It’s at 7 in Marion Square. SpoletoToday will be there with some friends, although we will probably be fashionably late! Look for us! Here’s what we look like.

Perhaps the nearly overlooked and best deals for your money of the offerings of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival this season are the Piccolo Harbor Cruises. You are out on the ocean with a terrific view of leaping dolphins taking a spin around Fort Sumter and then admiring the lights on The Battery, which alone would cost you at least $25 a person for a two-hour cruise.

But that would be without the fantastic jazz offered by some of the areas best musicians. Not only that, you can dance on the top deck. And all for $15. I was on the first of the four Piccolo cruises Wednesday night which had people at the dock wanting to buy tickets. However, boat officials said the place was totally filled with 255 passengers. For full disclosure, I will say the Franklin Ashley Quintet was churning out the tunes that night, and I happen to be married to the piano player, whose name headlines the group. But I was not the only one who was amazed to hear clarinetist Jack Dressler produce a sound like Benny Goodman on “Moonglow.” And more than one person said, “Does that fellow play in New York?”

When Dressler and Bryan Reed swung like crazy with a jazz duet of “Honeysuckle Rose,’ the crowd went ballistic, as the wine flowed. As I mingled in the crowd, I estimated about 50 percent were from “off,” like playwright Carmilla Carr and her son Kali O’Dwyer who are from L.A., and about half were Lowcountry residents. “Los Angeles doesn’t have anything like this,” said Dwyer.

We also hear that John Tecklenburg & Friends’ mellow jazz on the cruise last night was well-attended in spite of the lousy weather. You can still catch Rolling on the River with Oscar Rivers on June 4 and singer Rob Keiter’s trio on June 5. And for all of this, tickets are just $15. Only in Charleston.

Spoleto gossip
Although the Boston Ballet has come and gone, as a dance critic I would like to point out that no matter how terrific, that dancers like writers, need to be edited. Certainly, technically, the Boston Ballet was to this dance critic of 30 years, on the level with the Bolshoi, the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet. However, the first number “Brake the Eyes,” beautifully executed en pointe, consisted of the same combination of eight to 10 steps performed over and over again, despite the fact the audience kept applauding at various intervals, thinking it was over. This went on for nearly 30 minutes, but seemed like several hours. Choreographer Jorma Elo simply took the easy way out by having something that was superb go stale.

The excerpts in the next piece from”Swan Lake” were the best I’ve ever seen and 27 years ago I saw Russian prima ballerina Maya Pletsetskaya dance the “Dying Swan” divertissement. Unfortunately, we were left disappointed when Twyla Tharp in her modern piece “In the Upper Room” took the same path as Elo. She had her superb dancers perform the same combination over and over for about 25 minutes. At firstn we delighted in the “with it” costumes or black and white stripes with women in mini-skirts with matching briefs (often seen) and red socks. But after awhile, the frenetic trademark Glass music started to seem like bees buzzing in our brain and I began to feel imprisoned, as if I couldn’t bear the repetition and the unrelenting music anymore. Afterward, at the gala, which WAS gorgeous, a prominent local artist was walking around inquiring as to whether anyone had an asprin as the dance had given him a terrific headache.
I knew exactly how he felt. What a shame some of the most astute dance in the world had to be partly spoiled by choreographers.

I arrived at the Footlight Players Theatre too late to get a seat for the very first dance in this year’s Piccolo Dance Festival.  Waiting to hear the applause before I could sneak in for a seat, someone leaned into me and said, “This next group isn’t really up to our normal standards…”  Startled, I immediate thought to myself, What exactly ARE the standards to be part of Piccolo Spoleto??? Especially for young unprofessional dancers?  I sat down and looked at my program to see who was coming up next.  Before my brain could register anything, the lights went down, and I watched with tears in my eyes, wondering at how anyone could be so demeaning to these girls…girls who are out of trouble and up on stage…girls with big hearts and blooming talent.  I applaud them for their courage and passion. 

After an hour and a half, I left totally inspired and came up with a list of all that I saw and why I think every group in that show (unfortunately I didn’t get to see them all) was “up to par”.  I danced when I was younger and studied the figure during my undergraduate education.  I believe that dance is really not only expression, but performance art, and perfection of the human form.  It is music visualized.  It is complete control and balance sided with organic and fluid energy.  It is raw muscle and tissue sided with ethereal grace and gravity defiance.  Who are you to put a restrictive line around what is and what isn’t in “normal standards”?  Each group had such individuality in their pieces, it would be ludicrous to discriminate one from the next.  Sure I had my favorites, but as a whole, Well done ladies and gents.

Stunt Brit Nick Smith and Janet talk about what they like about the festival, why actors need good press and what’s next.

Hear today’s podcast direct by following this link, or why not subscribe permanently here throughout the duration of the festival and get it fed to your MP3 player automatically. There’s also our guide to podcasting here.

PURE Theatre: Episode 3. Showtime from Dan Conover on Vimeo.

Sharon makes her debut behind the wheel of the “big rig” Penske rental and nothing can stop her… except that pesky emergency brake. The car seat confusion continues, and then it’s off to a Spoleto show and back to Lance Hall for the Piccolo premiere of K. Brian Neel’s ‘Vaud Rats.’

PREVIOUSLY:

• EPISODE 1: PURE cofounders Rodney Lee Rogers and Sharon Graci start their day with their two youngest daughters.
• EPISODE 2: Actors and family members pitch in as stage hands to construct PURE’s new theater space.

The Geoffless Janet overcomes technical difficulties with help from stunt Brit Nick Smith (and a desperate phone call to Don Lewis) to record Charleston Academy of Music faculty members EunJoo Yun, Irina Pevzner and Susan McAdoo talking about their students’ performances during Piccolo, the angst of turning pages, playing with passion and other good stuff.

Hear today’s podcast direct by following this link, or why not subscribe permanently here throughout the duration of the festival and get it fed to your MP3 player automatically. There’s also our guide to podcasting here.

Adam Parker sends this review of “Burial At Thebes” …

Judge not, oh mortals, lest ye be judged.

The conflict between the “law of life” and the law of kings is among the themes at the heart of “The Burial at Thebes,” poet Seamus Heaney’s rendering of Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone.” The spare and effective production by the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company was presented outdoors in The Cistern Thursday night, the first of five performances.

The story is the culmination of Sophocles’ three great plays about the Oedipus saga (though it is thought to be the first of the three he wrote). In it, Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter-sister insists on performing the traditional burial rites over the corpse of her brother Polynices, who committed treason against the state by forming an army in Argos to wage battle against Thebes.

That betrayal causes Creon (brother-in-law of Oedipus), now king, to threaten the Thebans with death should they disobey his command to let the corpse on the hot hill feed the birds and dogs. So when it’s discovered that Antigone has rejected this command, she is sentenced to death. For how can a mere woman contradict the king? And aren’t the gods as concerned with civic law and order as they are with the sanctity of life and death?

Paul Bentall, with fire in the belly (and a misbehaving wireless microphone round his head) played Creon as though he were born hard-headed and paranoid. Obsessed with the idea that “money brings down leaders,”that the “walls have ears,” and that “personal loyalty must always give way to patriotic duty,” Bentall’s Creon is, as the Guard aptly explains it, “the judge (who) has misjudged everything.”

His performance invited the audience to hate his tyranny. In an ancient Greece used to warfare, though, such kingly decrees likely would have provoked ambivalence from audiences, perhaps even a little sympathy. But this production chose to be fairly black and white about the whole thing.

Catherine Hamilton played Antigone with fervor and smarts, clearly articulating the dilemma. She projected a moral fortitude that never wavered, even as she was able to convey in her words and expressions the hypocrisies of the circumstances. The scene in which Antigone expresses anger at her sister Ismene for her moral floundering and hesitation in appeasing the gods perfectly encapsulated the profound ethical questions while simultaneously conveying the emotional trauma of Antigone’s condition — and, by extension, the state’s. Read the rest of this entry »

No, this is NOT a story about a restaurant diner who pulled a gun and refused to pay for his meal.

It is the headline I saw several years ago over a story about the eating habits of pandas. This was prompted by a terrific Piccolo Spoleto Fringe show I enjoyed last night at Theatre 99.

It was called “I Eat Pandas” and featured two VERY imaginative - and energetic - young ladies and their off stage piano player.

The hour improv presentation started with a 30-minute skit inspired by the audience suggestion of “laundry.” A large clock on the stage allowed the audience to do a “count down.”

Glennis McMurray (L) (blonde) and Eliza Skinner then did an hiliarious 15-minute reprise of the main characters and, finally, a 5-minute wrap-up of what had become a musical. No, really. Both ladies sang well and the piano/harmonica accompaniment was excellent.

On the keyboard was Jonathan Wagner, a last-minute fill in, and - he said - a member of Second City.

They announced they were doing two more shows at the Meeting Street venue so go check them out. It’s a nice “Fringe” benefit.

More Chucker on Spoleto at Chuckography.

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Spoleto Festival USA announced today that they have added a fourth performance of “The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac” to the schedule. The additional show will be held at 10pm on Monday, June 2, at the Emmett Robinson Theater at College of Charleston. You can buy tickets as of now.

Here’s the festival’s synopsis: “Sedition meets sequins in an unforgettable evening of cabaret, political tirade and stark-raving fabulousness. Armed with little more than a ukulele, a suitcase of outrageous costumes and an utterly charming/disarming sense of humor, this New York performance art legend offers wry and incisive commentary on the world and sings original songs about everything from love to Lynne Cheney.”