Roundup

May

• May 1-3: Ballet Idaho presents Spring Collage of Classics. The event includes three performances: Sweet Dreams, featuring the music of Patsy Cline and the guitar concertos of Antonio Vivaldi; the Rite of Spring, an original ballet by Ballet Idaho resident Alex Ossadnik; and a new ballet by Peter Anastos that accompanies Ravel's Piano Concert in G Major. Performances are 8:00 May 1 and 2 and 2:00 May 2 and 3 at the BSU Special Events Center.
• May 1-2: The BSU Theatre Arts Department presents Les Femmes En Noir, a student dance concert, at 7:30 May 1 and 2 and 2:00 May 2 at the Danny Peterson Theatre in the Morrison Center at BSU.
  
• May 2: Tying It Together, an exhibition of drawings by Garden Valley artist James Castle, opens at the Boise Art Museum along with a short documentary about Castle, who was born deaf, never learned to read and write, and prefers to make his drawings on discarded scraps of paper and cardboard.
• Now through May 3: The College of Idaho Theatre Department presents A History of Freaks, a play about a tight-rope circus performer struggling to keep her father’s traveling circus alive. The show runs at 7:30 May 1-2 and 2:00 May 3, at Langroise Theatre at the College of Idaho in Caldwell.
• Now through May 3: The Boise Art Museum hosts a site-specific architectural structure called After, by Lead Pencil Studio architects and artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo.
• May 4-5: Boise Contemporary Theater presents a reading of Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh, about a young girl who invents a machine that can hear inaudible sounds. When the machine is stolen by a mercenary, she and the last boy virgin in 11th grade embark on a quest to find it and save noise as we know it. The show, which features a foley artist, is 7:00 at the Fulton Street Theater in Boise.
  
• May 6-9: Boise Music Week presents Brigadoon, a musical about a mysterious town in Scotland that appears once every 100 years. The show runs at 7:30 May 6-9 and 2:00 May 9 at the Morrison Center on the BSU campus.
• May 6-9: BSU's Theater Majors Association presents A Night of One-Acts, including a new play by BSU student Evan Sesek called "The Eighth Day" and David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago." The show runs at 7:30 at the Danny Peterson Theater in the Morrison Center at BSU.
• May 8: Greg Keeler performs songs and reads from his new memoir, Trash Fish, at 7:00 at the Log Cabin Literary Center next to the Boise Public Library.
• May 8: A one-person show called, "Me, Miss Krause and Joan," about an actress attempting to portray the trial of Joan of Arc while at the same time dealing with her own rape, will be performed at 7:30 at the Boise First Congregational Church at Woodlawn and 23rd Street.
  
• Now through May 9: Prairie Dog Productions presents its spoof Space Trek: The Wrath of Juan. The show runs at 7:15 May 1-2 and 8-9 and at 2:00 May 3 at Prairie Dog Playhouse at 3820 Cassia in Boise.
• May 9: The Hot 8 Brass Band performs at 7:30 at the Sun Valley Opera House.
• May 14: Playwright Edward Albee reads some of his work at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theatre at Capitol and Main in Boise.
  
• May 15: The Boise Philharmonic presents Star-Spangled Sousa! at 8:15 at the Morrison Center.
  
• May 15: Knock 'Em Dead Dinner Theatre opens Oscar Wilde's comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, about two men who become engaged to women while claiming to be the same man, named Ernest. The show runs May 15-16, 21-23, 28-30 and June 4-6 and 11-13 at the theater on 9th Street between Front and Myrtle. Show times are 7:00 on Thursdays and 8:00 Fridays and Saturdays; dinner is served at 7:00 Fridays and Saturdays.
• May 17: The Boise Philharmonic Youth Orchestra presents its season finale at 7:30 at Centennial High School.
• May 19: The BYU Chamber Orchestra performs Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Delius' The Lark Ascending; Prokofiev's Classical Symphony; and Hayden's Symphony #94, "Surprise," at 7:30 at Jewett Auditorium at the College of Idaho.
  
• May 22: Stage Coach Theatre opens Leading Ladies, a farce about two down-on-their-luck Shakespearian actors who attempt to pass themselves off as a dying woman's nieces in order to inherit her fortune. The show runs May 22-23, 28-31 and June 4-7 and 11-13 at 7:30 Thursdays, 8:15 Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:00 Sunday.
  
• May 22: Boise Little Theater opens Bleacher Bums, a play about die-hard Cubs fans rooting for their team at Wrigley Field. The show runs May 22-23 and 28-30 and June 4-6 at 8:00, May 31 at 2:00 and June 3 at 7:30.
• May 23: Boise Art Museum opens an exhibition of sculpture by Ann Weber called Corrugated. The pieces are made from cardboard, are woven into giant gourd-like spires, and are up to 16 feet tall.
• Now through May 24: The Boise Art Museum offers an exhibit of early works by photographer Ansel Adams.
• May 29-30: Dance company The Trey McIntyre Project performs at 8:00 May 29-30 and 2:00 May 30 at the BSU Special Events Center.
• May 29: Prairie Dog Productions presents My School Musical!, a spoof of High School Musical. The show runs at 7:15 May 29-30 and June 5-6, 12-13 and 19-20 and 2:00 June 7, 14 and 21.
• May 29: Starlight Mountain Theatre presents the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the story of Joseph's coat of many colors. The show runs at 8:00 May 29-30, June 5-6, 12, 15, 19, 25 and 30, and July 4 at Starlight Mountain Amphitheater in Garden Valley.
• Now through May 31: Boise Art Museum hosts Bloated Floaters, Snouted Sappers and the Defense of Empire, a series of drawings of bloated, blimp-like figures by Idaho artist Garth Claassen.

Dragging from a Cigarette

I honestly don't know if this is still in the Basement Gallery or not; I sketched it a couple of First Thursdays ago and I've just been slow about putting it up. But it's still a cool picture, so I wanted to get it up. It's called Dragging from a Cigarette, by David Colcord and Tomas Montano (together they go by rail v. y tomas). There's two things that you can't tell from my picture, though. One is that in the upper right corner, there is an old-fashioned brassy door handle affixed to the canvas. The other is that there's a poem written in the orange field in the right-hand side. (My handwriting is really crappy, so I didn't attempt that on the drawing.) It goes as follows:

DRAGGING FROM A CIGARETTE
and nodding her head
in self-reassurance
she tries to convince me
of the omnipresence
of angels
how they are always there
but can't be seen.
She doesn't look
like a smoker
and not quite
like the angels
I've imagined,
but I've inhaled her whiskey smoke
on hundred times
and have been
saved
by her image
in restless sleep
many more times
than I deserve.

Our Town

I should probably start out this review by pointing out that I am no fan of the script for Our Town. I just had this conversation last night with a friend of mine who went to Our Town. Neither of us really understand how the play got its "classic" status. A couple of years ago, I reread the play -- which I think I'd picked up a free copy of when an English professor of mine was retiring and cleaning off his shelves -- and when I was through, I donated it to the library. Anyone who's seen my bookshelves and knows what a bibliophile I am knows I don't like to part with books I enjoyed reading. The script's third act is actually quite good, but in terms of payoff, it's way too little, way too late. You have to wade through a lot of latitude and longitude readings and geological samples and descriptions of gardens and family discussions about allowances and tedious gossip about the choir director to get there. Grover's Corners is, as the characters themselves say, a rather dull place. And the entire play is about Grover's Corners. That makes the script rather dull.

That said, BLT's production of it has some very nice moments, particularly at the end of the second act and the start of the third. Geneva Stevahn did a terrific job as Emily Webb. She had a lovely nervous energy around her crush, George Gibbs (Josh Cormier), in the first act, and was excellent in the second act as a panicked bride suddenly struck with the magnitude of what she's getting into. Amber Ellis (Mrs. Webb) and Stevahn had some great exchanges and did a wonderful job establishing their mother-daughter repoire. Cormier was a little weak in many of his scenes earlier in the play, but did a fine job in the funeral scene.

Andy Neil was quite good as Dr. Gibbs, especially in the funeral scene. Debra Southworth had a bright enthusiasm and charm as Mrs. Gibbs that made her scenes delightful to watch. Cary White was excellent as the drunk and jaded choir director Simon Stimson. Bruce Bellamy developed a very funny character as a doddering old professor attempting to give a history of Grover's Corners via its geology. The children in the play -- Chandler Prohl, Hayden Fowers, Leah March -- executed their parts with aplomb. (Hey kids! If you happen to come across this review, "aplomb" is a good thing.)

However, I was a little disappointed in the Stage Manager, Jeff Chapman. He had a very sing-songy cadence to the delivery of his lines -- a rhythm he fell into that he never deviated from. The cadence made it difficult to really pay attention to what he was actually saying. Also, the rhythm he used involved a tendency for his voice to trail off at the end of each sentence, making it difficult to hear the final words. Audibility was not a huge problem for me; I could usually still make out the words, and even if I couldn't I could get it from the context -- but it's something to think about for people in the audience with hearing aids (of which there always seem to be a few). I heard feedback from at least one person in the audience changing their hearing aid levels during the middle of the show, so I know volume was a problem for some people. Mostly, for me, it was just another annoying part of the cadence -- distracting from what he was saying -- and as the Stage Manager, the narrator, he had the biggest line load and the responsibility of explaining everything in the show. It was vital to be able to both hear and pay attention to him. I saw Chapman in Plaza Suite and he was absolutely fantastic, so it's a shame he wasn't as strong in this show.

The Movie Game

I won't be doing a formal review of The Movie Game at Stage Coach Theatre, since I'm running sound and movie clips for it. But I want to encourage everyone to come see it -- it's very funny, very cute and the cast is doing an awesome job. It runs at 7:30 Thursday and 8:15 Friday and Saturday in Hillcrest Shopping Center.

(Updated with times of final three shows.)

Once On This Island

Once On This Island at Knock 'Em Dead Dinner Theater is a little bit of a mixed bag of a production, but it has some wonderful song and dance numbers and tells a beautiful story. The show enters its final weekend this week.

The story is sort of like a fairy tale set on an island in the French Antilles, an island divided between the upper-class descendants of settlers on the one side and the indigenous peoples and their capricious gods on the other. It follows the tale of a young orphan girl, Ti Moune (played at different ages by Eve Angelyne Seguin Du Haime and Rachel Dickerson), who falls in love with a young male aristocrat, Daniel (Daniel Greif), and nurses him back to health after he gets in a terrible car accident on her side of the island. The gods -- Asaka, Mother of the Earth (Starla Bender); Agwe, God of Water (Scot Fetters); Erzulie, Goddess of Love (Megan Tucker); and Papa Ge, Demon of Death (Ben Clegg) -- make a wager among themselves. Erzulie bets that Ti Moune's love for Daniel will survive the long trek across land and water and even defeat death. Ti Moune makes a long journey to find Daniel again, but finds social class boundaries are sometimes harder to cross than geographic ones.

It's an untraditional narrative style for a musical. Much of the time, it's more like the cast is telling you a story than acting it out for you. And when they are acting, it's often with an equally unusual style. This is most noticeable with the characters of the gods; the four actors use a lot of caricature and broad gestures to convey who they are. But overall, it works, and the actors did a fine job telling the story.

Dickerson is the lead, and she has a pretty singing voice for some of her numbers, but in others she's awfully quiet. It seems like the part she's singing on a few of her solos is a little bit out of her range. Greif seemed to run into the same problem on some of his solos. The problem areas tended to be on romantic ballads that were a little slower to begin with, and without powerful voices behind them, the songs came off as a bit dull. Fortunately, the show had many more raucous, lively numbers. My favorite was easily "Mama Will Provide," sung by Bender, who has a powerful, energetic and gorgeous voice. I also loved the dance number during "The Ball" -- it was fast-paced, high energy and well-choreographed.

Tim Schmidt did a great job on the set. The palm trees and bright leaf cutout panels helped evoke the right mood for the show.

Knock 'Em Dead typically has some of the best-costumed shows in Boise, and most of the costumes for this show were excellent -- bright, vivid island prints and flowing fabrics for the indigenous peoples and the gods; starched white trousers setting apart the aristocrats. And then there's Papa Ge, whose wearing these same island prints, plus a black leather vest and a black cowboy hat. For reals. He looks a little like he came to the island by way of a cowboy-themed gay bar. His makeup was good, though -- it made him look deathly.

I've been a little harder on the show in my review than it deserves. It's actually a really good show. It's definitely not your run-of-the-mill musical, it's got some great numbers, and it tells a great story.

Roundup

April

• April 5: Boise Master Chorale presents "And None Shall be Afraid": A Plea for Peace in Five Movements, and Mass of the Children at 2:00 at First United Methodist Church/Cathedral of the Rockies on 717 11th St. in Boise.
• April 9-12: Idaho Dance Theatre presents Full Throttle at 8:00 April 9-11 and 2:00 April 12 at the BSU Special Events Center in Boise.
• April 10: Stage Coach Theatre opens The Movie Game, a romantic comedy about Jack, a movie-loving slacker whose therapist suggests he become the leading man in his own movie. Things spiral out of control when an over-the-top director casts his family in the film and Jack falls in love an engaged woman. The show runs April 10-11, 16-19 and 23-25 at 7:00 Thursdays, 8:15 Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:00 Sunday.
  
• April 10: Boise Little Theater opens Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The play runs at 8:00 April 10-11, 16-18 and 23-25, 2:00 April 19 and 7:30 April 22 at the theater on Fort Street in Boise.
• April 10: Music Theatre of Idaho opens its production of the musical version of the Mark Twain story The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The show runs April 10-11 and 16-18 at 7:30 and April 11 at 1:30 at the Nampa Civic Center.
  
• April 11-12: Boise Baroque Orchestra and Boise Master Chorale present Bach's "The Passion According to St. John" at 7:30 at Jewett Auditorium at College of Idaho in Caldwell on April 11 and at 2:00 at First United Methodist Church/Cathedral of the Rockies on 717 11th St. in Boise on April 12.
• April 13: Boise Contemporary Theater presents a reading of By the Waters of Babylon, a romance about an encounter between a widow with a painful past and a Cuban novelist who has immigrated to Texas and become a gardener.
• April 16: BSU's Theatre Arts Department opens The School for Wives by Moliere. The show runs 7:30 p.m. April 16-18 and 22-25 and 2:00 April 20 and 26 at the Danny Peterson Theatre in the Morrison Center.
  
• April 17-18: The Boise Philharmonic performs Iberia! Music from Spain and the Basque Country at 8:00 Friday in the Swayne Auditorium at NNU in Nampa and at 8:15 Saturday at the Morrison Center at BSU in Boise.
• April 17: Prairie Dog Productions opens its spoof Space Trek: The Wrath of Juan. The show runs at 7:15 April 17-18, 24-25, May 1-2 and May 8-9 and at 2:00 April 19 and 26 and May 3 at Prairie Dog Playhouse at 3820 Cassia in Boise.
• Now through April 18: Starlight Mountain Theatre presents Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. The show runs at 7:30 at April 4, 10-11, and 17-18 at The Star theater at 1851 Century Way in Boise.
• Now through April 18: Knock 'Em Dead Dinner Theatre presents Once on This Island, a musical featuring calypso music about a young peasant girl who is sent on a journey by the gods to test the strength of her love even in the face of death. The show runs March 20-21, 26-28, and April 2-4, 9-11 and 16-18 at 7:00 Thursdays and 8:00 Fridays and Saturdays, with dinner served at 7:00 Fridays and Saturdays. The theater is located on 9th Street between Myrtle and Front.
• Now through April 18: Starlight Mountain Theatre opens the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. The show runs March 13-14, 20-21 and April 3-4, 10-11 and 17-18 at 7:30 at the Star theater at 1851 Century Way in Boise.
• April 23: The College of Idaho Theatre Department presents A History of Freaks. The show runs at 7:30 April 23-25 and April 29-May 2, and 2:00 May 3, at Langroise Theatre at the College of Idaho in Caldwell.
  
• Now through April 26: Boise Art Museum hosts Higher Ground, a juried art exhibit of works by Boise and Meridian high school students.
• April 26: The Boise Philharmonic presents its Encore! chamber concert at 3:00 at the Basque Center at Sixth and Grove in Boise.
• April 28: Alexander McCall Smith reads some of his works at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theater at Capitol and Main in Boise.
• April 30: Vestal McIntyre, the author of You Are Not the One, reads some of his works at 7:00 at the Log Cabin Literary Center next to the library on Capitol Boulevard.
  
• Now through May 3: The Boise Art Museum hosts a site-specific architectural structure called After, by Lead Pencil Studio architects and artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo.
• Now through May 24: The Boise Art Museum offers an exhibit of early works by photographer Ansel Adams.
• Now through May 31: Boise Art Museum hosts Bloated Floaters, Snouted Sappers and the Defense of Empire, a series of drawings of bloated, blimp-like figures by Idaho artist Garth Claassen.