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November 30, 2007
November 27, 2007
Everybody knows the tune
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Most people have never even heard of Ellie Greenwich, but she was such a powerhouse of a person that it apparently takes two actresses to put her on stage.
“I had no idea about her, but I knew all the songs,” said Katie Buchanan, one of those actresses in the upcoming Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre production of “Leader of the Pack.”
“I had no idea what the play was about except that it was girl group music,” said Julie Joyce-Smith, the other actress. “But I’d never heard of Ellie Greenwich, but it turns out she was one of the most celebrated songwriters of her time.”
Greenwich was the author or co-author of dozens of Top 40 tunes in the early 1960s, popularizing groups like the Shangri-Las, the Ronettes and the Crystals with tunes like “Be My Baby,” “Da Do Ron Ron,” “Chapel of Love” and the tune from which the play gets its title.
“She was pretty feisty and ahead of her time,” Joyce-Smith said. “She was very independent and career-minded, not very family oriented.”
“She grew up in a Jewish New York family,” Buchanan said. “Her parents wanted her to be a teacher, but she wanted to be a songwriter and started out doing some back-up singing.”
The story is framed as a flashback with Joyce-Smith playing the present-day Ellie and Buchanan as the memory Ellie.
“The play is about how she came up with ideas for the songs she wrote,” Buchanan said. “She ends up marrying (songwriter) Jeff Barry and a lot of the show has to do with their relationship. She was very driven to be a performer and writer, but he wanted to have a family. She wanted to be married, but didn’t like the idea of having a family.”
Director Janet Manley said she chose the show because it’s the kind of music that Civic Theatre audiences love.
“I directed ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ (about the songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller) a few years ago and it was very popular,” she said. “These composers all worked together in New York at the same time.”
November 22, 2007
A Very Nunny Christmas
November 19, 2007
Re-visiting a re-visitation of ghostly visitations
Last year, Know Theatre of Cincinnati re-visited Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale with “Christmas Yet to Come,” using contemporary music and dance.
When the troupe decided to re-mount the production this year, it was obvious that they had to re-visit, the re-visit.
“The reason we did the show last year was to provide an alternative to the companies that do the same play year after year,” said Liz Holt, the show’s creator. “We thought that if we do the same show we did last year, that defeats the purpose.”
This version, retitled “Christmas.To.Come,” is a bit more adult-oriented than last year’s production, she said, and she likens the style and tone to lucid dreaming.
“Some of it may seem random, but not so much that it doesn’t make sense,” she said. “We tweaked the story a little bit more than last year. It still follows the same basic pattern but doesn’t tell the story so much as it lets it flow.”
The music is also completely different, this time using songs from Ryan Adams, John Mayer, Great Northern, Frank Sinatra, David Gray and Diana Ross.
The use of popular music and choreography creates a modern landscape that sets this work apart from typical Dickens adaptations, Holt said.
There will also be puppets, although this isn’t a show for kids.
“Sometimes things from everyday life randomly pop into your dreams,” Holt said. “I’ve always loved the ‘Muppets’ Christmas Carol,’ so we had some puppets created for us to give a big silly feature.”
The play stars Derek Snow as Ben Scrooge, Molly Binder as Christmas Preset and Adam Slemon as Jacob Marley, along with Todd Patterson, Vandit Bhatt, Anne Marie Carroll, Anthony Darnel and Adrienne Clark.
- WHAT: “Christmas.To.Come,” created by Liz Holt, based on “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens
- WHERE: Know Theatre of Cincinnati
- WHEN: Dec. 6-28
- COST: $15-$22
- MORE INFO: (513) 300-5669; www.knowtheatre.com
A different kind of Cirque in the arena
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The big yellow and blue tents are missing, but Cirque du Soleil is still as colorful and lively as ever with “Saltimbanco,” one of two arena-style touring shows operating under the Cirque banner.
“Saltimbanco,” which comes from the Italian “saltare in banco,” which literally means “to jump on a bench” — is an allegorical look at becoming human, according to gymnast Anna Ostapenko, now on tour with this, her second Cirque production.
“It’s about the way life goes,” she said. “There are a lot of characters with a lot of different personalities that makes it all very colorful.”
“Saltimbanco” premiered in 1992 and toured under the big top for 14 years, visiting 75 cities on five continents, for a total of more than 4,000 performances given before a combined audience of over 9.5 million people.
In 2007, the show was reconfigured for large arenas for a 40-cities-a-year touring schedule.
Acts include an artistic bicycle rider, Chinese poles, high-speed juggling, boleadoras (twirling percussion instruments used by hunters in the South American pampas), the Rusian swing, The family of baroque characters invades the stage (with characters leaaping 30 feet into the air) and a show-stopping elaborate bungee ballet finale, one of Ostapenko’s favorite acts.
“They’re so much more than just acrobatics,” she said, “they race in the show and become much more than human beings.”
Ostapenko was recruited from her gymnastics school in the Ukraine for the show “Varekai,” and said the hardest routine for her to learn for this production is the artistic hoop in which the performers become part of a giant wheel they each control.
“It takes a long time to learn how to do it and it’s very energetic and difficult to get into the flow,” she said.
- WHAT: Cirqu du Soleil’s “Saltimbanco”
- WHERE: Nutter Center, Dayton
- WHEN: Through Sunday
- COST: $35-$65
- MORE INFO: (800) 863-3336; www.cirqudusoleil.com
‘Nunsense!’ revisited for the holidays
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The Mad Anthony Theatre Company lets the holidays get a little wacky with “Nuncrackers.”
Like “Nunsense” and “Nunsense II,” “Nuncrackers” features the Sisters of Hoboken as they try to raise money.
“This time, they’ve turned the basement of the convent into a TV studio and they are taping their first Christmas special,” said director Pat Ganz, who has previously directed the first two shows for Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre productions and has many of the actresses returning in their roles.
Director Pat Ganz has revived the cast from previous Greater Hamilton Civic Theatre productions of the first two “Nunsense” shows: Judy Jarvis plays the Rev. Mother with Jennifer Drake as Sister Hubert, Michelle Lewis as Sister Amnesia and Gina Johnson as Sister Mary Leo. Megan Peters, who was in the first GHCT production also returns as Sister Robert Anne.
The cast also includes Jim Ward as Father Virgil, and Kaleigh Howland, Colleen Ray, Zach Cobb, Anna Schindler and Brandon Hamilton as the children from Mt. St. Helen’s School. The Sisters’ Christmas special includes a variety of parodies, including commercials from the Home Shopping Network done the Catholic way and St. Victoria’s Secret.
“There’s one number that’s a take-off on the Village People, and the nuns do a commercial about joining the convent,” Ganz said. “The kids do ‘Santa’s Little Teapot’ in costumes that are just adorable.
“Jim Ward and Judy Jarvis play sugar plum fairies in ‘The Nutcracker’ that is worth the price of admission,” she said. “It’s seven minutes long, closes act one, and is the funniest thing they’ve ever done.”
- WHAT: “Nuncrackers” by Dan Goggin
- WHERE: Mad Anthony Theatre Company, Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton
- WHEN: 8 p.m. Nov. 29-Dec. 1; 2 p.m. Dec. 2.
- COST: $12 members; $15 non-members; $6 students
- MORE INFO: (513) 863-8873; www.fittoncenter.org
Cowboy Junkies return to Trinity
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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band, Cowboy Junkies decided to return to where it all began, the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto where they recorded their first album, “The Trinity Sessions,” to revisit the music and the magic that jump-started their careers.
This time, instead of just the four of them (Alan Anton on bass with the Timmins siblings: Michael on guitar, Margo on vocals and Peter on drums) and an engineer, the Junkies also invited along some special guests, including Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt, and a video crew to capture the magic.
“We hadn’t been back there since,” Anton said. “We thought it might be problematic with 40 people in the crew, but they stayed out of the way.
“We all nailed it, I thought. We definitely brought our experience to it — and an edge. We’re all older and nastier now.”
“Trinity Revisted” turned out to be a two disc CD/DVD combo, along with a bonus documentary included on the DVD which features the band sitting around talking about the good old days.
Anton said that the Junkies have managed to stay together for 20 years without any personnel changes because they don’t try to hard for mainstream success.
“We have a dedicated but small following that knows what to expect from us,” he said. “If you try to sustain a career, it can be difficult, but we just do what we do and the years just rolled by.”
- WHAT: Cowboy Junkies
- WHERE: 20th Century Theatre, 3021 Madison Road, Cincinnati
- WHEN: 8 p.m. Nov. 27
- COST: $30 advance, $35 day of show
- MORE INFO: (513)731-8000; www.the20thcenturytheatre.com
November 18, 2007
Orange Blazes
An original film
November 16, 2007
Art exhibition looks at the creative process
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Even to many artists who are creatively engaged on a daily basy, the creative process is a mystery.
“Because I teach painting and drawing, I’m often witness to the difficulties of a creative situation,” said Miami University art professor Dana Saulnier.
To that end, he proposed an exhibiton at the Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati to take entries from artists about work that speaks to the process, about how creativity is not just about intuition, but “about a lot of work,” he said, and to explore the resistance to creativity that arises during the work.
“Creative work seems to be 90 percent resistance and 10 percent success,” he said. “In other areas we are efficient in our time, but creativity takes you down some alleys.”
Part of the resistance seems to come from an artist’s inability to express exactly what he or she wants to express.
Resistance to Vision as an organizing principle for this exhibition arises out of a number of ideas and observations-- all having to do with thinking about creative practices. A lot of this comes directly out doing creative work, as well as helping others find their own artistic voice. The same thinking also lends itself to an argument that distinguishes the visual in the face of contemporary theories that center on language. For several generations much theory has taken the operation of language as the fundamental framework for understanding cultural forms. The “linguistic turn” in theory is the prevalent mode of postmodernism. This project compiles a set of ideas meant to position “resistance” and “blindness” as productive orientations to the visual. – Dana Saulnier in the introduction to the exhibition catalog
“A person who works from observation, for instance, who is making a drawing of you would encounter some resistance because we can only get so much of you on paper,” he said. “Some things about you are not visible, and that’s hard to render,” so the artist meets resistance.
The call for entries to “Resistance to Vision” generated nearly 350 entries from 130 artists from 30 states and nine different countries. From that, Saulnier selected 16 works from artists in eight different states, including Kenneth Hall of Oxford.
“We wanted to see evidence of the artist’s thinking,” he said. “The idea of trail and error was very important. We wanted to see their choices.”
In a set of self-portraits title "Eight Days, Orange Shirt," for instance, Texas artist Joseph Morzuch painted himself in eight 8-by-8-inch panels, always wearing the same shirt, always with a similar expression.
“Each one of them has a bit of truth,” Saulnier said, but none of the them tell the whole story.
A public lecture by Saulnier to accompany this exhibit will be held 6 p.m. Nov. 29 in room 5401 at the University of Cincinnati, College of DAAP.
A 48 page exhibit catalog features an 11 page curatorial essay by Saulnier.
WHAT: Resistance to Vision: Searching, Sifting, Finding, Seeing
WHERE: Manifest Gallery and Drawing Center, 2727 Woodburn Avenue, Cincinnati
WHEN: Through Dec. 7
COST: No charge
MORE INFO: (513) 861-3638; http://www.manifestgallery.org
Yes, 'The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!" is a musical
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If you love musicals, you’ll surely love “Musical of Musicals: The Musical.”
If you loathe musicals, you might like it even more.
If you don’t know your Rogers and Hammerstein from your Kander and Ebb, however, you might be left in the dark.
There’s one simple plot, described thusly on the proscenium: I can’t pay the rent! You must pay the rent! I can’t pay the rent! I’ll pay the rent.”
But here, it’s told in five 15-minute segments in the style of various composers of Broadway musicals by four actors who play variations on the same character. The cast includes Joanne Bogart, who is also the lyricist, as the various aspects of Abby.
In the first segment, “Corn!,” the musicals of Rogers and Hammerstein take a good skewering for their down-home goodness, with references to “Oklahoma!” (naturally) as well as “The Sound of Music,” loaded with puns and (naturally) corny Americana humor (“Don’t throw OKs at me,” says one character).
Stephen Sondheim, whose recent revivals of “Company” and “Pacific Overtures” were developed at the Playhouse, is not immune to attack in the segment titled “A Little Complex,” in which Jitter, a frustrated artist who is also the landlord of an apartment building called “The Woods, offers the batty June a chance to pay her rent by posing for him — or die — in dark, over-rhymed minor key laments.
“Dear Abby” hits the highlights of Jerry Herman’s “Mame” and “Hello, Dolly” by poking fun at the ever-present washed-up diva who knows everybody’s business.
In “Aspects of Juanita,” an Andrew Lloyd Webber mock-opera finds the characters tired of singing everything (“We never talk anymore!”), where even the most mundane dialogue is given musical weight. “Who cares if you’re over the hill when you’re over the top,” one character sings.
Finally, Kander and Ebb, authors of “Chicago” and “Cabaret,” take the heat of “Speakeasy,” which includes hilarious faux-Fosse choreography and a spectacular finale that never seems to end.
A lover of musicals will love not only the wacky humor, but the way that the creators have absolutely nailed the styles of the various authors, and loathers of musicals will love how they pick at the things that make musicals so cloying and obnoxious.
- WHAT: “The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!” by Joanne Bogart and Eric Rockwell
- WHERE: Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park, Cincinnati
- WHEN: Through Dec. 23
- COST: $48.50-$58.50
- MORE INFO: (513) 421-3888; www.cincyplay.com
Hamilton Symphony celebrates founder in annuall Tillmann Concert
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The Hamilton Fairfield Symphony Orchestra kicks off another landmark season this weekend with the 25th annual Tillmann Memorial Concert.
Conductor and musical director Paul Stanbery will celebrate his 13th season with the baton, having conducted his first HFSO concert, also a Tillmann Concert, in 1995.
His longevity will surpass that of Dr. Joseph Bein, the founding conductor for the first 13 seasons, who died last month and will be the subject of a special tribute at Sunday’s concert.
Born in New York City in 1917, son of Polish Jewish immigrants who moved to Louisville, Ky., when he was 8 years old, Bein started his violin studies at an early age and performed with the Louisville Symphony when he was 12. He graduated from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, in 1941.
After a stint as the commander of a tank squad in World War II, where he earned a bronze star for heroism and was one of the first soldiers on the scene at the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp, he finished his masters degree at Eastman, married Leila Allen Voiers of Jeffersonville, Ind., and landed in Oxford to teach in the music department at Miami University in 1948.
In 1951, Hamilton dentist Fred Baumgartner persuaded Bein to begin a string orchestra in Hamilton.
Dave Baumgartner, the dentist’s son who has played with the symphony himself off and on since 1953, said that Bein was an excellent musician.
“His interpretation of a piece when he played was very authentic and expressive,” said Baumgartner, who still plays with the symphony.
Violinist Lucy Herndon, who is celebrating her 50th year with the orchestra this season, first met Bein in 1957 at Miami University, and when her daughters Lynn and Lynda started playing violin, they went to Bein for lessons.
“He had enormous hands and feet,” Lynn Herndon Denney said. “When I first met him, he scared me to death, but he was such a gentle man he became like a grandfather to me.
“When he gave lessons, he would sing with you while you played.”
Carrie Patrick Ruoff also took lessons from Bein as a child.
“He would only take certain students who had playing ability and a desire to learn and practice,” she said. “He had a lot of knowledge and passion for music and was one of the best teachers around at the time.”
Christine Nichols played in an informal string quartet with Bein, his wife and cellist Bob Fryxell for over 15 years.
“We played every quartet there was,” she said. “We would always play a Hadyn quartet to begin and a Mozart quartet to end, and in between we played whatever quartet we wanted to do, but while we played there was no discussion, and would have four hours of wonderful playing that we did entirely for ourselves.”
By the time Bein celebrated his 13th season, the nine-piece Hamilton String Orchestra into the 50-piece Hamilton Symphony Orchestra (the name was changed again in the 1970s to include Fairfield).
In honor of Bein’s memory, the orchestra will include Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.
In the ensuing years, seven other conductors led the orchestra until Stanbery joined in 1995. The orchestra had fallen on lean years in the early ‘90s, and only played the Tillmann concert the previous year.
“It was a difficult time and there was some question whether (the orchestra) should even continue,” Stanbery said. “But the community seemed ripe for this kind of change.”
Now, even though Stanbery said he was advised that the community might be able to support one or two concerts a year, the symphony performs about 12 times a year, including a busy summer Pops season. Stanbery attributes the growth to recruiting an active board of directors, requiring all members to also serve on a committee.
The Tillmann Concerts began in 1982 at the bequest of the late Mary Tillmann in memory of her daughter Diane, who died in 1968 at the age of 35, and husband Bert, who was an executive at Beckett Paper and had died in 1972. Bert’s father and brother were both classical musicians and the family shared a love of good music.
The centerpiece of this year’s Tillmann Concert will be Felix Mendelsohnn’s “Concerto in D,” featuring pianist Sandra Rivers and violinist Timothy Schwartz.
Also on the bill is “Fiesta Mexicana,” by H. Owen Reed, a former subject of the symphony’s “American Masters Series,” presented as a way to reach out to and acknowledge Hamilton’s growing Hispanic population, Stanbery said.
“There been a lot of racial tension in the community in the past few years and so we’re trying to ease some of that,” he said.
The HFSO Season
• Tillmann Memorial Concert, 4 p.m. Nov. 18, St. Julie Billiart Church; with Sandra Rivers, pianist and Tim Schwartz, violinist; “La Fiesta Mexicana” by H. Owen Reed; tribute to Dr. Joseph Bein.
• The Majesty of Christmas, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 22, Fairfield Community Arts Center; featuring Handel’s “Messiah” and a mixture of Holiday Favorites. $12 by calling (513) 867-5348
• The David L. Belew American Masters Concert, 4 p.m. Feb. 24; location to be announced; featuring the music of Charles Lloyd. $10.
• The Return of Mr. Ronnie Kole and friends, 7:30 p.m. March 8, New Life Vinyard Church. $15.
• The Ohio Mozart Festival, April 25-27, various locations.
• Tillmann Memorial Concert, 4 p.m. Nov. 18, St. Julie Billiart Church; with Sandra Rivers, pianist and Tim Schwartz, violinist; “La Fiesta Mexicana” by H. Owen Reed; tribute to Dr. Joseph Bein.
• The Majesty of Christmas, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 22, Fairfield Community Arts Center; featuring Handel’s “Messiah” and a mixture of Holiday Favorites. $12 by calling (513) 867-5348
• The David L. Belew American Masters Concert, 4 p.m. Feb. 24; location to be announced; featuring the music of Charles Lloyd. $10.
• The Return of Mr. Ronnie Kole and friends, 7:30 p.m. March 8, New Life Vinyard Church. $15.
• The Ohio Mozart Festival, April 25-27, various locations.
JournalNews staff photos by Nick Graham of the Hamilton Fairfield Symphony Orchestra in rehearsal for the 25th annual Tillmann Concert.
A down-home comedy with all the fixin's
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Earlier this year, Heidi Schiller and her friend Dee Meyers went to a nearby dinner theater to see “Steel Magnolias.”
“Sometime during the evening the idea was hatched for us to try it ourselves,” Schiller said. And why not? Since Schiller is the director of the Fairfield Community Arts Center and Meyers the owner of All Things Catered, the major elements were already in place.
Schiller selected “Laundry & Bourbon,” like “Steel Magnolias” a play about Southern women, while Meyers planned a Souther-style menu for the first Fairfield Community Arts Center dinner theater this weekend. The event will be held in the Community Room.
Set in the mid-70’s, “Laundry & Bourbon” unfolds on the back porch of Roy and Elizabeth’s house in Texas, on a hot summer afternoon. Elizabeth and her friends Hattie and Amy Lee pass the time folding laundry, drinking bourbon and gossiping about the mean secrets of their small town.
“Infidelity is probably the biggest topic,” Schiller said. “Elizabeth’s no-good husband has been gone for two days — something he’s done periodically.
“He’s been back from Vietnam for a couple of years and it changed him. He can’t seem to find himself and she’s dealing with the aftermath.”
The play features Desiree McQuiddy as Elizabeth, Teresa Riestenberg as Hattie, and Lara Gonzalez as Amy Lee, with Schiller directing.
The menu includes a traditional 7-layer salad, oven-baked fried chicken, BBQ beef, southern-style beans, mashed taters, corn with herbs, and rolls. During intermission, guests will have a choice of southern-style banana pudding or chocolate mousse for dessert. Iced-tea, lemonade and coffee complete the meal.
- WHAT: “Laundry & Bourbon” by James McLure
- WHERE: Fairfield Community Arts Center, 411 Wessel Drive, Fairfield
- WHEN: Doors at 6 p.m. today and Saturday, dinner at 6:30 p.m., show at 7:30 p.m.; doors at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, dinner at 1 p.m. and show at 2 p.m.
- COST: $25 adult; $20 senior/student
- MORE INFO: (513) 867-5348; www.fairfield-city.org
November 09, 2007
No shortage of color in this exhibition
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“You can’t be afraid of color if you’re around me too long,” said Nancy Berninger, whose bright landscapes now dominate the lobby gallery at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts.
Berninger turned to painting about 11 years ago, she said, after having raised her children and decided to turn her dabbling into a career. Studying under area teachers like Sandy Maudlin and Steve Perucca, she tried her hand at watercolors and oils before settling on acrylics as her medium of choice.
“I left watercolors because I like the physicality of acrylics, the interaction with the canvas,” she said. “I put the canvas up in my barn and I can go wild. Painting give me the freedom to explore and no one can tell me what to do. I’m free.”
She said she also likes to crank up the heavy metal music when she works, her favorites being AC/DC and the indie rock band National.
“It gives me courage,” she said, “lets me out of the box.”
She likes to work fast, she said, and with “generous amounts of paint,” sometimes beginning with a photograph she’s taken or a small pastel sketch she drew, or sometimes just out of her imagination.
“I don’t really have a fixed approach,” she said. “My work is spontaneous and I don’t fiddle with it too much.
“There are a lot of painters out there, but very few artists,” she said. “An artist has an identity of their own they can express, the don’t need to copy anyone else.”
Photos by Greg Lynch/JournalNews staff photographer
Medieval vocal group goes Americana
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York City is a very small town if you have a special interest, said Marsha Genensky.
Her special interest was music of the Medieval period, and it didn’t take long after she arrived in New York in 1986 with a degree in folklore and folklife to find collaborators.
“There were people in church choirs and other groups focused on early Renaissance music,” she said, “but there we did not have much opportunity to sing Medieval music together because there was a mistaken impression that women did not sing Medieval music.”
It was true, she said, that women could not sing in public cathedrals during the Medieval period, but there was ample evidence that in convents, for instance, they could and did, so she and her fellow singers banded to see what it was like to hear the music from that era sung by women, and the group Anonymous 4 was born to a mixed reception - but positive where it counted.
“For our first record, we had to get a note from a musicologist giving us permission to sing this music,” she said. “But every scholar we’ve known has been really thrilled to work with us and thrilled with the result.”
Anonymous 4 strictly pursued Medieval music for many years and never ran out of material. “The Middle Ages lasted a really long time,” Genensky said. “We did at least a dozen records of Medieval music before we started recording new music.”
In recent years, Genensky has been guiding Anonymous 4 into the realm of Americana and folk music, more in keeping with her academic background, resulting in a pair of albums, “American Angels” and “Gloryland,” and a concert tour titled “Long Time Traveling” in which the normally a capella group performs with fiddler Darol Anger and guitarist Scott Nygaard, the core members of the band Republic of Strings in a program focused on early gospel and shape-note singing.
“Many people will recognize a lot of the songs,” Genensky said. “But we also look for some interesting gems.”
Mozart for the TV generation
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When Mozart was writing his operas, life was very different for the audience who came to be entertained.
“People expected to be in the theater for four or five hours,” said Nicholas Muni, former artistic director of the Cincinnati Opera who has served as a concept designer for Miami Univerity’s production of “The Magic Flute.
“So one of the things we have done is edit it to a ‘movie lenghth’ version, from three and a half hours to two hours and 45 minutes,” he said. “The Met (New York Metropolitan Opera) really did a ‘family version’ that was 90 minutes long and very successful, but we didn’t go that far.”
The culture of opera, Muni said, is evolving to be more visual, more theatrical, and part of his job as a consultant was to put the orchestra in a better acoustic space for the venue.
This cast includes 75 singers and 35 orchestra members represents, the greatest number of students ever in a Miami University opera, so Muni worked with set designer Geoffrey Ahlers to incorporate the orchestra into the scenic design.
“The Magic Flute” premiered in 1791 in Vienna, just two months before Mozart’s death. Today one of the most frequently performed operas in North America, the story concerns a wicked sorcerer who has stolen the daughter of the Queen of Night who is restored by a Prince by means of magic.
“The Magic Flute” is written as “singspiel” rather than grand opera, referring to broad comedy and a combination of spoken dialogue with singing. Many music critics and scholars have also dubbed the production “The Freemason Opera” as it is full of the ideals and symbols of the Masons who were prevalent in Vienna in the late 18th century.
- WHAT: “The Magic Flute” by Mozart
- WHERE: Hall Auditorium, Miami University, Oxford
- WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15-17; 3 p.m. Nov. 18
- COST: $10 adults; $8 seniors; $5 students
- MORE INFO: (513) 529-2232; www.tickets.muohio.edu
A pre-show talk will take place in the Green Room of Hall Auditorium one hour prior to each show.
‘Balanchine’s muse’ recreates his ‘Chaconne’
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When 14-year-old Roberta Sue Ficker — left Cincinnati to audition for the famed George Balanchine at the New York Ballet in 1960, there was some concern about her being able to be a professional dancer.
“When I was younger, my foot had been kicked by a horse,” she said, and so Balanchine had been alerted about concerns for her long-term prospects.
Not knowing what to expect and unprepared, the young dancer nervously hummed a tune from her recital while she performed for the master, but was taken aback when he had her take off her shoes and began examining her foot.
“He tried to pull my toes back and I wouldn’t let him,” she said. “But he was very kind.”
She was soon enrolled in the School of American Ballet on a Ford Foundation scholarship and joined Balanchine’s company for the 1961-62 season, when she changed her name to Suzanne Farrell to become the youngest ballerina in the New York City Ballet’s history, and eight months later Balanchine was featuring her in solos.
“Mr. B. did 23 ballets for me,” she said, in a professional relationship that lasted (except a five-year estrangement in the early 1970s) until his death in 1983. She retired from dancing in 1989, a remarkable 28-year career, and has since devoted herself to keeping the work of “Mr. B” alive.
Among their collaborations was “Chaconne,” first performed in 1976, which Farrell has revived for the Cincinnati Ballet.
Balanchine derived the music for “Chaconne” from C.W. Gluck’s 18th century opera “Orpheus and Eurydice,” part of which is actually a ballet within the story that is often cut from opera productions, Farrell said.
“‘Chaconne’ doesn’t have that specific of a story as the opera, but it has the same themes running through," she said.
Also on the bill with “Chaconne” are Trey McIntyre’s “Chasing Squirrel” and Viktor Kakaniaev’s “Pairs,” an intense examination of contemporary relationships.
Later this month, “Chaconne” will be performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., where the Suzanne Farrell Company is in residence.
- WHAT: Cincinnati Ballet presents “Chaconne: A Celebration with Suzanne Farrell
- WHERE: The Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnati
- WHEN: 8 p.m. today and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday.
- COST: $21-$66
- MORE INFO: (513) 621-5282; www.cincinnatiballet.com
Keith Knight: Starts with the King, works backwards
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“Jailhouse Rock” was the song that did it for Keith Knight.
“When I listened to Elvis as a kid, I knew I wanted to be an entertainer,” he said, so he proceeded to wear out a $25 guitar purchased from a local five-and-dime store.
“It literally fell apart,” he said, “so after that I started playing electric guitar.”
After graduating from UCLA, Knight joined a progressive groove band called the Panic Choir, which relocated him to Austin, Texas, where the band achieved some success and Knight was soon voted one of the Top Ten Musicians in one of America’s best music cities.
“I realized at a certain point that the music industry is not what it appears to be,” he said. “In pop music, there are few bands that can last more than a few years, and I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my days.”
So he decided to strike out on his own, and under the inspiration of Bill Monroe and Leo Kotke began playing more traditional styles of music.
“I figured I would have a more lasting career that way,” he said. “Bill Monroe can do that to you. He converted a lot of people.”
Knight’s show focuses on solo 12 and six string finger-style acoustic guitar playing a roots music repertoire that includes his own tunes and songs by artists such as Blind Blake, Charley Patton, Leadbelly and Ry Cooder, but using their influences to create his own unique and personal style.
“You have to find your own voice,” he said. “You listen to others but only to find out who you are musically.”
Lou Diamond Phillips digs into King Arthur for 'Camelot'
Go! feature
“Camelot” brings to mind knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, courtly manners and heroic deeds, and — rip-roaring comedy?
“I think people are really surprised at how funny it is,” said Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays King Arthur in the national tour that stops in Cincinnati next week. “It has this ‘60s sheen on it because of the movie, but it’s a lot more entertaining than people remember.
“This production is more streamlined and more cinematic, and there’s also a greater emphasis on Arthur’s inner turmoil as a king who wants to bring peace to his people. It was a difficult time and Arthur had a vision of a better world.”
Phillips said that with campaigning already so heavy with the presidential election more than a year away, “America is concerned about the quality of leadership, so a lot of the dialog resonates in that regard as well.”
Although Phillips is better known for his film roles (“La Bamba,” “Stand and Deliver,” “Courage Under Fire”), he also has a long resume in live theater — “I am a theater animal,” he said — including a Tony nomination for Best Actor for his turn in a revival of “The King and I.”
He also recently appeared in “A Few Good Men” in Ft. Worth, “A Hatful of Rain,” “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” and “Hamlet.”
“Since ‘The King and I’ I’ve had a much more open mind about getting back on stage and to brush up on the purity of my acting,” he said. “Theater informs what you do on film, from the top of your head to the tip of your toes and keeps you honest. You have to give it your best each and every night, because if you’re not on your toes, the audience knows.”
He also enjoys taking the show on the road, partly because he gets a chance to see the personality of the towns he visits, but also because “every few weeks, there’s an opening night.”
- WHAT: Lerner & Loewe’s “Camelot”
- WHERE: Aronoff Center for the Arts, 650 Walnut, Cincinnti
- WHEN: Nov. 13-25
- COST: $20-$60
- MORE INFO: (513) 562-4949; www.broadwayacrossamerica.com
MU Theatre presents urban fairy tale, "The Skriker"
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Miami University Theatre presents the dark but highly entertaining and visually stunning urban fairy tale “The Skriker” next week.
“I think it’s a brilliant piece,” said director Roger Bechtel. “It’s the story of two young women who run off to London. One is pregnant and the other has a child that she has killed but we don’t know why.
“London becomes a world filled with creatures that are both human and not human at the same time,” he said, as these “innocents confront the madness of the modern world.”
Written by Caryl Churchill, considered one of the top playwrights currently working, the script is often complex and maybe a little confusing, but a careful production such as Bechtel promises would keep the audience engaged.
The central character Skriker is a “shape shifter and death portent” that haunts the two young women. The play explores mental illness as the direct result of a world that is inhabited by demons, sprites and fairies, and whose intervention and interference can drive a person mad.
“The stage is a black void and things come and go from that black void to induce a state of paranoia,” Bechtel said. “We wonder who will the Skriker approach next and how will we know that it’s the Skriker.”
The special effects employed in the production include creating the illusion of a person into a jar like a biology speciment, a 10-foot tall creature, vocal effects and a projection screen.
“The costumes are just bizarre and entertaining and very spectacular,” Bechtel said.
“It’s a very simple story, but you just need to dig inside it,” he said. “It starts with a four page monologue that seems to be gibberish, but if you listen you find out that it’s the story of Rumpelstiltskin and we find out that the Skriker was Rumpelstiltskin in an other time.
“Our job is to make all that as clear for the audience as we possibly can.bWe want to give the theater audience an experience they don’t normally have, to strike the nervous system directly.”
- WHAT: “The Skriker” by Caryl Churchill
- WHERE: Gates-Abegglen Theatre, Center for Performing Arts, Miami University, Oxford
- WHEN: Nov. 15-Dec. 2
- COST: $9 adults, $8 seniors, $6 for Miami students and youth under 18
- MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; www.tickets.muohio.edu
November 05, 2007
New releases from the Eagles, Bob Dylan covers, Levon Helm
AllMusic.com
The Eagles
Long Road Out of Eden
Polydor
A full 28 years after their last studio album , The Eagles return with their highly-anticipated, long-in-the making comeback, . This double-disc set is available only at Wal-Mart store (and through their online site), a move which is bound to irk some fans, but this is an album made with the fans in mind as almost every one of the band's classic hits has a doppelganger here, deliberately evoking memories of the band at their peak.
Original Soundtrack
I'm Not There
Columbia
Todd Haynes' impressionistic Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There features six different actors playing Dylan and the soundtrack follows a similar tactic, employing rockers and folk stringers of all stripes to sing some of Bob's back pages. Not all of this is familiar -- in fact, there are as many obscure tunes as there are hits here, but the allure of I'm Not There is how the oddities mean as much as the standards, and how the re-creations of Dylan's classic work are as powerful as the re-interpretations here on this fascinating double-disc soundtrack.
Levon Helm
Dirt Farmer
Vanguard
During the Band's original run (from 1968 to 1976), Robbie Robertson may have been the group's strongest songwriter and the idea man behind most of their best work, but Levon Helm was truly the group's heart and soul with his tough, sinewy Arkansas vocals and his indomitable, loosely tight drumming.... Dirt Farmer is ... a pleasant surprise... easily Helm's best recorded work since American Son, and an absorbing look back at his roots as the son of a farm family in the rural South.
November 02, 2007
From rock start to opera star to cabaret star
Go! feature
As a child growing up in Northern Ontario, Patricia O’Callaghan wanted to be a rock star.
As a child growing up in Northern Ontario, Patricia O’Callaghan wanted to be a nun.
There’s a lot of space between the two career options. And there’s a lot of space between Northern Ontario and Mexico, where she spent a year in high school as an exchange student and where she achieved some kind of career epiphany.
“When you’re removed from your normal environment, you sometimes begin to see things in a different light,” she said. “I had just started studying classical music when I realized that if I became an opera singer, I would still get to sing, but I would also be able to live a very disciplined life.”
Through the years, however, she began to drift away from the opera, finding it to be, ironically, disciplined to the point of self-absorption.
“When I was doing a lot of opera, I found my life really limited,” she said. “You’re always concerned about your voice and so you become really self-involved … and I really didn’t like that.”
So when she discovered the work of Kurt Weill, she found another, more satisfying compromise: the cabaret.
“I started singing it and got really interested in the way that high art meets low art,” she said. “It wasn’t classical, but he had all the classical training so that came through.”
Drawing on her classical training and knowledge of French, Spanish and German, O’Callaghan peppers her concerts with these languages, along with tunes by Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and some of her original compositions.
- WHAT: Patricia O’Callaghan
- WHERE: Fitton Center for Creative Arts, 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton
- WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday
- COST: $15 members; $17 non-members; $6 students
- MORE INFO: (513) 863-8873; www.fittoncenter.org
'The Lure of the Artic' draws Cincinnati collector
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The lifestyle of the Eskimo and Inuit people of the Arctic north is inextricably tied to the weather.
“Living in a harsh climate, these people were still able to create utilitarian pieces with an artistic quality that rivals pieces made by other indigenous cultures of the world,” said Roger Fry, whose collection of artifacts is included in the exhibition “The Lure of the Arctic,” now on view at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Fry and his wife Elizabeth first began collecting Eskimo and Inuit artifacts about 40 years ago, he said, a detour from collecting Norther Plains and Southwest Native American artifacts.
“We started collecting during our travels through the West, but Native American pieces became quite expensive, so we started buying more from Alaska, Northern Canada, Greenland and even Russia,” he said. “These people were able to make objects from wood, bone and ivory of all descriptions.
“We began acquiring pieces we were interested in displaying and to let other people see how artistic and talented they are.”
Some 200 pieces from the Frys’ collection explore the adaptive lifestyles of the Arctic people, supplemented by 19th century artifacts drawn from the art museum’s collection, including 19th century artifacts assembled by naturalist Edward W. Nelson, one of the first ethnographers to document the lifestyles of native Alaskan peoples.
“Explorers such as Nelson were responsible for some of the oldest ethnographic collections found today in museums worldwide,” said Glenn Markoe, curator of Classical and Near Eastern Art and Arts of Africa and the Americas.
The objects are presented in functional groupings, allowing visitors to get a closer look at how North American Arctic peoples used them for everyday pursuits, including hunting and fishing, recreation and a variety of domestic and social activities.
Also featured in the exhibition are an authentic kayak and an Eskimo umiak, an open boat made of walrus hides stretched on a wooden frame – both of which bear testimony to the technical ingenuity and craftsmanship of the North American Arctic people.
- WHAT: The Lure of the Arctic: Eskimo and Inuit Artifacts from the W. Roger and Patricia K. Fry Collection
- WHERE: Cincinnati Art Museum, 653 Eden Park Drive, Cincinnati
- WHEN: Through Jan. 20
- COST: No charge
- MORE INFO: www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org
"Caroline" explores changing society
Go! review
In Louisiana, where basements are rare, Caroline Thibodeaux spends her days in the basement of the Gellman household with the washer and dryer, and sometimes with 10-year-old Noah Gellman, a confused young man reeling from the death of his mother.
Although his father has re-married, he remains distant from Noah, who doesn’t care much for his stepmother, desperate though she may be for acceptance.
With a libretto by Tony Kushner, the playwright who helped put AIDS in the public spotlight with his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Angels in America,” and music by Jeanine Tesori (“Thoroughly Modern Millie”), “Caroline, or Change” is as much an opera as it is a musical play as it explores a segment of a country deep in the throes of social upheaval. Indeed, one of the most powerful moments among many in this musical drama is when the Bus (Steven Milloy) delivers the news of President Kennedy’s assassination.
Taylore Mahogany Scott leads the cast, not only with a superb vocal performance, but also with amazing acting. Caroline is tired, beaten down by the system and struggling to make ends meet on her $30-a-week salary. She is insulted when the new Mrs. Gellman, Rose (Aretta Baumgartner), tells her she can keep the change that Noah leaves in his pocket in order to teach the child about caring for his money. But she needs the money, if for nothing else than to give her three children a rare dime-store treat.
In addition to Noah, who lights up Caroline’s daily cigarette for her, Caroline keeps company with the Washer (Burgess Byrd), the Dryer (also Milloy) and the Radio (Chauntel Rnee McKenzie, Carla Nicole O’Neal and recent Fairfield High School grad Kay Brown), a trio of Supremes-like singers who comment on the world and on Caroline’s situation.
In presenting the world premiere of this evocative and powerful musical, New Stage Collective is quickly carving out its niche in the regional theater scene. The staging suffers some from the unfortunate lay-out of NSC’s Main Street home (two large pillars keeps audience members stretching their necks of a good view of some of the action), but the quality of the performance (which includes a nine-piece orchestra) makes the work-out worthwhile.
Heady discussions in "The Sunset Limited"
Go! review
When you get right down to the heart of the matter, when everything else has been explored and dissected, it could be that every play, every work of art skirts around the same big question, but “The Sunset Limited” puts the query front and center: Is life worth living?
On the pro side in Cormac McCarthy’s drama is Black, a name that is never really used in the dialogue but serves as a kind of symbolic, partly ironic nom de plume. It is descriptive, as Black is an African-American man (played in the Human Race production by Lindsay Smiling), but it is also partly ironic as Black takes the stand that life is most definitely worth the trouble. He is an ex-convict, part religious zealot and part good samaritan, living in a run-down New York City tenement that is sparse on appliances and furniture because he has a habit of taking in drug addicts and thieves who are in the habit of stealing everything in sight.
On the con side is White (resident artist Michael Kenwood Lippert), whom Black calls “professor.” He is equally adamant that life is pointless. In fact, the reason the two men sit face-to-face at the kitchen table is because Black has rescued White from a train platform where the latter was about to dive off the tracks to meet the high-speed front end of the Sunset Limited - a name used totally as a metaphor because the real Sunset Limited is not a New York train. But what better name for a train to throw oneself in front of?
For two hours, no intermission, the two debate. White makes several attempts to get to the front door and back to the train platform, but Black is the stronger physical force. They discuss Jesus, the Bible, belief systems, friendship and the elusive nature of happiness. At White’s insistence, Black tells jailhouse stories. At Black’s insistence, White explains why life is a waste of energy.
It’s a little heady, no doubt, but fascinating. The arguments are deep, the dialogue both philosophical and laden with subtext. In fact, I’ve ordered a copy of the script so that I can go through it all again. It’s that poignant, that meaningful, that fascinating, that ripe for further exploration and discussion.
- WHAT: “Sunset Limited” by Cormac McCarthy
- WHERE: Human Race Theatre Company, Loft Theatre, 138 N. Main, Dayton
- WHEN: Through Nov. 11
- COST: $15.50-$34
- MORE INFO: (888) 228-3630; www.humanracetheatre.org
Shakespeare Company presents a fall two-fer
Go! review
An organization that calls itself the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is under some obligation to present the work of the world’s greatest playwright if for no other reason than the historical value.
Hence, we have “Cymbeline,” and try as they might, even an all-star cast can’t help this play rise above the weaknesses of the script.
It’s not a total waste, however. The first act really is quite entertaining and features some of the best actors in the area. Amy Warner, whose notable roles in the past couple of years include an amazing turn as Martha in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” with this same company and Albee’s “The Goat” with New Stage Collective, here makes a deliciously wicked stepmother as Cymbeline’s queen. Sherman Fracher makes incredible split-second transformations as a withered seer who brightens when relating a vision. Company members Giles Davies, Jeremy Dubin, Chris Guthrie and Corinne Mohlenhoff all turn in fine comedic performances in the story of two lovers separated by politics.
The problems with the show belong entirely Shakespeare. For one thing, he trots out all of the cliches and plot devices found in many of his other plays: Women disguised as men and fooling those very close to them; twins separated from their parents at birth; a wager that calls into question a woman’s fidelity; etc.
All of this proceeds at a quick pace in the first act, but the second act is mostly filled with overwrought soliloquies and monologues and an interminable resolution in which each character explains the action of the first act in unbearable detail.
The company also gamely fills the show with references to classic fairy tales and modern (read “Disney”) adaptations. Posters in the CSC lobby provides some insight into that.
Davies, who plays the dim-witted stepson in “Cymbeline,” fares much better in his one-man rendering of “Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus,” running on the off-nights. This version hits hard on the major points of Mary Shelley’s story that is often lost in theatrical and movie adaptations, specifically how the story serves as an analogy to man’s relationship to his own creator.
