Highlighting Indie Music in the Summer Music Festival Season

So we are officially in the midst of the summer festival season, and dedicated local music lovers have probably caught various local acts populating the stages at Rosewood Crawfish Festival (which had an excellent line-up of local acts this year), Stereofly’s Rootsy Memorial Day Festival at Art Bar, the Back To Rockafella’s celebration, or West Fest. The more cultured have also stopped in on the Southeastern Piano Festival, a week of world-class piano performances which is as of this writing mostly sold-out (we recommend checking out the Arthur Fraser International Concerto Competition, where young contestants duke it out in dazzling style from morning to night. It's this Friday, June 14, at the School of Music recital hall, and it's free).  More festivals are on the horizon, including the wince-inducing resuscitation of the Three Rivers Festival on July 6 and 13. Jasper loves a diversity of musical experiences, but in particular loves when Columbia gets a bit more cutting-edge. Two festivals this summer offer some of that edginess where others play it safe.

The first is Recess Fest, which is happening this Friday, June 14th, at a variety of venues across Columbia. An off-shoot of the Charlotte festival, which is celebrating its sixth anniversary this year, the festival derives its name from the carefree spirit of school recess, and champions a community-centered approach while introducing local acts from across the state. Spearheaded by people person bandleader and Can’t Kids drummer/singer Jessica Oliver, the night offers a reasonable festival-style cost for a rambunctious line-up. Here are the details:

New Brookland Tavern Modern Man - Charleston Elim Bolt - Charleston Octopus Jones - Raleigh (formerly Columbia) One Another - Charlotte Red Door Tavern Great Architect - Charlotte Magnetic Flowers - Columbia Dear Blanca - Columbia Luciferian Agenda - Charlotte State Street Pub Blossoms - Charlotte Dumb Doctors - Charleston Let’s Go, Coyote! - Columbia Jordan Igoe - Charleston Silent Spring Ensemble - Columbia Conundrum Music Hall Roomdance - Columbia Happiness Bomb - Columbia Sandcastles - Columbia Late Bloomer - Charlotte Hunter Gatherer Brewery Bo White & su Orchesta Fat Rat da Czar with Grand Royal

All of the shows except for the Hunter-Gatherer one start at 7 and finish around 11, with festival-goers convening at the brewpub for an after-party with Bo White and Fat Rat (which Jasper thinks was a thoroughly excellent planning decision). The line-up demonstrates an excellent mix of bands who play the town frequently with some lesser-knowns from from the Charlotte area.

Here's a video from Charleston favorite Elim Bolt, recorded as part of our own Fork & Spoon's Casual Friday series, who will be playing the New Brookland stage:

http://vimeo.com/64837746

The second festival we want to highlight is Spit Fest (“SP”ace “I”dea “T”apes Fest) , an annual DIY music festival on July 4th dedicated to celebrating “outsider art and culture centering around Columbia, SC.” Organized by the Space Idea Tapes record label, which does casette-only releases of bands throughout the tri-state area, the festival features off-kilter and oddball acts seldom-seen on any other big festival bill in Columbia--and fast-moving, 15 minute sets that allow for a rather expansive line-up on one stage in a single night. Now in its third year, the festival wants to be a bit more above-ground and move away from its house show origins--this  year, Conundrum Music Hall is hosting, and the festival has an Indie GoGo fundraiser which finishes up at midnight tomorrow. Check out the fundraiser site here--note the nice incentives, as well as the other logistics needs Space Idea Tapes still has. The festival will also feature a BBQ potluck and regional visual artists showcasing their work. Check out the line-up below.

We'll leave you with a tune from the Spit Fest-featured elvis depressedly's lastest ep, holo pleasures, which was reviewed in the current issue of Jasper (pick one up, if you haven't already!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJSoec3r-EI

Nature's Theatre at Saluda Shoals Park

“This project will be a game changer for the entire region, providing moving experiences for audiences, artists and anyone who has ever walked in the woods and heard music from the birds, seen art made unintentionally by tree branches or noticed how the wind makes things dance, how the sheer immensity of quiet sounds like a beautiful soliloquy. That's Nature's Theater.”

~ Larry Hembree, Managing Director, Trustus Theater

Patrons of the arts in Columbia are gaining an innovative new performance venue. Nature’s Theatre is being created as part of a cultural enrichment plan for Saluda Shoals Park in Irmo.  Its design intends to unite performer, viewer and environment within a 400-acre nature preserve.

The state-of-the-art structure is being carefully crafted within the natural landscape, a demure tenant but well-equipped with every amenity of a professional theatre. The three-story facility is to include dressing rooms, a green room, concession area, box office, restrooms, and a treetop event space. The space will accommodate 1,000 people, with 500 dedicated seats and space for 500 on the lawn.

New York City-based Resolution: 4 Architecture‘s environmentally sensitive design was chosen from among 80 entries in an international competition.  It is “very different from anything we have anywhere in our state,” says Saluda Shoals Foundation Director Dolly Patton.

A trip over the ravine-spanning bridge welcomes visitors to the theatre.  They are invited to take a seat before the covered stage.  Nature becomes a unique collaborator in an exchange between art and technology.

Several events have already begun to establish Saluda Shoals Park as a destination for the arts, including Shakespeare in the Park, unearth -- a celebration of naturally inspired art and Holiday Lights on the River.  Patton hopes Nature’s Theatre will become a premier destination for great art and facilitate cultural enrichment for the community. Regional and national talent is welcome.

Saluda Shoals Foundation has raised $600,000 on the way to the first million for the project. It is a $5 million endeavor. Sponsors can assist fundraising efforts by reserving a seat at Nature’s Theatre. Benefits include: name on seat, invitation to the Grand Opening, advance notice of events, invitations to Saluda Shoals Foundation private events, and preferred parking.

More expansions are planned for the park within the next two years, with Saluda Shoals expanding nature trails, building soccer fields and tennis courts, and installing zip-lines.

For more information or to reserve a seat, contact Saluda Shoals Foundation at 803-213-2035 or www.saludashoalsfoundation.org.

  ~ Karla Turner

Spoleto Review -- Rosanne Cash by Bob Jolley

Rosanne Cash has chops—both hard-earned and genetic. Although not often thought of as a superstar herself, the oldest daughter of Johnny Cash crawled from working backstage as a wardrobe assistant for her dad, to being a background singer, finally a soloist, and ultimately the winner of a Grammy and nine other nominations, 11 number one country hit singles,21 top 40 country singles, and two gold records. Not too shabby.

Performing at Spoleto Festival USA on Sunday night in the TD Ameritrade Arena, Cash delivered an assortment of new material from an upcoming album, but focused on paying homage to the artists who have come before her—some of them friends and family members—many of the songs from her 2009 album The List. The List came about because at age 18 her dad had given her a list of 100 seminal songs in country and American music—she picked 12 to record with folks like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Jeff Tweedy.

If only one word could be used to describe the concert it would be “professional.” Performing with her band of solid musicians, the Keith to her Mick and the Big Man to her Bruce is her husband, co-writer, lead guitarist, producer, and partner John Leventhal. Throughout the evening, the two bounced off one another both musically and with the kind of quips only a husband and wife team can deliver.

Highlights of the night included, from The List, "Long Black Veil," recorded in 1959 by Lefty Frizzell, written by Danny Dill, Marijohn Wilkin, and covered by the likes of Johnny Cash, and Joni Mitchell on the first Johnny Cash show in 1969, as well as The Band, Mick Jagger, Joan Baez, Emilou Harris and Dave Matthews. Also from The List was Dylan’s 1963 "Girl from the North Country," re-recorded in a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. Other List songs performed included "Five Hundred Miles" by Hedy West and a take on the traditional "Motherless Children."

Of course Cash’s show would have not been complete without a rendition of her 1981 Billboard country chart number one, and Billboard pop chart number 22, "Seven Year Ache."

Rosanne Cash performing Seven Year Ache

Bob Jolley - publisher, Muddy Ford Press

"The Journey Home" - a guest blog by Jenna Sach

When the pilot announces that we are 30 minutes to our destination, I stare out the window.  I watch the country below slowly become visible through the grey clouds.   The land is a beautiful patchwork of varying hues of green.  The houses and cars slowly come into view as we get closer.  The wheels touch down, I’m filled with excitement.  I am home.

I began taking photos when I was 16.  My high school offered a darkroom course.  The smell of the chemicals, the look of film, the whole art behind photography drew me in.  Ever since then, whenever I traveled, a camera came with me.  Though all I had at the time was a little 35 mm point-and-shoot, I spent most of my time viewing Europe through a lens.  After the first few trips, my mom mentioned the lack of photos of family; it wasn’t until we were visiting Venice together that she stopped mentioning it.

For years, the only people who saw my photographs from my adventures were those who came into my Mom’s house.  She adorned her walls with images from England, Rome, and Venice.  I decided last September that I wanted to showcase photographs from England.  After running the idea by Mark Plessinger, we set up a show at frame of Mind.  My family and I were heading off the England, specifically North Derbyshire for two weeks, and it lined up perfectly.  So I lugged my camera equipment across the Atlantic Ocean and bought tons of film.  We had a few places outlined of where we were going, but I had no preset notions of what exactly I wanted to photograph.

The first few days there, I drew a blank.  However, when we went to visit Chatsworth, a stately home, something clicked.  From that point on, I was always behind the camera.  My mom and stepfather put up with me randomly asking to pull off the road, so that I could jump out and snap a few shots.  Everyone was so understanding when I wanted to spend a few extra minutes at a location, or climb up a hill to get a different vantage point.  And somehow the weather worked out perfectly, though I did stand in a shower or two to grab a shot.

I wanted to illustrate to everyone the beauty of the English countryside and the personal meaning it holds for me.  Each photograph in this show holds a story behind it (which I am always willing to tell.)  I have been in inspired by England for years, and I am hoping to  inspire others who view my work.

~ Jenna Sach

"The Journey Home" is the featured exhibition at Frame of Mind (located at 1520 Main Street, Suite 1e, right across from the Columbia Museum of Art) as part of this month's First Thursdays on Main.

Jessica Ream, Sean McGuinness, Jenna Sach, Jessica Christine Owen, and James and Michael Dwyer featured at First Thursday on Main Street

Charleston has Spoleto, and Jasper is bringing you day-by-day, event-by-event coverage, but let's not forget about Columbia's own monthly celebration of the arts, First Thursdays on Main.  Festivities officially run 6-9 PM this Thursday, June 6th.  Below are some facts, figures and images taken from assorted press material:

Jessica Ream is the featured artist at Wine Down on Main (located at 1520 Main Street,  Suite 1B.) She was born in Columbus, Ohio, early in the year 1990, but was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line, in Carolina suburbia. She is a jack-of-all trades artist, and incorporates her knowledge of painting, photography, print and sculpture into her mixed media pieces. She began her studies at Columbia College but transferred to Savannah College of Art and Design where she graduated with honors, with a BFA in Painting. She returned to Columbia shortly after graduation, and currently works for the Columbia Art Museum while continuing her work as an artist.

A couple of doors down, at 1520 Main Street, Suite 1e, Frame of Mind is delighted to announce the return of one of Columbia's favorite daughters and artists to the FOM gallery, Jenna Sach, a familiar face and vital fixture among the Main Street community. For this FOM Series, she is sharing images close to her heart and taking us all on "The Journey Home." Sach says:

For this show I wanted to ‘bring it home.’ Though I have always taken photographs on my journeys to Europe, I've never displayed them (unless you count my mom’s walls). With this series I maintain my style, keeping the rich blacks in contrast to the cool whites. All the photos are taken from North Derbyshire, which is located in the East Midlands of England. A large portion of the Peak District National Park is within this county, as well as part of the Pennines. Within this region, there are various stately homes, castle ruins, gardens, caverns, and the beautiful rolling hills, for which it is so well known.

During a recent two week visit home, I traveled around North Derbyshire with my camera, occasionally making my family pull off to the side of the road, just so I could jump out and capture the landscape to share with you! For putting up with my artistic endeavors on this, and many others trips, I dedicate this show to them. Places featured include Buxton, Chatsworth Stately Home, Bolsover Castle, Tideswell, Castleton, Peveril Castle, Hardwick Hall and Haddon Hall.

Born in Southampton, England, Jenna Sach immigrated to South Carolina in 1990. Ever since she was a young girl, she has shown a fondness for art. However, it was not until she was 16 that she began her passion for photography. Jenna’s high school offered a darkroom course; it was her first experience developing film, and she fell in love. Over the years Jenna took pictures of the places she visited, but it was not until she arrived at the University of South Carolina that she began to formulate her style. There, she connected with her mentor and darkroom professor, Toby Morriss. Under his guidance, she perfected her printing and found her style. Morriss taught Jenna how to combine her two passions, photography and psychology. She obtained her B.A. in Experimental Psychology and hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology.

Jessica Christine Owen is featured in "A Study of Self and Others"  at S&S Art Supply (located at 1633 Main Street.) Owen is an innovative photographer who uses herself as the subject matter. Through physical alteration as a performative aspect of the final photograph, her works are beautiful and eerie, funny and disturbing, all rolled into one. DJ B will be out front spinnin' some awesome family-friendly tunes as well!

Her artist statement reads:

The term grotesque has the contemporary definition of being something strange, fantastic, ugly or disgusting. The grotesque has formed an attachment to other terms proliferated to describe aspects of experience, among them, the abject. The abject is something that exists between the concept of an object and of the subject. The abject becomes a reaction to the threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of distinction between subject and object or self and other. My intention is to create an emotional bond with the viewer through a combination of unlike things that challenges established realities or constructs new ones. By altering physical form through self-inflicted acts or complete physical alteration, the viewer is meant to see the blurred lines of what we perceive to be self and what is other.

Owen received her BFA in Photography and BA in Art History with honors from New Mexico State University in 2010. She currently resides in Columbia, South Carolina where she is pursuing her MFA in Photography at the University of South Carolina.

Anastasia & Friends (located at 1534 Main Street) is presents "Color Movement," an exhibition which features paintings by father and son, James Dwyer and Michael Dwyer, who have spent a combined nine decades creating abstract paintings, rooted in Modernism, with color as a primary focus.

Michael Dwyer:

I grew up in a home in which both parents were artists and paintings by them and their friends always hung on the walls. Although my mother mostly put aside her professional art career to raise a family, my father was an energetic and accomplished painter all the years I knew him, only giving up his studio work at the age of eighty-seven to care for my mother. My father also taught painting and drawing at Syracuse University for thirty-some years, including while I was there as an undergraduate. I never took a class with him, but I learned a great deal from my Dad, whether it was during dinner conversations or trips to museums. Probably, most of what I learned was just from the long-term exposure of having his paintings around the house.

As a kid, I loved to draw from the time I could pick up a pencil and I received enormous encouragement and support from both parents. Sometimes I’d visit my Dad’s studio and make little drawings while he painted. Once, when I was seven or eight, my father stretched a small canvas for me to work on (my first abstract painting!) while classical music played on the radio and he worked on a large canvas. The scale of his paintings – often seven or eight feet - made an early impression, too.

A few years before my father’s death in 2011, we had a couple of conversations about how we might be able to put together a two-man show, but we were never able to make that happen during his lifetime. Before he died my father shipped me about thirty of the paintings he’d made over the past few years. That shipment has allowed me to finally, and very happily, assemble this exhibition.

........

A sense of movement has been an important element in my work for a long time. Earlier pieces often conveyed a feeling of forms drifting in space. Then, there was a shift toward using linear composition to create direction. I wanted the viewer’s eye to move along a variety of circuits and have experiences along the way. I also found from my earlier collage work, that I like the crisp, definitive edges that result from cutting shapes with scissors, so I began using masking tape for a similar effect.

Recent works often have a sequential aspect that comes partly from a fascination with similarities between visual art and music. Thinking of musical composition as one note followed by another, and so on, I wondered if this might be a basis for a painting. Ultimately, I’m always after that transcendent moment when abstract elements come together in a way that‘s thrilling and somehow right.

Dwyer also provides this artist's statement from his father James Dwyer:

Since space is the fundamental characteristic of drawing, painting, sculpture, and architecture, I have long understood that eloquence in those forms is to be achieved through the structuring of space. Within the past ten years or so, I have stumbled my way into a style based on low relief as its principal component.

In low relief I have discovered that I can offer variable visual and tactile experience controlled only in part by me. The viewer is invited to share in control through physical viewpoint. Elements within a work change, or are perceived as changing when seen from different angles. This, I believe, can bring about an especially intimate and creative communication.

"Color Movement" will open as a part of the First Thursday art crawl on Main on June 6th, from 6 PM to 9 PM and run through June 28th.  Special thanks to Maria Kennedy Mungo for preparing delicious food for this very special opening.

Tapp's Art Center, located at 1644 Main Street, is home to several dozen artists' studios, as well as changing exhibitions inside and in the display windows on Main and Blanding Streets.  Included in those window exhibits is Sean McGuinness, aka That Godzilla Guy:

This will be a big event, marking Godzillafications all up in your grill, so to speak! I will have my largest window display ever, and I will also be in the Tapp's Courtyard selling my artwork. If that isn't enough, my art will also be hanging inside the Tapp's Arts Center as part of a charity event benefiting local police canines. Last year I held my first-ever "Meet Godzilla @ Tapps". The presence you guys helped me create got noticed by all the local merchants, and started me on the path to becoming "That Godzilla Guy" [in retrospect, it was like you helped lodge some shrapnel in my chest, so I could go on to build a wicked suit of armor in a cave with a box of scraps!] Please come visit, and be part of the magic.

And if there is any question as to the meaning of the term, McGuinness has helpfully provided a definition:

Godzillafications [noun] God-zill-a-fi-ca-tions (g d-zɪlə-f -k sh n):   An artwork or consequence growing out of That Godzilla Guy’s [Sean McGuinness] unique vision to interject his Godzilla Collectibles into established works of art, photographs, or concepts. It ranges from serious gravitas to social and political satire, yet always centers around a deep love of the kaiju [giant monster] eras of past, present and future. The purpose is to not only spread the love of Godzilla and his eternal, relevant messages, but to also connect people with art who would not normally appreciate traditional arts or even Godzilla himself.

Godzillafications are crafted through non-traditional means using kaiju collectibles, digital photography, Photoshop, and artwork covered and/or homaged under the Fair Use Act. If available, permission of the original artist is obtained. Godzillafications can also consist of inserting a kaiju into a photo with no digital manipulation at all. The artwork is then printed out on high quality cardstock or matte polypropylene, then sealed to a wood plank or inserted into a recycled frame. Godzillafications are also a movement, inserting themselves into art shows, galleries, window displays, street performances, internet videos and webcomics.

Use in a sentence: Art Appreciation Through Godzillafication.

Also, the cast of the upcoming Trustus Theatre production of Ain't Misbehavin' will be giving a sneak-peek performance at 7 PM in the courtyard, next to Tapp's!

Conductors Institute of SC offers behind-the-scenes look at the art of conducting

The Conductors Institute of SC is hosting conducting training sessions, free to observe by the public, June 3-15, offering the community a rare and insightful look at the art of conducting. The sessions available to the public include string ensembles, chamber groups, and a full orchestra, from 9 AM to noon and 1:30 to 4 PM, Monday through Saturday at the Koger Center for the Arts. More than 1,000 conductors have attended the sessions since its beginnings 30 years ago. Maestro Donald Portnoy, music director of the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, founded the Institute, which boasts a comprehensive workshop style structure offering students daily podium time and constructive feedback from veteran conductors. Portnoy is also the director of orchestral studies at the University, and has conducted orchestras all over the globe. These sessions are intended to provide aspiring conductors with first hand experience and feedback from professionals with experience in the commercial and academic music industries.

The sessions available to the public allow those not so musically inclined to observe the training an aspiring conductor experiences. The Institute offers a 15-day program for intermediate to advanced level of experience, as well as a 10-day program for those with less experience. Each session is designed to enhance orchestral command skills through interaction and instruction from composers and conductors from all over the world.

From the outside, the sessions appear formal, yet relaxed. The orchestra eagerly sits at the edges of their seats, awaiting the flourish of the baton with equal respect to the rookie and master conductors alike. Before attending the session, I always assumed the conductors were more for show than utility; however with each arm movement and flourish, I noticed a symbiotic response from the musicians. The harmony between the conductor and the musicians is incredible to watch, and I’m sure hard to achieve. The experience gained through these sessions provides conductors not only with further practice, but connections and dialogue with maestros and composers with whom they may not have another chance to interact. Acting as a fly on the wall in these sessions is a rare and unbeatable glimpse into the music industry, not often found on a college campus. The observers were a mixed bunch of students and music enthusiasts, encouraged by this rare opportunity in Columbia.

The Southeastern Piano Festival has teamed with the Conductors Institute of SC to allow the public also to observe the Conductors Institute Apprenticeship Program, June 12-13 from 10 AM to noon and 1:30-4:30 PM. This program is a collaboration of conductors attending the festival in a rehearsal style setting, also held at the Koger Center for the Arts. The 2013 Southeastern Piano Festival is from June 9-15, and features a piano competition, concerts, and guest artists. The University of South Carolina School of Music sponsors the festival, a platform for aspiring pianists, master-teachers and world-renown musicians, held each summer.

For more information about the Conductors Institute of South Carolina, click here, or contact the Conductors Institute at 803-777-7500, or email Charlene Rackley.

~  Sarah McNab, Jasper Intern

Reviews from Spoleto -- Chamber Music VI gets H.O.T. - HOT! with Cellist Christopher Costanza & Was that the Cast of The Office onstage?

I think everyone was concerned about how the Spoleto Chamber Music Series would fare once its founder the beloved Charles Wadsworth said goodbye. After seeing Geoff Nutall in action at my first chamber concert since Wadsworth’s leaving, I don’t think anyone is the least bit worried any more. (The cool-yet-sad thing? Wadsworth was in the audience and—as we learned Saturday afternoon—he will play his final public performance on the stage in the last of the series’ concerts later this week.) Nutall owned the stage offering clever banter and pertinent information in such a casual, stand-up comedy style that the audience giggled and laughed. And these audiences aren’t always the laughing and giggling types.

The Saturday program (Program VI) offered Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano featuring  St. Lawrence String Quartet’s (Nutall’s group) cellist Christopher Costanza, followed by Ginastera’s Duo for Flute and Oboe with the glorious Tara Helen O’Connor and James Smith, and finally Beethoven’s String Quartet in E Major, Opus 59, no. 1 performed beautifully by the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Before the concert, Nutall shared with the audience, via a letter written by Debussy, how much the composer hated being clumped in with the Impressionists of his era—he resented the whole extrapolation of a visual arts genre to music. This piece was written in 1914, just four years before his death of cancer in 1918. Debussy had planned for 6 sonatas but was only able to complete 3 including this sonata for cello.

OK, this is a little intimate here, but to my recollection my mind has never wondered to sex while attending a chamber music concert—until Saturday afternoon. There was something about watching Costanza and his relationship with his cello that was easily evocative of a person in the throes of pleasure. His face was beautifully expressive; his fingers, agile; his expertly calculated bowing with long and efficient strokes, delicious. Oh my.

And the music was nice, too.

Here’s the funny thing. Costanza, though certainly more attractive, looks more than a little like the character of Toby the PR person from the recently ended sit-com series, The Office. Keep this in mind. We’ll come back to it after we address the Duo for Flute and Oboe which was awe-inspiring. Tara Helen O’Connor is a master of the flute—her intonation somehow simultaneously lightly delicate while also being intense. She and her partner for this concert, James Smith—who looks a lot like Seth Meyers from SNL—demonstrated a practically perfect interplay as they called to and answered one another, locking eyes for the final few notes of the duo and ending in an authentic embrace. It was resplendent.

The final number for the concert required that the entire St. Lawrence String Quartet (SLSQ) come to the stage. This musical group is like no other quartet in their commitment to all aspects of musical interpretation—facial, physical, etc. (I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them play many times before; one of the most memorable being in 2003 at the Joyce Theatre in NYC when the quartet accompanied Pilobolus Dance Theatre for the premiere of My Brother’s Keeper, performing Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 Op. 110. The quartet also performed (unaccompanied by choreography) a piece by Jonathan Berger called Eli Eli (In Memory of Daniel Pearl.))

According to Nutall, with this string quartet Beethoven took classical music by the collar and threw it into the Romantic era, writing it in a way that would dare amateurs to try to play it. The complexity and difficulty of the piece was not lost on the audience in the Dock Street Theatre. Nor was the excitement of the accomplishment of such a difficult piece lost on the quartet whose engagement with the music is nothing short of thrilling. As usual, it was all Nutall could do to stay in his seat.

As mentioned previously, Nutall is a bit of a character. Sort of floppy haired at times with a wardrobe that looks like anything except what you would expect a first violinist in a Grammy-nominated, internationally renowned string quartet (the group is in residence at Stanford University) to look. On this particular day he wore a long sleeved shiny shirt, oddly patterned, and looking like something Michael Scott (also from The Office) might wear. When he called his colleagues onto stage it wasn’t difficult to see a family-television resemblance with Scott St. John playing the role of Dwight Shrute, Leslie Robertson playing Angela and, of course, Chris Costanza playing the part of a somewhat amorous Toby.

Even with Wadsworth watching from the audience, the Spoleto Chamber Music Series continues to be a culturally significant hoot—always full of surprises. Highly recommend.

Why You Should Go to Shows Vol. 1: Todd Snider @ New Brookland Tavern 6/2/13

I, Jasper music editor Kyle Petersen, am a Todd Snider fanboy. That probably needs to be established from the get-go. However, even a neophyte to the world of the wisecracking folkie would have enjoyed themselves last night.

Snider, as usual, took the stage with nothing but a guitar and a couple of harmonicas, and just over 90 minutes later left the stage littered with dozens of those little memories that make live music so special. Here’s a brief list of just the ones I can recall:

1)      Snider opened the show with “Is This Thing Working?,” a funny, deadpanning anti-bullying song that had the devoted crowd hooting and hollering like he was a preacher at the end of each verse.

2)      A powerful rendition of “Too Soon To Tell,” one of his best new songs that takes a grim, satirical eye towards morality, religion, and mortality.

3)      An impassioned, mid-song argument for how he never gets tired of requests, even of his dog-eared, pseudo-novelty hit “Beer Run.” I wasn’t really buying it, but it was an excellent spoken word bit to add to the performance.

4)      Snider, as he is often wont, finished out the set with requests from the audience. I’m always amused by this, because eventually people holler out enough songs that he could probably still be working from a set list anyway. This time, however, he trotted out one of my favorites, the seldom-played “Lonely Girl” about seeing his future wife for the first time when he was in rehab, and a couple of other surprises.

5)      The final song of the regular set was a request from the girl standing next to me that I was convinced Snider wasn’t going to play—the electric rocker “Cheatham Street Warehouse,” the last song on a rarities and B-sides comp—but then he sent his roadie back to van to retrieve his lyric book, and proceeded to give a mesmerizing reading of the song and make that girl’s night.

6)      Finally, and perhaps most impressively, Snider took the stage in long pants and a flannel shirt with a long sleeve shirt underneath. It was, in fact, pretty hot in New Brookland Tavern last night (I think they cut off the AC so you wouldn’t hear it over the performance) even if you weren’t under the stage lights. The songwriter never tried to remove a piece of clothing, and the result was a constant stream of sweat coming down his arms and dripping across his guitar. While most performers have to deal with heat and sweat and the like, to watch a solo performer keep his poise in such uncomfortable conditions throughout a song was impressive.

Sweat, crowd noise, odd songs that even fans might not know—those are often the reason many people don’t like going to shows. But they are truly also some of the best reasons to go too.

Here's a casual performance of one of the aforementioned songs, "Too Soon To Tell," just for kicks.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaYihBvuGsw

Why You Should Go to Shows is a projected blog series that describes the specific joys of certain live performances rather than providing a strict review of the show in question or speaking of the joy of patronage in the abstract.

Spoleto Reviews; JOHNNYSWIM and Le Grand C

The singer songwriter duo JOHNNYSWIM seemed to be as surprised to be performing at this year’s Spoleto Festival USA as we were to hear them. To their credit, neither partner in the married couple band acted as if they were too cool for school, repeatedly referencing how they had been looking forward to the gig “for months” and recalling that their last performance was at a bar in Burbank for an audience of three. This isn’t that surprising. It’s not that they weren’t good—they just weren’t quite good enough to be playing a coveted concert in the College of Charleston’s Cistern Yard. (A quick Internet search shows that the couple played SXSW in March and will have a follow-up concert in Tryon, NC tonight.)

In all fairness, Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano (daughter of disco legend Donna Summer) put on a sweet and lovely show, albeit filled with a good deal of chatter (and the show still barely stretched over 60 minutes), and they were able to mix in a few original tunes that shined. But the limitations in Ramirez’s guitar work and the lack of range in Sudano’s beautiful voice make the duo barely local venue material, much less headlining at an international arts festival. Granted, Ramirez’s strong vocals proved entertaining. And both partners are attractive with pleasant stage presence.  And certainly the setting under the moss-draped live oaks of the Cistern was enchanting.  But given that the team has only released a single EP and don’t expect to release an album for at least another 12 months, an act with a little more experience might have been more in keeping with Spoleto Festival USA quality standards.

For example, the French acrobatic company Compagnie XY who also premiered at this year’s festival with multiple shows of Le Grand C, gave a jaw-dropping performance that packed in as much detail (think carefully choreographed human traffic patterns made to look like chaos that develops into machinations reminiscent of gears and cogs in a perfectly tuned instrument) and subtlety (the gentlemen gallantly smoothing the red skirts of their fellow female acrobats who have just returned to earth from being four persons high in the air) as it did feats of daring do. With 17 performers ranging in size from several tiny-though-immensely-muscular women to a dude with a bit of a belly who clearly tops 200 pounds, the team stays in almost constant motion—sometimes performing in duos or triads or larger groups, and sometimes performing as a single unit. The clever inclusion of French music—from the haunting dirge-like composition that accompanies the opening stunt performed in subdued lighting to another series of stunts in which the entire group sings—adds tremendously to the changing character and atmosphere the group creates for the various stunts being performed.

The 75 minutes of Le Grand C fly by as quickly as the performers (literally) fly through the air in places. This is a uniquely entertaining show not to be missed.

-Cindi Boiter

Columbia native Jeff Miller's latest film premieres at the Nickelodeon on Sat. June 8th

Filmmaker Jeff Miller was sitting in a coffee shop in Los Angeles brainstorming ideas for a new screenplay. “Paul Bunyan came to me,” said Miller. “Why do people think he's so friendly? I mean, here's this giant guy that walks around carrying an axe. There could be some sinister back story there.” From that thought, Miller wrote his first draft of Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan. The film tells the story of young adults at a first-time offenders’ boot camp who discover that the legend of the giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan is real, but is much more horrifying than they could have imagined. The film stars B-movie legends Joe Estevez and Dan Haggerty (TV’s Grizzly Adams).

Miller's film will have its South Carolina premier at the Nickelodeon Theater on June 8th at 9:30 PM.

 

Miller is a Columbia native, and a graduate of the University of South Carolina's Media Arts program.  While in Columbia, he produced three horror films: Freakshow and Hellblock 13, directed by Paul Talbot, and Head Cheerleader, Dead Cheerleader, directed by Miller himself.  The success of these films encouraged a move by Miller to Los Angeles in May of 2001 to continue his filmmaking efforts. At first the experience was not what he expected. “I spent a lot of time taking meetings at studios and nothing would come from it. It felt like a waste of time,” Miller says.

Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, had also starred in Miller's film Hellblock 13.  Hansen and Miller remained friends, and stayed in touch with each other after Miller moved to Los Angeles.   “A few months after I moved to LA, Gunnar introduced me to Gary Jones.” Jones had made a name for himself working in the special effects department on films such as Evil Dead 2 and John Woo's Hard Target. Miller and Jones had lunch, and found out they shared a love of horror films.

Their first project together was the film Jolly Roger: Massacre at Cutter's Cove. The film was eventually sold, and aired on the Sci-Fi Channel.

So when Miller pitched the idea of a new twist on the Paul Bunyan tall tale, Jones was interested in tackling idea. “We started the project in 2007”, Miller explains. “At first it did not work out the way we had planned. We went back and completed many drafts of the script before eventually getting a draft we were happy with.” The pair also made a change in how they approached raising funding for the film. “I went back to the old way of how I financed my films - raising money from friends and family.”

With financing in place, production began in late 2010, and completed in early 2011. Filming took place in southern California outside Los Angeles, and on location in Ohio and Michigan. “Post production was a different process. We have over five hundred visual effects shots in the movie,” Miller explains.

The film was completed two days before its premier at the Shockfest Film Festival of Hollywood in 2012. At the festival, the film received the Audience Award for Best Film, and Miller received the Best Writing award for his screenplay.

After the festival, Miller was contacted by a company in Minnesota who offered to distribute the film theatrically. “I told him please try to get it in the Nickelodeon in Columbia.” Due to scheduling conflicts Miller won't be able to make the trip back home, but to have his latest project screen in his hometown excites him. “It's a great feeling to have it play in Columbia. I know friends and family will be excited to see it.”

Film notes:

Axe Giant: The Wrath of Paul Bunyan

Nickelodeon Theater - June 8th at 9:30 PM

Tickets are available online at www.nickelodeon.org , or at the theater box office.

~ Wade Sellers

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 2^nd, 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

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

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.

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

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

Muddy Ford Press

at the

SC Book Festival

______

Saturday, May 18^th

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 19^th

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

 

Jasper 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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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

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?")

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.

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.

 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 2^nd 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.