Fame or Famine

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been a distinct pleasure to be part of your online experience in the Performing Arts. It’s been an interesting blog to write, with a subject matter as broad as “the Performing Arts,” and at times it’s been frustrating in that there’s so much to write about that just choosing something has been difficult.
We live in exciting times – the “death of live performance” that was feared with the advent of digital media never happened, and if anything there is more live performances simply because they can now be webcast, broadcast, etc. More people than ever …read more

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Dancing with the Stars does not, I’m sheepishly admitting, start for another couple of months- though my reports of possible contestants was right on. I can even add absolutely positively unverified rumors of Clint Eastwood and Kim Kardashian to the mix. But don’t quote me on that…
Dancing with Drama
What I’m not so glad to hear about on the celebrity blogs is the search criteria by which the show’s producers are picking potential candidates. Apparently they are looking for divorcees or at least former couples to have them competing on the same show. Or even better, someone with some kind of …read more

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Everyone was happy and excited for Bailey Hanks, winner of MTV’s Legally Blonde reality competition. She beat out the other legal blondes and landed her leading role, which she premiered last Wednesday. The other contestants went home, heads hung low, bitter and defeated, right?
Well, not so much.
Surprise! You’ve Got Contracts!
As it turned out, the producers had jobs in mind for all four of the top contestants in the show.

Rhiannon Hansen will play Margot, Elle’s best friend, in the touring company of Legally Blonde
Autumn Hurlbert will join the Broadway cast as Elle’s understudy
Lauren Zakrin will not only join the touring company …read more

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The dancer who made Simon Cowell smile has made it all the way to the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent, the English equivalent of American Idol. Sophie Mei didn’t make the cut afterwards, but it’s still quite an accomplishment for a belly dancer.
Dance 3, Presence 10
She’s not all that technically brilliant, according to my Middle Eastern Dance Research Team (yes, I have one, doesn’t everyone?). But what she has is presence – she’s obviously having a great time as she dances and entertains, and it’s contagious.

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One of the most prolific and amazing writers I know, who I am also lucky enough to have met a time or two, is Scott Sigler. He’s not, as far as I know, terribly musically inclined, even when he’s looking a lot like Elton John back in his feather-boa-and-big-glasses days. But he is also a writer for A&E online, specifically in their horror genre.
What does this have to do with the performing arts? Why, I’m glad you asked…
Everything’s Coming Up Musicals
I’ve written here before about the Creature From the Black Lagoon as a musical. But did you know there are …read more

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Image details: "A Time For Heroes" Celebrity Carnival – Arrivals served by picapp.com
Lance Bass. Kellie Pickler. Lou Ferrigno. Warren Sapp. These are just a few of the names being rumored as the new contestants on Season 7 of Dancing with the Stars, which has a two-night premiere starting tomorrow on ABC. Some of these are hardly surprising – with the recent HULK movie, Lou Ferrigno seems a natural choice. Some rumors just seem too good to be true: Lance Bass may be performing with a male partner, for example.
One rumor I do not believe is the idea that Paula Abdul …read more

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Two nights of erotically themed performance art will be accompanying the Art Space festival in Baltimore this Friday and Saturday. The Baltimore Erotic Arts Festival, the brainchild of Suzannah Gerber (aka Klawdya Rothschild in the burlesque world) takes place on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th.
All Around the Edge
Friday night’s theme is “Before the Edge”,  with art and performances with sexual themes that are playful and teasing, such as a Atomic Cheesecake Pinup Pageant and performers such as

Eliza Charming
ShortStaxx
Lee Luscious/Lee Harrington
Coco Mource
Dix Washington

and other art and performances on the site. The headliner is the famous sex educator, performance artist, …read more

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I wrote a while back about the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s version of Willy Wonka. Thankfully not anything like the Tim Burton version, this one not only borrows from the 1971 Gene Wilder oeuvre but also draws from the books by Roald Dahl himself for inspiration – which makes it a darker, more intense experience.
While the staging looks minimal, I suspect that the lighting and other designers will have made the entire theatre into a magical candyland before the night is out. I’d especially love to see how they shrink Mike Teevee on the stage. Click past the cut for a …read more

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It’s only a preview, but it’s a breath of great things to come: the review of the premiere of “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition,” by Bill T. Jones seems to hint at a magnificent work to come. Commissioned to create a work celebrating the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth, it’s a pretty tall order for anyone but Mr. Jones.
He assembled, along with his usual fantastically talented company, an amazing creative team: Janet Wong on video, singer Lisa Komara, score by Jerome Begin and Christopher Antonio William Lancaster, Liz Prince’s amazing costume design and a set consisting of moveable columns by …read more

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There’s a fascinating article in the Times right now about the closing of RENT. The writer, Campbell Robinson, talks about how he came late to RENT and late to the city, too, since the musical is set in a very narrow, very specific time and place.
Image details: Cast Members From "Rent" Perform At Broadway For Life served by picapp.com
The question becomes, then, why does it have such appeal outside New York? If it’s too unrealistic to people who live there now, what is it that makes it appeal so much to people like my daughters (who in fact introduced me …read more

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