Fame or Famine

As we come back to following the progress of July 20th, the GREAT BLOG OFF around the globe, we come to Newfoundland, home of Artistic Fraud. Specializing in “chorus based work,” the group is directed by Jillian Keiley and Robert Chafe.
All About Numbers
As the video on their site will tell you, in the past 9 years Artistic Fraud has called for:

81 school desks
 32 flourescent semaphore flags
790 maps
36 vibraphone keys
2400 square feet of polyester wedding dress lining
Over 300 performers.

You can see a short film about the relatively small production Fear of Flight on YouTube now, and hear the ensemble as they …read more

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We all know and love Julianne Hough, the champion of Dancing with the Stars twice over. You probably are also aware that she has dipped her toes in the waters of recording stardom, with a debut album with tracks like

That Song in my Head
Jimmy Ray McGee
Hide Your Matches

You can hear excerpts and learn more over at JulianneSings.com .
But Wait, There’s More!
Because I love you all so much, and because I visited my friends over at Fred Astaire Dance recently, I can share with you a coupon code that you can use for a free download at Julianne’s site. It …read more

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Say it isn’t so, Andrew.
Looks like Ben Elton, Glen Slater (of the Little Mermaid) and Sir Lloydd-Webber will be teaming up to pen a sequel – yes, that’s right, a sequel – to Phantom of the Opera.
While I have great faith in the talents of all three, this is much like Michael Bolton covering When a Man Loves a Woman – no matter how good it is, it isn’t needed. Why can’t they create something new? Why don’t they have the security in their talent to not have to capitalize on the success of past hits?
Perhaps that’s what happened. Maybe …read more

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I’ve mentioned several times that yes, aside from writing about performing arts, I do in fact perform in them as well. One of my venues is Foxy Veronica’s Peach Pies, where I do occasionally bawdy acts and songs (for example, I choreographed and perform “All I Care About” from Chicago with all the channeled Richard Gere I can muster).
The following video, courtesy of Ellie (my girlfriend’s roommate) is my debut performance at the Caburlesque of “Socket, To Thee”, a spoof song I wrote many years ago. While it really has nothing inappropriate at all in it, I might caution against …read more

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There’s a bit of a theme going in the B5Media entertainment community, where each blogger is supposed to write a valentine post. For people like the LOST and Soap bloggers, it’s a fun exercise of the imagination; you can just aske the question “Who would you like to be your valentine from the show?” The answers are entertaining, to say the least.
However, when your beat is “performing arts”, it’s not quite that easy. Sure, you could just say “Wouldn’t you like a valentine from Ethan Steifel?” but the realm is so large, the pool of people so vast and yet …read more

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I’m lucky enough to be in Lansing, MI tonight working with a web client, and she has invited me out to Magdalena’s Teahouse tonight to see Medicine Crow perform.
” Teaching himself the guitar at the age of twelve, Mike began playing earnestly, but being self-taught, it took him a lifetime to learn what theoried guitar players learn in weeks and months of formal study. Realizing that, though eventually finding his own style, he concentrated on what he is best known for now: song writing. The result produced what could be argued as a sound that is perhaps best summed up …read more

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Oscar Peterson, the legendary jazz musician, died on Sunday. He is special to me because it was hearing one of his pieces performed with his trio that made me understand, finally, what the big deal about Jazz was.
It was summer band camp, and I was taking, for the heck of it, a jazz piano class. Never had played jazz piano, and never really done jazz before, but my teacher taught me the circle of fifths, and then the blues, and then added in seventh chords and scales…all of which was ok, but not real exciting. It was all just on …read more

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…their old familiar carols play…
Yesterday was a first for me. I’m no stranger to Christmas music – been singing it since I was a wee lad – but last night I accompanied my girlfriend to her church. Now, full disclosure here: by nature I am a Zen Buddhist, and the only reason I can say that I’m not a bad one is because there really aren’t any bad Buddhists (it kind of defeats the whole non-expectation thing). So I don’t go to any Christian denominations; the closest I’ve come to organized Zen is a partial sesshin I sat in on.
But …read more

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Ok, first things first: Yes, it’s Christmas, and yes, Johnny Depp has played Willy Wonka and Jack Sparrow and even Gilbert Grape and Benny and all manner of likeable characters.
This, however, is not one of them. So unless you are ready to see a musical with the graphic portrayal of a serial killer literally splattering blood across the camera lens, wait for his next vehicle, when he’ll play George Jetson or somesuch.
(no, I don’t actually know who’s playing the lead in the Jetsons or even if they’re making a movie version. But really, how could they not?)
It’s hard to write …read more

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Jennifer asked in the comments for ways to see the finale, and while I don’t know of any way to watch the whole thing (NBC.com doesn’t replay the show on the web as it will for a lot of other shows) you can go to Youtube and type in “Clash of the Choirs” finale and get all of the individual songs.
I find this really handy – among other things, I was able to send out Blake Shelton’s song as an online video card to my family in OK – but best of all, it’s a chance to listen again to …read more

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