Byte House

byte house On Sunday evening a monstrous display will take place in the Giant Warehouse on Catawba Street. Machine-like props and computer-like performers will take to the floor of the open building, accompanied by original music and video, in an attempt to combine these incongruent pieces and bring life to a new kind of performance. Its creators call it Byte House.

Jon Prichard’s Byte House, an interdisciplinary ensemble performance, draws inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and will examine the ways in which dissimilar parts can be brought together in one being. The performance will have dancers acting like computers as well as seemingly inanimate objects acquiring lives of their own, blurring the line between human and inhuman in this more modern take on the constructed monster. While Prichard has directed some of the routine, the dancers will also be improvising during the performance, though whether they turn into a collective monster or a friendlier creature remains to be seen.

The components of this performance, with its assortment of homemade props, variety of performers, and a mixture of music and sound, make it a worthy Frankenstein creation in and of itself. Prichard’s dance troupe Sinergismo, a Charlotte based performance art group that will also have members in the performance, calls itself “a group of dancers, artists, poets, and musicians using collaboration as a means to produce choreographic works.” All of the talent involved in Byte House is just as diverse. University of South Carolina music professor Greg Stuart wrote the musical overture for the production, 701 Center for Contemporary Arts organized it, and a cast from multiple backgrounds will be presenting it.

The performers who came to the open call auditions certainly didn’t originate in the same body either; they are members of Sinergismo, students in universities and Richland One schools, and professionals from the Columbia community. Samantha Elkins, who will play a role opposite to Prichard on the set, is a theatre teacher at A.C. Flora High School. How else could dancers of such varied backgrounds become one performing group except through the workings of some mad scientist, or in this case Prichard's technology-filled, dance-driven, sunset spectacle, Byte House?

The potentially disproportionate performance will be held Sunday, June 2nd, at 600 Catawba Street, Columbia, SC, in the Giant Warehouse located behind 701 Whaley and next to the Pacific Park baseball field. It starts promptly at 8:00 pm and will last until approximately 9:30. Also, viewing is free, so anyone and everyone are invited to participate in this artistic endeavor to create something wonderfully and horribly alive.

Entire ensemble: Jon Prichard, Samantha Elkins, Patrick Calhoun, Hannibal Davis, Wanda Jewell, Shannon Jones, Nancy Marine, Shirley McGuiness, Rosetta H. Penny, Patrick Rosenfeld, Anna Sykes, Alex Webster, Gretchen Jax, Alex Zsoldos, Amelia Binford, Brittney Prichard, Gene Bledsoe, and Abby Peltier.

by Joanna Savold, Jasper Intern

Memorial Day Rootsy Revival at the Art Bar

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Organized by The Stereofly, a music blog that seeks to unite musicians across the Southeast, the Memorial Day Rootsy Revival (this Sunday, May 26th, at the Art Bar) presents an excellent mix of some of the best local and regional roots-rock acts around, with all proceeds benefiting Hidden Wounds, a Midlands based nonprofit that provides counseling to veterans dealing with PTSD.

BLACKLIGHT ROOM 05:00-05:30 The (Hollerin') River Talkers 06:15-07:00 Black Iron Gathering 07:45-08:45 Co. 09:45-10:45 The Restoration 11:45-12:45 Banditos

OLD TV ROOM 05:30-06:15 Overmountain Men 07:00-07:45 Elim Bolt 08:45-09:45 The Mobros 10:45-11:45 Megan Jean & The KFB 12:45-01:45 Masonjar Menagerie

While featuring many local Columbia bands we here at Jasper are big fans of (The Mobros! The Restoration! Black Iron Gathering! The Hollerin' River Talkers!) and a couple of Charleston's most buzzed-about (Company, Elim Bolt), the real draw here is a couple of awesome-but-little known regional acts: the Nashville-based, Birmingham-bred Banditos and Piedmont, NC's Overmountain Men. The former is a gritty, hard rockin' honky tonk band with a soulful heart, the latter a casually elegant group that splits the difference between good-time string band and stately folk-rock. Check out the videos below--these are two bands worth turning out for, in addition to the onslaught of local talent that will be populating the twin stages of the Art Bar on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rKzxzvyc35M#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7_P7p1IP3g

Review -- Songs for a New World at Workshop Theatre

Songs for a new world Workshop Theatre’s latest production, Songs for a new World is a dialog-free series of songs by Jason Robert Brown.  Each song transports you to a single moment in a character’s life where they have to make a decision, make a first step, or move forward in a way that will change their life forever.  There’s no singular story being told, but each of the songs are meant to form a sort of story arc nonetheless. Brown says, "It's about one moment. It's about hitting the wall and having to make a choice, or take a stand, or turn around and go back.”

Songs for a New World was originally intended for a four person cast.  In this production, the cast has been inflated to 9, plus 4 dancers.  This leads to several issues.  First off, there are differing levels of vocal talent and range among the actors in this show.  The actors who are capable of making their brief vignette powerful and moving stand in sharp contrast to those who are working outside of their vocal range, some of whom seem to struggle to hit the right notes. Another addition that detracted from this production [for me] was the dancers.  Wayland Anderson’s choreography was beautiful, thoughtful, and well-executed, but didn’t belong in the world of this show.  There is a beauty in simplicity and that is what this production needs.  The blocking was visually interesting, but less would have truly been more. It’s difficult to concentrate on the character bearing their soul in front of you when you’re surrounded by visual clutter.

Don’t think I’m saying this production is without merit.  There is too much talent involved in this production for that.  While I don’t agree with all of the decisions he’s made here, Chad Henderson (director) has choreographed some of the most striking scene transitions I’ve seen, all in keeping with a theme of traveling across the ocean to some unknowable land.  There are some amazing performances as well.  Vicky Saye Henderson makes a hilarious Park Avenue matron who threatens her husband from the ledge of their penthouse apartment—deciding whether or not to jump into the crowd below (Song:  “Just One Step”).  With a strong voice and a powerful presence, she steps into the shoes of her many characters and takes you with her.  Kendrick Marion’s determination and vigor inspires and moves from his first number ("On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492.") until the very end.  I would have liked to have seen and heard more from Kanika Kay Moore, whose strong soprano would have been an asset in several pieces.  Andy Bell was another surprisingly underused talent.

Vicky Saye Henderson; photo courtesy of Jeni McCaughan and Workshop Theatre

Songs for a New World is a bold choice for Workshop, and I applaud them for choosing something this unique and difficult.  Theatre shouldn’t just be about making safe bets.   I eagerly look forward to the rest of their season.

 

-- Jillian Owens

Q&A with Ned Durrett of Ned and the Dirt

Ned Durrett Image While Ned Durrett and the Kindly Gents have been around the music scene for a while, this weekend sees the re-launch of the group as Ned and the Dirt, replete with a muscular new album that sees the band stretching its wings musically and Durrett moving tentatively beyond the earnest romantic longing of his early songwriting efforts. Jasper caught up with the young bandleader this week via email to ask a few questions about their latest recording effort, the full-length Giants, which the group will be releasing tonight, 5/17, at New Brookland Tavern. Where's Wolf, Foley, and Ben Patat (of Lilies and Sparrows) are also performing.

J: So the first time I saw you perform was quite a few years back at The White Mule, and you had just released a rock/pop-focused solo album. How did you go from there and that to this new record as Ned and the Dirt?

ND: I think the difference between the two records and simply an obvious growth musically.  Our band added Trey Lewis on lead guitar and from there we realized we had the tools to fill in the songs with the rock n' roll sound we had been waiting for.  My music has become music that's seen some stuff in its life, instead of the wide eyed acoustic teen it was before.

J: Tell us a little bit about the recording process with Kenny McWilliams at Archer Avenue Studios.

ND: Working with Kenny was one of the best decisions we've made musically.  The man is brilliant and on top of that he's unbelievably easy to work with.  We spent two straight weeks in his studio and by the end of it we all felt like we were friends.  I even texted him a couple days after recording to tell him a missed him.  It was a moment.  If I had all the money and resources in the world I would still come back to Archer Avenue and record my next record there too.

J: There seems to be an interesting balance of adventurous indie rock, Southern rock guitar riffage, and more conventional pop/rock stylings on Giants. How does this balance work? Is it difficult to get these different elements to coexist?

ND: I think the styles on this album all come from our band being into all different kinds of music.  We're always listening to new bands and trying to stretch our comfort zone musically that I think the main way that we can make sense of it all is by making a physical manifestation of our understanding of these different genres.  I think when you listen to "Giants" you're able to dive right into our minds and how we hear these different genres of music.

J: As a songwriter, how do you think you've grown over your years at USC?

ND: My songs are more complex and my lyrics have become more introspective I think.  When I first starting writing songs, they were all about a young look at love, that fluttering feeling it gives you and the ache that comes from losing it.  Now my songs are about love, marriage, talking to people that aren't there, being afraid of not being able to fully reciprocate love, etc.  I'm covering more topics and those topics are being covered in a much more profound level.  I hope that I have this same thing to say about myself 4 years from now.

J: Where can people get the new record if they can't make the release show?

If you can't make it to the release show you can buy our album on any major online distributor, or you can go down to Papa Jazz and pick up a physical copy if you want.  We also have a Bandcamp page where people can go to pay their own price for the album!  Either way, we just want you to have our music.

J: For a taste of the new record, check out the advance single "Physical Proof" here.

Schedule for Muddy Ford Press at the SC Book Festival

MFP final logo

Muddy Ford Press

at the

SC Book Festival

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Saturday, May 18th

 

11 – 12:30 Muddy Ford Press Booth #416

Don McCallister will be signing Fellow Traveler

11:20 – 12:10 in Lexington Meeting Room A

Cindi Boiter will sit on the USC Press Panel for State of the Heart with Aida Rogers, Pat Conroy, Ken Burger, Billy Deal, and Sandra Johnson. Signing will follow.

2:30 – 4 Muddy Ford Press Booth #416

Alejandro Garcia Lemos and Cindi Boiter will be signing Red Social:  Portraits of Collaboration

 

4:10 – 5 in Lexington Meeting Room B

Don McCallister, Janna McMahan, Aida Rogers, and Kristine Hartvigsen will present a panel on The Limelight – Highlighting Columbia’s Artist Community, moderated by Cindi Boiter. Signing will follow – all Limelight contributors are invited to join the panel for signing following the presentation

 

Sunday, May 19th

 

12 – 2 Muddy Ford Press Booth #16

Kristine Hartvigsen will be signing To the Wren Nesting

 

1:15 – 2:05 in Lexington Meeting Room B

Cindi Boiter will sit on a panel for Collections of the South:  Anthologies Celebrating Writers in Community with Curtis Worthington and Brian Carpenter

2 – 3:30 Muddy Ford Press Booth #416

Laurie Brownell McIntosh will be signing All the In Between:  My Story of Agnes

2:20 – 3:10 in Lexington Meeting Room A

Cindi Boiter will sit on a panel on Short Stories with Cliff Graubart, Stephanie Powell Watts, moderated by Michelle Maitland

BOOK FESTIVAL SPECIAL

ANYONE PURCHASING A MUDDY FORD PRESS PUBLICATION THIS WEEKEND WILL RECIEVE A FREE COPY OF

JASPER READS:  DOWNLOAD

A CHAPBOOK OF EROTIC POETRY EDITED BY ED MADDEN

Back to Rockafellas' - This Weekend

 

 

 

Back_to_RockafellasJasper Magazine wanted to know what the deal was with this weekend's big Jam Room fundraiser at Rockafellas', so we pulled aside Jay Matheson, owner of the Jam Room Recording Studio and asked him. Here's what Jay had to say:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jasper: So what are we calling this very cool fundraising event and how did you come up with the concept?

 

Jay:  When I met the new owners of Jake's I could tell that they wanted to embrace the musical legacy of the bar, where the previous owners seemed to want to distance themselves from the building's heritage. I’m constantly coming up with crazy ideas, but this one just seemed to actually be good enough to put into operation. It’s called Back to Rockafellas' because we all finally get to go back, not to reminisce but to actually re-experience it. And hopefully, we'll raise some funds for this year's FREE Jam Room Music Festival, so we can bring Columbia the best show possible.

 

 

Jasper:  What’s the line-up look like?

 

Jay:  Since it’s a benefit for the Jam Room Music Festival we had to keep budget in mind, but I think it’s going to be a great gig and I think the bands will be glad that they played it. We got a strong bill together and we’re very happy with it. The first night has a Rock ‘n’ Roll theme with a country-ish opener. The second night more indie, and the punk matinee and acoustic Sunday evening speak for themselves. It’s basically an exact copy of the format of a normal weekend from the heyday of the old Rockafellas'.

 

Steve Gibson, the original owner of the bar said that he preferred to have fresh, current new bands, rather than trying to have defunct bands reform. I agreed and feel that Steve’s input is essential in doing the most appropriate event that we can. This show was designed to appeal to younger people, but also to be something that the older Rockafellas' crowd will like.

aaaaa

 

Jasper:  What do you think is going to be most surprising to folks attending?

 

The most surprising thing will be the vibe that the place still has and the sense of camaraderie and community.

 

 

Jasper:  How are things going with plans for this year’s Jam Room Festival – can you give us a little preview of what’s in store?

 

Jay:  We're already working hard on planning the event for September 21st. We'll have two stages set up at Main Street and Hampton Street, with an eclectic mix of  bands, just like last year. We're planning on bigger and better, and we're talking to a number of great artists but no specific details are  available just yet.

 

 

Jasper:  Anything else you want to share with Jasper’s readers?

 

Jay:  The Jam Room Music Festival is always looking for volunteers and sponsors so I’d like to encourage anyone with interest to contact us through our website or through Facebook. I really hope that both this fundraiser and the Jam Room Music Festival will inspire some other people to get off the sidelines and get involved with creating some new music events or even improve our current music venue variety. We’re hoping to help put Cola back on the map as an important music city

 

Jay Matheson

 

Jasper:  Finally, what dates should we mark on our calendars for both the Rockafellas' Fundraising event and this year’s festival? 

Jay:  Back To Rockafellas' is the weekend of May 17 -19. We have a number of other fundraising events coming up later this summer. One is a Ladies of  Country Music show at Trustus Theater on Sept. 6th. The others will be at the Whig and at Jake's, with more details to come on those later on. The Jam Room Music Festival happens on Sept. 21st on Columbia's Main Street.

 

jasper listens

 

Midlands Theatres Announce New Seasons!

Dueling Shreks.  Dueling Les Miserables. Dueling Clybourne Parks, dueling Hamlets ...well, I guess technically any production of Hamlet is a dueling Hamlet.  Neil Simon and Anthony Shaffer. Tom Stoppard and John Guare. Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline. Dracula and Frankenstein, Ash and Elvis.  Revivals of classics, and brand-new shows direct from Broadway. Looks like there is something for everyone in the next year! I'm not sure that Jasper has ever broken any news before, but to my knowledge, this is the first report from last week's "One Last Hurrah" celebration at the Art Bar, the culmination of One Month, One Columbia. Representatives from many of the area's theatres announced their seasons for 2013-2014.  A few were not able to make it, and I've lifted some titles and dates from their websites.  Others do a calendar year format rather than a "school year," so in those cases I've listed what info is available.

The-Comedy-and-Tragedy-Masks

First Disclaimer: I have not included commercial venues (like the Township, the Koger Center, etc.) that book productions, but they have some great shows coming up too.  Nor have I included one-time shows, high school shows (however excellent they may be), church and religion-based events, dance and music productions, etc.  I'm all in favor of those too, but this is about local community and professional theatres.

Second Disclaimer: theatre seasons often change, so this is in no way a definitive or comprehensive listing.  Look for something in a future print issue of Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts for details and more specific dates and information.

Third Disclaimer: the event was held at the Art Bar, so my memory may not be perfect.  If there's anything significant that I have listed incorrectly, drop me a note at akrickel@jaspercolumbia.com .

That said, in no particular order, we have the following shows to look forward to!

Town Theatre

Les Miserables - September

The Foreigner - late fall

Elvis Has Left the Building - January

Stand By Your Man: The Tammy Wynette Story - March

Shrek: The Musical - May

..........

High Voltage Theatre

Dracula (a new stage version by Chris Cook, developed in collaboration with Dacre Stoker, great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker) at the West Columbia Riverwalk Amphitheater - October 10-13, 17-20, 24-27, 30-31

classic thriller at Tapp's Art Center (details tba) - February

classic thriller at West Columbia Riverwalk Amphitheater (details tba) - Spring

..........

USC's Theatre South Carolina

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard - Sept. 27 - Oct. 5 at Drayton Hall

The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov - Nov. 15-23 at Longstreet Theatre

The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow - Feb. 21 -  March 1 - Longstreet Theatre

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (OK, like you didn't know that) - April 18-26 - venue tba

plus a full season of black box shows (details tba)

hamlet

Stage 5 Theatre

Hamlet - September

Lombardi - November

Special Holiday Event - December

Clybourne Park – April

..........

Lexington Arts Association (at the Village Square Theatre)

Shrek: The Musical - September 20 - October 6

Steel Magnolias - November 1 - November 10

Always…Patsy Cline - December 6 - December 15 (non-season show)

9 to 5: The Musical - January 17 – January 26

Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka JR. - March 7 - March 23

a musical revue (details tba) - May 9 - May 18

..........

Workshop Theatre

Beehive - September

Sleuth - late fall

Crimes of the Heart - January

Biloxi Blues - March

Young Frankenstein - May (including Frau ....BLUCHER!)

..........

Theatre Rowe

Murder Ahoy! - June 27 - July 28

Over the River and Through the Woods - August 16-17, 23-25

The Altos (tentative) - September 20-22, 27-29

Little Shop of Horrors - October 18-19, 25-26, 31

tragedy-and-comedy

Chapin Theatre Company

How to Eat Like A Child (based on the book by Delia Ephron) - Aug. 2-4 at the Old Chapin Firehouse / American Legion Building

Unnecessary Farce, by Paul Slade Smith -  Sept. 19-22, 26-28 at Harbison Theatre at Midlands Technical College

..........

South Carolina Shakespeare Company

Hamlet - Oct. 16 - 26

Les Miserables - Apr. 16 - May 3

..........

On Stage Productions

An Evening of One-Acts - September

Yes, Virginia - The Musical - December

Second Samuel - February

Hey G - April

..........An Evening of One Acts -  September - 

Columbia Children's Theatre

The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley - September

Ho Ho Ho! - November/December

Puss In Boots (a new comic version by CCT's Jerry Stevenson) - February

The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fair(l)y (Stoopid) Tales - April

The Commedia Snow White - June

..........

Trustus Theatre

Thigpen Main Stage:

Ragtime - September

Venus in Fur - November

A Christmas Carol - December

Clybourne Park - January-February

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, by Tom Stoppard, with music by Andre Previn; featuring the SC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Morohiko Nakahara - Feb.-March

See Rock City and Other Destinations - spring

The House of Blue Leaves - May

Evil Dead: The Musical - summer - groovy.

Winner of the Playwrights' Festival - August

Side Door Theatre

Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche (returning from its sold-out run in January) - Fall

El Diario De un Psiquiatra (A Psychiatrist's Diary) - a world premiere by Julia Vargas, presented in Spanish by La Tropa - November

Love, Lost and What I Wore, by Delia Ephron - January

a NiA Company show - Spring

Off-Off-Lady Series

The Adding Machine (pending rights) April 24-May 4 - venue tba

In the Red and Brown Water - June - at the Harbison Theatre

..........

WOW (Walking on Water) Productions

Confessions of a Good Man - a new play by local authors Tangie Beaty, Donna Johnson, and Kevin A. Rasberry - July 25-28 at the Harbison Theatre

other original works in 2013-14 - TBA

..........

If you didn't notice, including the groups collaborating in the Side Door, that's 15 different theatre groups!  In little bitty Columbia, SC - who knew?  Well, you probably did, since as I'm saying more and more these days... Columbia has always been a theatre town.  Look for details on all of the above in coming months here, and in print issues of Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts. And many thanks to Larry Hembree and Debora Lloyd, the co-chairs for Theatre for OneColumbia, for organizing and facilitating One Last Hurrah!

~ August Krickel

 

"By The Way, Meet Vera Stark" - a review of the new show at Trustus

Trustus Theatre's new production of Lynne Nottage's play By The Way, Meet Vera Stark tackles an odd paradox from early Hollywood: talented actors of color were finding professional success on screen in mainstream films that starred white performers, but most commonly were cast as maids, slaves, "mammies," and other stereotypical roles. Hattie McDaniel, for example, broke the color barrier when she won the Oscar, but still she played a servant, not a teacher, mother, or romantic lead. Employing a dizzying array of narrative and dramatic techniques, Nottage traces the career of the fictional Vera Stark (Michelle Jacobs), an aspiring African-American actress in the early '30's who works by day as a maid for the frivolous Gloria Mitchell (Katie Mixon), a Mary Pickford-like starlet famed as "America's Little Sweetie Pie." Advance press material notwithstanding, Vera Stark is neither a screwball comedy (although it is sometimes funny, if perhaps not hilarious) nor a riff on Gone With the Wind (although Mixon sometimes channels the breathless drawls of Vivian Leigh and Olivia de Havilland.)  Gloria is desperate to land the lead in The Belle of New Orleans, a weepy film melodrama that draws from classics like Camille and Dion Boucicault's The Octaroon. That term, by the way, turns up frequently: it's a 19th-century term for a person with one-eighth black heritage, who would still have been classified as a slave. (A mixed-race friend of mine once laughingly used that term to describe herself, and later a co-worker asked "What did you say you were again?  A Macaroon?")

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Vera, clearly a close friend, confidante and sister-figure for her scatterbrained employer, wants a shot at playing the “Belle's” maid, an actual dramatic role with lines beyond "Yes, ma'am." In moments that define the play's central issues, Vera and roommate Lottie (Annette Dees Grevious) discuss the inherent irony of Vera's situation; these conversations, and scenes where Vera flirts with ambitious, driven jazz musician Leroy (an earnest and smooth Jabar Hankins) could be excerpts from a good August Wilson drama set in the 1930's. Strangely, however, different scenes and different characters in the first act are written in drastically, sometimes jarringly different styles. When Jacobs and Grevious banter with Janell Bryant (as their saucy friend Anna Mae, who intends to find stardom via affairs with white producers and directors who think she's Brazilian) the mood lightens, and the laughs come fast and furious, in the vein of socially-conscious comedies from the '70's like Good Times.  Hollywood types turn up: Bobby Bloom as a no-nonsense producer who could be from a realistic 1940's drama, and Clint Poston as an idealistic director, clearly an Otto Preminger figure, but as broadly comic as if Franz Liebkind's accent and Roger DeBris's flamboyance were taken from The Producers and morphed into a single character.  Bloom's studio exec, by the way, could easily have been one-note, and played by an older man, simply a quasher of any projects that won't sell at the box office. The youthful Bloom gives a remarkably three-dimensional performance, proving that there are no small roles, only small actors.  With the simplest of tools - suspenders instead of a belt, hair parted a certain way, a cigar held like Bogart, wire-rimmed glasses, assertive body language - he perfectly conveys an Irving Thalberg-like visionary, who wants to give audiences a brief escape from the grim realities of the Depression.

Mixon, meanwhile, dives into the role of the vodka-fueled Gloria with as much gleeful abandon as she dove into that quiche a few months ago in the Side Door Theatre, flamboyantly vamping like Lydia Languish or other 17th and 18th-century heroines of classic farce. When all these characters are on stage together, the show comes closest to capturing the spirit of a vintage screen comedy, a la Golddiggers of 1933, or How to Marry a Millionaire, with Grevious taking the older, more cynical Lauren Bacall role, Jacobs becoming sweet Betty Grable, and Bryant as the luscious but clueless Marilyn Monroe.  But if these references to obscure shows and characters you may not be familiar with are becoming a little annoying, that to some extent is my point. The author clearly intended this mash-up of genres, and each cast member does just fine, but at times the effect is confusing, as if disparate characters from separate plays all found themselves on stage together.

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The storytelling chaos coalesces into something different entirely, however, as Act Two becomes a retelling of, reflection on, and subtle satire of the themes we saw in Act One. Three modern scholars (Grevious, Bryant, and Wela Mbusi) debate the legacy and sociological impact of Stark's life, as we see first a "clip" from The Belle of New Orleans, featuring Gloria, Vera, Lottie, and even "Brazilian Spitfire Anna Fernandez" (i.e. Anna Mae) in the roles that defined their careers, followed by a clip from a 1970's Merv Griffin-style talk show, where we see the older Vera and Gloria reunite. Here director Dewey Scott-Wiley brilliantly captures the differing levels of narrative: we the audience are watching a contemporary academic forum, whose participants are in turn watching a 40-year-old TV clip (acted out live by the performers from within a framed portal;) the talk show guests are in turn watching a film clip from 40 years earlier, the very movie that the characters were obsessing over live on stage in the first act.  Confused?  It actually makes perfect sense, and is a superb payoff to the confusion of Act One. Vera has become a parody of herself, much like the aging Josephine Baker or Eartha Kitt, and we learn that she ended her life soon after this TV appearance, dying young like Dorothy Dandridge, who likewise struggled for mainstream roles in Hollywood.  Leroy turns up as a bitter and defiant Charlie Parker-style burnout, excellently embodied as an older man by Hankins, while Gloria has naturally become a beloved screen goddess of yesteryear.  Scott-Wiley's inventive staging places the live action of the 70's clips behind scrims, eliminating the need for any significant make-up effects, while the 1930's movie was actually filmed in black-and-white by Jason Steelman, and directed by Scott-Wiley.  While it is supposed to be a parody of the era and its cinematic and acting conventions to some extent, the movie-within-the-play is actually pretty decent, with some nice angles, and plenty of attractive shadows, beams of light, and shades of gray.  Bloom doubles as the talk show host, and again manages to create an entirely different character, saying volumes with his pained expression as his interview/reunion devolves into a catfight.

Scott-Wiley doubles as scenic designer, and the art deco-influenced set is serviceable, but looks unfinished. The scrim effects are outstanding in the second act, but really should have been covered up by paintings, tapestry, anything, in the first act. Portions of the stage become particular locales (Vera's apartment, the exterior of the studio, etc.) but little is done to give any sense of change, and the actors' blocking within these smaller areas sometimes seems cramped and constrained. Costumes by Amy Brower expertly define varying eras; a number of characters wear striking creations from La-Ti-Da Jewelry Designs, which are also featured on display in the theatre's bar/gallery area.

Nottage has won just about every award imaginable: Pulitzer, Obie, Guggenheim, even a MacArthur "Genius" grant, but I don't think any were for this play.  The show is enjoyable enough, but never entirely decides what it wants to say, or what kind of play it wants to be. It's never a complete laugh-fest, nor do the more serious moments delve particularly deeply into material ripe for exploration. I also fear that some of the structural madness and much of the very broad comedy in the first act may turn off patrons who expect more from Trustus.  To them I say that the second act is the pay-off, and it's worth the wait. Remember - the venue is called "Trust Us" for a reason.

By The Way, Meet Vera Stark runs through Saturday, May 18th on the Thigpen Main Stage at Trustus.  Information can be found, and tickets may be purchased online at www.trustus.org , or call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 PM at 803-254-9732.  And you can read James Harley's review of the production at Onstage Columbia and at the Free Times.

~ August Krickel

 

Director Milena Herring talks with Jasper about "Collected Stories," opening at the Art Museum Wed. May 15

Jasper How did  you first discover Collected Stories, and how did you come to direct this production? Milena Herring:  I have wanted to direct this show since first reading the script in New York in 1997.  Donald Margulies is a gifted playwright, one of my favorites, and I had directed another of his plays, Sight Unseen.  I saw an early, first-run production of Collected Stories at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the Village, starring Uta Hagen and a young Debra Messing. That was an indelible production. I moved to Columbia in 2010, but I never forgot about Collected Stories. Then last spring, Dewey Scott-Wiley was feeding my cat while I was on vacation, and I left a copy of the script for her to peruse and perhaps consider for a Trustus production. It turned out that the Trustus season had already been chosen, but they were adding an Off-Off-Lady Series, and she and Larry Hembree thought it would be a good addition to that.

Jasper :  The show will be presented in conjunction with the South Carolina Book Festival.  What are some themes that the show touches on, that might be of particular interest to Festival attendees?

Herring:  One of the central questions asked in the play -- Who owns your memories? -- may be of particular interest to attendees of the Book Festival. Literary appropriation, intellectual property rights, whether a person’s life events are suitable for another to use in their own creative process -- I think these are provocative issues that will be interesting to everyone. Collected Stories really explores very universal themes of lost love, betrayal, and aging. Lest that sound too heavy, let me add that the play explores these themes with great comic as well as dramatic writing.

The story is centered on a respected short-story writer and professor in her mid-fifties, Ruth Steiner, and Lisa Morrison, a naive and talented graduate student and aspiring writer who Ruth hires as her assistant. Taking place over six years, Collected Stories eavesdrops on Ruth and Lisa as their relationship evolves from mentor/protégée to loving friends to adversaries and, ultimately, disintegrates over some of the issues I’ve just mentioned. The playwright doesn’t come down on the side of either character, but lets the audiences decide for themselves who is wrong or right. I love that.

It takes very skillful actors to perform a full length 2-character play.  The beauty of Collected Stories is the many layers of meaning and depth of the two characters as they transition and evolve over 6 years. I have a director’s dream in Elena Martinez-Vidal as Ruth and Elisabeth Gray (EG) Engle as Lisa.  Elena and EG are inhabiting the roles fully, and finding nuances and subtleties in these two flawed but honest women. They are also a joy to work with, and we are having a wonderful time.

Elena Martinez-Vidal, Elisabeth Gray Engle

 Jasper :  The Off-Off-Lady series of plays has taken Trustus out into the community, into alternative venues. Tell us about the space you are using for this production.

 Herring:   We are fortunate to have the use of a huge, loft-like space on the 2nd floor of the Columbia Museum of Art. Most people have never seen this space before, and it is exciting to be part of building new audiences for Trustus in unusual venues. I believe people will leave our production at the Columbia Museum of Art not only debating about the issues explored in the play, but wowed by the unique theatricality of the setting.

Jasper : Columbia is fortunate to have you back home, but most of your career has been in New York.  What were some highlights?

Herring:  As soon as I finished my theatre studies at USC, I moved to Manhattan and lived there for almost 30 years. For the first six of those years, I pursued my dreams of acting. I studied with Sanford Meisner, and I made the usual, endless rounds of auditions. I got parts in Off-Off-Broadway showcases, Upper Eastside Shakespeare productions in church basements, small roles on All My Children and One Life to Live. I shot a TV commercial that went national, but nothing that could really sustain body and soul. So, with several friends I started a theatre company, and began to hone my skills as a director. For the next 8 years I served as the artistic director of Leap Productions, in a small 99-seat theatre. We did 5 shows a season and among the off-Broadway plays and musicals I directed there were Eleemosynary by Lee Blessing, Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies, A Cowboy's Dream by John Foley, Painting Churches by Tina Howe, Lips Together, Teeth Apart by Terrence McNally, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuiness, Oil City Symphony by Mike Craver and Mark Hardwick, and Smoke on the Mountain by Mark Hardwick and Connie Ray, among many others. We all worked 70 hours a week doing everything from marketing the season to writing grants, and I loved it. I always say that if I’d had a trust fund, I might still be doing it. But eventually the building we rented was sold, and by that time I was exhausted. Frankly, I needed to make some money so I could afford to actually GO to the theatre. My last 15 years in Manhattan, I worked in advertising and as a professional fundraiser, and enjoyed having weekends off.

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Jasper :   Columbia theatre, and the arts scene, has certainly changed in the last few years. What are some of your impressions now that you are back home?

Herring:  I was in my first play at Town Theatre when I was 8, and I didn’t stop acting in local productions until I moved to New York at 23.  I cut my teeth under the tutelage of the beloved children’s theatre director, Mary Lou Kramer. Later, I was part of the first generation to grow up with Workshop Theatre where my mother, the late actress, director and drama teacher, Bette Herring, was one of the founders. It was a great privilege to have the opportunities afforded me by supportive parents who made sure I got to dance classes at Calvert Brodie, rehearsals all over town, and still made me do my homework-- even if it was done backstage!  Columbia had two strong, healthy community theatres when I was young and it has an even larger and more diverse performing arts community today. When I was ready to leave New York, one of the reasons I chose to move to Columbia was because of the vibrant and exciting things happening in all of the arts here. Columbia is fortunate to have a first-class art museum, a wonderful symphony orchestra, several ballet and modern dance companies, a large variety of music outlets - I could go on and on. It was, and is, clear to me that Columbia understands how important the arts are to its financial health. By supporting the arts, a city is repaid exponentially by its ability to attract new businesses and industry, by growing its tourism dollars, and by a culturally enriched population.

Collected Stories, sponsored by Callison Tighe and Muddy Ford Press (publishers of Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts)  opens Wednesday, May 15 at the Columbia Museum of Art, and runs through Sunday, May 19. Contact the Trustus box office at 803-254-9732 for ticket information.

 

~ August Krickel

 

 

 

A World of Wealth, Becky Shaw, Bark! The Musical, King Lear, and My First Time - all this weekend!

There is a world of theatrical wealth this weekend (in addition to Artista Vista, the Columbia Museum's Artist of the Year event, FOLKFaulous at the McKissick Museum, and a dozen other cool happenings. Indeed - no less than FIVE shows are opening, or continuing their runs.

OnStage Productions presents A World of Wealth, a new musical by Robert Harrelson and Gloria VanDalen.  That's right - a world premiere of a new musical, right here in town!  The cast includes Christy Shealy Mills, Zanna Mills, Emma Imholz, Liberty Broussard, Tracy Davis Davenport, Charlis Wright, Gene Davis, Kristen Kimery, Zach Tenny, and Corin Wiggins.

the cast of "A World of Wealth"

From press material:

When a wealthy family decides to move uptown NYC from the south to bring the family closer together the chaos begins. Love and Money have always appeared to the forces opposed to each other as we find out that Money is more than dollars and cents. The show is a funny but dramatic look at family values and believing in friends to make life exciting. Songs such as A Spanglish , Forever Friends and I Don't Want to Grow Up and More proves the show to be a sure hit! This dramatic, comedic and  heartwarming production will run April 26th 7:30pm   , April 27th 2:30pm  and 7:30pm , April 28th  2:30pm , May 2 and 3 , 7:30pm  , May 4 , 2:30pm and 7:30pm , May 5th, 2:30 PM -  at The On Stage Performance Center,  680 Cherokee Lane, West Columbia, SC 29169. For questions please call Robert Harrelson at 407-319-2596 or check On Stage Productions website at www.OnStageSc.com

world of wealth

Stage 5 Theatre meanwhile is producing Bark! The Musical, which opened for a preview run last weekend, and officially opens tonight. The theatre is located at 947 S. Stadium Rd., near Williams-Brice.

Bark! The Musical

The entire show is presented from a dog’s point of view. Through song and story, the audience is exposed to the tenderness, aggression and frustration of these beings as they share personal stories of past and present, owners and friends, and their desire to be loved and part of a family. For more details see www.mbfproductions.net .

Cast:

- Robert Bullock as King, the older and wiser Labrador and leader of the pack
Crystal Leidy as Golde, the rugged, sarcastic, take-no-guff, tell-it-like-it-is female bull dog
- Brock Henderson as Rocks, the Jack Russell Terrier puppy that is full of spunk and energy
- Avery Bateman as Chanel, A French poodle,a diva former show dog with attitude aspiring to be an opera singer
- Charlie Goodrich as Sam, A grey pit bull mutt that is  sexy, handsome, street tough and macho to hide his insecurities
- Britt Jerome as Boo, a sock-a-holic Cocker Spaniel, a bit frantic, but protective and caring mother figure

Directed by: Michael Bailey Assistant Directed by: Crystal Leidy Musical Direction by: Brock Henderson Choreography by: Mandy Applegate Produced by: Charles Chavers

Music by David Troy Francis, Lyrics by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard, Robert Schrock and Mark Winkler, Additional Lyrics by Jonathan Heath and Danny Lukic, Book by Mark Winkley and Gavin Geoffrey Dillard.

Show Dates: April 19- May 5, Shows- Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, Sunday at 3 PM.
bark1

 

USC's Lab Theatre is presenting Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfriddo for this weekend only.

From press material:

 

Performances are at 8pm nightly, April 25-28, 2013. Tickets are $5 and are available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis. The Lab Theatre, the university's intimate "black box" performance space, is located in the Booker T. Washington building at 1400 Wheat Street, across form Blatt PE center. Becky Shaw contains adult themes which may not be suitable for children.

A 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Becky Shaw tells the tale of a blind date (from hell) that opens a Pandora's box of familial and romantic entanglements. Newlyweds Andrew and Suzanna fix up two romantically challenged friends, but when scathing Max meets anxious Becky, it's obvious that the evening will not go according to plan. "Blithely cynical and devastatingly funny…witty observations on the emotional damage inflicted by neurotic people in the name of love…Gionfriddo is some kind of genius." – Variety

Director David Britt, a USC Theatre Instructor and Production Manager of the Lab Theatre, was inspired to stage Becky Shaw after seeing the play in New York a few years ago. He recalls that after seeing the play he and his friends got into a heated discussion about dating and what they were willing to tolerate in terms of "baggage." Britt says, "It was a wonderful discussion that was sparked by a wonderful play…I hope that audiences who see this show will have similar conversations."

Britt has assembled an exceptional cast of actors whose challenge is to portray the subtle nuances in Gionfriddo's characters. "I needed intelligent and sensitive actors who would enjoy the raw humor of these characters but would also be able to play their vulnerabilities."

Playing the title role of Becky is sophomore theatre major Grace Stewart. Also starring are undergraduate students Katie Atkinson, Stephen Canada, Hunter Bolton, and graduate acting student Catherine Friesen. Undergraduates Amanda Alston and Kasey Beard are the stage manager and assistant director, respectively.

"Most of our neurotic behavior is fairly common," says the director, "we just don't know it. I want the actors working on this show, as well as our audiences, to discover how much alike we all are. If you are an individual who thinks you are isolated in your problems…well, you aren't."

For more information on Becky Shaw or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, please contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.

becky shaw

 

My First Time continues at the the Trustus Side Door Theatre through Saturday 4/27. From press material:

The Trustus Side Door has been taking patrons on a “Sexploration” this season, and audiences have responded by packing houses nightly. The Side Door’s current production My First Time is sure to thrill and titillate as four actors relay hundreds of stories about real people’s first times. My First Time opens in Trustus’ intimate 50-seat Side Door Theatre on Friday April 12 at 8:00pm, and runs through April 27, 2013.

In 1998 - a decade before blogging began - a website was created that allowed people to anonymously share their own true stories about their first times.  The website (www.myfirsttime.com) became an instant phenomenon as over 40,000 stories poured in from around the globe that were silly, sweet, absurd, funny, heterosexual, homosexual, shy, sexy and everything in between. Producer Ken Davenport adapted hundreds of stories from the website into an acclaimed 90 minute evening where these true stories and all of the unique characters in them are brought to life by four actors. The show was such a hit in New York that it enjoyed a two and a half year run Off-Broadway before it closed in 2010.

Trustus’ founding Artistic Director Jim Thigpen had wanted to bring My First Time to the Capital City many times throughout the past 3 seasons; however the opportunity never presented itself. This season, with all of the Side Door shows under the umbrella of “Sexploration”, My First Time was an obvious choice.

Company member and director Jade Johnson cast four talented actors to relay the hundreds of stories that comprise My First Time. Trustus company member G. Scott Wild (Next Fall, Avenue Q) joins Trustus alum Shane Silman(Plan 9 From Outer Space, The Motherf**ker With the Hat) in reliving the men’s first times. Trustus welcomes two new talents to the Side Door as Jennifer Moody Sanchez and Brandi Perry give us the scoop from the women.

My First Time runs through Saturday, April 27, 2013.  Shows on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays start at 8pm. The Sunday matinee on April 14 will be at 3pm. The doors and box office open thirty minutes prior to curtain. All Trustus Side Door tickets are $15. Reservations can be made by calling the Trustus Box Office at (803) 254-9732 or online by visiting www.trustus.org.

Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady Street, behind the Gervais St. Publix. Parking is available on Lady Street and on Pulaski Street. The Trustus Side Door Theatre entrance is through the glass doors on the Huger St. side of the building.

For more information or reservations call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 pm at 803-254-9732. Visit www.trustus.org for all show information and season info.

My First Time1

You can read Susan Levi Wallach's review of the show here, and James Harley's review at Onstage Columbia.

King Lear continues at USC's Drayton Hall.  You can read a Q+A with lead actor James Keegan here, and August Krickel's review of the show here.  From press material:

Theatre South Carolina will stage Shakespeare's revered tragedy King Lear, the epic tale of a ruler's loss of power and descent into madness, April 19-27 at USC's Drayton Hall Theatre.

Show times for King Lear are 8pm Wednesdays-Fridays, 7pm Saturdays and 3pm on the first Sunday.  There is an additional half-price late night performance on Saturday, April 27 at 11pm.   Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors 60+, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm, beginning Friday, April 12.

Shakespeare’s gale-force drama rips back the curtain on a family torn by greed and an unquenchable lust for power.  The aging King Lear decides to split his kingdom between his three daughters, but tests their loyalty first to finalize the arrangement.  When his most devoted daughter, Cordelia, refuses to flatter him, Lear disowns her, paving the way for a venomous plot to usurp the throne concocted by his remaining heirs.  The King flees, leading him on a spiraling descent into madness as he fights to regain control.  King Lear is a riveting story about the corruptive nature of power and a broken man’s agonizing struggle for redemption.

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with James Keegan and James Costello.

"That Way Madness Lies" - a review of "King Lear" at USC's Drayton Hall

 

"The real difficulty with Lear is that you've got to play him all, you know, shaky legs and pratfalls and the dentures coming out, 'cause he's ancient as hell, and then there's that heartrending scene when he goes right off his nut, you know, 'bliddle dee dee diddle deebibble dee dee dibble beep beep beep,' and all that, which takes it out of you, what with having the crown to keep on. So Lear is tiring, although not difficult to act, because you've only got to do despair and a bit of anger, and they're the easiest."

~ John Cleese, Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief (1973)

Theatre South Carolina tackles that "most difficult of Shakespearean tragedies," as program notes for USC's King Lear admit up front, adding Peter Brook's description of the play as a "dramatic mountain whose summit had never been reached."  Inventive and daring choices in staging and interpretation create some hits as well as misses, but a talented crop of first-year MFA students in leading roles make for an entertaining and thought-provoking evening of classic theatre.

Full disclosure:  Lear is not a favorite of mine, and I've never seen it live, only a filmed performance with Laurence Olivier and Diana Rigg in the '80's.  Still, I spent much of the spring of senior year in high school with my buddy Greg, researching term papers; his topic was the madness of Lear, mine was the motivation of Iago, and we helped each other as we taught ourselves research and character analysis while sneaking into Thomas Cooper. Greg's conclusion, off the record and indicative of the era, was that Lear was "a crazy old, fish-eyed fool." Decades later, I think he may have had a point.  Still, let me say up front that I recommend this show highly, and varying interpretations that lead to discussion are what Shakespeare is all about.

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with James Keegan and James Costello.

Lear tells parallel stories of fathers and children, madness and betrayal. Acknowledging his advancing years, the King intends to split his kingdom among three daughters, disowning the youngest when she declines to try to top her sisters' overly-effusive declarations of how much they love him. Meanwhile, loyal vassal Gloucester (Terry Snead) has likewise been betrayed, as his bastard son Edmund (Cory Lipman) frames legitimate son and heir Edgar (Josiah Laubenstein) as a conspirator.  Guest director Cristian Hadji-Culea, Scenic Designers Nic Uluru and William Love, and costumer Sean Smith have re-imagined Iron Age Britain into a modern-dress, urban setting, which often makes strong visual and thematic statements that help clarify plot and context.  As Lear, guest artist James Keegan excels at making the tricky blank verse understandable to the audience. Keegan's Lear is a vigorous man of middle years, however, and has few signs of dementia in early scenes. Eccentric, yes, foolish, yes, temperamental unquestionably, but at moments when the text suggests he may not recognize his daughter, Keegan plays these as broad jokes. This is a valid interpretation, and likely one developed with the director, but I just wasn't buying it.  A key figure is the Fool, often a voice of reason and insight in Shakespeare.  Kate Dzvonik gives an excellent, energetic performance, but here the character is depicted as a broadly comic, (and to me, annoying) clown-like music hall performer. Keegan's Lear really, really seems to appreciate this schtick, and when his own madness kicks into high gear, that's what he channels: not so much noble, pitiable madness, but goofy, John Belushi-like pratfalls and nonsensical prancing and singing.  As above, this is a quite legitimate take on the material, but I found myself wishing for some easier explanation.  In a film, one could zoom in on a bottle of anti-psychotic meds that Lear has cast away, which would explain everything, including his miraculous recovery after a day or two of rest.  Here, one just has to enjoy Keegan's vitality and enthusiasm, and remember that Lear is indeed a difficult play for some to appreciate. That said, I'd love to see Keegan take this same characterization as use it as Didi or Gogo in Waiting for Godot.

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with Josiah Laubenstein.

Leeanna Rubin as Goneril and Melissa Peters as Regan, Lear's villainous daughters, are superb. Until we see their truly dark natures, both seem quite reasonable, their "betrayal" of their father nothing more than wanting to reduce his retinue of knights, who are brawling, drinking, eating the kingdom out of house and home, i.e. carrying on much like their liege. The equivalent of taking Meemaw's keys away, but Lear will have none of it, storming off to the barren heath (here re-imagined as alleyways and abandoned warehouses) in a royal hissy fit.  "She struck me with her tongue, most serpent-like" is about all Lear can legitimately gripe about.  Rubin is a commanding presence on stage, appealing and even sexy, in a tie-you-down-and-hurt-you sort of way. Her interaction with Lipman blurs the lines between plotting, domestic violence, and foreplay.  Her costumes also reveal much about the character:  first she wears an elegant evening dress, which quickly is traded for a sort of practical riding-dress with leggings underneath, and finally slacks, boots, and a fierce, fur-lined vest.

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with Leeanna Rubin.

Peters is much tinier, and uses her size for inventive moments of physicality, leaping onto men in passion or in rage. It's no spoiler to reveal that as in most tragedies, all the bad guys die, as do most of the good guys, and a flaw in the text is that so many of them do so off stage.  Here Hadji-Culea brilliantly allows us to see Goneril and Regan's last moments.  Rubin goes out with quite a bang, and I could only recall James Purefoy's line from the HBO series Rome: "Now THAT was an exit."

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with Melissa Peters and Cory Lipman

 

A highlight was a special-effects-enhanced storm; rapid little blips of light were projected onto a scrim, and the result was like something straight out of graphic novels (and their movie incarnations) like Sin City or Watchmen. That combined with a visually striking depiction of an alleyway, seen from an odd angle, made me want James Costello, playing loyal retainer Kent disguised in pull-down mask, to raspily mutter, Rorschach-style,  "Kent's Journal: a king went mad tonight."

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with James Keegan.

 

So many aspects of the contemporary production design worked:

- Trey Hobbs, as the milder, gentler Albany, dresses in a sweater and glasses, perfectly summing up the character's nature. - good-and-bad brothers Laubenstein and Lipman are first seen in a natty summer suit and a leather jacket respectively, again making a perfect contrast. - plot exposition among wealthy characters takes place on a country club golf course. - a reference to trumpets in the distance becomes a car horn. - Edgar, disguised as a mad beggar, is depicted as a homeless man wrapped in trash bags, and the "cave" where he takes shelter becomes a dumpster. - awesome wind effects blow random trash across the stage in the middle of the storm. - overturned trash cans signify the decline and decay of Lear's kingdom. - Lear breaks his crown in half, and the pieces handily become tiaras for his daughters. - police sirens in the distance often signify a battle offstage, or a manhunt for a character on the run. - Kent wearing multiple layers of clothing and toting a sleeping bag as he and Lear seek refuge in an abandoned building likewise establish tone and setting. - massive brick columns anchor both sides of the stage (at least until one actor accidentally brushed up against one, revealing them to mainly be a painted design on fabric - but the illusion was perfect until then.)

A few things didn't work at all:

- three extra actors appearing as multiple visions of the Fool, to signify Lear's delusion; great idea, but distracting. - a couple of fights using golf clubs in lieu of swords. - many of the fight scenes in general.  The cast needs to sit down and watch an hour of pro wrestling, because an actor really can strike someone without hurting them, but here punches, slaps, and slashes to the throat rarely connect, and seem pantomimed. - the blinding of Gloucester, which should be vastly more horrific, and painful for the character. That said, Regan's dive into the fray is terrific and believable; playing golf with one of the eyeballs, maybe not so much. - Lear breaks his crown, his scepter, a ceremonial orb ...and everything neatly splits in two, just a little too conveniently. - sound and music cues often drowned out crucial moments of exposition at the end of scenes, and an off-stage microphone that was cranked up to 11, nearly deafening the audience at one point.  (Disclaimer: I saw a preview, and that has surely been fixed.) - moments of flamboyant exuberance that caused many of the students in the audience to laugh when there really wasn't anything funny going on.

 

Photo by Jason Ayer. — with Leeanna Rubin and Trey Hobbs.

At this point, one might ask "If you didn't like it, why spend so much time talking about it?"  Which is the point - a solid 90% of this show (which ran about 3 hours including a generous intermission) really impressed me, a triumph given that I'm not wild about the material. Someone else could easily love everything I didn't care for, and rank King Lear among Shakespeare's best.  Either way, the visual design from Uluru and Love, and the work of some remarkable young actors, made this production memorable for me.

So go see it, and you be the judge.  King Lear runs through Sat. April 27th at USC's Drayton Hall.

~ August Krickel

 

Friday Night - It's the CAYs!

"Clara" by Doug McAbee Nothing pleases Jasper more than the opportunity to take notice of a local artist and be able to say, Congratulations – Well done! It’s even more exciting when there’s an award involved and it’s not just a certificate, but some ca-ching, as well! That’s why we’re looking forward to this Friday night, April 26th and the annual Contemporaries Artist of the Year celebration when, in addition to the grand prize of big bucks from the Contemporaries, Jasper will award our second annual State-of-the-Art Award (a certificate, a feature story in Jasper Magazine, and $200) to some talented local artist.

Last year's winner of the Jasper State-of-the-Art award was Doug McAbee for his sculpture Clara (above.) We profiled Doug in the most recent issue of Jasper Magazine.

Entries to the competition were adjudicated by a jury consisting of Dr. Will South, Tom Stanley, and Mary Walker. Our panel of judges is headed up once again this year by Chris Robinson, who, has taken the lead as Jasper's visual arts editor.

Awards include:

  • $2,500 Contemporaries' Artist of the Year (with partnership from Anne and Alex Postic)
  • $300 People's Choice Award
  • The Jasper "State-of-the-Art" award receives a $200 cash prize and a spread in a future issue of Jasper Magazine.

Please join us on Friday night for the CAY Celebration from 7 - 10 pm at the beautiful Columbia Museum of Art.

 

For more info check out the CAY Facebook page or go directly to the CAY website at the Columbia Museum of Art.

 

 

Review -- My First Time at Trustus by Susan Levi Wallach

my first time According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, new media are dictating the form of old: serialized books are returning to accommodate commuters who read on iPads and cellphones; once-marginalized short films are no longer relegated to the film-fest circuit but are online hits—and shorter than ever; albums (or whatever you call them, because they certainly aren’t vinyl and scratchy) can have as few as four songs.

It works the other way, too. Those tweets, posts, and blogs that used to give only “friends” and “followers” and the odd lurker access to the intimate details once the stuff of diaries? For the canny producer, it’s all material.

The producer in question here is Ken Davenport. The material was a string of anonymous website posts that Davenport turned into the play “My First Time,” which runs through April 27 in Trustus Theatre’s black box. “My First Time,” mostly a series of sliced-and-diced monologues and one-liners, premiered off-Broadway six years ago, when myfirsttime.com had close to 50,000 responses; the site has since grown to nearly 54,000. Imagine: all those people writing in their language of choice about the first time they Did It. With details, either true or wishful.

“My First Time” is a “Love Letters” for the new, no-such-thing-as-TMI millennium. As directed by Jade Johnson, it is well suited to the spare space at Trustus: the kind of show that you can get onstage on a dime and that, with a competent cast, is hard to mess up. Trustus’s four actors are up to the challenge, rendering such lines as “I know you’re not supposed to have physical relations with your stepsister” and “I was mesmerized by her boobies” with ease and panache.

For the most part, these are not heartwarming stories. Nor are they particularly erotic, or even really story-like: only a few have anything like plot, setting, and literary finesse. There’s little to visualize beyond erogenous zones. Some are monologues, others border on rants, because there’s often the sense of exhibitionism, of “I need to get this off my chest” here (and, yes, writing this review while avoiding all possible puns has proven impossible, thank you for noticing).

The result is ultimately a bit banal, despite the good efforts of the actors: Shane Silman, Trustus regular G. Scott Wild, and Trustus newcomers Brandi Perez and Jennifer Sanchez. Among the cast, the two men seem to have the better time as well as the better lines. All suffer a bit from overly harsh lighting that not only could be more nuanced but also could define the performance area more precisely.

The play runs for about ninety minutes with no intermission. Still, the conceit begins to wear thin well before the last line, the way that hearing a group of strangers describe the dreams they had last night would. If you go, plan to get there early enough to take the pre-curtain audience survey. The responses are part of the show—tabulated and displayed, along with assorted quotes and factoids about virginity and its absence, on the screens that dominate the set. In addition, the actors read a selection of excerpts. It’s a nice, personal touch that gives you the chance to wonder who around you would really say that to her old boyfriend if she had the chance.

“My First Time” will be onstage at the Trustus Side Door Theatre on April 26 and 27. For showtimes and to reserve tickets, call the box office at (803) 254-9732.

-- Susan Levi Wallach

 

James Keegan reflects on playing King Lear at USC

Theatre South Carolina will stage Shakespeare's revered tragedy King Lear, the epic tale of a ruler's loss of power and descent into madness, April 19-27 at USC's Drayton Hall Theatre.  Continuing a tradition of reinventing the "look" of classic plays to augment their timlessness and relevance to modern audiences, guest director Cristian Hadji-Culea (Director General of the National Theatre of Iasi, Romania) and Obie Award-winning  scenic designer and USC professor Nic Uluru depict Lear as the head of a major corporation, who finds his immense power and sense of entitlement challenged when his authority is usurped by two of his daughters. Joining a cast of USC undergraduate and graduate theatre students are guest artists Terry Snead, Park Bucker, Paul Kaufmann, and, in the title role, professional actor James Keegan, who has worked with the Folger Shaksepeare Theatre in Wshington, DC, and the Blackfriars Playhouse at the American Shakespeare Center in Virginia.   Mr. Keegan graciously took time to share some thoughts on this challenging role and production. Jasper How did you become involved in this production of King Lear, at USC?

James Keegan:   I recently worked with Robert Richmond, a theater professor here at USC, on a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V at The Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC; Gary Logan, who directed a production here at USC last year served as dialect coach for that production.  Gary is the head of the Academy of Classical Acting MFA program at The George Washington University; both my son and daughter-in-law took their MFA degrees at that program, where they were fortunate to have Gary as a teacher, mentor, and friend.  The last time I played the title role in King Lear was in 2009 at The American Shakespeare Center; in that production my son, Thomas, played Burgundy and the Doctor, and my later-to-be daughter-in-law, Alyssa Wilmoth-Keegan, played Cordelia.  I suspect Gary had heard about the production from Tom and Alyssa, so that when Robert Richmond asked Gary if he knew of an actor who might play Lear in the USC production, Gary felt he knew enough to recommend me.  I like to think that my work with Robert also helped to convince him I might do the job well.  As all these crossovers suggest, the classical theatre world is a small one, and in this case—as in others—that has worked to my advantage.

Jasper :  Often an actor will bring some new insight or perspective to a role that he or she has played before.  Anything in particular that you are anticipating in playing Lear this time around?

Keegan: When I last played Lear, my father had already passed away at the age of 86—in his waning years, I had watched him become physically compromised by a stroke, and that experience was certainly part of my 2009 performance.  Since that time, my mother too has died, experiencing some dementia in the final year of her life, and I have lost other older friends, including a great teacher and mentor, the poet W.D. Snodgrass, who was a lion of a man, but who also had one of the most tender and generous hearts it has been my privilege to encounter.  I like to think that the best of "De" is part of my Lear.

Also, the last time I played Lear, it was in a production that was set in the medieval era, and this time around the setting is contemporary and corporate. I should note, however, that our director, Cristian Hadji-Culea, wants also to keep a sense that the world of the play is timeless, so there will be some anachronistic elements thrown in—for instance, it is planned that in an early scene in which I am dressed in a business suit, I will also be wearing a hawking glove (something from the old aristocratic world) on one hand.  Also, the cut of the play is different; Cristian seems to want to emphasize a more modern philosophical world for the play.  In Shakespeare’s original conception, the play is pre-Christian, and therefore there are many references to the gods as a power; in the contemporary setting, those references seem out-of-place, and therefore they are largely cut, or viewed as performative and ironic.

Finally, new director, new cast mates, that’s the excitement always—seeing what other actors will bring to the stage and within what concepts and structures I will be challenged to bring to life the character.  I want to learn and be shown what I didn’t know about the character and about the play and about myself.

Jasper :  Lear is one of the great tragic roles – recently you also played Pistol, a memorable but smaller role in Henry V.  Actors in college chomp at the bit to get the primo roles, but so often professional performers who have been around for a while have no problem doing supporting roles, whether for the challenge of creating a character with less material, or to be part of a good ensemble doing good work, or just to have a break from so much time on stage.  Any thoughts on this?

Keegan:  I suppose I should quote the old adage that there are no small roles, only small actors, but there are roles that are so small that, at this stage in my life and career, I would not take them.  The decision to accept a contract is a combination of some of the things you have mentioned: a great role (whether lead or featured—Pistol is a marvelous character in Henry V and the play’s representative, with Fluellen, of the common man at war); a fine ensemble of actors; an effective and collaborative director; a theater where one enjoys working or where one has long wished to work.

Playing Pistol, for instance, I never thought of the role as small because the character is clearly so important to Shakespeare, for he draws him so lovingly and so fully.  Pistol is a braggart soldier and therefore he may be called a stereotypical character, but Shakespeare sets him down inside an actual military campaign, where we see his cowardice, his hopes, his losses. In the production I just did at the Folger, the director, Robert Richmond highlighted Pistol’s narrative line, so that he became a kind of counterbalance to King Henry: the young king is victorious and rises and gains, just as Pistol is defeated, and watches his friends and his fortunes fall.

Furthermore, I have worked for thirteen seasons at The American Shakespeare Center, where the season involves five plays presented in true rotating repertory, so that a dozen actors in the company are playing all the roles in every play, ad presenting a different play every night. This means that while I may play a big role in two of the plays, I am likely to play several small roles in the other plays.  For example, in the 2012 Summer and Fall seasons there, I played two big roles—Henry II in James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter, and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and then I played much smaller roles in the three other shows—Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which I played Antonio, who has half a scene, and Outlaw #1 (need I say more?); King John, in which I played Hubert, a beautiful but minor character, and James Gurney, who appears in half a scene and says nothing; Cymbeline, in which I played King Cymbeline, who, in spite of giving his name to the play’s title is a fairly flat and un-engaging character, and whose daughter, Imogen, is the true center of the play.  Such work serves to curb the ego and to remind me of how important all the characters are to the full and effective telling of the story.  And the clear and engaging telling of the story is, of course, the foremost responsibility and concern of the theater professional. 

Lear-1.jpg (From left: Leeanna Rubin as Goneril, James Keegan as Lear, Melissa Peters as Regan, Laurie Roberts as Cordelia)  Photo by Jason Ayer

Jasper : So many of us may recall Shakespeare as a burdensome assignment from English class, yet in his day Shakespeare was about as popular a form of mass entertainment as there was (and was even looked down on by some of his peers as not being cultured enough.)  Certainly the visual elements of this production will help with accessibility to modern audiences, but as an actor what challenges do you face to make the play, and the role, relevant and meaningful?

Keegan: Shakespeare’s great plays are always relevant, for they deal with the great human themes: love, ambition, family ties, leadership, responsibility, vengeance, forgiveness, redemption.  I am an educator too, so I have taught Shakespeare in the classroom to my students at The University of Delaware.  It is unfortunate to my mind that most American students receive their first introduction to Shakespeare in the high school classroom.  Don’t mistake me, I have great respect for the high school teachers I know and work with, but Shakespeare wrote in a poetic style and in a modern English that had some usages that we do not retain (use of “thee” and “thou,” for instance), and, more importantly, Shakespeare wrote for the stage, not for the page.  The language of the plays was to be accompanied with action, and most any audience member will tell you that he or she understands and remembers much more what is done (the action) than what is said (the text.)

That said, I think Lear works particularly well in a modern setting—for I think it is a fundamentally modern play.  It creates a world where goodness has a rough time of it, where externals and words are valued and privileged over the spiritual and over actions.  How often in our culture of the lobbyist and the sound bite do we see language abused?  How often do we see individuals tried in the media? We grow cynical about our leaders, about moral rectitude, about love itself.  But we are so ready to come back!  Many of us are so ready to shrug off that cynicism, are so prepared—like Kent, and like Cordelia—to believe still or to believe again in the nobility and goodness of our fellows, even if it costs us everything finally.  Anyway, that’s what I believe, and it seems to me that that is what Shakespeare believes in King Lear.  The play always reminds me of something I read once in Miguel de Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life: paraphrased, it goes something like this: if it turns out in the end that there is no God, we should live in such a way that that will have been an injustice.  The play reminds us that we must “see feelingly” if we have any hope of seeing the truth of ourselves, and that we must “speak what we feel, not what we ought to say,” if we have any hope of having fruitful community with one another.

Oh, and, for the record, I have never ever wanted a break from time on stage.  So far, anyway.

Jasper :  The roots of Lear's motivations, and his madness, have been debated for centuries, everything from dementia to bi-polar disorder to general orneriness and stubbornness. Any hints or clues as to what we will see in this production?

Keegan:  This production seems to me to lean toward the ornery and stubborn side so far.  Later in the play, when Lear is abandoned by his family and stripped of his followers and wandering in the storm, that ornery and stubborn nature gets pushed to an extreme and Lear suffers a psychic break—a kind of dementia.

However, as in any dementia, he has extremely lucid moments that lead him to a deeper self-discovery and a profound understanding of the treacherous nature of valuing quantitatively as opposed to qualitatively.  He has learned to make something of nothing, though at the outset of the play he could not see how to do this because he, like his counterpart Gloucester, saw only in superficial terms.

Now, Gloucester, having gone into blindness and despair, and Lear, having gone beyond the rational into the mad logic of his Fool, have achieved what they lacked in the play’s opening scenes: insight and profound knowledge of themselves and the harsh world where love still resides and where those who truly love us stick by us no matter how we may have wronged them in our blindness and in our arrogance and in our self-centered folly.

(From left: Leeanna Rubin as Goneril, James Keegan as Lear, Laurie Roberts as Cordelia, Melissa Peters as Regan) Photo by Jason Ayer

Jasper :  Given that you are only in Columbia for a few weeks - what is your impression of the theatre program at USC?  And have you had a chance to get a feel for the greater community, either as a place for the arts, or just as a place to live, work, and study?

Keegan:  My exposure to the theatre program at USC has been fundamentally through my work with the MFA actors and some of the undergrad students in the program, and I have to say that that experience—especially with the grad students, with whom I have been working most closely--speaks well of the program as a whole.  The class of MFA actors speaks well of the faculty in that whoever put these eight young artists together managed to assemble a truly supportive working group: the most impressive feature of working with James Costello, Kate Dzvonik, Trey Hobbs, Josiah Laubenstein, Cory Lipman, Melissa Peters, Laurie Roberts, and Leanna Rubin is that they genuinely seem to like, care about, and encourage one another.

I am glad to be part of their introduction to working with classical theater, and I hope to have some classroom time with them soon to discuss in greater depth some of the challenges of and techniques for working with Shakespeare and his contemporaries.  I have been impressed as well to see their attention and patience in the rehearsal room.  We are working with Cristian Hadji-Culea, a fine director with very clear ideas about how he views the world of the play, but also a director from a different theater culture than ours and one who has some limitations with English.  They have continually worked to realize his vision of the play—I admire actors who say “Yes,” and see the challenges they are being offered not as obstacles, but as opportunities to learn and to grow.  When one is working hard with emotional material, one can easily grow impatient with such challenges; what I have seen in rehearsal are actors who are willing to release ego and embrace new possibilities.

I like Columbia very much.  I recently spent the afternoon in your lovely museum of art.  As an undergraduate at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, I always loved going to the Worcester Art Museum, and when I worked in Pittsburgh several years ago I was a regular visitor to the Carnegie Museum of Art near the theater where I was working.  The great thing about these museums as compared to the Metropolitan in New York City, where I grew up, or the National Gallery in Washington, DC, which I visit with some frequency, is that they are what I call  “afternoon” museums—smaller city museums with fine collections that you can visit over several afternoons and feel like you are getting a feel for the entire collection and the ideas of its curators.  The larger museums can be overwhelming to me, and I have to limit myself to seeing only a set number of galleries or pieces on a given visit.  But it is so wonderful in museums like Columbia’s to spend an afternoon and see everything that is currently on display.  I also very much liked the current exhibit of Impressionist art, particularly for several Bonnard canvases—he is a favorite of mine, and one especially beautiful John Singer Sargent painting, from when the artist was 24 and just starting to make a name for himself.

I am also a runner, and although the spring has been a bit cold these past few weeks, I have availed myself of your nearby parks.  I love the run along the river and canal here in the city (I have yet to see any gators though) and the trails through Sesquicentennial Park and Dreher Island Park, where I really need to get a cabin with my wife some time—it is so beautiful out there.  Finally, I’ve found some pretty good sushi in town and that always makes me happy! I could definitely see myself returning were someone to ask (too subtle?)

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Show times for King Lear are 8 PM Wednesdays-Fridays, 7 PM Saturdays, and 3 PM on the first Sunday.  There is an additional half-price late night performance on Saturday, April 27 at 11 PM.   Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors 60+, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm, beginning Friday, April 12.

For more information on King Lear or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, please contact Kevin Bush via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu or by phone at (803) 777-9353.

 

~ August Krickel

"Knuffle Bunny - A Cautionary Musical" - Alex Smith reviews the new play at Columbia Children's Theatre

Mo Willems is something of a rock star if you’re a kid between the ages of 4 and 11 (or even if you’re just the parent of a kid that age.)  His career in children’s entertainment began illustriously on Sesame Street, where as an animator and writer he won six Emmy awards between 1993 and 2002.  During that time he also created two animated television series, The Off-Beats and Sheep In The Big City.  Since 2003, he has been a wildly successful author of children’s books, introducing the world to such immortal characters as Cat the CatPiggie and Elephant, Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, Leonardo The Terrible Monster, Naked Mole Rat and Big Frog.   His lovely illustrations and easy storytelling simultaneously create tales whose worlds are complex and self-contained, yet are wrought in such a simple way that the lessons they teach are so subtle that you don’t feel like you’re being beaten over the head with them.   Above all his writing and his drawings are VERY funny, making them a joy for both children and adults. All of the same qualities which make Willems’ books so appealing are on full display in the Columbia Children’s Theatre’s musical staging of Knuffle Bunny, subtitled A Cautionary Musical.  With book and lyrics by Willems and music by Michael Silversher, this adaptation of the Caldecott Medal-winning adventures of the beloved stuffed animal of the title, Trixie (the toddler who loves the bunny), and Trixie’s Mom and Dad, is staged as confidently as ever by director Chad Henderson, whose genre-defying talent as a theatrical director shines in this family-friendly production.   Henderson, as usual, has brought together a cast and crew whose talent coalesces to create a brisk, wonderfully entertaining evening in the theatre for children and their grown-ups alike.

This "cautionary tale" is straightforward enough: Dad, in an attempt to give Mom some time to herself, decides to take their daughter Trixie to the laundromat a few blocks from their home in the big city.  Trixie drags along her favorite stuffed animal, Knuffle Bunny. In the process of laundering the family’s clothes, Knuffle Bunny is accidentally put in the washing machine, and not until they return home between cycles does Dad realize what Trixie (who hasn’t learned to speak yet) has been trying to tell him throughout their journey home: Knuffle Bunny has been left behind. Mom, Dad and Trixie all rush back to the laundromat, where Dad embarks on a hero’s journey to recover Trixie’s missing doll. To say that hilarity ensues would cheat all of the above described action of how wildly entertaining and very funny it is.

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Mom and Dad are expertly played by Kathy Sykes and Paul Lindley II, respectively. They are portraying archetypes, which can easily be overplayed and stereotypical in lesser hands, but as Mom, Ms. Sykes conveys all the frustration, patience, nurturing and love which mothers exercise with their children (and, often, with the fathers of their children) in such a sincere and earthy way that we laugh at and with her because of the familiarity her portrayal evokes. Lindley as Dad is all bluster and bravado which mask his genuine sensitivity and insecurities about his ability as a parent and a spouse; in other words, he is every dad.  Lindley, in addition to serving as the show's musical director, is a comic actor of immense talent (he was side-splitting as "Snail" in CCT's recent staging of Frog and Toad), and in his hands Dad is the perfect over-serious, overwrought and over-compensating foil to Ms. Sykes’ “straight-man” mom. Their performances, individually and as that archetypal institution of “mom and dad,” are worth the price of admission alone.

And then there’s Trixie. Having an adult play a child onstage is another dangerous proposition: the temptation to over- or under-play the impossibly endless and variant characterizations which make up the earliest eras of childhood make the task a difficult one for any actor...or, as one of the show's songs explains, "Trixie Is Tricky".  Hats off, then, to Sara Jackson, who embodies the pre-verbal toddler Trixie with all of the requisite foibles of a child that age without ever falling into the easy traps of being too cutesy or commenting on them.  The strength of Ms. Jackson's performance lies in the fact that despite the fact that, for instance, the role calls upon her to do something as outlandish as speak for 95% of the play in incomprehensible toddler-speak, she takes Trixie as seriously as an actor would take any adult role. This not only makes her character completely clear and interesting, it allows her to nearly bring down the house with laughter when she delivers, with straight-faced sincerity, a ballad about her troubles whose lyrics consist of no recognizable human language. It is a high point of the show.

There are so many other elements which make Knuffle Bunny such an excellent show: the hard work of a fine ensemble of actor/puppeteers (Julian Deleon, Anthony Harvey, Brandi Smith and Christina Whitehouse-Suggs) who play multiple roles and are particularly wonderful in a scene where Dad does battle with some troublesome clothes in an attempt to find Knuffle Bunny; Donna Harvey's costume and puppet design which ably bring those troublesome clothes, Knuffle Bunny, and all the other characters, animate or not, to colorful life; Baxter Engle's superb projections, which build upon Willems' own layout in the Knuffle Bunny books, creating a living backdrop out of actual photographs of New York city and otherwise broadening the staging possibilities in the Children's Theatre's modest space (this may be the first production in Columbia to stage a musical number inside a washing machine); and, of course, a cameo appearance by Willems' other Caldecott Honoree, the troublesome Pigeon - in the form of an excellent marionette, designed and built by Lyon Hill - who in the play's final moments literally "steals the show," and opens up the welcome possibility that this may not be the end of Knuffle Bunny's stage adventures...

The Columbia Children's Theatre's top-notch production of Knuffle Bunny is so well-crafted and performed, that it makes the prospect of further musical journeys with Mom, Dad, Trixie and Knuffle Bunny a tantalizing prospect indeed. It is the best kind of family entertainment around, and it should not be missed.

~ Alex Smith

Knuffle Bunny - A Cautionary Musical runs Friday, April 19th at 7:00 PM, Saturday, April 20th at 10:30 AM, 2:00 PM, and 7:00 PM, and a final matinee Sunday, April 21st, at 3:00 PM.  For ticket in formation, visit their website, or call (803) 691-4548.

Cinemovements Monday Night

Cinemovements Leave it to the good folks at Indie Grits to find all kinds of innovative ways to heighten our senses and help us appreciate the multiplicity of arts that surround us.

Case in point – Cinemovements, a collaboration between Indie Grits and the SC Philharmonic  coming up Monday night (doors at 7, concert/films at 8) at the very cool space by the river, 320 Senate Street.

Here’s how it will go down. The SCP will play original music by concert master Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian, who we wrote about previously in Jasper and who is an innovative composer in her own right, to accompany four films commissioned for this event.

Mary Lee Taylor Kinosian

Filmmakers for this year are Indie Grits alums Roger Beebe, Steve Daniels, David Montgomery, Gideon C. Kennedy & Marcus Rosentrater. (You might remember Steve Daniels from his award-winning 2011 film Dirty Silverware.)

The performance is made possible through a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

And here's a neat little blog post that we lifted from the Indie Grits website

$20 Seated / $10 standing

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS

jasper listens

- Cindi Boiter, Jasper editor

Jasper's Fave Non-Film Part of Indie Grits? Spork in Hand Puppet Slam -- Hands Down!

  Lyon Hill - Self Portrait

 

It's no secret that Jasper is a big fan of Indie Grits -- we love independent film! And while we'd just as soon have a film festival that was about film and film only, we admire the way the good folks at IG try to incorporate the whole community in their special week. AND, we are crazy about one specific part of the festival, the Spork in Hand Puppet Slam.

Why? Lots'o reasons, but the strongest being the opportunity to see three of Columbia's most creative minds demonstrate their incredibly eclectic, innovative, and just plain out-there abilities. Lyon Hill, Kimi Maeda, and Paul Kaufmann.

(Jasper wrote about Lyon Hill here and Kimi Maeda here.)

(And is it true that the strangely brilliant Alex Smith is also involved this year? Yes? No? Somebody?)

We lifted the below information info from the Indie Grits website about these folks:

Lyon Hill lives with his wife, Jenny Mae, and their son, Oliver, in Columbia, SC. He has been a puppetmaker and puppeteer with the Columbia Marionette Theatre since 1997. His paintings and puppets have been shown in numerous galleries over the years and his puppet shows have been performed at regional and national puppet festivals. Three of his short films are part of Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams film series, which are shown internationally

Kimi Maeda

Kimi Maeda is a theatre artist whose intimate visual performances cross disciplines and push boundaries.  Trained as a scenic and costume designer whose work has been recognized nationally, she is drawn to the versatility of puppetry and delights in the fact that it allows her to explore all of her diverse interests; from science to storytelling.  Kimi worked for several years as a puppeteer and set designer for the Columbia Marionette Theatre, writing and directing Snow White and The Little Mermaid. Her shadow-puppet performances The Crane Wife and The Homecoming are original adaptations of traditional Japanese folktales interwoven with her own bi-cultural experience growing up as a Japanese-American.

 

Paul Kaufmann

Paul Kaufmann is an actor, writer and artist.  His acting credits include three productions at New York’s famed LaMaMa E.T.C.: The Cherry Orchard Sequel (2008, NY Times critic’s pick), The System (2009) and the title role in this year’s Hieronymus, all written by Obie Award winner Nic Ularu. With Mr. Ularu, Paul has also toured Romania in The System (2006). In 2010, he performed at the Cairns Festival in Queensland, Australia in Dean Poynor’s H. apocalyptus, a zombie survival tale. He has performed the same role in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival (2011) and at The Studios of Key West. Also at TSKW: One Night Stand: 3, 4 and 5. Recent roles at Trustus Theatre include Dan in Next to Normal, Charles Guiteau in Assassins, Bill Fordham in August: Osage County and all roles in I Am My Own Wife.  For pacific performance project/east, Paul played Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2012) and Man in Pile in Mizu No Eki (The Water Station) (2010). A founding member of the SC Shakespeare Company, Paul has acted onstage, in television and in film (including Campfire Tales and Lyon Forrest Hill’s Junk Palace) for 40 years. His collages, assemblages and paintings have been exhibited at Anastasia and Friends gallery.  He’s thrilled to be a part of the Spork In Hand Puppet Slam. In May, Paul returns to Romania to perform at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in a new production directed by Mr. Ularu.

To what they have to say above we'll just add this -- There is nothing like the experience of good adult puppetry theatre. It effects the viewer in ways that are personally, emotionally, and psychologically surprising. It can be intimate, evocative, and funny -- all in the same breath. It is touching and exhilarating. It can move you in ways you have never been moved before. It makes you laugh and it makes you think. Don't miss this beautiful experience.

 

Kimi Maeda

jasper watches

 

presented by Belle et Bête

Saturday, April 13th at 7pm & 9:30pm - $10 - Nickelodeon Theatre

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS

-- Cindi Boiter, editor - Jasper Magazine

"The Shape of Things" at USC's Benson Theatre - a must-see this weekend!

This is not a theatre review.  Not exactly anyway.  This is more of a stream of consciousness reflection on a show that opens tonight (Friday April 11) - The Shape of Things by Neil LaBute, featuring some very talented young actors, most undergrads at USC.  I was fortunate enough to see a rehearsal earlier this week. The show only runs for two performances, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 PM, at the Benson Theatre on the USC campus.  Benson was once the old elementary school for the Wheeler Hill neighborhood, right around the corner from Bates, just off Pickens Street at the top of the hill.  (Or "near where the old Purple Onion used to be," in Columbia-speak.) The Facebook "event" page is here.

shape of things 5LaBute is known for small-cast, ultra-realistic plays that tackle issues of relationships and ethics in contemporary society. Two similar works, Fat Pig and reasons to be pretty, were produced at Trustus in 2009 and 2010 respectively.  All three feature a likeable, ordinary schlub as protagonist, here a mild-mannered English major (Adam, played by Dillon Ingram) on the 6-year plan, juggling jobs as museum gallery guard and video store clerk.  All feature a cocky, misogynistic best friend who's a bit of a tool, but whose natural, believable dialogue with the lead reveals the way "normal guys" interact and look at life these days. (If I were LaBute's real-life buddy, I'd be saying "Hey wait a sec - you tryin' to say something here?")  All feature one or more attractive women, at least one of whom is scorned or betrayed, and one who causes the lead to re-examine fundamental values and aspects of his life. All explore themes about how physical appearance relates to self-image, self-worth, and relationships.

(L-R) Dillon Ingram, Katie Foshee, Patrick Dodds, Catherine Davenport

Here the playwright raises some really important, really uncomfortable, and ultimately unanswerable questions:  what if your girlfriend inspires you to be a more confident and assertive person?  What if she encourages you to work out, eat better, and get in shape?  Sounds pretty sweet, especially if she is a fabulous artsy babe, a little older, worldlier, and more passionate about life. But at what stage does "you make me want to be a better man" become "you don't love the man I am?"  And what if the gender roles are reversed?  What if an ordinary young woman is ready to marry a boyfriend who is only 5 or 6 personality traits/flaws away from being perfect?  Is she tolerant, loving and accepting... or settling for a guy who doesn't deserve her?  What if she becomes attracted to a more compatible male friend...but only after he loses weight and becomes more confident?  Does that make her suddenly insightful?  Or awfully superficial?

As the "manic pixie dream girl" (described by director Bakari Lebby in his guest blog a few days ago) determined to remake her man in her chosen image, Katie Foshee starts the show as a defiant, Nirvana T-shirt-clad rebel, preparing to deface a statue as an artistic statement against censorship. We expect the plot to center around the nature of "What Is Art?" subjective vs. objective, but soon we're into the deeper, darker territory of intimacy and betrayal.  Or are we?  Elegant, icy, calmly assertive in 5-inch heels and a mini-skirt as she presents her MFA project towards the end, Foshee gives a very subtle, under-stated performance.    Is Evelyn - yes, the main couple are Adam and Eve(lyn), if there's any question as to the universality LaBute is channeling - a free spirit, an extremely experimental artist, a manipulative and bitchy girlfriend, or a sociopath?  Possibly all of the above, but nothing is as it seems, and a plot twist that was foreshadowed extensively and repeatedly caught me totally by surprise, thanks to Foshee’s commitment to and underplayed portrayal of her character.  Dillon Ingram starts out resembling a cross between Patrick Wilson in Watchmen and Johnny Galecki in Big Bang Theory, which is appropriate, given the Leonard-Penny vibe that Adam and Evelyn have. Indeed, the wacky beauty and the uptight establishment type turn up everywhere in pop culture, from Hepburn and Grant in Bringing Up Baby, to Dharma and Greg.  Yet as above, things are not as they seem, and plentiful references to literary predecessors like Pygmalion and Frankenstein that explore the relationship of the creator to his creation  only hint at some of the complex turns the plot takes. In retrospect, even random references to films like Blade Runner, a movie in which some creations seek out their creator looking for answers, while others are oblivious to their real nature, seem unlikely to have been coincidental.

Katie Foshee as Evelyn, the "manic pixie dream girl"

Patrick Dodds, the only non-USC student involved, first blew me away a year and a half ago in Spring Awakening, with his heart-breaking portrayal of Moritz, a boy unraveling before our eyes.  Just a few months later he was rocking out as a smooth T-Bird singing "Magic Changes" in Grease, and a few months beyond that he was singing Andrew Lloyd Weber songs in Dreamcoat.  Here Dodds successfully creates yet another entirely different persona, ostensibly a stereotypical chauvinist college dude, yet still a real human being with genuine feelings. I once wrote that as Moritz, he reminded me of the angsty young Pete Townshend; here, with a cocky attitude and his long jaw, sharp nose and dark wavy hair, Dodds bears more than a little resemblance to the young Bruce Campbell. If they ever film Campbell's best-selling autobiography, Dodds needs to play the lead. Catherine Davenport likewise takes a stock role (the wholesome college girl ready for marriage) and creates a sympathetic and three-dimensional character.

rehearsing "The Shape of Things"

The great work by the young cast and first-time director Bakari Lebby points to the importance of arts education in our schools, as well as charting a sort of Six Degrees of Local Theatre Separation.  Dodds, Davenport and Ingram were all theatre students of Jeannette Arvay Beck at Dreher, while Foshee studied with Monica Wyche at Blythewood, and Lebby studied with E. G. Heard at Heathwood. Heard played a LaBute heroine herself a couple years ago at Trustus (indeed, a sociopathic one, according to one review) and directed Lebby, Davenport and Foshee in last summer's Camp Rock at Workshop; her assistant director for that show, Samantha Elkins, alternated with Heard as Maggie the Cat last year, and played Davenport's mother in Brighton Beach Memoirs in January. Both Heard and Elkins stopped by the rehearsal I attended to offer some tips and notes for their young protégés.

shape of things 4

Director Lebby is of course limited by the intimate space and shoestring budget of an all-student production in Benson, but at this tech rehearsal he was experimenting with creative lighting and tone-complementing musical effects. The play is almost all dialogue, in generic apartments, galleries and campus locales, and LaBute's ultra-realistic script forces the characters into certain directions and choices no matter what. Still, we see Lebby's artistic vision so clearly and beautifully in the show's final moments, as a sole figure is left to reflect on what has just transpired, and Lebby allows the moment to play out naturally, with perfect music and lighting enhancing the mood.  Lebby just finished a successful run in The Color Purple, and one would have to be insane to simultaneously be rehearsing a lesser-known, quirky show in a bare, alternative space after success in a name-brand play... yet I did the same damn thing in my senior year in college, so I have to give him a huge shout-out.  Foshee and Dodds are both performers whose work I have admired for a while now, and it's so nice to see them get the chance to delve into meaty character roles.  Foshee and Ingram will be heading off to seek their fortunes on the west coast after graduation, so now may be your last chance to see them; Dodds, on the other hand, needs to enroll his ass in USC's drama program right now, and any parental/authority figures reading this may quote me, because he has mad potential.

I normally try to avoid talking too much about the type of shows I enjoy, or specific performers whose work I admire, but see above - this isn't a real review, so, like, dig it.  For me, you could have successive nights of Hugh Jackman doing Les Mis live with a million-dollar stage set.... and I'd still rather see four dedicated kids on a bare stage doing something meaningful to them.  This show is sometimes described as a dark comedy, a serio-comedy, or a "dramedy."  I'd describe it as a dark fable about contemporary relationships and society, set in the context of college dating, with some great moments of humor (in the vein of perhaps Sex and the City or Friends) as well as some chilling implications about the choices that people make for love.

As above, The Shape of Things only runs for two performances, tonight and tomorrow at 8 PM, at the Benson Theatre on the USC campus. The Facebook "event" page is here.

~ August Krickel

Southern Exposure New Music Series: Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians

  Steve Reich

One of the most compelling parts of Columbia’s arts scene is the Southern Exposure New Music Series, a series of FREE concerts put on by the nonprofit each year that explore contemporary classical and world compositions as well as some of the masterworks of the 20th century. The shows are often standing room only affairs, largely because of the depth and quality of the performances, which have a reputation for being wildly eclectic and stunning in equal measure.

If you’ve never been, consider going this weekend to a performance of Steve Reich’s seminal Music for 18 Musicians. Reich is perhaps the definitive composer of the second half of the 20th century, and this is his most famous piece—a gorgeous work of pulsating musical minimalism that builds (and contracts) ever-so-slowly as melodies and harmonies are gradually added to create a mesmerizing, hypnotic effect that is best experience live. The 18 musicians comes from the fact that the piece requires at a minimum four pianists, six percussionists, four female singers, two clarinetists, a violinist, and a cellist—parts which will be ably handled by 18 of USC’s most talented students in the School of Music (many of whom will be also be tackling more than one instrument in the course of the performance). Directing the work is USC piano professor Phillip Bush (who is also performing—the composition is traditionally performed without a conductor), who has played the piece numerous times around the world with Reich himself. Bush will also be giving a short talk before each performance.

Here’s  a complete performance available on YouTube (you really have to see it live though):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXJWO2FQ16c

 

And, in the tradition of the increasingly collaborative arts scene we have in Columbia, local painter Blake Morgan will have his paintings on exhibit in the gallery for both performances. His involvement is sponsored by Pocket Productions!

A note on composer: Reich’s music always feels like waves upon waves of sound to me—while the careful the listener can note the subtle, ceaseless shifts in rhythm, melody, and harmony, there is something visceral about the listening experience as well, that hits you in the gut. That’s likely the reason Reich’s music has enjoyed such popularity outside of traditional contemporary music circles as well. While his compositions are usually debuted in the finest concert halls at this point (a stark contrast from his earlier years, when his work was shunned by the elites), Reich still gets an audience outside of those confines, even at rock festivals. Check out this video, where Reich and Bang On A Can’s Dave Cossin perform to whopping audience at the rock-centered Bloc festival in east London.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lesDb9GsQm4

The series will be giving two performances of Music for 18 Musicians: on Friday and Saturday, April 12-13, 7:30pm, at the USC School of Music Recital Hall, 813 Assembly Street (next to the Koger Center), 2nd Floor. Admission, as always, is free.

 

K. Petersen, Jasper Music Editor

Correction: The original post incorrectly stated that Blake Morgan would be painting live during the performance. He will not be.

Dropped into the Middle of a Major Arts Month - What to Do Today, Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday

Hello Columbia Artists and Arts Lovers! I just got back a few hours ago from London and Ireland where the Bier Doc and I sucked up every last morsel of art we could cram into the two weeks we were there -- Five plays, three art museums including the very cool Hugh Lane in Dublin which houses the actual studio of Francis Bacon, three guided walks (Irish literary, history, and trad music), over 30 pubs, most with music - all with brew, and more sights and sounds and cliffs and sheep and ancient neo-lithic sites than I ever thought possible.

Francis Bacon standing in front of his Triptych

Yes, we got home exhausted, which is unfortunate, especially given the line-up of art and art experiences that April has in store for all of us. We're going to try to keep you posted via our Facebook page and this blog - What Jasper Says, but you should also pay close attention to the listings at One Columbia as well as at Indie Grits which kicks off Friday night with a smokin' hot  Block Party.

indie grits

Tonight, we recommend you join Yours Truly as I help out at the USC Art Auction at the Campus Room of the Capstone Building on the campus of USC. The auction starts at 7 with a lovely reception at 6.

(This guys knows not what he's doing and neither will I)

On Wednesday, we recommend you schedule yourself for the Closing Reception for Painted Violins from 5 - 8 at Gervais and Vine at 620 Gervais Street which benefits our beloved SC Philharmonic.

"She Used to Play the Violin" by Wayne Thornley

On Thursday, the highly successful (blushing) Jasper Salon Series returns with a presentation and discussion by local poet, author, and creativity coach, Cassie Premo Steele. We'll start out about 7 pm with drinks and chatting, then at 7:30 sharp, Cassie will begin the program.

Cassie Premo Steele

We'll be posting more sneak peeks at all the cool stuff going on this month just as soon as we unpack and get a day's work done. I'm looking forward to seeing you all where you ought to be -- smack in the middle of the Southeast's newest and hottest arts destination, Columbia, SC!

Cheers,

Cindi

(note: not sure what happened to the previous version of this post which was missing most of its text. Oops & sorry!)