Arts
I'm about to tell you a story, only one detail of which will be slightly untrue. See if you can guess which it is. Between 1922 and 1925, author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a novel called Winter Dreams. It was published in April 1925, selling less than 20,000 copies and earning
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The show features a rotating cast of musicians in a multimedia spectacular that carry the band from its jangly, Liverpudlian roots to the grand psychedelic finale of Abbey Road (in my opinion, the greatest pop disc ever recorded) and Let It Be. Since the cover band's inception in
Arts
There are whole grade schools in Zhonghua (aka the Republic of China), the Shanghai Circus School for one but with plenty to spare, devoted to grueling programs of acrobatic choreography, death-defying high wire and trapeze acts and ligament-stretching contortionism. Children as young as 6 get put through regimens that break
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Lakewood's Glengarry grabs the reins of its exposition and takes off at a run as a police detective (Dave Hall) arrives to investigate an overnight robbery. Local actors could learn a lot by watching the arcs of these characters in Act II. Brother, talk about fuckin'
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Here I was, all prepared to write up The Good Lovelies, when lo, it turns out our Agenda calendar editor already did the job. (I'm telling you - I do not say this lightly - their cover of "The Chipmunk Song" is a keeper. I know!) Luckily, there's an equally
Stage
We all know what it feels like to be stuck in a job we hate, where managers lead by harassment and double down on strategies that didn't work the first hundred times. Imagine you're trapped in a low-rent Chicago sales office with five alpha males, each struggling to sell Florida
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Tell me something: do you enjoy music? I mean, pretty much any kind of music? Reggae? Electronica? Folk? Funk? Nursery rhymes? Australian didgeridoo? Or unconditional love - do you enjoy that? Do you appreciate lyrical messages of intercultural acceptance and peace? If you said yes to any of that, then
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Neil Berg's Rock-n-Roll Decades travels the annals of rock history. Instead of using lame comic filler to slog from song to song, however, its performers introduce each number with history about the icon who made it famous. We're talking single-named superstars like Elvis, Dylan, Aretha, Janis,
Arts
One of the most popular theater trends to emerge over the last two decades is the jukebox musical, in which some theme or performer is used as a justification for stringing together a bunch of hit songs you already know. The term dates to 1962 at the latest, and An
Features
Louis C.K.'s program Louie introduced us to the concept of a "bang-bang," in which a diner eats a full meal at a restaurant, then goes to a diner and eats a second full meal there. Ideally, the bang-banger visits establishments with differing cuisines. I'd never done that before today (not
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In a single week in 1983 (July 24-30), the top 10 singles on the Billboard "Hot 100" included "Every Breath You Take," "Electric Avenue," "Flashdance...What a Feeling," "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and "Our House." Killer singles like those boxed Prince's "1999" and Def Leppard's
Stage
As Christmas approaches I get to offer, with considerable delight, my picks for the best of Olympia theater. This was a banner year, with something for everyone and more than enough deserving candidates for each of the five categories. Those exceptional nominees who made a difficult cut have been listed
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The phrase triple threat, meaning a person who excels at acting, dancing, and singing, is among the most overused in all entertainment. Oh, sure, any number of actors can carry a tune. I've even met trained opera singers who can manage a waltz without requiring emergency
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Ever heard tell of "Old Christmas Day?" I hadn't, either. Apparently it took centuries for the West and East to see eye to eye about the day Christ was born. The Western world settled on Dec. 25, of course, while Eastern churches preferred Jan. 6. (They were both wrong. Historians
Arts
Did you know the 1892 debut of Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker was not a huge success? It was originally paired with Tchaikovsky's final opera, Iolanta, a fictionalized biography of Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine. Critics found The Nutcracker's dancers "amateurish" and "corpulent," then dismissed the piece itself as "insipid"
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Snobbery aside, if I wail, "Don't need nothin'! ... but a -" chances are you know the next two words of that lyric. And if I ask what the phrase "every night has its dawn" implies, almost anyone can extend that musical simile to cowboys and roses. Over a quarter-century
Stage
Two years ago, my wife and I followed multiple suggestions to see playwright Robert Schenkkan's All the Way at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. They were right; that script's a masterpiece. OSF's production featured actor Jack Willis, riveting as President Lyndon Baines Johnson, plus charismatic Kenajuan Bentley as his sometime partner in
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Blues music is a genre that often hearkens back to the past. So when Billboard magazine proclaims guitarist and singer Michael Powers "the future of the blues," it's saying he's both a virtuoso and an innovator. That's no revelation to anyone who's heard "Murch" Powers chug through the rolling guitar
Stage
In my Stardust review, I cited a line from Ratatouille: "The new needs friends." That line, delivered by "Anton Ego," means the best thing a critic can do is focus attention on quality work that doesn't come with a built-in audience. Often, as in The Head! That Wouldn't Die!, it's
Stage
"What's wrong with the same old thing? "I think that question answers itself." - actual dialogue from The Stardust Christmas Commotion Indeed it does. Coincidentally, my wife and I had just caught the end of Ratatouille on TV. The bloodthirsty critic voiced by Peter O'Toole in that film, Anton Ego, says of