row. When you're down to the Top 8 contestants on "American Idol," we all know that the electorate is fickle. Just ask Chris Daughtry. (Who, it should be said, is doing very well, thank you very much.)
Still, the audience -- and especially the contestants -- did seem stunned when Ryan Seacrest delivered the news. Felicia Matlosz and I, who have been blogging "AI" all along, were surprised as well. Johns was in the Bottom 3 along with Syesha Mercado and Carly Smithson, and if there were any Las Vegas bookmakers in the house, I'm sure they would have given either of them much higher odds to go home than Johns.
Felicia writes: I'm flabbergasted that Michael Johns was sent home. Yes, his poser-rocker lacked authenticity, but he did not deserve to be booted. It should have been Syesha Mercado (at least she and Carly Smithson, my other non-favorite this week, were in the Bottom 3).
Theater fans in the Valley already know that Heidi Blickenstaff, a veteran of Good Company Players, is carving out a significant career on Broadway. She played in "The Full Monty" and originated a supporting role in "The Little Mermaid." (In fact, I just wrote an update column about her in March.)
Now she writes with her biggest career news yet: The Off-Broadway show "[title of show]," the scrappy little four-person musical in which Heidi (pictured, at left, with the rest of the cast) made such a big impression in '06, is going important places:
We're making the big move to Broadway in July!!! It's so unbelievable and thrilling. It's actually happening! YAY! We're so excited, of course, and we can't wait to write the Broadway chapter of the show. Life is crazy.
All I can say is wow. And congratulations. It's tough-tough-tough to get a show to Broadway these days, especially a small musical.
It's clear that "American Idol" is the biggest game in town. Any show that can entice the likes of Brad Pitt, Reese Witherspoon, Mariah Carey and Robin Williams to appear on its charity special is most certainly cavorting with the A-listers. "AI" is in that enviable position of attracting a broader demographic of viewers than any show in the country, and that means everyone wants to get in on the action. Alessandra Stanley, writing in the New York Times, points out that even the nation's presidential candidates didn't make the cut in last night's broadcast:
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain made taped appeals for charity on a special edition of “American Idol” on Wednesday night that didn’t make the cut. The telethon for needy children around the world entitled “Idol Gives Back” drew the likes of Fergie, Bono, Brad Pitt, Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus, and went too long. The candidates’ contributions were kicked back to Thursday night’s episode.
The show was a long, sprawling two and a half hours that was not as tedious as I expected. (Surprise!) Sure, there were a few gnawing thoughts at the back of my mind as I watched the earnest appeals and heart-wrenching and slickly produced vignettes: how much the dazzling "Idol" set cost, say, and the expense of sending all those celebrities to Africa, and how odd it is that we can make fun of poor and hairy Russians but would never think of making disparaging remarks about other nationalities, and the incongruous experience of having the bitter-tongued Simon Cowell lecture America over our messed-up health-care insurance system.
I'm not anti-"CATS," although they make my eyes itch and my head plug up. I've seen professional productions of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical many times, ranging from London (where I recall the Heaviside Layer so impressively far above the stage that I worried that Grizabella would plunge to her death) and Anchorage (for an advance story, I took the actress playing Cassandra, the Siamese Cat, to visit a glacier) to San Francisco and Fresno. And two years ago, thanks to a frisky community-theater production at Roger Rocka's Dinner Theater, I had the chance to see a smaller-scale approach to the musical.
Every time I saw the show, the music and the concept of "CATS" managed to hold up. Sure, it's easy to lose the element of surprise ("Wow, I've known a cat like that!"), and the pretty much plot-free narrative could get a little tedious at times, but something about the show still managed to purr.
But at Tuesday night's performance of the national tour at the Saroyan Theatre, in a perfectly competent and faithful rendition of "CATS," I hit the wall. I'm not talking road kill here -- it's the "CATS" you know and love -- but the whole experience was flat to me. (It continues through Thursday.) What I thought before was a fun if slightly silly outing just seemed like a tired old '80s rehash.
The Broadway musical "Wicked," which began its charmed life in San Francisco years ago, will be returning to that city for an open-ended run. Playbill.com reports:
West Coast "Wicked" fans, fear not. Although the Los Angeles production (with Megan Hilty, pictured) of the hit Stephen Schwartz-Winnie Holzman musical will play its final performance at the Pantages Theatre Jan. 11, 2009, another open-ended production will begin that same month in San Francisco. San Francisco's Orpheum Theatre will be the home of the latest sit-down production of Wicked, which began life in a tryout at San Fran's Curran Theatre before arriving on Broadway.
I know there are a lot of Fresno "Wicked" fans out there, so next year you can travel north instead of south. What this means, of course, is that there is even less of a chance of the musical coming to the Saroyan Theatre anytime soon.
For dance fans, especially, I want to give an extra plug to a very strong touring show sponsored by our local Lively Arts Foundation that we've been writing about this past week. The Perm Ballet, visiting from Russia, is one of the Top 3 companies in that ballet-rich country, and it's coming to Fresno's Saroyan Theatre tonight (April 3) with a whole slew of dancers and instrumentalists. (There are more than 100 in the company.) They'll be performing the traditional "Swan Lake," and believe me, no one does this classic ballet like the Russians. (They should be good at it, after all, considering they perform it at least once a month even when they're at home.) Each dancer has been trained in the world-renowned Perm Ballet School, which means that when all those women in white tutus perform the famous Dance of the Swans, it's with such precision and absolutely exact technique that it's almost like watching one dancer instead of dozens.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. And here's a last-minute rush-ticket offer: All available seats are being sold on the day of performance for $25. That's a very good deal for seeing a world-class company.
Who was Paul Shaghoian and how was it that the new concert hall was named for him?
Shaghoian, pictured, was a beloved Buchanan High School music director who died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2004 after years of molding the Buchanan jazz band into the one of the top high school jazz bands in the country. Unlike most big buildings that are named after generous donors, the Clovis school district paid for the new facility with bond money, so it was able to bestow the naming privilege as an honor, not a branding opportunity for a person of wealth. The Dan Pessano theater is named for the founding director of Good Company Players and a longtime instructor and supporter of theater in the Clovis schools.
If you went to see the new movie "21" this last weekend, you weren't alone. It was No. 1 at the box office. But this mediocre film, which I gave a lukewarm review to in Friday's 7 magazine, certainly isn't No. 1 in terms of faithfulness to the source material. Lily Tung, writing on the ARTicles blog, reminds us that Hollywood took some big fat liberties with this story, detailed in a book titled "Bringing Down the House," of a bunch of uber-smart college students who figured out a way to outsmart the big Las Vegas casinos:
The real people profiled in Bringing Down the House are actually Asian American, and when Asian-American actors learned that the story was being made into a movie, they rejoiced. Finally, they would have the opportunity to play three-dimensional characters and branch out from their fine portrayals of nerds, waiters, kung fu artists, and refugees.
Studio executives dashed those hopes. They felt that Caucasian actors would make the film more marketable, despite the fact that the characters' ethnicity was essential to the story. The book states that the card-counting scheme was successful partly because the students used their ethnicity to their advantage; in the casinos, a young Asian man betting large amounts of money is less conspicuous than a young white man.
Ted Kuchar, watch out
