April 2011

Blackfest, Part II
The burr under the saddle comes out of the project's mission statement: to celebrate work that "boldly and refreshingly explore[s] slavery and/or the Civil War."  Actually, two burrs under the saddle.  First, I think this focus is past its prime, and, second, I think it's insufficiently bold.
Michael Bettencourt

All Things Old Become New Again and All Things New Are Forever Old
They babble, hardly hear, barely listen, remember little. From the Age of Elegance to the Age of Reason to the Age of Invention to the Age of whatever the 20th century was to the Age of Babble. Only the born-deaf among us stay ahead of the struggle to be free in their own privacy.
Arthur Meiselman

An Artist's Apology
Artists are different.  That's our job.  Our job in life is see through the creative and inventive and unique prisms of our souls and communicate through our music, our paint brushes, our acting, our directing. 
Nathan Thomas

Dysfunction As A Career Strategy!
If you haven't heard of Charlie Sheen's troubles and travails by now, you must live off the grid and under a rock. Just like the subject of last month's piece (Anna Nicole Smith), it's all Charlie all the time.  But unlike Smith, Charlie is still very much with us…at least for now.
Les Marcott

Rainy Day
It seems that in order to get past this, I'm going to have to face another demon. Why did I suddenly stop desiring to sing? I used to just open my mouth & out it came. The technique could use some work, but the desire was always simple. No longer. If that is a question with no answer, so be it.
Claudine Jones

A Brief But Quirky History of he Arts January 2011 Click Here The Rising Fall of the Arts January 2010 Click Here The One January 2009 Click Here What Is Art? / 2008 January 2008 Click Here View of the Arts/2007 January 2007 Click Here The Art of Sex in the Arts February 2006 Click Here State of the Art of the Arts October 2005 Click Here

In This Issue

The Sticker Tree

Originally titled "Best of Friends", the play received four productions on two coasts in the 1970's, 80's and a national theater award from La Pensee Theater, Seattle.

by
Grace Cavalieri

Read the Play

FILM (Reviews)
Barney's Version
The Illusionist

...Giamatti outdoes himself.  He plays Barney Panofsky, a man who deserts his new bride at their wedding reception to chase another woman he has just met but whom he has decided is the love of his life.  And we love him for it, even as we gasp at his unbridled chutzpah.
Miles David Moore

DANCE
Hope and Mystery
in Havana

Life in Havana is hard. The buildings and streets are crumbling, the economy is always on the verge of collapsing, and the island's future is a mystery. In fact, mysteries abound in Cuban life and culture. Who is really in charge of this gifted and troubled nation?.
Catherine Conway Honig

DANCE
Giselle

Like any ballet aficionada, I am fiercely biased. I do not attend Giselle unless I sense I will see a master at work. My luck is that San Francisco Ballet hosts one of the greatest Giselles of our time, Cuban star Lorena Feijoo who wears the shoes of the great Giselles who came before her. Luck had it that she again performed Giselle this years.
Renate Stendhal

ARTS OF THAILAND
Bringing
The Elephant Home

I cannot imagine a future without elephants living in Thailand. And yet, elephants are disappearing. In my opinion, all elephants should be living in the wild. If this is not possible, they should be able to live in an environment as natural as possible, where they can live as normal as possible..
Janine Yasovant
คลิกเพื่ออ่านบทความนี้ เป็นภาษาไทย

Steiny Road to Operadom
Blood on the
Dining Room Floor

Gertrude Stein left Blood on the Dining Room Floor unfinished. A fan of Dashiell Hammett, Stein began her murder mystery in 1933 after her unexpected success with the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
Karren Alenier

Life Among
the Heffalumps
Good Mourning:
Making Art from the Broken Center

Sitting at my keyboard this April during National Poetry Month, I can't help but wonder: what place does art have in the face of such (nearly) unspeakable, (and despite all the all-too-vivid-video images) unimaginable disaster? 
Kathi Wolfe

COMICS
My Old Man!
Cossacks in Schul
A new series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist
Elliot Feldman

THEATRE OF RUSSIA
Festivals

The role of the festivals in the history of the Russian theatre of the two past decades is unique.
Grigor Atanesyan

THEATRE
Let's Put On
A (live-streamed) Show!

Not only did we "put on a show"  - we put on a show that was viewed by more than 50,000 people!    
Kathryn Jones