Images from O-Town: Clyde Butcher

Opening Saturday at Orlando Museum of Art, the first-ever showing of the new exhibit by the lifelong environmentalist and photographer: Clyde Butcher: Big Cypress Swamp and the Western Everglades.

Cattle Call: Who needs sets?

Yep, it's Our Town over at the Osceola Center for the Arts. But then it's Bye Bye Birdie. Be deep or be sweet. It's wide open.

Auditions for Summer Shows
Our Town
Directed by Ron Colburn
auditions: April 25 & 26 from 6-8pm
showdates: June 18-27 (Studio Theatre show)
audition info: be prepared to do a cold-read from the script

Bye Bye Birdie
Directed by Jeremiah Krivinchuk
auditions: June 20 & 21 from 6-8pm
showdates: August 6-22 (Main Stage show)
audition info: be prepared to sing 16-bars of a song, read from the script, & learn a short dance

First Shot: I can’t let go

Hear now a couple of status updates on stories I love covering on this blog. (Preoccupation? Obsession? It’s up to you to decide!)

The legal dustup over The Runaways -- my surmising of which was confirmed by a helpful, clued-in talkbacker – continues even as the movie opens in major markets today. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Joan Jett’s lawsuit against former bassist Jacqueline “Jackie Fox” Fuchs got thrown out in California, but may be brought anew in New York. (Fuchs allegedly tried to halt the project, though the bass player in the movie is a “composite character” of the band’s numerous four-stringers, not a straight-up faux Fox.)

A highlight of THR’s coverage: Fuchs is a bit more formidable than the average biopic complainant because she’s now an entertainment lawyer herself, with a Harvard degree under her belt and experience at Columbia and Miramax. Gotta give Jett credit for brass balls: Suing an entertainment lawyer over a movie is like kicking a cop, but without the fun visual.

The most unintentionally humorous aspect of the THR story, though, is its mention of the Runaways producers having pursued “music publishing rights that would be necessary to include the band’s hit songs in the film.” Hey, I feel as charitably toward the Runaways as the next survivor of the stack-heeled ’70s, but … “hits”? There’s “Cherry Bomb,” and then there’s … um … well, let’s just say there’s a reason the only other track heard in the movie’s trailer is Jett’s cover of “Crimson and Clover,” which she released as a solo artist two years after the group collapsed. Because nobody sitting in the audience at Regal is going to hear a few bars of “Dead End Justice,” feel the wheels of memory click into place, and blurt out, “Oh, I gotta see this bitch! That’s my life up there on the screen!”

Meanwhile, Hollywood is all atwitter trying to guess which autopilot project Tim Burton is going to pick next. Deadline Hollywood Daily swears it’s a stop-motion version of The Addams Family; MTV, quoting Burton’s people, says nope, pinning its bets on an equally obvious remake project like Dark Shadows. What’s funny here is DHD claiming that Burton’s purported Addams pic will take its inspiration straight from the Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons and not any of their subsequent TV and movie adaptations – which, as I’ve previously pointed out, is the party line taken by everybody who ever lands the rights to this property. And which is always bullshit.

In New York, for instance, where the Addams Family musical is now in previews in advance of its official Broadway opening April 8, TV and radio ads that formerly had a soundtrack only of pounding rain and howling wolves now prominently feature Vic Mizzy’s finger-snapping theme music from the 1960s TV series. Purism goes out the window when the reviews from your Chicago tryout reveal that the vast majority of the public wants what the vast majority of the public has already indicated it wants. Yet The New York Post’s Michael Riedel is now dishing that the extensive fixes made to the show haven’t been enough, and that the Addams musical will be “dead” after summer tourist season is over.

Then again, if you saw the doc Show Business a few years ago at the Florida Film Festival, you’re still cherishing the schadenfreude-drenched spectacle of Riedel blithely predicting a similar fate for … Avenue Q.

Don’t worry, Michael: Even if you turn out to be dead-assed wrong, nobody can sue you for it. I know, because Jackie Fox told me.

Now in theaters and galleries, update 3.18

Update 3.18.2010

Continuing shows

Auspicious Vision
From the 1910s to the 1950s, Edward Wales Root, a New York Sun reporter, bought pieces from emerging artists who went on to create some of the most significant art of modern times. Root’s collection, on tour from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y., sizzles and thrills the viewer with paintings from artists Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and dozens of others. (through May 23 at the Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 E. Princeton St.; $4; 407-246-4278; www.mennellomuseum.org)

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)
Director Richard Width has cast a trio of seriously funny actors: Will Hagaman (he of the lean and hungry look), Jay Hopkins (he of the Droopy Dawg comportment) and Christopher Prueitt (he of the … bald pate and black-velvet pantaloons). Appearing as themselves when not donning various wigs and costume pieces in order to portray dozens of Shakespearian denizens, the three clowns ad-lib, throw in modern references, talk to the audience and show as little respect as possible toward the Bard’s original intentions. you will leave the theater with your head spinning violently out of control, but your funny bone deliriously exhausted. (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through April 3 at Garden Theatre, 160 W. Plant St., Winter Garden; $18-$22; 407-877-4736; www.gardentheatre.org)

Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera
The range of styles, techniques and media is overwhelming, but it’s the faces that grab your attention: the fierce expression G.K. Warren captured in his 1876 portrait of Frederick Douglass; the ironic 1978 “Smokin Joe Ain’t J’mama” staged by Hank Willis Thomas; the intense expressions on the girls in Carrie Mae Weems’ 2003 “May Flowers From May Days Long Forgotten.” (through May 30 at the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona State College, 1200 W. International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach; free; 386-506-4475; www.smponline.org)

Maidens and Monsters: The Art of Science Fiction, Adventure and Fantasy
The debut of the local Korshak Collection of vintage American artworks combines original paintings and drawings alongside copies of the pulp magazines and books that featured them as illustrations. The legendary artists include J. Allen St. John, N.C. Wyeth and Frank Frazetta. (through April 18 at Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, 633 Osceola Ave., Winter Park; $5; 407-647-6294; www.maidensandmonsters.com)

Man and the Machine
Viewing the side-by-side curation of rare Cold War–era American and Soviet Union posters from the permanent collection inspires questions of how vintage political art can be interpreted in the new millennium. The U.S.A. artists tended to work in chiaroscuro and expressionism, while the Soviets used primary colors and photomontage to forceful effect. But both sets mask rather than illustrate the political truth of the times. (through summer at Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park; $5; 407-646-2526; www..rollins.edu/cfam)

Cattle Call: The Big Apple bites back

Tired of saying that you're better than this town and thinking that the only city that would get you is the mythical New York (not, you know, Spike Lee's New York, of course; more like Friends' New York)? Wanna prove it?

WHO:                  The prestigious New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts comes to Florida to hold open auditions and offer scholarships to new young aspiring talent in Orlando
 
 
WHAT:              Open auditions for the 2010-2011 school year
 
 
WHERE:            Hilton at Walt Disney World Resort
                                1751 Hotel Plaza Blvd.
                                Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
                               
 
WHEN:               Saturday, March 20th, 2010 
                                8 a.m. – 2 p.m.

After the announcement, they go on to list a number of famous alumni, including Matthew Fox, Lauren Graham and Travis Wood, who they boast "appeared on the hit reality show, “I Wanna Be A Soap Star.”

No reason your name can't be on that list.

First Shot: With great power comes power of attorney

Man, I love it when a plan comes together.

You don’t have to be a long-time reader of this blog to know that creators’ rights, messy litigation and the chance to embarrass well-funded entertainment conglomerates are three of my favorite things – right up there with raindrops on roses and Asian feeder porn.

So what better news could a new week bring me than an announcement that the heirs of the late Jack Kirby – better known as The Greatest Comics Artist Who Shall Ever Draw Breath – are going through with plans to nab their rightful share of the greenbacks that Disney and a few other companies have been raining down on Kirby’s old “employer,” Marvel Entertainment?

By now, just about everybody knows that Kirby was at the very least the co-creator of the lion’s share of Marvel’s iconic characters – as involved in their genesis as the infinitely more self-promotional Stan “Story Conference by Post-It Note” Lee. Well, Disney’s recent acquisition of Marvel has triggered the latest salvo in a decades-long battle for control between the latter and the Kirby clan, who couldn’t have picked a better moment to pop up like righteously indignant jacks-in-the-box.

Wait: Better make that gleaming, metallic jacks-in-the-box, with ornate plastic headdresses and stances roughly twice the width of their shoulders. (Because a story like this lives or dies on the visual.)

Kirby’s estate has filed suit against Marvel, attempting to establish joint ownership of a whole host of the publisher’s creative properties. And the “joint” part is where things get interesting.

The Kirby side’s lawyer in this affair is one Marc Toberoff, who in a similar case got the courts to recognize that, while DC Comics might own Superman, the heirs of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster control certain other essential character elements -- like flying, Krypton, The Daily Planet and a bunch of other stuff Glenn Beck would like to incorporate into his autobiography.

Likewise, the most curious passage in The Hollywood Reporter’s story on the Kirby case states that “the estate's court action could give it the ability to license competing versions” of the characters in question.

In other words, a Kirby-approved Fantastic Four movie could be put into production in a manner that entailed direct competition with a Marvel-licensed one. And thus for the X-Men, Thor, the Hulk, the Silver Surfer, ad excelsior.

Sound ludicrous? Tell it to the 75 bands that have been legally entitled to call themselves Foghat. Or ask everybody who thought he had exclusive rights to the plot of Ian Fleming’s Thunderball. (When your Dad dies, look carefully in the middle drawer of his old oaken desk: Odds are, he has a valid claim lying around, too.)

What makes this latest example of divided intellectual property all the more pertinent is that it directly reflects the modus operandi of the latter-day superhero business. For about a quarter century now, the bread and butter of mainstream comics has been to float simultaneous “reimaginings” of the most profitable characters. Which is why Batman can be seen brooding it up in modern-day Gotham City on one store shelf and skulking around Victorian London a few feet away in the graphic-novel section. It’s also how a licensee like Sony can “reboot” the Spider-Man movie franchise less than five years after scoring a box-office bonanza with its previous iteration. It’s as if the entire audience had gained superhuman powers of forgetfulness and/or divided attention in a freak nuclear accident.

And now the bandwagon is being hopped on by somebody with an actual creative claim on the material. Ask me how much I love that. Hell, I’ll gladly shell out some hard-earned dough for a Kirby FF movie – it would almost have to be better than the “real” thing. Make mine Marvel!

(Note: “Mine” does not imply ownership in whole or in part, but may reserve the plaintiff’s right to claim emotional distress at a later date. See: California v. Ratner, attached.)

Ends: That's just the title; it's happening on time.

This is an incoming notice about a free reading at the Winter Park Playhouse. Enjoy!

You're invited to the FREE reading of the brand new and original musical comedy, DELAYED; written by Elaine Pechacek and Katie Hammond!

Katie and Elaine have been working on "DELAYED" for the past six months and are so incredibly proud to be sharing it with the Orlando community for the first time.

Please come and support this new show, as we debut it for the first time in full to an audience in the form of a reading. There will even be a band! While it is still a work in progress and we'd love your attendance and feedback! There will be a reception after the reading and we'd be thrilled to have you join us.

Featuring the VERY talented:

Summer Aiello
Christine Decker
Charles Gray
Sarah Hanchar
Matt Horohoe
Ryan Kim
Meghan Moroney

The reading will begin at 8pm on Monday, March 15, 2010.

WINTER PARK PLAYHOUSE
711 North Orange Avenue
Winter Park, FL 32789

For more information on the show, please visit www.pechacekhammond.com or contact Elaine Pechacek at 321-662-2311

Now in theaters and galleries

Update 3.12.2010


Opening

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)
It was back in 1997 that Richard Width first appeared in what was then billed as The Compleat Works of Willm Shakspr (Abridged). As we reported a dozen years ago, “He played the surfer-dudish blond with an obsession for wigs and a queasy stomach in the comedy that condensed 37 Shakespeare plays into two hours of witty vignettes.” Now, in what is billed as Width’s farewell to Orlando, the accomplished director-writer-actor-educator puts his experienced grasp on the comedy he knows intimately before departing for the Garden State. We know in our hearts he’ll be back soon. (8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through April 3 at Garden Theatre, 160 W. Plant St., Winter Garden; $18-$22; 407-877-4736; www.gardentheatre.org)

Final week

Alba – Paintings of Scotland
Local painter Allan Cody-Rapport displays his series based on the mythic mists of Scotland, into which he projects a spiritual essence informed by the romantic lore. One longs to see this artist more out of control, less brand-conscious and truly driven to dig into the forces only hinted at in these exquisite paintings. (through Saturday, March 13, at Neu America Art Gallery at CityArts Factory, 29 S. Orange Ave.; free; 407-648-7060; www.cody-rapport.com)  

All's Well That Ends Well
Artistic director Jim Helsinger renders a delightfully full-blooded version of the Bard’s romantic fantasy about a servant girl who falls hard for an aristocrat. Marni Penning as the lovelorn Helena is radiant; Eric Zivot is perfect as the sly Parolles; Steve Hendrickson’s king is powerful; and Brandon Roberts, as the clown, and Anne Hering, as the scheming countess, bear much of the heavy comic lifting. (through Sunday, March 14, at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, 812 E. Rollins St.; $20-$38; 407-447-1700; www.orlandoshakes.org)

Bach at Leipzig
As directed by Kevin G. Becker and Seth Kubersky of Empty Spaces Theatre Co., playwright Itamar Moses’ witty spoof is a whirlwind of facts, fugues, sight gags, double-entendres and ironic references. The closest the title character comes to making an appearance is through his music, as a handful of forgettable German composers vie against the unseen Bach for the prime job of organist at Thomaskirche. (through Friday, March 12, at Lowndes Shakespeare Center, 812 E. Rollins St.; $20; 407-328-9005; www.emptyspacestheatre.org)

Hamlet
From the opening scene, in which the king’s ghost levitates out of the floor in a sea of fog, to the final fencing duel, director Richard Width has crafted a supremely theatrical show stocked with energy and accessibility. As the titular prince, Avery Clark is no emo moper. (through Saturday, March 13, at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, 812 E. Rollins St.; $20-$38; 407-447-1700; www.orlandoshakes.org)

Topdog/Underdog
In Suzan-Lori Parks’ 2002 Pulitzer Prize–winning play, two brothers find themselves shackled together in an uneasy alliance of dashed hopes and unfulfilled ambitions. Director Be Boyd has staged a compelling and ferocious version of the drama, starring two University of Central Florida students, A.C. Sanford (Lincoln) and David Tate (Booth). Both actors give deeply felt and impressively moving performances, tearing into Parks’ expletive-laden script with youthful abandon coupled with a mature understanding of the inner lives of these two sympathetic losers. (through Sunday, March 14 at Mad Cow Theatre, 105 S. Magnolia Ave.; 407-297-8788; $22; www.madcowtheatre.com)

Continuing shows

Auspicious Vision
From the 1910s to the 1950s, Edward Wales Root, a New York Sun reporter, bought pieces from emerging artists who went on to create some of the most significant art of modern times. Root’s collection, on tour from the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y., sizzles and thrills the viewer with paintings from artists Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and dozens of others. (through May 23 at the Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 E. Princeton St.; $4; 407-246-4278; www.mennellomuseum.org)

Double Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera
The range of styles, techniques and media is overwhelming, but it’s the faces that grab your attention: the fierce expression G.K. Warren captured in his 1876 portrait of Frederick Douglass; the ironic 1978 “Smokin Joe Ain’t J’mama” staged by Hank Willis Thomas; the intense expressions on the girls in Carrie Mae Weems’ 2003 “May Flowers From May Days Long Forgotten.” (through May 30 at the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona State College, 1200 W. International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach; free; 386-506-4475; www.smponline.org)

Maidens and Monsters: The Art of Science Fiction, Adventure and Fantasy
The debut of the local Korshak Collection of vintage American artworks combines original paintings and drawings alongside copies of the pulp magazines and books that featured them as illustrations. The legendary artists include J. Allen St. John, N.C. Wyeth and Frank Frazetta. (through April 18 at Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, 633 Osceola Ave., Winter Park; $5; 407-647-6294; www.maidensandmonsters.com)

Man and the Machine
Viewing the side-by-side curation of rare Cold War–era American and Soviet Union posters from the permanent collection inspires questions of how vintage political art can be interpreted in the new millennium. The U.S.A. artists tended to work in chiaroscuro and expressionism, while the Soviets used primary colors and photomontage to forceful effect. But both sets mask rather than illustrate the political truth of the times. (through summer at Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, Winter Park; $5; 407-646-2526; www..rollins.edu/cfam)

Theater review: 'In the Heights'

In the Heights
Presented by Fairwinds Broadway Across America
Through March 14 at Carr Peforming Arts Centre
407-849-2020 or 407-423-9999
www.orlandobroadway.com
www.intheheightsthemusical.com
$38-$70

by Seth Kubersky

In the Heights introduces audiences to Washington Heights, a heavily Hispanic neighborhood on the northern end of Manhattan, where the corner bodega is the cornerstone of the barrio community. Orphaned store owner Usnavi (Kyle Beltran, re-creating the role originated by composer/lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda) serves café con leche and cares for his loudmouth little cousin Sonny (Shaun Taylor-Corbett) while pining for Vanessa (Sabrina Sloan), the beautiful beauticians' assistant in the neighboring salon, who dreams of escaping her alcoholic mother. 

Across the street, Kevin and Camila Rosario (Oscar Cheda and Natalie Toro) slave away at their car service in order to send their daughter Nina (Arielle Jacobs) to Stanford, but she has folded under financial pressure and fled home, falling into the arms of African-American family friend Bennie (Rogelio Douglas Jr.). On an infernal Independence Day eve, the block's beloved matriarch Abuela Claudia wins $96,000 in the lottery; the windfall will fulfill lifelong dreams, but may forever fracture this tight-knit extended family.

I approached the performance without any prior familiarity with the score or story, knowing it only by its inspiring rags-to-riches story: Author Miranda created the original version as a Wesleyan University undergrad and saw it shaped through workshop and off-Broadway stagings into a Best Musical Tony Award–winning Broadway sensation.

So I went in with no preconceptions but high expectations, which were initially met. Set designer Anna Louizos' fantastic forced-perspective, multistory tenement (like Avenue Q's set on steroids) with the George Washington Bridge in the background makes a breathtaking first impression. And Howell Binkley paints it with layers of lovely summer light.

I appreciated the bilingualism built into the show's DNA, from the pre-recorded curtain speech on. Opening night, the jokes en español raised loud laughter from the rear rows while the upper-crust orchestra sat silent, showing the class/language connection is still alive and well in Orlando.

The upbeat score welds lyrically dense softcore rap (think Fresh Prince meets Eminem) with infectious rhythms and blistering brass borrowed from the dances of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil and other Latin American cultures the characters come from.

Andy Blankenbuehler brings his So You Think You Can Dance–style to the stage, with choreography that is ethnically eclectic and athletic. Most of all, the cast is so exuberant that you can't help but embrace them. Without exception, they are all compelling singers and kinetic dancers; each obviously exudes honest elation at performing this material.

So I feel sad saying that, as much as I wanted to warm up to In the Heights, I was ultimately left fairly frio. After a half-dozen spirited but unmemorable musical numbers, I noticed a predictable pattern developing: a character breaks into an expository song spelling out their entire backstory, delivering it full bore, directly at the audience, climaxing in an awkwardly punctuated ending.

A choppy transition then leads to another stiffly staged dialog scene, with every beat in Quiara Alegría Hudes' barely adequate book easily anticipated; it's an after-school-special spin on West Side Story without the Jets. Characters don't invoke their agency to push the plot forward; mostly they simply express established emotions over and over again.

In the end, none of the plot threads are satisfyingly resolved in a conclusive way.

“Make sure you remember the flavor of home” is a fine platitude if you're Dorothy in Oz, but it's an insufficient solution for the serious socio-economic issues that this shows invokes, only to then dance around.

Most of In the Heights' flaws flow from its sophomore origins showing through the seams; a skilled director should have been able to stitch them closed. How Thomas Kail got a Tony nomination for this I'll never know.

Fringe and cringe

Last night’s Fab Fringe Fundraiser at the Shakes' Goldman Theater had its surprises, and we're not complaining. The entertainment was as good as Funky Monkey's garlic mashed potatoes.

Fab Fringe moment: As promised, car-accident-injured and still quite fabulous Fringe producer Beth Marshall rolled out in her wheelchair with a sedately dressed Patrick Flick of Orlando Shakes. (We like his jester costume and liveliness on the troupe’s TV commercials.) Originally scheduled to co-host, the two did their parts to explain the continued intercourse between the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival and PlayFest before they turned the stage over to "Wayburn Sassy" and his almost female foil, "Didi Panache."

Fab cringe moment: Obviously someone forgot to tell Wayburn and Didi that there were high-schoolers in the crowd, because he wasted no time turning loose his signature crotchety and crotch-centered humor. Those of us in attendance won’t soon forget where he said to slide that credit card. Ouch! (And people used to wag their tongues about Michael Wanzie?)

Fab Fringe moment: Obviously someone finally did tell Wayburn Sassy who was in the audience, even though it was near the end of the show. And he felt like shit and said so (and more) when he returned to the crowd. Wayburn, you are very, very funny and made us laugh, but some of us can’t relax when we know there’s a baby in the bar. Excellent comeback on the auctioneering, though.

Other elevated performances by upcoming Fringe acts:

• Becky Fisher and her backup trio advised, in song and chorus, prospective Fringe performers about the “vampires” that suck out your creativity and confidence.

 • Janine Klein’s full-throated, tousled-haired ode to a Gay Bar Star (the title of her Fringe show) was slightly upstaged by her tight-tush assistant.

• Willy Marchante’s wicked choreography for his Casting Shadows dancers was wonderfully creepy.

• And, of course, the resilient cast of Orlando Youth Theatre brought on the years, er, tears with their rendition of "Seasons of Love" from their Fringe production of Rent. It left a sweet taste even in Sassy's mouth, we're sure.

Ends: No, really, this one is about ends.

It's a shame, the recession and all. Looking to put a human (if a bit nerdy) face on things? Urban Think! Bookstore is closing on March 31. Here's the letter they've sent out.

We are sorry to have to inform our customers and supporters that we will be closing Urban Think! Bookstore at the end of this month. After nine wonderful years, the hard financial facts involved in running an independent bookstore in the current economy is a reality that we are unable to constantly try and meet. As well, the ways in which books are purchased and read by people in today's technological climate presents a challenge that does not lend itself to supporting a brick-and-mortar store such as Urban Think!

What began as a small store established in the Autumn of 2001 evolved into a durable neighborhood institution that offered great books, stimulating events, and a commitment to the cultural enhancement of Thornton Park. In those ways, we succeeded mightily, and we sincerely thank our loyal customers for those opportunities.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The legacy of Urban Think! Bookstore will be manifested in the Urban Think! Foundation, which was founded in April of 2008, and it has become a very successful and meaningful charitable organization. While supporting various community programs, it also supports the acclaimed Page 15 literacy initiative directed by Julia Young. (Page15.org)
The Urban Think! Foundation is part of the future planning process, and we envision that the space will be used to support and enhance the Foundation's mission. Stay tuned for further announcements!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Meanwhile, we are having a huge clearance sale of all our stock. Stop in and see what we have to offer, at some really great discounts... up to 35% OFF all stock!
Children's books, fiction, non-fiction ... it's all priced to move, so come in and pick up some great additions for your library.

Thank you !