Apologies, because this should have appeared here on Monday - two days ago - but something called ‘real work‘ kept getting in the way.

We needed something to wrap up Spoleto ‘08 nicely, and what else but an acceptance to the Finale Picnic Judging competition. So Geoff, our intrepid ‘video guy’ gamely stepped up to the challenge, and mingled with the picnickers at Middleton Place on Sunday afternoon …

As this will probably be the last post for this year (sob!) we’d like to say ‘thanks’ to y’all for checking out the SpoletoToday.com blog for the past three or so weeks. Our stats tell us there’s a healthy number of you out there that have enjoyed the coverage, and we’ve certainly enjoyed putting it all up here for you.

We just hope that we’re still around to do it all again next year …

With Spoleto wrapped, I’m left with a blur of memories, impressions and observations on the festival. Here are just a few of them.

An audience member filming Harvard Sailing Team’s opening night with her cellphone, distracting the people sitting behind her (including me) as she emailed the hilarious sketches to her friends…

Oversized patrons at the Chapel Theatre, trying to squeeze into the small seats. Some of the grossest guests had to ride side saddle.

Rodney Lee Rogers sitting patiently behind a small curtain for 45 minutes, the audience gathering around him before The Tragedian.

Two old dears I met at the first performance of A Devil Inside who’d been to so many shows that they couldn’t remember what they’d seen the night before, and started arguing about it. The festival had been running for two days.

The miserable actors in This War is Live who were fed up with the show and its technical hiccups… one complained about his simplistic character, while another called the whole experience “torturous.” He should have counted himself fortunate – he wasn’t sitting in the audience…

Sitting next to two of the playwrights of Under the Lights: 10×10 – and trying to make mental review notes without making them feel uncomfortable…

Jay Clifford courageously performing at the American Theatre despite suffering from some debilitating lurgy. After the first night, he conked out in his truck… on the second night, his manager Vance McNabb picked up his bug. They put on a great show, they’re both feeling better now and they’re no longer contagious (I hope).

Watching rehearsals with Chen Shi-Zheng, director of Monkey: Journey to the West… and being invited to look at the aftermath of The Great War after Hotel Modern’s show was over. I witnessed chaos on a model train scale.

One of my favorite elements of the festival, though, was bumping into the various local and national theatre performers, artists and filmmakers who collaborate to help make the festival function. Without their hard work and the overwhelming enthusiasm of the audience, there’d be no festival… thanks to them all.

There’s two more videos from Geoff to come, here’s one of them - some quick clips from the Piccolo closing ceremony on Saturday.

Richard Hagerty’s Piccolo Spoleto poster image is a fascinating marriage of family-friendly colors and impish myth. Hagerty has an invitational show at the Corrigan Gallery on Queen Street, and the opening way back on May 15 (which seems like a lifetime ago) was well attended.

I hit the show early expecting it to be fairly quiet. Instead, I could hardly squeeze in the door. The gallery was packed with lively figurative work, abstract paintings and a crowd of attendees. Viewers were intrigued and collectors snapped up six artworks.

I managed to break out of the mob long enough to grab a few photos of the exhibition, which is up through June 15 and has create a surge of visits to the gallery.

“We’ve sold a bunch of pieces and had lots and lots of interest,” says Lese Corrigan, owner of the gallery and a fine artist in her own right. “There’s been a fascination with the variety of Richard’s artwork and his ability to be a surgeon and still be a prolific artist. He’s been doing both in parallel for 30 years.”

Usually, Piccolo poster artists get their own shows at one of the Office of Cultural Affairs’ City Gallery spaces. But with the Dock Street Theatre closed for refurbishment and its back-up space the Gaillard kind of busy with Spoleto, it fell to Corrigan to present Hagerty’s art.

“I’d already set this show and the opening before Richard was asked to be the Piccolo poster artist,” says Corrigan. “I think we helped the city by providing a venue, and the gallery was helped with high visibility and having the original image for the poster hanging in the front window. It’s worked out well for everyone.”

Hagerty’s eclectic exhibition includes images and colors that seem to have leaped from a children’s storybook, alongside sophisticated art and hints of Miro, Kandinsky and Escher. The work of other artists, including Corrigan, Karin Olah and Manning Williams, are on display too. Corrigan’s mascot is also there – a crimson fish called Dot. That way, there will always be a red Dot in the gallery.

The musical finale for Piccolo Spoleto Festival 2008 was in Hampton park Saturday evening but the big laughs were at Theatre 99 as improv ruled . Upright Citizens Brigade did their 7:30 show and contributed greatly when they provided zany merriment to the 2-hour Grand Finale at 9:30. The group, who has been learning to live on The Edge Of America at Folly Beach, opined that Charlestonians like their city and like to get drunk.

Mary Theresa Archbold, JAZZ HAND, reprised two skits and the stars of the Cody Rivers Show - both of them - joined the gang onstage as the audience relaxed with some cold brews and threw out suggestions.

Running gags kept on running all evening long, popping up unexpectedly, to the delight of the jam-packed room.

The show touched many, many bases and you would have had to have been there to understand the juxtaposition of hollow-boned birds, bearded predators and Girl Scout outings.

More Chucker on Spoleto at Chuckography.

Very appropriate that my trip upstairs at Mistral for the final of the 12 acts of the Festival Jazz Series would feature Bobbie Storm. She’s the ultimate saloon singer.

And it’s always been in bars where I have seen her around Charleston as she smoothly belted out jazz standards.

I snapped a lot of pictures (no flash of course) but this reflection in the bar mirror seemed to sum it up. Let me quickly add that I have never seen her take a drink.

She was backed by other favorites of mine - Tommy Gill on piano, David Patterson, drums and Wayne Mitchum, bass. I seem to remember Wayne called himself Neckbonius Monk.

Earlier in the day, over at Mad River Grille and Bar, Gary Erwin and his band, was pleasing a crowd of visitors and assorted Blues fans.

If we could nominate a Poster Person for the title of Blues Promoter, Manager and Performer, it would have to be Gary. To help you visualize this, I “posterized” a shot of him in action at his keyboard.

Both venues - and a stop for half a slab of delicious ribs at Sticky Fingers - featured VERY cold air conditioning, something visitors AND locals appreciate as we quickly move from Spring into that other Sizzling season in the Lowcountry.

Tonight will be a full slate of comedy at Theater 99. And that includes the Finale.

I bumped into Timmy Finch, one of the founders of The Have Nots, the other day and mentioned I was looking forward to the “big Finish” - a highlight every year for this and for their Comedy Festival. I added “it’s like a funny, funny smorgasbord.”

“Yeah,” Timmy shot back, “a real Poo Poo Platter.”

More Chucker on Spoleto at Chuckography.

Late one evening, a man was walking back from the store to his home. Moonlight trickled through tree limbs and Spanish moss like a stained glass canopy. The air was warm…and very still. Even the crickets had gone quiet as if they themselves didn’t want to disturb the now deafening silence. Sweat trickled down the back of the man’s neck, and yet he crossed his arms over himself and quickened his pace.

Upon passing the Second Presbyterian Church, the man caught wafts of voices echoing off of stone and brick. He stopped dead in his tracks to listen…

“I’ll take this one, you take that one”

“I’ll take that one, you take this one”

“You take this one, I’ll take…”

The conversation continued. The man amazed, realized that he was listening to God and the Devil in the midst of dividing up the souls that made their final resting place only a few yards away in the church’s graveyard. Worried he had lost his mind, he ran back to the store, made his plight, and convinced the store owner to come back with him to listen.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote this after visiting the Charleston Artist Guild Gallery last night for their “Painted Palettes” Silent Auction. The Charleston Artist Guild will also be participating in tonights French Quarter Art Walk (which occur every first Friday of the month) from 5pm to 8pm.

The shuffle of feet
Bring the old ones out of their
Faded lawn Chairs
Eyes twinkling
Behind Dusty Frames.

Colors trumpet so they almost
Spring canvas and wood
Off of walls
On their own accord.

Scratches made on paper
Finalizing a well
Thought out
Decision.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes we amaze ourselves — as with today when we manage to talk about nearly all things Spoleto, even though it’s coming to a gradual end. But we’ve had fun, right - huh? Of course we have.

The awesome Janet is back in the SpoStudio with regular BritBoy Geoff hosting.

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.

Directing the adventure-opera Monkey: Journey to the West has been an epic experience for Chen Shi-Zheng. He’s had to deal with switched cast members and a different conductor for the US version of the show; a smaller space and a different configuration to squeeze the extravaganza into the Sottile; and a lot of hype to live up to.

“It’s been a journey making this production,” Mr. Chen told me just before he left town last week. “From a childhood fascination with the legend to all this.” Appreciating that a show like this becomes bigger than one person’s enthusiasm for a story, he has collaborated closely with his young cast to pass on some of his passion for Monkey to the actors, acrobats and martial artists.

“I forced them to read Wu Cheng-en’s novel Journey to the West,” he grinned. Used to visual stimuli in general and Chinese cartoons in particular, the performers were reluctant to plough through a 500-year-old book. But it was part of their job description, and their appreciation for the tale grew as a result. “It’s a fantasy journey that’s an allegory for Buddhism,” said Chen. “The idea of multiple universes and realities is Buddhist. It will find its place in the world, because the character is one of a kind.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As I leafed through the the Spoleto brochure some months back, I knew I had to see The Carolina Chocolate Drops when they came to town.

Last night, I saw them at the Cistern and they did not disappoint. 

The talented trio–Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson, and Dom Flemons–bill themselves as an “African-American String Band,” and although they are often most closely associated with bluegrass, their songs ran the gamut from traditional Piedmont Stringband, to jazz and blues, and even a little hip-hop that doesn’t fall into neat, tidy categories. From Corn Bread and Butterbeans to Salty Dog to Hit Him Up Style, it’s all American music that’s to be enjoyed in a community setting.

My favorites were a gorgeous a capella song Giddens sang in Gaelic as well as the dancing.  They kept things informal and engaging, and I enjoyed the stories behind the music nearly as much as the songs themselves. 

All in all, it was a toe-tapping, knee-slapping, hand-clapping, get-up-and-dancing delight of a performance on on a pleasant evening.