ArtSnob is your site for fast postings of Daily News reviews, local art happenings and reader feedback.
Drop your comments here, e-mail us at arts@adn.com, or call Arts and Entertainment editor Mike Dunham at (907)-257-4332 or toll-free in Alaska, 800-478-4200, ext. 332.
Write your own reviews of performances, films, books and art shows.
REVIEW: EUGENE ONEGIN - 2/7/2010 12:31 am
Review: Winter Classics series - 2/5/2010 11:16 pm
FIRST FRIDAY RAMBLES - 2/5/2010 5:19 pm
REVIEW: AFTERLIFE OF THE MIND - 2/4/2010 10:41 pm
Diana Tillion dead at 81 - 2/4/2010 12:02 pm
Chamber Music in Talkeetna - 2/3/2010 4:00 pm
Review: Alaska Dance Theatre - 1/23/2010 7:15 am
Homer harpist strikes Folk Fest - 1/22/2010 2:01 pm
Creative Opportunities - 1/21/2010 4:36 pm
Willow woman in running for Grammy - 1/20/2010 11:06 am
Cast Change for 'Wind Blown' - 1/18/2010 1:40 pm
REVIEW: Yup'ik song features in symphony premiere - 1/17/2010 12:14 am
REVIEW: DEBUTANTE BALLS - 1/14/2010 9:52 pm
CREATIVE OPPORTUNITIES - 1/14/2010 6:10 pm
Soprano prepares for Miss America pageant - 1/13/2010 1:26 pm
Arts e-mail slapfest - 1/13/2010 1:15 pm
REVIEW: "Wind Blown and Dripping" - 1/10/2010 8:37 pm
Review: Heart - 1/8/2010 11:03 pm
REVIEW: TALES OF HOFFMAN - 1/7/2010 2:59 pm
Creative Opportunities - 1/7/2010 1:35 pm
Native playwrights picked - 1/6/2010 11:50 am
Playwright holds workshops, signing - 1/5/2010 6:22 pm
FEBRUARY 7, 2010 - 12:31 AM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” had never been performed in Alaska before Saturday night. It’s a difficult piece in many ways, not least intellectually. Unlike German and Italian operatic traditions, where conclusions take us to summits of eternal love, glorious death, jubilant triumph or all three at once, Tchaikovsky's climaxes lead to resignation and doubts - which makes "Onegin" one of the most "modern" works from the age of grand musical theater. Yet Anchorage Opera managed to make it both a musical and theatrical highlight of the arts season.
Voices count most and Anton Belov in the title role has a rich, hall-filling baritone. As Tatyana, the country girl turned princess, Veronica Mitina proved to be both a convincing actress and a fine soprano; her vocal personality matured along with her character as the timeline progressed. The opera may have been unfamiliar to many at the Discovery Theatre, but the final scene between the two leads had most on the edge of their seats.
FEBRUARY 5, 2010 - 11:16 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Paul Rosenthal: Chamber music series founder sidelined with hand and arm trouble.
In the 40 years since his Alaska debut, I have never known Paul Rosenthal to miss a performance at which he was scheduled to play. But it finally happened. Friday night’s opening program in this year’s Alaska Airlines Winter Classics chamber music concerts in Anchorage found the series without its founder.
Cellist Armen Ksajikian explained to the audience at Grant Hall that it recently became evident that Rosenthal’s left arm and hand were causing him significant pain. At the insistence of his colleagues the violinist removed himself from the lineup and was now in Juneau getting it “checked out.”
FEBRUARY 5, 2010 - 5:19 PM
By Mike Dunham
The Rambler is heading to Alaska Pacific University on this First Friday — the primary assignment being to review the first night of the Alaska Airlines Winter Classics chamber music series in Grant Hall. But while there, we hope to get a good look at the “Compilations” show by Garry Kaulitz and, in the nearby Carr Gottstein Building, some new landscape work by David Rosenthal; the latter painter is far more traditional than the former, but both have exhibited excellent work in their respective realms in the past.
Copper River Sunset: By David Rosenthal, at APU's Carr Gottstein Gallery
FEBRUARY 4, 2010 - 10:41 PM
By Mike Dunham
Mad doctor, loose nurse: Paul Brynner and Janet Stoneburner in "The Afterlife of the Mind" at Out North. Photo by Tony Batres.
An outbreak of plays about death has hit Anchorage. Last month Anchorage Community Theatre staged “Heart.” This month Cyrano’s presents “Tuesdays with Morrie.” And, in a frustratingly short run, after premiering in San Francisco, William Bivins’ “The Afterlife of the Mind” is having its Alaska debut run at Out North.
These three deal with the same slice of the whole death business. Not the apocalyptic horsemen of war, famine and plague — but the personal confrontation each individual has when confronting the prospect of nothingness. The meaning or meaninglessness of life, The difficult decision to let go. The high cost of living.
FEBRUARY 4, 2010 - 12:02 PM
Diana Tillion: with some of her paintings, November 30, 1978. Photo Daily News archive.
Artist Diana Tillion died at her home in Halibut Cove on Wednesday night. She was 81.
Seldovia West: A print by Diana Tillion showing the Seldovia Boardwalk prior to the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake.
Tillion, born in California around 1928, came to Alaska with her parents as a girl. She was the wife of former State Senator Clem Tillion. She was especially known for her landscapes using octupus ink extracted from animals found in the lagoon by her home at Halibut Cove, across Kachemak Bay from Homer.
FEBRUARY 3, 2010 - 4:00 PM
By Mike Dunham
Paul Rosenthal: Performing in Talkeetna on Feb. 4; in Anchorage Feb. 5-7.There'll be a preview of the Alaska Airlines Winter Classics chamber music series at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 4, at the Sheldon Community Arts Hangar in Talkeetna. The Denali Arts Council's Music Academy will present Paul Rosenthal and friends - we'll presume that means some of his co-performers being featured in the more familiar setting of Grant Hall Auditorium at Alaska Pacific University Feb. 5-7.
Tickets for the Anchorage concerts are available at centertix.net.
JANUARY 23, 2010 - 7:15 AM
BY ANNE HERMAN
Alaska Dance Theatre’s Winter Repertory Concert is usually the company’s biggest performance, the one where they pull out all the creative stops. This year the Repertory Concert was more ADT-Lite than anything else. Friday’s production at the Discovery Theater was more conventional than audiences have seen in awhile.
This was, by no means, a boring hour and a half. ADT dancers are too well-trained for that to happen. But the choreography didn’t startle or provoke as one has grown to expect from this company. Perhaps it was the heavy bias towards ballet that made Friday’s performance more comfortable than intriguing.
JANUARY 22, 2010 - 2:01 PM
Sunrise Sjoberg and JulieAnn Smith: With an unidentified man, after a concert. Homer singer and harpist will be among performers at Anchorage Folk Festival on Jan. 23.
Sunrise Sjoberg & JulieAnn Smith, both from Homer, will be performing original songs and melodies at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Anchorage Folk Festival in UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium. Sunrise - the artist formerly known as Sunny Kilcher - will sing and play various percussion, with JulieAnn on the harp. Both have workshops too!
The Folk Festival is now underway, and most events are free. Go to anchoragefolkfestival.org anchoragefolkfestival.org for complete information.
JANUARY 21, 2010 - 4:36 PM
MUSIC/THEATER/DANCE
TV Casting Call: TalentGPS is in search for a 9-12 year old boy to shoot a pilot for a kids adventure show that will be filmed in Alaska. Two kids have already been selected. Contact Lisa Owens at 903-1299 if you have a child interested in being on TV.
Auditions: Cyrano’s Theatre Company will audition for “You Can’t Take it With You” by Moss Hart and George Kaufman, directed by Dick Reichman. 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, 413 D St. Rehearsal begin in February, show dates: March 12-April 3. (Scarlet Boudreaux, 230-4185).
Auditions: UAA Department of Theatre and Dance mainstage production of “A Doll’s House.” Auditions 6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14, UAA Mainstage Theatre. (ankjs.uaa.alaska.edu)
JANUARY 20, 2010 - 11:06 AM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Kirsten Gunlogson: Willow mezzo in running for Grammy.
Sunday night’s Grammy Awards will find Kirsten Gunlogson, born and raised in Willow, on the edge of her seat. The mezzo-soprano is in the running for the recording industry’s award in the category of Best Classical Album of 2009. She’s featured in the CD of Maurice Ravel’s opera, “L’Enfant et les Sortilèges,” recorded with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. The Maurice Sendak-style story follows a naughty child whose abused toys, furniture and animals transform into animated agents of retribution to teach him a lesson in respect.
JANUARY 18, 2010 - 1:40 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Dick Reichman: Director steps into lead role to rescue "Wind Blown and Dripping." Photo: Bob Hallinen.
Peter Porco's new play "Wind Blown and Dripping" encountered serious problems when the actor in the lead role opened the show before memorizing his lines. There were (dim) hopes that the situation might improve, but they faded as the performer continued to carry the script around in his hands.
Last week, director Richard Reichman stepped into the role and, according to Cyrano's producer Sandy Harper, "the play is a whole different experience."
JANUARY 17, 2010 - 12:14 AM
By MIKE DUNHAM
“Ciuliamta cauyam” by Yup’ik songwriter James Afcan of St. Mary’s received it’s world premiere in symphonic form in Atwood Concert Hall on Saturday night — and the composer didn’t know about it.
Afcan’s Yup’ik dance song (“yuraq”) received royal treatment in “Exposition on the Anchorage Museum,” which Music Nova commissioned from Gregory Prechel of California and which the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra debuted this weekend.
Prechel’s piece falls into four movements, each informed or inspired by art at the museum, slides of which are shown on a screen while the music plays. The first movement focuses on Sydney Laurence’s big panorama, “Mt. McKinley from the Rapids of the Toksitna River.” But the first slides, accompanied by an intense fanfare, were of the museum building. It felt a little like an ad.
JANUARY 14, 2010 - 9:52 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Scott Turner Schofield: in "Debutante Balls" at Out North.
In his hour-long monologue, “Debutante Balls,” Scott Turner Schofield recounts multiple rites of passage; his own experiences of “coming out” as gay and transgendered — he was born a girl and now lives as a man with assistance of medications — and the custom among southern gentry of presenting their daughters to polite society with extravagant parties. These are also described as “coming out,” he notes.
“I’ve come out more times than should technically be allowed,” he says, counting both revelations about himself and the formal tradition.
He recounts three debutante balls in which he was involved. The first, in his home town of Charlotte, North Carolina, was just to give him a plausible excuse for skipping out of the house at night to hang with other gay youth. He’d tell his mother that he was with a friend at some important pre-ball event and no questions were asked. How the cover was blown is a punch line we won’t reveal here.
The second time, he was invited to attend while in college and bursting with political energy. He went expecting to use it as a forum for scoring points for radical feminism. With a chagrined look, he concludes that story explaining that it’s neither classy nor gracious to try and break up a party while everyone else is having fun.
The third time, at the insistence of a friend, he found himself at the mercy of a cosmetic counter clerk to get his make-up right in a hurry. Then, with the help of much gin, proceeded to tell the mother of a high school friend all about himself in comically slurred speech.
Schofield never strays far from well-timed comedy, yet he uses humor as a vehicle to raise questions of gender identity, acknowledging one’s feelings, “existing in your own life” and social expectations.
“I’m middle class,” he confesses at one point, adding that he’s more likely to make a down payment on a house than pay for sex surgery, should he ever come into that kind of money. In putting on a dress for a debutante ball, he not only crosses sexual boundaries, but boundaries of class as well.
Getting away with it is a matter of making the right entrance with style, grace and charm, he says. “Coming out” becomes “coming through” with your self-respect more or less intact.
An enormous long, white formal gown serves as his main prop. He hides behind it, pops inside it, uses it as a puppet, dances with it. He also dances with the audience and serves sweet tea to as many people as he can reach. The tea, another southern custom, serves as a metaphor for tradition itself. You have to decide to spit or swallow, he says, and if you swallow, how much?
The themes may not appeal — or even feel relevant — to those who have not shared his experience, though he gets the crowd to acknowledge that no one really describes themselves as “normal.” But the writing and delivery are good; one leaves feeling amused, ruminative and — most important —that the event has not been a waste of time.
"Debutante Balls" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday at Out North, 3800 Debarr Rd. Tickets are $20 at outnorth.org. After the Saturday performance there’ll be a special “Coming Out Celebration” with writer/performer Scott Turner Schofield featuring southern staples like sweet tea, biscuits, cole slaw and dancing. Suggested donation $5.
Find Mike Dunham online at adn.com/contact/mdunham or call 257-4332.
View an audio slideshow of Schofield talking about “Debutante Balls” below. Link to an article about his recent stint on an ABC television reality show, “Conveyor Belt of Love,” at adn.com/playblog.
JANUARY 14, 2010 - 6:10 PM
MUSIC/THEATER/DANCE
Auditions: Moonlight and Magnolias directed by Krista Schwating. 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday Jan. 17. No preparation of material is necessary. The show runs March 12 - April 4. Anchorage Community Theatre, 1133 E. 70th Ave.
Weekend Bands: Lucky Strikes Lanes is in need of DJs during the week and live bands on weekends. (258-0348, kelly_anderson814@hotmail.com)
Female Performers Wanted: Radical Arts for Women invites all women to showcase their talents at Celebration of Change on March 27. Singers, dancers, poets, actors, comedians and more. First-time performers are encouraged to apply. Applications can be found online. (radicalartsforwomen.org)
JANUARY 13, 2010 - 1:26 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Sydnee Waggoner: Miss Alaska prepares to head for the big pageant.
Singer Sydnee Waggoner, co-winner of the Anchorage Festival of Music young artist scholarship and current Miss Alaska, will bid adieu to local folks in advance of her departure to compete in the Miss America pageant, with a reception at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 16. The event will take place at the UAA Arts Building recital hall and will include entertainment, refreshments and an auction. Tickets are $10, and for that you'll have the chance to check out Waggoner's wardrobe and talent - which means, she'll be singing. So it's money well spent.
JANUARY 13, 2010 - 1:15 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
By Mike Dunham
Surely, this is the reason the Devil invented the internet: So that mortals could revel in snippy exchanges like the ones that passed through my in-box earlier this month.
It began on Jan. 4 when a local artist (no, you won’t get the names from me) sent out a bulk e-mail complaining about the online process required to respond to calls for art put out by the Alaska State Council on the Arts - called CaFE, for "Call For Entries" - specifically a request for proposals for a percent for art project in Fairbanks with a looming deadline.
“If you are not connected with a high speed broadband, you will not have the patience to upload your images repeatedly only to be told how they fail to be acceptable after a long digestive period,” said artist wrote. “From my own personal experience, files that were finally loaded successfully when I first encountered this website are no longer there, how nice for me.
JANUARY 10, 2010 - 8:37 PM
By MIKE DUNHAM
Writers of historical drama since Shakespeare have faced the dilemma of whether to make their main thrust the history or the drama. The first explains a vanished society in terms that the current society may find relevant; the second explores how individuals past and present respond to and are changed by challenges.
Peter Porco notes that his play, “Wind Blown and Dripping,” now showing at Cyrano’s, is a fictionalized treatment of Dashiell Hammett’s stint at an Army post newspaper in the Aleutians during World War II. But the play succeeds more with the history part of the assignment, tossing up numerous curious details about the war era.
JANUARY 8, 2010 - 11:03 PM
By Mike Dunham
Annia Wyndham and Rod Mehrtens: Nasty divorcee meets Bert the plumber in Judd Lear Silverman's "Heart." Photo: Gaylord Spurgeon / Anchorage Community Theatre.
Judd Lear Silverman’s play “Heart” has received readings and workshops from New York to California, Florida to Valdez. On Friday night it finally had its premiere at Alaska Wild Berry Theatre.
Billed as a comedy, it also has a powerfully poignant component, sometimes flirting with —yet never quite becoming — maudlin. Directed by Kevin T. Bennett, the well-performed show is the most ambitious piece Anchorage Community Theatre has produced in several years.
JANUARY 7, 2010 - 2:59 PM
By Mike Dunham
The Century 16 theater allocated to Wednesday’s “Live in HD” presentation of the current Metropolitan Opera production of “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” was not entirely full, but all the best seats were taken 20 minutes before the event started. I got something in the center, but awfully close to the screen – which wasn’t as much of a problem as I’d feared.
Kathleen Kim: All eyes on the piping high notes of the robot soprano "Olympia." Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.
Early-comers got a special bonus when the program started before scheduled – an accident at some sort of distribution point in Colorado Springs, we were told – and we got to watch several minutes of the opening scene before it was stopped to make room for popcorn ads.
JANUARY 7, 2010 - 1:35 PM
MUSIC/DANCE/THEATER
Audition: Cyrano’s Theatre “Caroline or Change” by Tony Kushner. Directed by Teresa Pond. Seventeen roles with performances May 7- May 30. By appointment only, 7 p.m. -10 p.m. Jan. 11 & 12. Cyrano’s Off Center Playhouse, 413 D St. (274-2599, cyranos.org).
Audition: “The Drunkard” a melodrama by Barry Manilow will run March 26 - April 11. Prepare a 1-2 minute monologue and a short music selection to sing. There will be some reading from the script. Auditions held today from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m. Valley Performing Arts, 251 W Swanson Ave., Wasilla. Contact Julie McCartney (841-1188, theteardrop@yahoo.com, valleyperformingarts.org)
Read the adn.com updated privacy policy | 
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.
© Copyright 2010, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company 
Contact Us | Newsroom Contacts | Communication Forms | Subscriptions | Advertising | Featured Advertisers
Daily News Jobs |
RSS Feeds |
|
ADN Store |
Newspapers in Education
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | About our ads | Copyright