Curb Cup

I just wanted to highlight something that's going on this weekend, but didn't make it into the calendar. Curb Cup is an afternoon of performances by 130 groups from 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30 along 8th Street in downtown Boise. The performers will range from bands and dancers to improv comedians and magicians to hula hoopers and jump ropers to muralists and dramatic troupes.

The Awesome '80s Prom

If you decide to go check out the Daisy's Madhouse production of Awesome '80s Prom, I recommend you dance.

Don't go to Awesome '80s Prom for the script. Half the time, there isn't one -- it's got a very loose storyline and is mostly improvised.

Don't go for the deep characterization. This is about high school in the '80s, and as groundbreaking as Breakfast Club was, most of the characters in Awesome '80s Prom stick to the other film-making conventions of the period -- they divide up pretty neatly into brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses and criminals.

Don't go for the plot. Sure, there's a few little plot devices, like the happy ending for the nerds (I'm not giving anything away there. You all would have seen it coming a million miles away). But there's not much more than that.

But do go to dance. Go to talk to the actors and see how they ad lib. Go to vote for prom king and queen and influence the show's outcome.

It's much more fun if you dance. In a way, I got to relive high school for a night. But I got to be someone else. In high school, I didn't dance with the bad boys. I didn't sneak a drink from anyone's flask at prom. I didn't get invited to Dungeons and Dragons night. The cheerleaders certainly never screamed with delight when they saw me coming. That all happened at Awesome '80s Prom, and it happened because I danced.

The cast -- Leta Neustaedter, Jared Hallock, Eric Cole, Andrea Haskett, Katie Preston, Erin Van Engelen, Terry Heying, Tony Dragatoyu, Dan Aalbers, Valerie Baugh, Erin Westfall, Lee Vander Boegh and Brandon Bilbao -- do a creditable job of improvising and ad libbing. It's an impressive skill to see an actor do well, so even if there isn't much to the plot or the character development, it is fun to see the cast all reacting as their characters would to anything you say to them.

Awesome '80s Prom runs for one more night at 8:00 Aug. 29 at the El Korah Shrine on Idaho Street across from the Record Exchange. Costumes are optional.

Roundup

August

• Now through Aug. 14: Starlight Mountain Theatre presents The Boyfriend, a musical romantic comedy about an heiress who poses as a secretary and falls in love with a delivery boy who happens to be the missing son of the wealthy Lord Brockhurst. The show runs at 8:00 Aug. 8, 11 and 14 at Starlight Amphitheater in Garden Valley.
  
• Now through Aug. 15: Starlight Mountain Theatre presents Annie Get Your Gun, Irving Berlin's musical about Annie Oakley and her romance with the trick shooter in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The show runs at 8:00 Aug. 12 and 15 at Starlight Amphitheater in Garden Valley.
• Aug. 17: Starlight Mountain Theatre opens the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The show runs Aug. 17, 19 and 21 at 8:00, Aug. 7 at 6:30 and Aug. 28-29 and Sept. 4-5 and 11-12 at 7:30 at Starlight Amphitheater in Garden Valley.
• Aug. 21 and 29: Daisy's Madhouse has apparently decided to do the loosely scripted, partly improv show Awesome '80s Prom on these dates, but has not yet announced times or locations and as yet has no information about it on their MySpace page. Keep checking their page for details.
  
• Now through Aug. 22: Starlight Mountain Theatre presents Footloose: The Musical, based on the hit movie from 1984. The show runs Aug. 7, 10, 13, 18, 20 and 22 at 8:00 at Starlight Amphitheater in Garden Valley.
• Aug. 28: Stage Coach Theatre opens Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, a comedy by Mitch Albom about a tabloid reporter tracking down the story of two Alabama duck hunters who believe they shot an angel. The show runs Aug. 28-29 and Sept. 3-6 and 10-12 at 7:30 Thursdays, 8:15 Fridays and Saturdays and 2:00 Sunday at the theater in the Hillcrest Shopping Center breezeway at Orchard and Overland.
  
• Now through Aug. 28: The Idaho Shakespeare Festival presents The Mystery of Edwin Drood, an interactive musical mystery in which the audience gets to decide who killed the title character. The show runs Aug. 8-9, 13-14, 18-19, 22-23 and 27-28 at 7:00 Sundays and 8:00 Tuesday-Saturday at the theater on Warm Springs in Boise.
• Now through Aug. 28: Glenns Ferry Theatre presents Let Him Sleep 'til it's Time for His Funeral on Aug. 7, 14, 21 and 28 at 7:45 (dinner starts at 6:30) at 128 E. Idaho Ave. in Glenns Ferry.
• Now through Aug. 29: Glenns Ferry Theatre presents Blazing Guns at Roaring Gulch on Aug. 8, 15, 22 and 29 at 7:45 (dinner starts at 6:30) at 128 E. Idaho Ave. in Glenns Ferry.
• Now through Sept. 20: Boise Art Museum opens an exhibit called Devorah Sperber: Threads of Perception. Sperber arranges spools of colored thread in such a way that, when viewed through an optical device, recreates a famous work of art.
• Now through Aug. 30: The Idaho Shakespeare Festival presents Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's comedy about Sebastian and Viola, twins who are separated in a storm at sea, and the misplaced affections and mistaken intentions that ensue. The show runs Aug. 7, 11-12, 15-16, 20-21, 25-26, and 29-30 at 7:00 Sundays and 8:00 Tuesday-Saturday at the theater on Warm Springs in Boise.
• Now through Oct. 11: 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 Nov. 8: 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 Nov. 15: Boise Art Museum presents Kid Stuff, an exhibit of art geared toward children by artists Deborah Barrett, Alexander Calder, Michael Corney, Benjamin Jones, Marianne Kolb, Marilyn Lanfear, David Gillhooley, Marilyn Lysohir, Renda Palmer and others.