Month: March 2020 (Page 4 of 4)

The PopCulteer
March 6, 2020

Your PopCulteer is still fighting off a sinus infection and a Myasthenia Gravis flare-up, but there’s plenty of cool stuff happening in town this weekend that we’ll tell you about in a moment.

First, we are running marathons on our sister internet station, The AIR. All day Friday and Saturday you can tune in for The Swing Shift, our Swing Music showcase. At midnight Saturday, we kick into Radio Free Charleston until 6 PM, Sunday. Then it’ll be Curtain Call until Monday night at 11 PM.

Also, my review of the Steppenwolf production of Bug, which I saw in Chicago last week, will be posted here sometime in the next few days.

The big thing happening in Charleston is Celtic Calling. There are more events that I can keep track of, so you should head over to the Celtic Calling website for a full schedule.

One Celtic Calling event worth noting is The debut production of The Titus Project, which you can read about HERE, and see in graphic form below.

And now, here’s some more cool weekend events you can take in if you’re in the region….

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

And that’s it for this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for all our regular features.

Yesterday I reviewed a production of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus that I saw last week in Chicago. Today I’m telling you about a production of Titus Andronicus that you can see here in Charleston, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

This is the production that my wife is in (as Tamora, Queen of the Goths) so I won’t be posting a review here. That would put a bit of a strain on the old journalistic ethics, but I can tell you about this production in advance. A reminder: Mrs. PopCulteer is Melanie Larch, a Charleston stage veteran who has performed with almost every theatre company in town. You can read an interview with her about this production in Chuck Minsker’s excellent theater blog. Mel, of course, is also the host of Curtain Call, the area’s only show dedicated to musical theater, on our internet radio station, The AIR.

Titus Andronicus is happening at The Bullock Distillery on Charleston’s West Side (AKA “Elk City”) and it’s part of this weekend’s Celtic Calling events, which are happening all over town. Doug Minnerly and his co-director, Liz Swick were tasked with pulling this production together in about six weeks–or half the time usually needed for a preparation of a Shakespeare play.

They’ve assembled quite a cast of local and regional stage veterans and newcomers. In addition to Mrs. PopCulteer, Melanie Larch, Titus Andronicus features Jonathan Maynard, Tim Mace, Jacob Fleck, Liz Swick, Ariana Kincaid, David McBrayer, Dewey Fletcher, Jeff Martin, Mary Ellen Logsdon, Austin Philbin, Char Hewitt, Richard Hollicker and several others.

Celtic Calling has received tremendous support from the Charleston Theatrical Community in Staging Celtic Readers Theatre every year. Many of the Actors who have appeared in The Winning 5 One Act Plays that are performed at the Festival appear in this, an abbreviated production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, largely considered his most violent and tragic play.

The play is the first production by The Titus Project, a new theatre collective coming to Charleston’s West Side. The performance space is Bullock Distillery, at 121 Washington Street West in Charleston, a few doors down from GonzoBurger. The Distillery is not operational yet, but they have graciously lent their building for use in this production and it’s a great way for the city to be introduced to this new business.

Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare’s first tragedy, and it’s his most gory. People who are easily triggered should know that this play contains rape, murder, the chopping off of hands, the cutting out of tongues and just a tiny bit of unwitting cannibalism. The worst of the violence happens offstage, but there’s plenty of blood to go around. It’s the closest Shakespeare ever got to the work of Herschell Gordon Lewis.

The title character, Titus, is a Roman General, triumphantly returning home after conquering the Goths. While he was away, the Emprorer died, and while Titus is offered the crown, he turns it down and endorses the Emporer’s son, Saturninus to take the throne.

This is the first of many mistakes made by key characters in the play.

What follows is a tale of treachery, vengeance and a whirling crescendo of evil schemes and violence that builds to a startling climax. Nobody makes it out of the story unscathed.

Like Shakespeare’s King Lear, Titus is a man who acts foolishly and in service to his pride more than his sense. Unlike Lear, Titus does not have the excuse of dementia to explain his decisions.

To see the story unfold in person, you have three chances this weekend. Thursday night is a special open dress rehearsal. You can pay what you want to attend. Come early at 7:30 PM to hear some acoustic Celtic music from The Scribblers with Douglas John Imbrogno (PopCult’s original editor!) who will perform music of dark and fervid hue. from 7:30 to 8 PM, before this pay-what-you-will, 3/4-round showing starts at 8:00.

Friday and Saturday night tickets are $15 for Adults/$12 Seniors/$10 Students. Showtime is 8:00 PM, and The Scribblers will perform every night at 7 30pm. Tickets can be purchased HERE. For more information, visit the Facebook Event Page.

PopCult Theatre Review

Last week your PopCulteer took The Cardinal Amtrak Line to Chicago for a quick theatre trip with his wife. Our main purpose for the trip was to see the Steppenwolf production of Bug, which I will write about in a bit.

However, we added a second night of theatre to the trip, purely by dumb luck. Melanie is currently in rehearsals for a local production of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, and I discovered that a company in Chicago was mounting their own production of Titus, so we decided to go see it so we could take in a different interpretation.

We have great luck when it comes to Chicago theater.

This production of Titus is the work of Haven Chicago, and took place at The Den Theater in Wicker Park. We were mightily impressed by both.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, which is considered Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy, it tells the story of a fictional general in ancient Rome, Titus Andronicus, who conquers the Goths and brings their queen, Tamora, and her sons to Rome in chains as tribute to the new Emperor.

This is a story of stupid pride, foolish decisions, bloody revenge and the horrible outcome of war, vengeance and pettiness. It’s part soap opera, part political thriller and part grindhouse exploitation.

Directed by Haven’s Artistic Director Ian Damont Martin, Titus keeps most of the original text intact, but presents a newer take on the story. All the Roman roles are cast with Black actors, all the Goths and one Moor are White. Haven is a racially and ethnically diverse theatre troupe, but foremost they are a remarkably talented group of artists who have proven that they can handle Shakespeare as well as anyone.

The cast is phenomenal. Colin Jones as Titus (seen below, center) has just the right mix of gravitas, dignity and narcissistic over-confidence that makes this such a tragic play. Micheala Petro (seen left, with Christopher Wayland) brings a maniacal quality to Tamora that works well with both the horrific and comedic aspects of this production.

Amid all the bloodshed, there are moments of levity and dark humor, and both are allowed to flourish without detracting from the story.

Two traditionally male characters are cast with female actors, and those roles are gender-flipped. Bassianus (Lakecia Harris), is now the sister of the new emporer, Saturninus, instead of his brother. This changes one relationship to a gay one, which to be honest, doesn’t even raise an eyebrow anymore.

Marcus Andronicus (Gabrielle Lott-Rogers), the brother of Titus, is now his sister, and if anything, this makes a scene where Marcus discovers the mutilated and violated daughter of Titus wandering in the woods far more emotional and tender than it is with a male Marcus. Lott-Rogers is striking in her role.

An additional role, Chiron, a son of Tamora, is played by a female actor, Morgan Lavenstein, but the character remains male. Lavenstein fills the role with the proper amount of villiany.

While the entire cast is wonderful, I do have to single out two other performers. Tarina Bradshaw as Lavinia, manages to bring a level of strength to a role that exceeds the typical beset-upon victim.

Christopher Wayland embodies Saturninus with a Kid Creole/Morris Day Swagger that allows the comedic cowardice of the character to come to life without taking anything away from his treachery and duplicity.

This is a once-in-lifetime production of Titus Andronicus, and if you are in the Chicago area, I would strongly suggest you make your way to the Den Theater to see it. This run ends on March 14, so you don’t have much time, but it is really worth the trip.

You can find information about tickets and performances HERE.

PopCult Note: I want to thank Haven and director Ian Damont Martin for being so welcoming and kind to us last week. We lingered a bit after the production and spoke with Ian for a few minutes. As I said above, we were mightily impressed, and intend to keep track of what Haven and The Den will be doing in the future, so we can plan our theatre trips around their upcoming productions. Keep in mind that this production of Titus is not the same as the production that opens here in Charleston Thursday. I’ll tell you all about that one tomorrow.

As I explained earlier, Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, really wanted to go to Chicago to see the new Steppenwolf Theater production of the Tracy Letts play, Bug.

In the days before we left I realized that I was in the grip of a Myasthenia Gravis flare up. However I was ready to buckle down and go enjoy this theatrical experience. It’s not like I need control of my fingers to watch a play.

In fact I was reading the Chicago arts and entertainment website New City, and discovered that the night we were to arrive in the Windy City for this very quick trip, another theater in town was staging a production of the Shakespeare play Titus Andronicus.

This was Haven Chicago who perform at The Den Theater in Wicker Park. What was cool about this is that my wife is currently in rehearsal for a local production of Titus Andronicus, which coincidentally opens Thursday night. I will tell you all about that tomorrow.

Even with your PopCulteer somewhat impaired we managed to be very lucky in that Amtrak was running right on time and The Mighty Cardinal actually got us into town half an hour early last Thursday morning. Not only were we lucky with Amtrak but our hotel room was ready as soon as we showed up, five hours before the normal check-in time. Things were going well.

This gave us time to relax and unwind in the hotel room before we went off to the Wicker Park area to see Titus Andronicus. This was our first time visiting Wicker Park. It’s a pretty cool place. I’ll bring you my thoughts on Haven’s production of Titus later on Wednesday. (Spoiler: It was mind-blowing)

And so we enjoyed a fine evening of Shakespeare and grabbed a taxi back to the hotel to rest up for the next day’s adventures.

And what adventures those turned out to be… Friday morning we got up and decided to do one of the most touristy things we’ve ever done in Chicago–we visited the famed Navy Pier. We shopped, we ate, and we rode the big freaking Ferris Wheel. It was a blast, and you’ll find photos below.

Then we headed back to the hotel and napped. Remember, I’m a bit wiped out by MG on this trip. It seemed like there were more sirens than usual during our nap but we got up in plenty of time to make it to Steppenwolf, and then we turned on the news to discover that right outside our hotel there had been a shooting!

You may have seen it on the national news in the last few days, but in short an unruly passenger resisted being subdued by police and wound up with a couple of bullets in him for his efforts. He survived and the police have been suspended. At least this one wasn’t race-related.

Unfortunately for us this meant that our very convenient CTA station at Grand & State on the Red Line was not available because it was now a crime scene, and we would have to take a taxi to Steppenwolf. Making matters worse, Grand Street in front of our hotel was also shut down so we had to walk a half a block to get our ride.

We couldn’t use our handy Venta pass, but at least we didn’t get shot. While this may seem alarming, I still feel safer in Chicago than I do in Downtown Charleston sometimes.

Friday night, after our change of transit plans, we took in yet another amazing evening of theater which I will tell you about in a later post here in PopCult, and afterward we made it back to the hotel and got up the next morning ready to hop the Amtrak back to Charleston. Before that, we decied to make use of our Venta passes and rode around on the L, experiencing our first bit of strangeness as our Brown Line Train mutated without warning into an Orange Line Train headed to Midway, halfway through The Loop. Who knew there was such a thing as a trans-spectrumnal CTA train? We were able to transfer back to the Red Line before we wound up at the Airport.

On top of being weakened by Myasthenia Gravis for this trip a sinus infection which had been lurking in wait for me for the better part of a week finally got the best of me on the ride home, and by the time we were back in Dunbar I needed some bed rest and some fancy sinus medicine.

I’m recouperating right now which is why you didn’t read this post yesterday—I was too wiped out to write it,. Because my fingers are so wonky I’m actually writing this by screaming it into my cell phone which I will then email to myself and heavily edit because otherwise it won’t make any sense because of the cheesy voice recognition. Or as I said earlier, “Tacos partition, endeavor to look askew Toronto.”

You can expect a couple more posts, probably Wednesday, about the Chicago trip. Then Thursday morning I’ll tell you all about the local production of Titus Andronicus and if I’m feeling better Friday I’ll resume my toy fair coverage and try to tell you about stuff you can do this weekend.

Also, Wednesday The AIR will bring you an all-day marathon of Mel’s Curtain Call program, and Thursday will be filled with the best of Radio Free Charleston.

Right now I’m just going to share a few photos with captions and then go to sleep early.

Arriving at Union Station in Chicago.

The Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier.

The view of the Chicago Skyline from The Centennial Wheel.

Mrs. and Mr. PopCulteer in the Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier.I really need to color the beard again.

And we leave you with a shot of the palm trees in the Crystal Garden. They are quite gigantic.

Remember that Monday Morning Art will feature works inspired by this trip all month long. Check back later on Wednesday for a couple of theatre reviews from the trip.

If you think that headline is just a fancy way of saying we’re in reruns today on The AIR…well, you’d be correct.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

See, just as Tony Bennet famously left his heart in San Francisco, your humble PopCulteer and radio host left his voice in Chicago. On top of that, Steven Allen Adams, the host of NOISE BRIGADE, is otherwise occupied this week with his regular job reporting on the marauding hoard of hooligans who infest the State Capitol Building every year around this time.

However, to make up for the lack of new programming today (and quite probably for the whole week), we are going to resort to a programming stunt. Tuesday you can hear encore episodes of Radio Free Charleston from 7 AM to 2 PM, and again from 10 PM to 7 AM Wednesday. From 2 PM to 10 PM, you can tune in for a marathon of NOISE BRIGADE, as we bring you every episode of the ska/punk showcase that we’ve brought you on The AIR.

Wednesday, don’t be shocked if we bring you some kind of marathon of Curtain Call, as that show’s host, Mel Larch, is neck-deep in tech week for a production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, which I am fairly well certain that I will be telling you all about later today or tomorrow.

So tune in and enjoy our past glories as your PopCulteer dutifully takes his Z Pack and tries to recover. I’ll be telling you all about my lightning-round trip to Chicago last week, since I can do that by typing.

Okay, the top-secret mission I’ve been talking about the last few days was a quick trip to Chicago. Mrs. PopCulteer is a huge fan of award-winning playwright, Tracy Letts, and Steppenwolf Theater (the place where we got married) is mounting a production of one of his early works, Bug, which I will tell you about in a day or two. While we were in town, we also took in an amazing production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, mounted by Haven Chicago at the Den Theater, and I’ll also tell you about that, and coincidentally the local production of Titus, which Mrs. PopCulteer is performing in this coming weekend.

With that revelation out of the way, our art for all of the month of March will be inspired by this most recent trip to The Windy City. While we were only in Chicago for about 52 hours, we did visit a couple of places we hadn’t been to yet, and some of our art will spring from our visit to Chicago’s Navy Pier, like this week’s art, which is a digital painting of the Chicago Skyline as seen from the pier, with the Centennial Wheel leaning in for a painting bomb.

You can click the image if you want to see a bigger version.

Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon runs from 7 AM to 11 PM, and brings you an all-day overdose of The Lost Beatles Project on Beatles Blast. You can tune in all day long to hear outtakes, rehearsals, studio chatter, and alternate mixes of classic tunes by The Fab Four themselves. We decided to give you an over-sized marathon today, because most of our shows are going to be in reruns this week, so we wanted to treat you to a bonus.

You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…

This week’s Sunday Evening Video is an encore from September, 2017. We’re running it again now because your PopCulteer is still working on a top-secret project, and besides that, it’s really, really cool. So watch it again.

Tonight we take you back to the days before the proliferation of cable television channels and the existence of the internet, when folks like your loyal PopCulteer, who were obsessed with seeing anything new and different in the world of animation had to scrounge to find anything new and exciting.

Animation fans basically had the PBS program, International Animation Festival, hosted by Jean Marsh, which only ran for a few weeks during some mid-70s summers to expose us to then-new works by independent animators.  At some point in the late 1970s many of the shorts that were shown on that program were compiled into a theatrical feature-length collection that was designed to be shown at midnight movies and in art-houses. Fantastic Animation Festival was a hodge-podge of unusual and psychedelic imagery that show the true potential of animation as an art form at a time when most people knew animation as badly-produced, cheap-looking and disposable children’s entertainment.

Fantastic Animation Festival began with the briefest of voice overs, “Welcome to the world of animation,” by legendary voice artist Paul Frees, and then launched into a series of short filmes that included: French Windows by Ian Eamesm which used rotoscope animation to bring Pink Floyd’s “One of These Days” to life; Icarus, clay animation by Mihail Badica; A Short History of the Wheel by Loren Bowie; The amazing Cosmic Cartoon, animated and directed by Eric Ladd and Steven Lisberger; The Last Cartoon Man by Derek Lamb & Jeffrey Hale; Au Bout Du Fil Cradle (Cat’s Cradle) by Paul Driessen; Moonshadow, Cat Stevens’ story of Teaser and the Firecat, narrated by Spike Milligan, animated by Charles Jenkins; Oiseau de Nuit (Nightbird) by Bernard Palacios;  Room and Board by Randy Cartwright; the infamous Bambi Meets Godzilla by Marv Newland; Mountain Music, very early Claymation by Will Vinton; Light by Jordan Belson; The Mechanical Monsters, a 1941 Fleischer Studios Superman Cartoon; Stranger, a 1971 Levi Strauss Jeans commercial; by Snazelle Films, narrated by Ken Nordine; Uncola, a 1975 7Up commercial; by Robert Abel and Associates; Mirror People by Kathy Rose; Kick Me (film) by Robert Swarthe, a 1975 Best Animated Short Film nominee and Closed Mondays, more very early Claymation by Will Vinton that won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

At the time this was a godsend for animation buffs. The inclusion of a Fleischer Superman cartoon was a real treat because those were rarely seen back in the day. The animated commercials were terrific since commercials were considered disposable and weren’t readily available to be watched again in the days before home video.

Home video did change things, and this YouTube video is obviously a VHS copy, but it’s still cool a just a little bit nostalgic to see so much great animation collected in one place. Of course, nowadays more quirky, independent animation gets posted to the internet every day than you see in this collection, but this was back in the dark ages of media distribution, when people would toil over a film for months or years, with no hope of it ever being seen by more than a handful of people.These were the pioneers of independent animation.