Wednesday, June 1,2011

Back to the Barn

’Great Big Bar Show’ relaunches venerable Augusta summer theater

by James Sanford

Hans Friedrichs spent three seasons at the Barn Theatre in Augusta as an Equity Membership Candidate. Then he took more than 20 years off.He’s back this summer as the director of “The Great Big Bar Show,” which opens the theater’s 65th season this week.

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Wednesday, June 1,2011

The Screening Room

The art of maintaining a little mystery in marketing

by James Sanford

We live in an era when too many movie trailers and commercials give away far too much ' including all the best jokes, all the biggest shocks and sometimes even the ending of the film. If you talk to marketing people, they’ll tell you this is what audiences demand: Everyone supposedly wants to know exactly what is coming before buying a ticket.

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Wednesday, June 1,2011

It’s curtains for you!

Director hopes ’Musical Comedy Murders’ slays Riverwalk audiences

by Christopher Horb

At first glance, it may seem that director Lisa Sodman Elzinga has murder on the brain. She is, after all, behind Riverwalk Theatre’s “Musical Comedy Murders of 1940,” which opens Thursday. And her previous effort was Starlight Dinner Theatre’s “A Murder Is Announced.”

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Thursday, May 26,2011

So long, St. Anthony

Kresge Art Museum's collection will not have a permanent home at the Broad Art Museum

by Lawrence Cosentino

In a grouping of diverse cultural rock stars, a seventh-century pope (Gregory I), a 14th-century Spanish bishop and a wooden Yoruba warrior from west Africa hold a time-traveling, cross-cultural summit with a video of Pope John Paul II addressing his flock.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

Let the discussion begin

East Lansing author and professor Thomas Foster’s “Twenty-Five Books That Shaped America” will be criticized as much for what’s in it as for what he left out — and that suits him fine.

by Bill Castanier

The book’s subtitle: “How White Whales, Green Lights and Restless Spirits Forged Our National Identity” gives hints about a few of the titles. (Just how many books are there about white whales?) It’s fun to guess what’s on the list, and almost as much fun to learn what didn’t make the cut.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

'It's an honor just to be nominated...'

Here are the contenders for this year’s Pulsar Awards, honoring the best in local theater

by City Pulse

Erin Buitendorp, Mary Cusack, Tom and Kathy Helma, Paul Wozniak and Ute Von Der Heyden are six of Lansing’s busiest people. Month after month, they haunt local theaters, seeing all the best and all the rest, then compiling their verdicts on ballots that are used to calculate the nominees for City Pulse’s annual Pulsar Awards.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

Advice and consent

Stormfield Theatre’s appealing ’Answers’ presents Ann Landers’ world in a different light

by Mary C. Cusack

“The more things change, the more they stay the same” is one of those truisms that is not always true. And it’s probably something that Eppie Lederer said at some time in the 47 years she wrote as columnist Ann Landers. She was known to drop the occasional cliché or bon mot, to be cute and clever and sometimes a wee bit snarky.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

’Eleemosynary’: Love is a many splintered thing

Strong acting can’t sustain a murky script in Williamston drama

by Mary C. Cusack

Reading the description of Williamston Theatre’s latest production “Eleemoynary” before heading to the theater, you might wonder if the play will leave you bawling over unresolved mommy issues. In retrospect, that would be a far more rewarding outcome than the way “Eleemosynary” does leave you Review feeling: underwhelmed and unaffected.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

Turn it Down: A survey of Lansing’s musical landscape

by Rich Tupica

Bordering on super-group status, the band features members of pop masterminds The Copyrights, as well as Rivethead, Houseboat and Gateway District. Dear Landlord’s brand of pop-punk is packed with epic choruses and snotty vocals.

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Wednesday, May 25,2011

Badgero’s new role

Founder of Peppermint Creek Theatre is now on staff at the Arts Council

by James Sanford

"With Chad’s experience working through the Old Town Commercial Association, as well as his involvement in the community ' and especially his background in the arts and his enthusiasm for Lansing, he’s a great addition to our staff, and we’re thrilled to have him.

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