Fame or Famine

A couple of neat things going on in my Hometown:
“The Maple Bluff Mystery opens BST’s 2008 season with a bang and promises to take the audience on a hilarious and delightful journey through miscommunication and mayhem. The show comes from the twisted mind of writer/director Scott Rawson and premieres Friday, January 18. Rawson, a Broom Street Theater veteran, got his start at BST in 2005 as an actor, appearing in 667: The Number of the Neighbor of the Beast and hasn’t let up since. The Maple Bluff Mystery marks Rawson’s debut as a playwright and director.” – the Isthmus
And closer …read more

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This just in! Chris Elam of Misnomer writes, “Tension no more – We won! Check out the OFFICIAL announcement here – http://www.ideablob.com/posts/131. Thanks for all the support! Read about it on our blog, and see what we’re building with this award.”

“Elam garnered the support of the ideablob community for his idea to establish an interactive web site for performing artists. His plans for the web site include innovative online features such as live rehearsal streaming, instant messaging, virtual theaters where viewers can watch performances from multiple perspectives, and tools to measure online audiences so production companies can geographically target upcoming …read more

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This is just a little bit of a personal peeve: I recently applied to perform at an art show (which I will not deign to connect with here via URL). It was a fairly easy application process, sending a short email description along with some sites where my performances could be seen.
I didn’t get in. How do I know this? Not because they let me know; no, they simply posted on their website “If you haven’t heard from us yet, you probably didn’t get in.”
“Probably”? Probably? In the days when you had to send out form letters via post, …read more

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After watching the first number, I had a feeling that I’d end watching this and feel as though there were two hours of my life that I’d never get back again…the dancing was bland, uninspired,and frankly, boring. Even the more impressive dance moves tended to be half-hearted or uncertain, such as the vertical split/twirl.
I don’t know if it was just me, but sounded to me like Carrie Ann was kind of prepping by making excuses for the entire group – “singing live on tv is really hard!” Well, yes, it is, of course, but the fact that they brought it …read more

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Doug Fox writes about a new event (and wonders “…how come nobody else has done this before?) where the Cedar Lake Ballet invited several dance bloggers to munch on wine and cheese and see a dress rehearsal along with a post-performance talk. He notes that this is a big departure from the traditional methods of dance publicity, namely getting big name reviewers to say nice things in big papers and then put the quotes on the event posters.
I’m not surprised that the power of the blogosphere is spreading, though. I think that the tech world figured it out first, as …read more

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Last night was an interesting experience – I was part of a “Murder Mystery” party along with several old friends and, as it would happen, an ex-girlfriend. We were all sent “character sheets” by the hostess earlier in the month, with time to prepare costumes, etc (these ranged from a person who simply put on a shawl to a man who had a pinstripe suit specially made for the occasion – then again, his character was Al Capone). I went halfway, which I think is understandable as I actually had two characters.
In the first half I was Don “Big Jim” …read more

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The general consensus seems to be that DanceWar is a bust. Swan Lake Samba Girl put it this way
“…I’ve never in my life seen more people with less dance training seeking to become “stars.” They sang their hearts out and wiggled their butts and seemed in all honesty to have no clue that ass wiggling did not constitute dance…and so looked like monkeys.”
I don’t know that I’d go that far – again, this is a show not about dancers but about what kind of team Bruno and Carrie can craft. But I actually came to the review via Natalia of …read more

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Kristin Sample, in her review of Dance War (like me, she noticed that these two-hour premieres are hard on us commentators – repetitive stress injury, anyone?) has an interesting thought about the dynamic between Carrie Ann and Bruno Tonioli:
 I wish that Bruno and Carrie Ann were real rivals and actually despised each other. That would be awesome. On Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter: Team Hughes vs. Team Serra, you could tell that Matt Hughes and Matt Serra really disliked each other. Maybe ABC will just replace Bruno and Carrie Ann with Matt Hughes and Matt Serra (no, that would be …read more

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Last night as I watched Dancewar, I began to be bothered by the term. Maybe I’d feel better if we weren’t actually at war right now, but somehow using the term to talk about a dance competition feels disrespectful to the people who are, as I write this, fighting a war. Whether you agree with it or disagree, it’s happening, and those are our people – our friends, our family – who are dying, and killing, and coming back maimed in body and spirit.
This is a minor point; I’m not saying that we shouldn’t watch the show, or that they …read more

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Again, we’re in the really hokey contrived drama. I appreciate the focus on the hopes and dreams, and Bruno I’m liking – he’s got the kind of aggressive tone that I always have liked in dance coaches.
It’s kind of like Fame, but live (wait, haven’t they actually got a show like that?). The music is the hardest – good lord, singing a capella? Just with a mic? Holy cow, talk about pressure. It will be interesting to see if the plot of the show improves since there is more talent to actually put into each episode.
The ubiquitous “look how …read more

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