LINK: Today's Frost Park Chalk Challenge details

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: THEATER THURSDAY >>>

The Music Man
Capital Playhouse is staging The Music Man, the Meredith Wilson classic about the fast talking Harold Hill who sweeps into the little town of River City, Iowa to start up a band. It’s a show that always seems to have audiences singing along as they leave the aisles. I’ve heard people singing “The Wells Fargo Wagon,” “Gary Indiana,” “76 Trombones” and “Goodnight My Someone” on the way out the door many times.
[KJM Center for the Arts, 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, $10-$15, South Puget Sound Community College, 2011 Mottman Road, Olympia, 360.943.2744]

Disney's High School Musical
Encore! Theater presents Disney's High School Musical this weekend at its outdoor theater â€" bring chairs, blankets, picnic and bug spray. Anyone with a teen, preteen or tweenie in their lives will know all about this show since it is the latest production from the Disney marketing machine. But unlike Air Bud or Howard the Duck, this show is actually good. It has all the important factors of high school: sports, popularity, puppy love, cliques and all things teen angst.
[Impact Church International, 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, $6-$15, 4819 Hunt St., Gig Harbor, 253.858.2282]

Aristocats Kids: Show Biz Kids and Broadway Bound
Encore!'s cross-town rival, Paradise Theatre, is staging another Disney production. Its Aristocats Kids: Show Biz Kids and Broadway Bound, the final performance of the theater's two-week theater camp, runs for two performances.
[Milton Boyd Auditorium, 3 p.m. Saturday, $5, Peninsula High School, 14105 Purdy Lane N.W., Gig Harbor, 253.851.PLAY]

LINK: Steve Dunkelberger's review of Grease
LINK: Viva South Sound arts and entertainment calendar

DANIEL BLUE: MEET JAMES HUME >>>

  Pictured here in his natural habitat, (read: the shadowy reaches of a neighborhood bar), the elusive and quixotic artist, rocker icon James Hume is biting his clothing like a rabid animal. Custom clothing for the custom man, James Hume likes the symbol of the skull.

You may have seen his art hanging at places like The Swiss, Sanford and Son, Rampart, and the party he started with his Dead Artist friends: KULTURE LAB. I capitalized that last bit to emphasize its importance, lest we forget how to do things in this town.

The son of the great and mighty television gardener Edward Hume, James grew up to be a total rebel and front man for the hair metal band Roadrunner. After marriage and fatherhood, James decided that San Francisco was a bit hot, and moved back to the cradle of his family in and around Auburn. Tacoma is a natural choice for a man like James, unsatisfied with the depressing Auburn nightlife, he quickly rose in popularity as an artist and a party animal in this rich mecca we call T-town.

James now owns a home in Lakewood and often can be found at art parties, gallery openings and anything hip with his beautiful girlfriend Jennifer.

LINK: The Tacoma Files archive

DANIEL BLUE: MEET BEN MEERSMAN >>>

Ben Meersman no longer lives in Tacoma, but he is a genuine product of our pleasant village.   

I met Ben through our mutual friend Joel Meyers, who was a fellow ballet dancer and emotional magician. 

Ben is the strongest human male I know. His physique is nothing short of epic, lifting young women and young men all over the stage in statuesque animation.   How is that possible, to be static and dynamic in the same moment?  I do not know, but it is pleasurable to view. 

Ben falls no measure short of being described as sweet.  His character is mature and his tolerance is high.  Patient and kind, his soft voice soothes one into a trance of sorts, wherein a body desires to simply find companionship with the source of utterance. 

Ben now dances in a cabaret in an underground bar aptly named the Can Can at the entrance to Pike Place Market.  His apartment deck looks down on the Seattle Art Museum's Hammering Man.  He has become a metropolitan ballet demigod, but as I teasingly called him a traitor he seemed genuinely hurt and said, "Daniel, I love this town."    

Your love is good enough for now.

SUZY STUMP: BON ODORI >>>

A few girlfriends and I hit the Bon Odori Japanese street fair Sunday afternoon at 17th and Fawcett in Tacoma. Fawcett was closed in front of the Tacoma Buddhist Temple allowing the Japanese community to go nuts with loud taiko drumming, folk dancing and traditional foods.

It amazes me how long each Japanese folk song lasts. The dancers â€" young and very old â€" slowly move around in a giant circle for 20 minutes at a stretch.

I also thought the taiko drummers weren’t as tight as year’s past.

Still, it’s fun to mingle with a different culture. The garden behind the Temple is manicured perfect.

Oh, the other amazing talent demonstrated at this festival every year. Promptly at 9 p.m. they tear down the festival and reopen the street in 5 minutes. As slow as they move in their version of the conga line, they can move very fast when needed.

See you next year!

LINK: More photos on the Volcano’s Photo Hot Spot

DANIEL BLUE: MEET ELI HANSEN >>>

Eli Hansen is a roper.  Newly famous in cities such as Orlando and Seattle, his collaborative work with his brother Oscar was recently shown at the Seattle Art Museum. Initially inspired by glass blowing, Eli's work has grown to encompass metal sculpture and domestic artifice.

Everyone seems to want what this man has, and that my friends is pure Hansen magic.  Like the band of the same name, young women coo and flock to adore our gruff south Tacoma-based artist, but few find him to be the man they imagined. 

Uncle Eli, as I was introduced to him as a DJ at The Monsoon Room a few years ago, is a scoundrel.  Wild piercing eyes slay your heart from behind his mane of primal huntsman hair.   

"YEAHAW!" he screams as he rides away from the grocery with a child buggy full of "rescued" vegetables.   

"HOOT! WHOOT!" he proclaims, beer held high above his head as a muscular dog violently bites clean through branches it has just ripped from the tree in his front yard.   

Intelligent as a badger, Eli is sure to become a legend in this town.

DANIEL BLUE: MEET RYAN LOISELLE >>>

Ryan Loiselle moved to Tacoma in 1989 and quickly dug in his heels like a stubborn mountain goat. The kind of mountain goat that has a face shaped like a pentagram - yes that kind. I don't know if Ryan ever played Dungeons and Dragons, but if he did his character would be a black wizard. 

An artist and a scholar, Ryan works for the Tacoma Public School District and creates strange and wonderful artwork in many mediums, such as paint, graphics, music, beer and film. 

Ryan is friendly and honest. He loves the humanity of humanity, and the fragility of sanity.

Recently he was at the Urban Art Festival riding around on the tallest bicycle I have seen since Bellingham. I mean tall here, like if you fell you would die.

Thanks for all the danger, Ryan, in the words of Batman's for the Joker, "This town needs an enema."  I wish you were my sixth-grade teacher, but I was home schooled so that's kind of like saying I wish you were my mom.

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: THEATER THURSDAY >>>

Shakespeare In the Parking Lot
Shakespeare In the Parking Lot is continuing its run of original versions of some of the bard's classics with The Tempest: Tall Ship Love and Caliban's Revenge. Watch the traditional take on William Shakespeare's The Tempest with Tall Ship Love â€" a classic tale of love, betrayal and forgiveness. Or catch the sequel to Tall Ship Love with Caliban's Revenge â€" a tragic comedy of survival. The troupe will show the work at Art on the Ave festival.
[Sixth Avenue between Cedar and Trafton, Sunday, July 13, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., free, Tacoma]

The Frog Prince of Spamalot
Gig Harbor's Encore! Youth Theater will stage the hilarious The Frog Prince of Spamalot, written by Edith Weiss and directed by Kathleen McGilliard for two performances on Saturday, following a one-week theater workshop. The show combines the classic frog prince story with the Camelot legend of Monty Python fame. And then there is a rap number.
[Encore! Theatre, Saturday, July 12, 2:30 and 5:30 p.m., $5, 6615 38th Ave. N.W., Gig Harbor, 253.858.2282]

Northwest Playwrights Alliance
Northwest Playwrights Alliance and the Broadway Center will present readings of The Letter, by Emily Freece; The Square, by Michael Wallace; The Best of All Possible Worlds, by Michael Gairuanos and Rest by Jeff Carter Monday night.
[Broadway Center Rehearsal Studio, Monday, July 14, 7 p.m., free, 915 Broadway, Tacoma, 253.591.5894]

STEVE DUNKELBERGER: A BABY GROWS UP>>>

Parents get a sense of accomplishment after their children graduate from school and find success after going out to seek their fortune in the world. That's the way I feel after received news today that 10 years after being a founding member of the Lakewood Historical Society, the group has sent its sights on a massive project that will be the envy of the area.

The group wants to create a permanent museum in the historic Mueller-Harkins Hangar on the Clover Park Technical College campus.

Museum Society President Becky Huber revealed the society’s board of directors reviewed a number of potential sites and decided the former airport hangar would suit its needs best. Built in 1929, the hangar was part of what was then the Tacoma Airport. Tacoma architectural planning firm BCRA has studied eight potential sites and recommended the hangar as the best. The building features enough space to display Lakewood history as well as host Society and community activities. Its a location that has easy access for visitors and a favorable long term lease can be negotiated. Additionally, the site offers the unique advantage of partnering with the college.

CPTC President Dr. John Walstrum  and Tony Robinson,  college vice president for operations and facilities, and the college’s board of trustees subsequently approved the concept. Planning for developing this major new facility will now get underway, as will fundraising projects, according to the society leader.

{Shameless plug alert: If you don't know the history of Lakewood in general or of the Mueller-Harkins in particular, read my book.}

Tacoma’s Art at Work Month has become a Godzilla’s feast of literary, visual and performing arts. Is there any other town of comparable size in the Western Hemisphere that has anything to match it every November?  We don’t think so.

The Tacoma Arts Commission asks for your arts activities for November 2008 early so it may plan their seventh annual Art at Work Month. They seek a variety of activities spanning all categories of art including but not limited to music, visual art, literary art, dance, theater, and film.

TACOMA ARTS COMMISSION NEWS RELEASE: If you will be hosting an exhibition, performance, class, workshop, reception, lecture, tour, artists’ market, celebration, meeting, presentation, or myriad of other programming, let us know. We will list your arts event in the Art at Work Month brochure for free; over 12,000 copies of this brochure are distributed throughout the region. We will also be promoting the many events going on throughout the month in posters, special promo pieces, at www.TacomaCulture.org, and in advertisements and articles in local and regional papers and magazines.

This month would not be possible without the participation of local businesses, organizations, and community members. We encourage you to participate by hosting your own arts activity or event.

Deadline for submissions is August 18, 2008. To qualify, your arts activity must be located within the City of Tacoma limits and occur during the month of November.

For more information, contact Naomi Strom-Avila by e-mail here.

LINK: Download activity_application08.pdf