ArtsBeat

'Man of La Mancha' extended

 

John Fredo and John N. Kaczorowski star as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in MusicalFare Theatre's production of "Man of La Mancha." Photo courtesy MusicalFare Theatre. 

MusicalFare Theatre's edgy production of "Man of La Mancha," the musical based on Cervantes' "Don Quixote," has been extended for two performances, the theater announced today.

Because of audience demand, the theater will tack on two matinee performances on Dec. 5 at 4 p.m. and Dec. 6 at 2 p.m. My review of the musical is pasted after the jump.

-Colin Dabkowski

Erie County funding for the arts

This has been available for a couple of weeks now, but I want to post up the page of Erie County's proposed 2010 budget that outlines funding recommendations for arts and cultural groups. In all, the county has allocated $5,066,500 to 43 arts and culturals.

Check out the recommendations in a PDF below, or download it here.

Accentuate the positive

Anyone who's seen more than a handful of productions at Buffalo-area theaters will tell you that when it comes to accents, a select few actors can pull them off, and plenty of them can't.

It's not uncommon for a cast -- otherwise eminently capable and moving in their portrayals of German sergeants or cockney housewives -- to adopt accents that approach camp in their complete lack of resemblance to the source dialect. To my ear, and I suspect to many others, a lack of consistency in the accent department can have the effect of throwing even a fine production off-kilter. More often than not, productions that dispense with accents entirely (except in the rare case when actors have enough time and training to properly prepare) come off far better, and without that stifling sense dislocation we all experience when we hear Kevin Costner's half-hearted rendition of, say, Sir Robin of Loxley.

So it was with plenty of interest that I read a profile by Alec Wilkinson in this week's New Yorker of Tim Monich, dialect coach to the stars. It provides a fascinating glimpse into just how difficult adopting a foreign accent can be, just how much practice and discipline it requires, and how seriously Monich takes it. Here's an excerpt:

Talking theater on WECK

Last Thursday, Constance McEwen Caldwell of the Theatre Alliance of Buffalo invited me to participate in the alliance's weekly radio segment with Loraine O'Donnell on WECK AM 1230. O'Donnell, a well known local actor who recently appeared in the Irish Classical Theatre Company's production of "Blood Brothers," grilled me about the News' star rating system, my background in journalism and theater and the challenges of critiquing Buffalo's wide-ranging and diverse theater community. Download the segment here, or listen below:

TAB-102909

--Colin Dabkowski

Harold Clurman on raves and pans

This quote from wise critic Harold Clurman about the bad habits of theater critics goes just as well for film or literature, and is worth keeping in mind for audiences and critics alike:

Notices during a season follow a pattern very much like this: The season opens around September 25; on, let us say, November 2 someone will write about "the best play of the season"; on March 10 we will hear that still another is "the dramatic tops"; April 10 one hears of "a play never to be forgotten," and by May 31 the author or authors of these slightly hysterical encomiums will conclude that on the whole "it has been a lousy season."

--Harold Clurman, April 8, 1986

--Colin Dabkowski

Raw audio: State legislators on the arts

Last Tuesday, a group that included New York State Sen. Antoine Thompson, D-Buffalo, and assemblymen Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo and Steve Englebright, D-Setauket, met at Kleinhans Music Hall to talk about arts funding in a newly Democratic (and totally chaotic) state legislature. Read Tom Buckham's story on the meeting here. I'll have some more on what came out of the meeting in Thursday's paper, but for now, you can listen to the raw audio of the panel right here:

You can also download the MP3 file here.

--Colin Dabkowski

'Buddy' returns to MusicalFare stage

Joe Wiens rocked the MusicalFare Theatre stage once again Friday night as the "dork"-looking (Wiens' words) rocker Buddy Holly who changed rock 'n' roll music forever.

The musical, which started its second run at MusicalFare on July 8, has been so popular that the independent theater company tacked on an extra five shows through Aug. 1.

Wiens' childish grin and passion for music came through as authentic as the Converse All-Star hightops on the feet of the Crickets, Holly's original Lubbock, Texas-based band. From the band's creation and wild, rapid success to the infighting that plagued the relationship between Holly and his band to the tragic plane crash that killed Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens on Feb. 3, 1959, Wiens is Holly.

What Buffalo was wearing in 1951

While reseraching an exhibition of work by Martha Visser't Hooft which will accompany Wednesday's performance of "The Soldier's Tale," local art dealer Dean Brownrout came across a fascinating "review" of the 1951 Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra production of the piece in the Buffalo Evening News.

It begins by hailing the performance as "One of the most outstanding musical and dramatic presentationsit has been Buffalo's opportunity to witness." But then it launches into the apparently far more interesting business of what our city's elite philanthropists were wearing on that Friday evening at the Buffalo Seminary.

It follows:

 

--Colin Dabkowski

Tom Dudzick returns to form with new play

Buffalo-born playwright Tom Dudzick, who penned the beloved "Over the Tavern" series, stepped outside his comfort zone with "Don't Talk to the Actors" a comedy he wrote for for Studio Arena Theatre in 2007. The show, clever and well-acted though it was, failed to sell tickets. Å subsequent production at the Laguna Playhouse was panned by the Los Angeles Times.

Now, Dudzick has returned to his fertile source material with a new comedy, "Our Lady of South Division Street," which had its world premiere May 15 at Penguin Repertory Theatre in Stony Point. The show focuses on a Buffalo family whose matriarch maintains a peculiar shrine to the Virgin Mary. It's said to be based on an actual shrine on South Division Street.

Isherwood on 'Joe Turner'

 

Latanya Richardson Jackson and Marsha Stephanie Blake star in August Wilson's play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," which opened this week in New York City. Photo by Sarah Krulwich / New York Times.

Nobody gushes like Charles Isherwood, the second-string (and first-rate) theater critic at the New York Times. His review today of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," in a Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Belasco Theatre in New York City, contains the sort of fawning adulation most critics are loath to employ even for superlative productions, lest they be thought unprofessionally partisan. But Isherwood, to his great credit, busts out gushing praise whensoever he's moved to do so (for "Rock of Ages," for "August: Osage County," and so on) without a speck of regret. His enthusiasm for the show is stunning to behold, and this review is highly recommended, even for folks with no interest whatsoever in the theater.