June 4, 2013 - 6:38 PM
Last week, I spoke with accomplished theater director Pam MacKinnon, a Clarence High School grad who is up for a Tony Award this weekend for her direction of the hit revival of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" for a story running later this week. Here's a snippet of our conversation, in which MacKinnon talks about the driving force of the play and her musically inflected approach to directing:
--Colin Dabkowski
June 4, 2013 - 4:03 PM
The 23rd annual Artie Awards ceremony was held Monday night in the Town Ballroom. Above, the cast of MusicalFare Theatre's "The Music Man" performs a medley of songs from the show. Mary Kate O'Connell, founder of O'Connell and Company, received the annual Career Achievement Award. Below are the winners, with links to News reviews of the productions:
Play: “August: Osage County,” Kavinoky Theatre.
Musical: “Next to Normal,” Irish Classical Theatre Company.
New play: “Seeds,” by Donna Hoke, Road Less Traveled Productions.
Ensemble in a play: “From the Mississippi Delta,” Road Less Traveled Productions.
Ensemble in a musical: “ ’S Wonderful: The New Gershwin Musical,” MusicalFare Theatre.
Direction of a play: Dan Shanahan for “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Torn Space Theater.
Direction of a musical: Fortunato Pezzimenti for “Next to Normal.”
Actress in a play: Sheila McCarthy for “August: Osage County.”
Supporting actress in a play: Kelli Bocock-Natale for “August: Osage County.”
Actress in a musical: Jenn Stafford for “Next to Normal” and Maria Droz for “Knuffle Bunny.”
Supporting actress in a musical: Amy Jakiel for “Rent,” MusicalFare Theatre.
Actor in a play: Brian Riggs for “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches,” Subversive Theatre Collective.
Supporting actor in a play: Victor Morales for “On the Waterfront,” Subversive Theatre Collective and New Phoenix Theatre.
Actor in a musical: Brian Mysliwy for “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Kavinoky Theatre.
Supporting actor in a musical: Patrick Cameron in “Next to Normal.”
Costume design: Todd Warfield for “L’Imitation of Life,” Buffalo United Artists.
Set design: Kenneth Shaw for “The Borrowers,” Theatre of Youth.
Choreography: Michael Walline and Doug Weyand for “ ’S Wonderful: The New Gershwin Musical,” MusicalFare Theatre.
Lighting design: John Rickus for “The Clean House,” Road Less Traveled Productions.
--Colin Dabkowski
June 3, 2013 - 3:23 PM
May 31, 2013 - 12:39 PM
It is, as usual, an extraordinarily busy weekend for art in Buffalo. Here are a three events/exhibitions I didn't have a chance to fit into Gusto this week:
A piece by Adam Weekley is on view on "Chroma" at 464 Gallery.
"Chroma," opening at 6 p.m. today at 464 Gallery on Amherst Street, is timed to coincide with Buffalo's annual Pride celebration and features work by several Western New York artists who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. The show includes pieces by Brian Dickenson, Mickey Harmon, Tommy Nguyensmith, Alexandra Spaulding, CJ Szatkowski, Adam Weekley, 464 owner Marcus L. Wise and others. It runs through June 5.
"Righting on Copper," an exhibition featuring work by the prolific and protean Buffalo painter Sarah Myers, will officially open a new art space on Grant Street. The exhibition space was established by the ambitious community activist group PUSH Buffalo in its headquarters (known simply as "The Center") at 271 Grant St.
Addison Richmond and Katie Sheffield re-create Claude Monet’s "Le bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie verte (The Water Lily Pond, Green Harmony)," an 1899 painting from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris during Art Alive 2012. Photograph by Tom Loonan.
Art Alive, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's annual competition featuring teams of students and adults re-creating famous works of art from the gallery's collection and elsewhere, takes place on Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. on the gallery grounds.
--Colin Dabkowski
May 30, 2013 - 3:21 PM
By month:
June | July | August | September
By venue:
Artpark | Bear's Den, Seneca Niagara Casino | Braun's Concert Cove | Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf | Coca-Cola Field | Chautauqua Institute | Darien Lake Performing Arts Center | Erie County Fair | Gratwick Riverside Park, North Tonawanda | First Niagara Center | Holiday Valley, Ellicottville | Labatt Canal Concert Series | Riviera Theatre | Seneca Allegany Events Center, Salamanca | Seneca Events Center, Seneca Niagara Casino
*Free (Note: Paid fair admission needed for free concerts at the Erie County Fair).
May 30, 2013 - 2:51 PM
"June in Buffalo, Morty?"
That was John Cage, at the very first of the extraordinary State University of New York at Buffalo Festivals publicly chiding and teasing his old friend Morton Feldman for supposed pretentiousness. They were together talking to music students about whatever might be on their minds.
What Feldman had done in creating the summertime New Music festival is still one of the highlights of Buffalo's annual music season today. What Feldman was creating was, in fact, intended to be an annual New Music festival like the famous festival in Darmstadt, Germany. Many would say it has long since passed it.
But the very name "June in Buffalo" couldn't possibly be more typically Feldman. It's from the same style of generic matter-of-factness that characterizes so many of Feldman's titles for his works: "Violin and String Quartet," "Piano and Orchestra," "Five Pianos," "Violin and Orchestra" (which is about to be released in two weeks in a rather brilliant new recording on the ECM label.)
Ever since the festival began 38 years ago, it has done--brilliantly--what Feldman envisioned it doing: drawing the cream of New Music composers and performers to Buffalo to perform and interact with advanced State University at Buffalo music students.
Nothing could be more appropriate than beginning this year's festival with the performance of a work by Morton Feldman, the festival's creator and early guiding light (until his tragically early death in 1986). Tonight's concers --which expects to sell out--will begin at 7 p.m. in a most unlikely but rather wonderfully Buffalonian venue, at One M&T Plaza, more familiar as a home to downtown pop music affairs. What will be performed will be the entirety of Feldman's "String Quartet No. 1" in performance by festival resident musicians the JACK Quartet. (RSVP's are recommended at 716-645-0624.)
Tomorrow's concert will include performances of Iannis Xenakis' "Kottos for Solo Cello," Roger Reynolds' "imAge/E and imagE/E," Edgar Varese's haunting solo flute piece "Density 21.5" arranged for Theremin Cello by Jonothan Golove, Elliott Carter's Sonata for Cello and Piano, selections from Gyorgi Ligeti's "Etudes" and the world premiere of Eric Wubbel's new work "Psychomechanochronometer" which was commissioned with support from the Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. Soloists for the concert will be pianist Eric Huebner, cellist and Theremin cellist Jonathan Golove. The concert will take place at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow in Slee Hall at the State University at Buffalo.
Saturday's Slee Hall concert will feature the Talujon Ensemble performing Brian Ferneyhough's "Fanfare for Klaus Huber," Charles Wuorinen's "Marimba Variations," Marc Mellits' "Gravity," Ross Bauer's "Echometry" and Xenakis' "Okho."
The finale of the festival June 9 at 2:30 p.m. will feature solo pianist Geoffrey Burleson and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta. It too will take place in Slee Hall.
--Jeff Simon
May 30, 2013 - 12:42 PM
Bon Jovi fans get a chance for a second dose of their favorite rockers when the band returns to Western New York for An Evening With Bon Jovi at 7:30 p.m. July 23 in the Darien Lake Performing Arts Center.
Tickets are $65, $95, $125 and $175 reserved seating and $35 lawn (with $99 lawn four-packs) and go on sale at 10 a.m. June 10 through www.livenation.com, www.ticketmaster.com or charge by phone at (800) 745-3000.
May 30, 2013 - 12:35 PM
