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The Gazette Arts Blog now is at
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Come Celebrate With Us on August 8!

August 11 will be my last day at the Gazette. The next day I'll begin a new job as director of communications for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic - and because I have so many incriminating photos of Warren, he's agreed to host a public going-away party on Friday, August 8.

Where and when? For the moment those details must remain veiled in mystery, but it will be downtownish, and after-workish.

When I get a moment, I'll write more about the change. Right now I just want to thank all those who have supported and challenged me through 15 years as the Gazette's arts writer. It's been an amazingly interesting and stimulating job, with a wonderful group of co-workers.

LIVE ARTS BLOG ABOUT THE STATE OF THE ARTS SCENE

This link, then scroll down the page a bit.

Youth rep's "Working" sets a new standard

I shook my head.

The crowd that came out for the Youth Rep production of "Working" at the FAC this weekend was mostly parents of the performers.

Shame on me for not making a bigger deal of these shows in our GO! magazine. This wasn't just some glorified high school show. The musical performances in "Working" were among the finest performances I saw on this stage all year.

Let me be clear here. I'm not saying these were the best "youth" performances I'd see here. They were among the best of any kind!

When Alexandria Cambell belted out her "Loving Al" ode to valet parkers, I figured that was it. She was the big standout this year. There's always one or two.

But then Sara Barad came on and did her way-too-authentic-for-her-years torch song to the nightclub singer, while she played along. Then Carmen Vreeman gave her lament about "Milwork," with a passionate rendition that could teach James Taylor a thing or two. Then Brendan Kane gave a monologue about retirement that, again, was so authentic, it was stunning. Then Mary Earle showed that sheer charisma and verve can raise a waitress to staggering heights. The show-stoppers went on and on.

What the heck do these kids know about working for a living? I don't know. But darned if they didn't sell this very difficult show.

You should have been there.

The next day, I wondered about these exceptional kids. Some of them, no doubt, will "make it." Unfortunately, to find their fame and fortune, they'll have to go far from the Springs, taking with them our greatest assets.

Let's hope they remember to write.

"Singing With the Stars" post-mortem

Everybody I talked to - including me - was thrilled with Jessica Gisin and Halee Towne winning the Colorado Festival of World Theatre's "Singing With the Stars" competition. (The story in Sunday's paper, alas, isn't online.) They were fantastic, and I can't wait to see what they do in September's My Favorite Things.

But everybody I talked to from the theater community - including me - was flabbergasted that Amy Sue Hardy didn't make the finals. To my ears her performance was the best of the semi-finals, closely followed by Towne's.

What happened?

One issue was the ballot: Any time you're picking a bunch of people - in this case, the audience members got to vote for six of the 12 semi-finalists - the voting will be skewed, because it doesn't reflect actual commitment. Your vote for your sixth-favorite performer counts just as much as your vote for your favorite performer. The result is that a performer who everybody thinks is okay will show up on more ballots than a performer who polarizes the audience - one whom most people love but a few people hate.

(I learned about this effect a few years ago when I was on the theater jury for Pikes Peak Arts Council awards. One year we nearly gave the Best Actress award to someone whom none of the judges thought had actually had the best year. But we could vote for three, and we all thought she'd had the third-best year, even though we didn't agree on who we liked more. Fortunately, we figured out what was going on in time to re-vote.)

(And no, I don't remember who it was.)

So Amy Sue must have been one of those polarizing performers, and I think the reason lay mostly with the song she chose: "The Sun and I" from "Hot Mikado."

It was a jaw-droppingly virtuoso performance of a virtuoso vehicle, topped off by a two-octave pianissimo upwards glissando. Vocally, none of the other semi-finalists showed as much range of tone, dynamics or expression - not even Towne, whose "The Girl in 14-G" is a tour-de-force.

But Ko-Ko, the character who sings this song in Act 2 of "Hot Mikado," is a self-engrossed young woman, and it's difficult to empathize with the self-engrossed. It works within the show because we've already learned how naive and charming Ko-Ko is, and who can blame someone who's young and beautiful for thinking she's the cat's pajamas? But without this context, "The Sun and I" comes off like a hymn to narcissism, and the virtuosity, instead of a young woman reveling in her powers, can seem like mere showing off.

This must be the impression some of the audience members got on Saturday: A glamorous woman, the best-known contestant, past winner of every prize Colorado Springs has to offer, comes out and sings a song that basically says, "look at me, I'm wonderful." Is that the classic stuck-up diva, or what? Everybody who knows Amy Sue - even barely, like me - knows how poorly that image describes her, but it's no surprise that some of the audience members didn't take to her.

First Concert in Cornerstone

Belated ruminations on the June 16 opening concert at Colorado College’s Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center...

Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915: Soprano Tony Arnold filled in admirably on short notice for an indisposed Measha Brueggesman. The student orchestra sounded radiant, and conductor Scott Yoo’s pacing was perfect. I don’t expect ever to hear a more moving performance of this exquisitely nostalgic score.

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9: I had some trepidation going in. I’d heard Yoo conduct Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 a few years back, and it was everything I dislike about modern Beethoven conducting, with all suppleness, tenderness and expressive weight sacrificed to speed and nervous energy. (It was exciting!) But there were only echoes of this approach in the 9^th Symphony, mostly in the first movement, during which the relentless forward momentum became tiresome. Otherwise, Yoo’s interpretation was brilliant, and in the adagio, revelatory.

Beethoven was the first composer to make extensive use of the metronome – a device for giving exact tempos in beats per minute in contrast to the old generalized tempos of allegro, andante, etc. But many of his markings are controversial – and none more so than his marking for this movement. At quarter-note equals sixty beats a minute, it’s quite brisk for a piece marked adagio molto y cantabile, and he curiously gives the same metronome mark a page later when the tempo designation of andante moderato suggests something considerably faster. The most probable explanation is that Beethoven wanted the pulse to be a half-note in the opening section, but a quarter-note in the andante.

But the second-most probable explanation is that Beethoven muffed the initial metronome mark. And so, until a couple of decades ago, conductors routinely ignored it. For instance, the legendary 1942 broadcast with Furtwangler and the Berlin Philharmonic has an opening tempo of a little less than half what Beethoven specified – about 58 beats per eighth-note - and lasts a tad over 20 minutes.

The problem with Beethoven’s metronome mark generally arises about two-thirds of the way through the movement, where the music returns to B-flat and the time signature changes to 12/8. At the faster tempo, the first violin part - first in 16^th-notes and then in 16^th-note triplets – tends to sound unnervingly etude-like. Yoo solved the problem by putting in practice an idea suggested by musicologist Richard Taruskin years ago (though Yoo is smart enough to have thought of it on his own): He had the violins play pianissimo, underneath the hymn-like theme in the woodwinds. Instead of an etude, the violin line became a joyful commentary.

Yoo didn’t convince me that the faster tempo is better. With music this beautiful, I’d prefer to prolong the experience, at least when musicians can sustain the line like Furtwangler and the BPO could. But unlike other performances I’ve heard at this tempo, this one worked, and worked marvelously.

Unlike the first and third movements, Yoo’s approach to the second and fourth movements was more traditional – or rather, the traditional tempos of these movements differ little from Beethoven’s metronome markings. The weakest movement was the famous finale. Yoo’s architectural grasp deserted him midway through, and the movement became sectional – a series of scenes rather than an integrated whole.

But all in all it was an amazing experience to hear how well this epic symphony worked with the Colorado College Summer Music Festival's pared-down forces. The Colorado Vocal Arts Ensemble performed the difficult chorus part near-perfectly, and mezzo soprano Shannon McGee and bass Ashraf Sewailam led the strong quartet of vocal soloists. The student performers, nearly all of whom were playing their first Beethoven 9^th, held nothing back, with especially stellar work from the woodwind players.

The tunable hall sounded great, though I’ll have to hear some other performances before commenting.

Youth rep gains great rep

I saw the Youth Rep's production of "You Can't Take It With You," Thursday night and it was delightful.

These are high school kids, but these are hardly high school productions. (The production is running in rep with the musical "Working.")

Cory Moosman directed this Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy about an eccentric, embarrassing family and what happens when a daughter's boyfriend brings his parents for a visit.

We've all been there.

Several of the actors showed the kind of promise that suggests serious acting careers await them.

Among them: Patrick Yukman, who gave me a serious case of the yuks. He played the grandpa, a man who has found joy in amusement by dropping out of society. This kid knows how to wield a one-liner like nobody's business. I also loved Katy Williams as the loopy mom, who jumps from painting to writing novels and back again in a constant effort to amuse herself.

But even the kids who weren't quite on that level managed to find moments where they could shine and do something special.

It's a show worth seeing, even if you don't have a kid in the cast.

I hope to see "Working" on Sunday. For details about the shows, check out the GO! section.

Don't miss our State of the Arts section and live blog

We have a special section coming out Sunday and a live blog with some key arts members at 2 p.m. Monday.

See gazette.com for details.

Cornerstone Theater Acoustics

A story in today's Go! section mentions the electroacoustically tuneable acoustics in Colorado College's new Cornerstone Theater. Here's more about the system - called the Constellation system - from its manufacturer, Meyer Sound.

And here's a review from somebody who's actually experienced the system.

Fascinating stuff. I can't wait to hear Monday's concert and get a first impression.

"Playboy of the Western World" and "Rabbit Hole"

This is the last weekend for TheatreWorks' student production of Playboy of the Western World - and it's well worth your time to see it.

First, J. M. Synge's 1907 play is much more than an historical curiosity. Though it no longer inspires riots as its premier did, its depiction of rural Irish life - and by extension, human nature - is still bitterly, riotously funny. And the language has a lyric beauty that's all but vanished from the world. (For reasons Synge explains in his preface to the play.)

Second, it's one of the finest student productions I've seen at TheatreWorks, with clear direction from Laura Tesman, a gorgeous Roy Ballard set, and some thrilling fights choreographed by Gene Gillette. Colin Gregory shows tremendous skill range as Christy - the mysterious stranger who's lionized in a small Irish town for having murdered his father.

Synge's play twists and turns as it explores mob mentality. The final master-stroke is both the crowning absurdity and the gateway into the play's profound ending.

Meanwhile, this is also the final weekend for the Star Bar Players' excellent production of Rabbit Hole. Playboy is upstairs in the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater; Rabbit Hole is downstairs at the Osborne Studio Theater.

If you could only attend one, I'd recommend Rabbit Hole. Its cast is more skillful and more experienced, with a performance by Steve Emily as Howie that's not likely to be bettered this year. David Lindsay-Abaire's tale of a family's reaction to the death of their child isn't likely to age as well as Synge's masterpiece, but it's still an extraordinary script in which every line and every reaction rings true.

So what accounts for the disparity in attendance between the two productions? On Thursday night, Playboy was absolutely full; when I saw Rabbit Hole on opening night, a smaller house was about two-thirds full. Is this simply a result of TheatreWorks's superior marketing and larger subscriber base? Really cheap tickets for Playboy? The fact that it has a large student cast, all of whom have numerous friends? The arguably off-putting subject matter of Rabbit Hole?

I am, as usual, mystified.

The Star Bar Players present Rabbit Hole
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Osborne Studio Theater, UCCS, 3955 Cragwood Drive
Tickets: $15/$12 seniors, military and students; 573-7411 or starbarplayers.org

TheatreWorks presents The Playboy of the Western World
When: 7:30 p.m. today, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater, 3955 Cragwood Drive,
Tickets: $10; 262-3232 or theatreworkscs.org

New Directions in Theater

Two recent shows show theater taking some encouraging new directions in the Pikes Peak region.

The first was Rebecca Buric's "Signature" at the Manitou Art Theater. Virtuoso one-person shows are nothing new at this venue; neither are new shows created by MAT producers Birgitta De Pree and Jim Jackson.

But "Signature" was developed at the MAT with Buric, a Boulder-based actress. Last year she auditioned for the annual "10 Minutes Max" show with a short monologue that impressed Jim and Birgitta so much that they (1) put "Signature" on their season calendar, and (2) then worked with Buric to turn her monologue into a full-length show.

(Jim and Birgitta are firm believers in the "schedule it and it will come" school of creation.)

"It was so satisfying," Birgitta told me. "She's an extraordinary actress, but she had no experience creating her own work."

The result was a powerful and heartbreaking piece of theater. As Aida, a young mother and victim of the Serbo-Croatian War, Buric wove together the story of Aida's last moments with old family tales, creating a marvelous sense of color, texture and place. By the end, I felt I'd been on a journey that was as much physical as it was emotional.

I doubt that Jim and Birgitta could turn my life into such riveting theater: In addition to having a story to tell, Buric is a sensational actress, with a winsome manner and a lithe, expressive body. (Aida imitating an old lady was just one of many great touches.) Though Buric played only one character, her focus was so intense that you began to see the people she was talking to.

And last week, at the 40 Thieves Hookah Lounge. Moody Mystery Theatre made its debut with a new adaptation "Alice in Wonderland."

Though the venue made even the MAT seem opulent - were some of the actors making their entrance from the restroom, or was the smoke just making me light-headed? - and piece was as raw as "Signature" was polished, this imaginative production was further cause for hope. The adaptation by director Cyndi Parr and Tammy Smith was very free with the story's details: For instance, there were three Alices, representing different aspects of her personality. But it stayed true to Lewis Carroll's spirit, especially the part of the Lewis Carroll that loved bad puns and general absurdity.

But what was most gratifying to a fogey like me was the cast and the audience. Except for veteran Danine Schell as the White Queen, this was theater of, by, and for young adults. And everything was marked by a spirit of experimentation and collaboration, with belly dancers - including the amazing Frank Farinaro - tango dancers, and drummers. In short, it was a fun, unpretentious evening of theater - just, I hope, the first of many from Moody Mystery Theatre.

Yuja Wang and Rebecca Buric

If you're reading this criminally undermaintained blog on a dreary Sunday morning, here are two hot tips for today's performing arts:

Yuja Wang, who appears with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic this afternoon at 2:30, is simply one of the most musical and technically brilliant pianists I've ever heard. I'd be there again, if I could.

Full review here.

But I can't, partly because I've had two friends call me to say how amazing Rebecca Buric's "Signature" is. Her last performance of this one-person show about war in the Balkans is today at 2 p.m. at the Manitou Art Theatre.

(I know what you're thinking - "He's a critic. He can't possibly have two friends.")