2007-04 Vital Source Mag – April 2007
Andrew Bird/Apostle of Hustle @ Alverno’s Pitman Theatre, April 21
Announcing that the audience at Alverno’s Pitman Theatre was about to experience the venue’s only ‘rock’ show of the season, opening act Apostle of Hustle began their set. It was filled with punchy banter from front man Andrew Whiteman, flippant statements on politics, co-eds and drug culture and lots of new material from their latest release National Anthem of Nowhere. The set swapped southwestern indie rock sounds with indie pop rock, pleasing fans, intriguing first-time listeners and warming the crowd well for the headliner. Chicagoan Andrew Bird (whose music is based on the excellent combination of big sounds and big words) returned to Milwaukee for his first ‘big-venue’ appearance at the Pitman Theatre (his previous Milwaukee shows have been at the former Gil’s Café and the Miramar Theatre). And while Whiteman may have dubbed the evening a “rock show,” true-blue Bird fans knew they were in for much more than that. Armed with his latest collection of songs from Armchair Apocrypha, his two touring pals Martin Dosh (drums, keys) and Jeremy Ylvisaker (guitar, bass) from Minneapolis and two of the coolest amps ever created by Chicago luthier Ian Schneller – a single horn shaped like a gramophone and a double-spinning-horn amp called a “Janus Horn”– Bird and company created a stunning mini-orchestra. Bird hushed the audience with his whimsical croon, sparkling, world-famous whistle and glockenspiel combination, and his amazing ability to layer guitar and violin via a sampler. Bird even shook off his shoes, giving himself easier toe-push access to the buttons on his sampler, arranging a base of guitar, then plucked up his violin, setting his Janus amp a-spinning to bow his way through renditions of “Fiery Crash” and “Imitosis.” He later took it solo with “Masterfade” (the audience helping him along with his brain-farted lyrics) and “Dr. Stringz,” dedicated to his nieces and from his television appearance on kids TV network Noggin. Bird pulled the show together by weaving in stories about his travels in France and how they were the partial inspiration for his new material. “Plasticities,” he said, is a song born from a breakfast of oatmeal and accompanied by four looped songs in a topsy-turvy French hotel, while an attempted car-parking in Bordeaux before a show gave us “Heretics.” Storytime ended and Bird finished up the set with material from The Mysterious Production of Eggs (“Skin Is, My” and “Tables and Chairs” ) and “Scythian Empires” from Armchair. The audience, picture-perfect up until now, politely hushed during songs and wildly cheering in-between, couldn’t resist any longer as a few made their way down the aisle, dancing and twirling to Bird’s literary indie symphony. VS To view more images from the show, click HERE.
Apr 24th, 2007 by Erin Wolf
A Walk In The Woods
A park bench seems innocent enough until you get it on stage. What might casually be seen as an unsuspecting piece of furniture in its aural habitat takes on a whole new personality when it is placed in front of an audience. In Edward Albee’s Zoo Story, a bench is a silent witness to murder; it may as well be an accomplice. In Mark St. Germain’s Ears On A Beatle a park bench bears witness to meetings between FBI agents whose values slowly shift. And in Lee Blessing’s Walk In The Woods, a park bench takes center stage in the impressive space of the Broadway Theatre Center’s Cabot Theatre. The bench in question is Swiss. It sits on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland in the mid-1980s. Scenic Designer R.H.Graham sculpts the ample space of the Cabot’s stage into a grand sylvan setting. The ground is very earthy and organic. The trees are stark vertical lines far in the background and there is a winding path leading off the stage on the left. It is here that two men meet, away from the conference, to hammer out a few agreements involving weapons that could wipe out most of the life on the face of the planet. Peter Reeves plays John Honeyman, an American. Robert Spencer plays the Soviet Andrey Botvinnik. Relying entirely on two actors playing two characters for an entire story can strain any feature-length play. Thankfully, Reeves and Spencer develop a rapport within Graham’s script that is interesting enough to swiftly carry four scenes with relatively few tiresome stretches. At the beginning of the first scene, we are seeing two people who have just met and begun working with each other. They’ve been hired by opposing employers and both want to work out an agreement. Honeyman is a young, lean and bureaucratic man who seems to want to meet success in negotiations for the sake of his own achievement as a professional negotiator. Botvinnik is an older gentleman who has been working away at brokering an arms agreement between the U.S. and the USSR for a number of years. He wants to get to know Honeyman as a human being. Much of the appeal of the play unfolds in the first scene as Botvinnik tries desperately to reach Henyman’s human side so that they can talk like normal human beings. Any appeal that the rest of the play holds resonates from that first scene. Spencer’s charisma here is much the same as it was in the Milwaukee Rep’s production of Tuesdays With Morrie some time ago. Spencer has a gift for portraying wise older man with diligent ethics and complex personalities. Reeves plays the straight man with such ferocity here that his suspicion of Botvinnik is palpable. With Spencer’s precise execution of Honeyman’s smart professionalism, it’s easy to side with his suspicions. Maybe Botvinnik’s efforts to reach a more friendly level of rapport with him are actually an attempt to control him. As the conversations play out, it is […]
Apr 23rd, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
Ears on a Beatle
John Lennon mastered the deceptively simple genius of finding his own voice and speaking with it. He spoke it deftly and frequently enough to have made quite a few people uncomfortable over the years and some of these people were in rather prominent positions in the U.S. government. As a result, Lennon was trailed by the FBI for a number of years. Agents were assigned. Reports were written. A stage comedy about this could be done a lot of different ways. With Ears On A Beatle, playwright Mark St. Germain delivers a competent script that mixes some clever bits of comedy with an overall natural sense of drama about two FBI agents assigned to trail John Lennon. Under the direction of frequent Rep actor Jonathan Smoots, Next Act Theater closes its season with an enjoyable production of the hit comedy. St. Germain chose for the play to follow the two FBI agents over an extended period of years. Next Act Producing Artistic Director David Cescarini plays Howard Ballentine, the older, more cynical agent who’s been on the job for a very long time. Ryan Schaubach plays younger, more idealistic FBI agent Daniel McClure, who goes undercover as a young hippie. This sets up a youth/experience theme that sees cynicism slowly change hands between generations as the ‘70s slowly fade-out into the ‘80s with the death of Lennon. The story is painted in fairly broad strokes, but that doesn’t make it any less compelling than a more intricate plot might have been. For the most part, we focus on the two agents and their lives and their interactions with each other. Other characters appear in the production as rendered in dialogue. J. Edgar Hoover is a silent character in the play, making his presence known subtly throughout the story. It was Hoover’s FBI that opened the file on Lennon in the first place. Dialogue ranges from very obvious jokes about the nature of work at the FBI to very, very subtle moments passing between two agents in idle conversation. Lennon himself is evident in so much of the dialogue, but nowhere is he more present than St. Germain’s depiction of the era of which he was a part. Cescarini brings his usual charisma to the role of Agent Ballentine. It’s a sympathetic portrayal of a public servant who just happens to be following around one of the most popular musicians of the 20th century. Cescarini has an impressive presence in any role and his performance here is no exception. His sympathetic portrayal of a practical conservative who comes to an understanding about the man he’s being paid to follow has a great deal of depth to it. Schaubach plays McClure as the nice guy who comes from a proud military family but gets shifted off to the FBI instead. He seems to believe in the idealism of his country, but understands that there’s a moral code that it doesn’t always live up to. His idealism outweighs his patriotism, leaving his personality […]
Apr 2nd, 2007 by Russ Bickerstaff
The Decemberists’ Chris Funk
Anyone with even a minute awareness of The Decemberists would find it challenging to resist asking guitarist Chris Funk all kinds of ridiculousness, like the random “What’s your favorite Western?” or the general “Why are you guys so fun?” But, it takes only one spin of anything in their catalogue to understand – Guitarmageddon, stage antics and official drink aside – that they are indeed serious musicians. With Guitarmageddon, stage antics and official drink considered, however, perhaps “serious about music” would be a better phrase. Multi-instrumentalist Funk, who personally handled acoustic guitar, banjo, bouzouki, dulcimer, electric guitar, hurdy-gurdy, pedal steel and percussion on 2006’s The Crane Wife alone, is fresh off a European tour and at home in Oregon, a state whose spectacle and character lured him from the Midwest over a decade ago. “I felt like I had done all I could do,” says the Indiana native. “I wanted to move out to Oregon to play music, for some reason.” Portland may now be the hub for a list of acts just as extensive as Funk’s performance credits, but, he adds, “at the time it wasn’t known as a musical city, and not a music-industry city by any stretch of the imagination.” Intuition paid off for Funk, who has toured with The Decemberists for around six years, a substantial tenure. During that short span, they have cultivated an active community of fans and released four LPs and five EPs (including two online exclusives) to critical kudos. As impressive as that sounds, to Funk, it only means that he, vocalist Colin Meloy, keyboardist Jenny Conlee, bassist Nate Query and drummer John Moen simply “happen to find ourselves in a rock band that people marginally care about.” The understating Funk knows that “blowing people’s minds is really difficult to do these days” and that not many since Jimi Hendrix have accomplished anything of the sort. “I’m not saying our band is doing it; I don’t think our band is,” he says. Yet sitting somewhere between Hendrix and today’s Top 40 are The Decemberists. So what are they doing exactly? “We’re a pop band and that’s about it.” It’s clear that Funk is realistic, even while contributing to a group especially keen on narrative, mythology and folklore. That being said, The Decemberists aren’t your trendy, textbook cool, or even a particularly marketable band, which is why signing Capitol Records to push their new release last year, instead of their alma mater Kill Rock Stars, was a potentially risky move. Thankfully, outside of the inevitably larger venues and increased ticket prices, corporate pitfalls have been innocuous thus far to the quintet, who places “serving music” above all else. “The responsibility is initially with yourself,” Funk explains. Integrity will prevent the release of anything they’re “not into” in the future, regardless of what label is driving their deadlines. “When we make a record, we feel an unspoken responsibility to make ourselves happy and entertain ourselves.” The Decemberists are celebrated for their over-the-top theatrics and […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
April 2007
April 3rd The Academy Is… Santi Fueled By Ramen Boys Like Girls Boys Like Girls Red Ink/Columbia Brandi Carlile The Story Columbia Chevelle Vena Sera Epic Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Rough Trade/World’s Fair Fountains of Wayne Traffic and Weather Virgin Kings of Leon Because of the Times RCA Los Straitjackets Rock en Espanol, Vo. 1 Yep Roc Maxïmo Park Our Earthly Pleasures Warp Andy Partridge Monstrance Ape House/Ryko Static-X Cannibal Reprise Timbaland Timbaland Presents Shock Value Paul Wall Get Money – Stay True Atlantic The Waterboys Boy of Lightning U.K. – Universal April 10th Army of Me Citizen Doghouse Blonde Redhead 23 4AD Bright Eyes Cassadaga Saddle Creek Coco Rosie The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn Touch & Go From Autumn to Ashes Holding a Wolf By the Ears Vagrant Grinderman Grinderman Anti-/Epitaph Guster Satellite EP Reprise Nekromantrix Life is a Grave & I Dig It! Hellcat/Epitaph The Terrible Twos If You Ever See an Owl Poquito/Vagrant April 17th The Comas Spells Vagrant Avril Lavigne The Best Damn Thing RCA Page McConnell Page McConnell Legacy Nine Inch Nails Year Zero Nothing/Interscope The Old Soul The Old Soul Friendly Fire Priestbird In Your Time Kemado April 24th Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare Domino Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart Drag City/Caroline Cowboy Junkies At the End of Paths Taken Zoe/Rounder The Electric Soft Parade No Need to be Downhearted Better Looking Gus Gus Forever Groove Atack Kalli While the City Sleeps One Little Indian Mando Diao Ode to Ochrasy Mute Midnight Movies Lion the Girl New Line Patti Smith Twelve Columbia The Veils Nux Vomica Rough Trade/World’s Fair
Apr 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
The 2007 WMSE Rockabilly Chili Contest packed quite the punch
As predicted, the 2007 WMSE Rockabilly Chili Contest lived up to its rollicking title on the opening day of April. Despite some inclement weather, the event overflowed the hall and showcased some remarkable 38 chili recipes from area restaurants and cooks. This reporter could only make it through 13 lucky bowls before my stomach wanted to crawl under the cool of the front porch to die. Many great exotic and innovative elements were sampled, along with a few misses and two comforting bowls of Wisconsin-style chili (minus noodles). For the first time in the event’s five-year history, the “People’s Choice” award for meat chili ended in a tie between Wicked Hop and Meat and Metal! from 964 votes. Each chili recipe was a dark and thick brown affair, with a medium kick and a smoldering finish. The winner in the veggie chili category was Stacy Stangarone of Annona Bistro, whose Sweet Potato and Black Bean chili was the buzz on the crowd’s lips. Despite the popular theory that a recipe closely following the middle of the road with the crowd’s tastes would win, in this category the unique idea appealed best. Stangarone’s recipe still tastes very much like a regular chili, but is lifted up to a higher level with certain key ingredients. Crawdaddy’s alligator sirloin based chili was a stewed affair with a light taste. Alligator, by the way, tastes a lot like turkey. Rush-Mor/Palomino probably had the most elaborate affair with their green chili. After plating, the dish was topped with cornbread crumbs and a small lime that was then eyedropped with everclear and set aflame. Mehrdad Dalamie, of VITAL Source and Bremen Café fame, racked up 22 ingredients in his spicy yet thorough concoction, while Solly’s Grille came through with a gorgeous piece of road food good enough for Route 66. One of the most consistent vendors was again Mary Krimmer from Soup’s On! who put out both meat and veggie versions of tremendous character and verve. Koppa’s and Fuel Cafe were some of the first to run out. Sarah Kordus stood under the daunting banner of the reigning champions’ corner, and luckily her batch was as good if not better than last year. Another buzz had gone through the room about Fuel’s veggie batch, which bravely used relatively unknown wheat gluten known as seitan. Often used as an alternative to tofu, it gave the taster the distinct feeling they had just eaten meat-based chili. Finally, one of my favorites was from the Riverwalk Bistro. Billed as “Chorizo and shortrib chili,” it was similar to the two meat winners but provided a little more texture and smokiness than the others I sampled. The event appeared to perfectly serve the exposure satisfaction for WMSE and the vendors. Cold Pabst beer in cans was a favorite spice quaffer, steel guitar music ruled the airwaves and rumors were confirmed that WMSE is securing an even bigger venue for next year’s event. Keep watching http://www.wmse.org/ for final complete tally results, and […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Brian Jacobson
The Arcade Fire
“World War Three, when are you comin’ for me?” Win Butler of the Arcade Fire poses the question in Neon Bible, which is saturated with natural disasters, social unrest, fundamentalist discontent and the toxic emissions from celebrity culture. Arcade Fire opens its mouth to the world, attempts to swallow it, digest, then spit it back out for our benefit. Fortunately, they pull off the huge feat of addressing cultural and global issues without needing to be punk and without sounding anthematically ridiculous. Stadium act they still are not. Rather, the band has worked on crescendo-ing their status and sound not by venue, but by orchestrating the music into sweeping, gothic proportions which, given their choice of instruments – a pipe organ, accordion, hurdy gurdy and the addition of a military choir and a Hungarian orchestra – seems perfectly appropriate. With a grandiosity that exceeds the debut, Funeral, Neon Bible sweeps in with the sinister staccato rumblings of a piano akin to a cold front before a summer storm, thundering alongside windy string arrangements. Tracks dodge between orchestra pit pop and rock epics, finding gospel-influenced ballads tagged with southwestern brass along the way. As Neon Bible reflects on the situation of “us versus the world,” it comes dangerously close to compacting too much doom and gloom into an album that was definitely meant to deliver a blow, not a nudge; after awhile, the same bruise gets punched. The only respite from the global explosion of chaos is the closing track, “No Cars Go” (re-recorded from a previous EP). The Arcade Fire may have favored ending high and hopeful with a message more about running to freedom than running from global assault.
Apr 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
Unintended consequences
By Jon M. Gilbertson Sweden apparently values a well-rounded education for its children. That’s probably why Emil Svanängen – the man who releases modestly constructed, eminently beautiful albums under the curiously affectionate name of Loney, Dear – was playing clarinet when he was 8, then playing piano and fronting a jazz trio in his teens. Even after a few years of less directed musical pursuits, he got a bit of help from Jönköping, the town where he grew up. “I got a computer from my hometown,” Svanängen says. “They started to rent them out for the citizens, and that is how I got the opportunity to have one. I started recording with it and real cheap equipment and making record after record, and suddenly, I had a fourth record ready.” That record, Loney, Noir, initially came out in 2005, and in much the same manner that Loney, Dear records had always come out. Svanängen had played and recorded the entire album himself, largely in his apartment or in his parents’ basement. Then he transferred the stuff to CD-R’s, put together some cover art and sold the things. And he was fine with doing that. “I was quite happy, and I wanted the music to spread, but I wasn’t chasing anyone to release it,” he says. “It was living on its own as it was. The only pressure came from myself. I could sell albums the day I was finished and it wasn’t a problem. It was a good situation to check out how people could react to the music.” In one of those rare occurrences of pleasant serendipity, however, the good music of Loney, Dear went further than Svanängen had intended. It started getting attention in the Swedish press, and the British imprint Something In Construction released the third Loney, Dear album, Sologne, in 2006. And that March, Svanängen visited Austin, Texas to perform – with a full band, no less – at the South By Southwest music festival. “Our manager wanted us to go there, and that made a change for us,” he says. “He’s more interested in progress than I am. That is where things started happening.” Shortly thereafter, Svanängen got an e-mail from Tony Kiewel, the head of A&R at Sub Pop, the deservedly famous indie label that introduced Nirvana and Postal Service to the world. The label wanted to work with him, and he, in turn, was ambivalent toward the label. “I got a record deal in the mailbox and I didn’t sign it for five weeks because I was kind of afraid of it,” he says. “I think I was afraid of too much touring and tough jobs. They wondered what had happened to the deal.” He did sign, and so it was that Loney, Noir finally got its stateside release this February. It’s the sort of record that should do better on an indie than on a major: its songs deal in small-scale majesties, in slow build-ups to moments of exquisiteness and the magnificent […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Burning hearts and sharp tongues vie for a higher state of bean
The definition of what makes the best chili – or even just a great chili – is always in dispute. Mostly, the disagreements are over a few particular ingredients and the level of capsaicin (or heat) warranted by any number of chili peppers or powders. On the national competition level, winning recipes posted by the ICS (International Chili Society) in the past two years used a combination of eight different chili spices per pot. No doubt, chili can be a serious business. But from the sounds of the local contenders in this year’s WMSE 5th Annual “Rockabilly Chili Contest,” it’s all in fun. “I like challenges,” says Glenn Fieber, owner of Solly’s Grille. “It’s a fun thing and great exposure for a good cause.” “There’s so much enthusiasm there,” says Sarah Kordus of Koppa’s Fulbeli Deli. “It meant a lot to me and it was for a good thing.” “We all love food,” says WMSE radio host and contest starter Richard Stuntebeck, “and this is a great way to get exposure for the radio station and for the restaurants.” As the conversations with four of the 30-plus participating chefs wear on, however, some spirit of the showdown begins to slip out. “Yeah, I really would like to win,” admits Stacy Stangarone, owner of Annona Bistro. “I have a twin sister, so I’ve always been a competitive person.” Almost everyone has a gimmick or touch of flair planned for the Sunday afternoon event that again promises to pack the Harbor Lights Room of downtown Milwaukee’s O’Donnell Park. Some will offer buffalo as their meat, while others top their chili with a shot of Jack Daniels. Some employ chocolate and a squirt of vinegar, or abide simply with sides of cornbread, cilantro and sour cream. Stangarone’s recently developed veggie chili combination “is a riff on sweet potato and black bean.” Kordus insists that the three kinds of specialty sausage made at Koppa’s on Milwaukee’s East Side and two different kinds of bean were paramount to their Meat Category victory last year. Solly’s will use chorizo and just enough poblano pepper for “a happy burn.” Gene Gallistel of Riverwest Co-op was on the team that won best veggie chili last year and thinks that their red chili sauce – which is not tomato-based – contributed to their win.“It’s just slightly spicy and slightly sweet. We’re working from three separate recipes and cooks, so we pick and choose from that. Even though it’s the same base, it’s unique each time,” says Gallistel. And one entry might even contain alligator meat, according to WMSE’s Stuntebeck. This speculation began in January, when many of the interviewed contestants, organizers and chiliheads partook in another large contest held to raise money for Camp Heartland at Serb Hall. Many participants in the upcoming Rockabilly event also participated in the Heartland chili event, which made it a kind of spring training scouting report. It also gave some the extra chance to gauge audience preferences and adjust accordingly, which can be […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Brian Jacobson
A Few Questions Answered
By Nate Norfolk I’ve worked in a wine shop for almost nine years and there are many questions customers ask me over and over again. So I thought that there would be no better forum to answer these reoccurring quandaries than this article. I hope you find the information useful, and if you personally have anything wine-related you would like to ask me, feel free to send me an email at nate@downerwine.com. Why do wine labels say “Contains Sulfites”? Are sulfites bad for you and do they give you a headache? What are they, exactly? Sulfites are produced by all grape-based wines naturally during fermentation. Even with no addition of outside sulfites, wines still contain them. Some people are intolerant of the stuff, especially asthmatics. If someone were allergic to sulfites, the consumption of any kind of dried fruit, especially apricots, could be fatal. Most wine contains somewhere between 10 and 200 parts per million of sulfites, with white wines typically having a higher concentration. But sulfites alone can’t always be blamed for giving wine drinkers headaches. The wine induced-headache is more likely caused by dehydration or a reaction to histamines that naturally occur in red wines. Over 99 percent of commercial wineries add a small amount of sulfites to their wines solely for the sake of preservation. Without a small amount, most wine would turn into vinegar within a few months. The U.S. is one of the few countries that have a mandatory sulfite labeling law. So keep in mind, if you buy wine in Europe and it doesn’t say that it contains sulfites, it’s not necessarily because they aren’t there. Can you buy a truly high quality wine for $10 or less? If so, what do you recommend? I think there are great wines in the $10 range. That’s best thing about wine right now – there is so much of it and the competition among the cheap brands is fierce. I’m personally a huge advocate of Spanish wines in this price range. That’s where I think the best value to quality ratio is. A few favorites are Borsoa 2005 Tempranillo/Garnacha at $8, Tres Ojos 2004 Garnacha at $8 and Navarro Lopez 2001 Crianza Tempranillo at $11. If you see a low-priced bottle of wine with the same high Wine Spectator, e.g., professional rating as an expensive bottle, are they of the same quality? This depends. For instance, you might see a bottle of Merlot from Napa Valley that is rated 92 points and costs $15, and maybe it’s right next to different bottle of Merlot from Napa Valley that is rated 88 points and costs $45. In this instance, the less expensive of the two is supposedly of a higher quality. But it would be entirely unfair to assume that every wine with a good rating will be something you’ll like. If you hate port wine and stumble upon one that’s incredibly cheap with a stellar rating, in the end you still won’t like it. When wines […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Green Gables
The Green Gables were perfectly pitched on the set of First Stage Children’s Theater as they opened a musical version of the L.M. Montgomery classic novel Anne of Green Gables this past weekend. The book, music and lyrics, all penned by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman, do both literally and figuratively sing on stage from the first notes of “Have you ever seen such red hair?” Milwaukee’s well-known Richard Carsey was musical director along with Alissa Rhode and together the two skillfully integrated the score into the script. The melodies of the songs “Providential” and “A Dress with Puffy Sleeves” are two of the memorable selections, which were all well executed by the ensemble. Easing the beloved Anne Shirley through her teenage years during the 1900s in music is a formidable task, but both the production and the cast carry her with considerable charm. From the moment 14-year-old Jenna Wolfsohn steps on stage as Anne saying, “Anne looks so much more distinguished with an e,” she creates a character to embrace. As she finds her place among the people of Prince Edward Island in Avonlea, the music underscores her trials, including the death of Matthew in the second act. Her outspoken nature is clearly captured. By combining her talents with veterans Linda Stephens (Marilla Cuthburt) and Michael Duncan (her brother Matthew) a family is created during the performance that remains ever true to the love that abounds when an orphan finds a home. The Gables Cast, many of whom are First Stage Academy Students, includes standout performances by Kendall Iris Yorkey as Diana and Alex Miller as Gilbert. The Academy often jump starts the careers of these young actors, as Alex will be heading off to college auditions to pursue a BFA in musical theater. Corinne Kenwood, as Minnie Mae, was thrilled to be making her First Stage debut. The entire ensemble was an asset to the production as they walked the aisles of the Todd Wehr Theater in chorus or executed clever choreography around the outskirts of the delightful set. Members of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra were the distinguished three-piece orchestra, which accompany this polished presentation. Since “Anne of Green Gables” has just entered public domain, now free from copyrights, several versions are in production around the country, including one currently in New York. This two-hour version, adeptly directed by John Maclay, moves quickly and smoothly, enchanting even the smallest members in the audience. At the end the ensemble sings, “Dreams are made of perfectly happy thoughts, and perfectly happy thoughts do come true.” First Stage’s Green Gables is an evening of dreams come true, especially for those children who dream of stepping on a stage. A perfect way to remember the Anne of Green Gables from childhood. VS Green Gables by First Stage Children’s Theater is presented in the Todd Wehr Theater, Marcus Center for the Performing Arts through April 22. Tickets: 414-273-7206.
Apr 1st, 2007 by Peggy Sue Dunigan
Not just another teen movie
By Evan Solochek + Photo By Kat Jacobs FADE IN: INT. PIUS XI HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM SPRING 2006 A thin, dark-haired man in his early 30s stands before a classroom of disinterested high school kids. His name is Dominic Inouye and he is an English teacher. Normally he teaches AP English Literature but on this particular day he has taken over a colleague’s freshman English class with the task of helping them finish their short stories. Despite his best efforts, Dominic receives only tepid responses. DOMINIC (V.O.) “Most of them were not terribly invested in what they were writing. They were, once again, writing for their teacher and the tiny group of classmates, who cared even less about reading something their peers wrote.” Frustrated, Dominic ponders alternatives. Then comes a breakthrough: the video camera. Dominic jumps from his desk and haphazardly passes out the students’ stories. After every student has read through everyone’s stories, he has the students vote for the two they think would make the best movie: a love story about an arachnophobic butcher and one about a haunted house. MONTAGE OF STUDENTS WORKING DOMINIC (V.O.) “I set them to translating the stories into storyboards, forcing them to create visual and auditory detail that just wasn’t present yet in the original stories. That done, we spent three days filming.” FADE OUT While this may read as trite Hollywood melodrama at its worst, some alternate beginning to Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers perhaps, it’s not. This is the story of the Milwaukee Spotlight Student Film Festival. A cooperative effort between Dominic Inouye and James Carlson, Executive Director of Bucketworks and founder of the School Factory, the MSSFF, now in its third year, remains the only event in Milwaukee dedicated solely to supporting high school filmmakers. “We want to see young filmmakers grow up in our state, or come from other states to learn here, and share skills with others,” Inouye says. “We want to see educators embrace video as an authentic, powerful assessment tool and allow children of all ages the chance to see, record and transform their worlds in new ways.” For many students, the MSSFF is their first opportunity to exhibit a film publicly, a chance many filmmakers don’t get until much later in life, if ever. And that is precisely what makes the MSSFF such a fertile proving ground for its participants. “The festival gave me an experience of what it may be like working in the real world of film,” says Kaleigh Atkinson, who won Best Live Performance or Event in 2006 for her film Battle of the Bands ‘05: The Twitch Kids and who is currently studying film at UWM. “It encouraged us to find the true artist within, to branch out and put our visions to work.” For Inouye, however, the MSSFF is about much more than just making movies; it’s about breaking down what he sees as entrenched educational barriers and, ultimately, enriching kids. “Teaching tends to be very ghettoized,” says Inouye. […]
Apr 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
