Month: December 2010 (Page 4 of 4)

If you’re looking for a nice early Christmas present, one that you can follow up with a stocking stuffer, you have three more chances to see The Contemporary Youth Arts Company production of the Dan Kehde/Mark Scarpelli rock opera about the birth of Jesus, “MARY.”

“MARY” has become a Charleston Christmas tradition, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you can check it out Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at 8 PM at the West Virginia State University Capitol Center Theater 123 Summers Street, in Charleston.  Tickets are a mere ten dollars, six if you’re a student.

Maddie Gourevich shines as The Angel Gabriel

This year’s production features a very talented cast, highlighted by a stunning performance of The Angel Gabriel by Maddy Gourevich.  Maddy always impresses with her amazing voice, but she really captures the spirit of Gabriel and creates a memorable Arch-Angel for this year’s show.  Even more impressive is that this is the fifth role that Gourevich has played in “MARY.” In previous years she’s played an Angel, Elizabeth (the mother of John The Baptist), King Herod, and the title role, Mary.

Like I said, this is a Charleston Christmas tradition.  It’s a kick to see how Kehde changes the staging and set each year, but the heart of the show remains. If you haven’t seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to see this spectacular  example of Charleston’s homegrown theatrical classic.

In addition, at the performance, you can purchase the CD of “MARY” that you might have been hearing Bill Shahan play this week on WKAZ. Grab it as a souvenir so you can remember this fun night of musical theater with a CD that you can listen to all year long.

You can check out a couple of videos from this year’s production of “MARY” in last week’s PopCulteer.

The birth of Jesus, from "MARY"

This week’s Cool Comic is actually a book about comics…really bad comics, but it’s a really good book. Let me explain: “The Weird World of Eerie Publications” by Mike Howlett, with a very funny introduction by horror comics master, Stephen Bissette, is a detailed history, complete with many colorful anecdotes, of a publishing empire headed by Myron Fass, a man who embodied everything schlocky and sleazy about the world of publishing.

The comic books that are the center of this book, including Fass’s flagship title, “Weird” were cheesy knockoffs of Warren Publishing’s “Creepy” and “Eerie.” Working with a much lower budget, Fass simply reprinted or re-drew old horror comics from the days before the Comics Code Authority forced publishers to water down the gore. Since the magazines Fass published, like the Warren books he was aping, were magazine-sized, they were not subject to the Comics Code, and could get away with anything that the newsstands would allow. Continue reading