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 …

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.

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 »

We knew Spoleto season was upon us last month when people started phoning in Lou Reed sightings a few days ahead of the opening ceremony, and though the former Velvet Underground frontman accompanied wife Laurie Anderson to her official festival house party Wednesday night, he seems generally to have kept a low profile.

But Anderson and Reed had a surprise planned for the audience Thursday night (the second of Anderson’s three Spoleto shows). News of some kind of special guest reached the newsroom at about 3 p.m., and through some mojo I’ll never understand I wound up with a ticket to what appeared to be an otherwise sold-out Anderson performance at Memminger.

The surprise? Near the end of the show, Anderson announced that it was her 61st birthday and called Reed up on stage for a rendition of “The Lost Art of Conversation.” It turns out this isn’t the first time Reed has joined Anderson for a performance of this song from the Homeland cycle, but for what it’s worth, I thought Reed added an electric growl to the piece as it wore on, and for just a moment the five players transformed the relatively minimalistic score into what seemed like a sudden, queasy, blues-rock hallucination, which isn’t exactly an everyday sound when one of your five instruments is an accordion. It surged and faded, but it seemed spontaneous and surprising.

So that’s why I got a ticket. But there was so much more to talk about. Read the rest of this entry »

The UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade touring company) improv group are in town from New York, and I got the chance to catch up with them at their house on Folly Beach on Tuesday evening. They’ve still got two more shows left - Friday and Saturday night at Theatre 99, and we seriously recommend that you catch them while you can …

It’s not to late to get Spoleto’d up if you’ve missed out on the whole thing so far. And seeing as it had been a few days since I pointed my video camera in someone’s face and harassed them, I decided to head down to the Gaillard - ticket central for Spoleto ‘08 - and do just that …

From Robert Behre:

What most would have shocked Spoleto’s first audiences in 1977? That there would be a regional African American country music trio (mostly guitar, banjo and fiddle but also kazoo, snare drum and jug) featured prominently and welcomed warmly during the 2008 festival?

Or that this trio’s first festival performance would occur exactly one night after the first African American managed to clinch the nomination for president of a major political party?

Would the last generation of Charlestonians have raised their collective eyebrows more about a group of black Spoleto performers talking about how their grandparents religiously watched “Hee-Haw” and how they eagerly anticipated their debut at the Grand Old Opry? Or that a black politician with less than four years experience on the national stage defeated a white candidate from the Democratic party’s establishment thanks in part to his overwhelming win in South Carolina?

Maybe the strangest thing is simply this: Sen. Barack Obama most recently appeared in Charleston in January at the College of Charleston’s Cistern, the very same place where the Carolina Chocolate Drops rocked a Spoleto crowd Wednesday night.

One additional coincidence: The temperature was in the 80s both times.

OK, that’s maybe the least shocking thing.

Some information provided by the staff at the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs about the 2008 festival:

By the numbers
700+ events
79 venues
3,500 artists
50,000 program guides
6,000 posters
$1.3 million budget
350+ volunteers
25 interns
17 days
70,000 ticket brochures
40+ Festival Series/Event Coordinators

This evening I filed my assigned story on Laurie Anderson, whose musical piece Homeland has its Spoleto USA opening Wednesday night. Not an easy story to write, I told editor Stephanie Harvin, because interviewing an artist like Anderson doesn’t make you want to go write prose — it makes you want to respond to her enigmas with enigmas of your own.

Am I serious or bemused? Or just coy? Well, I’d say, you decide, and then I’d skate away on two blocks of melting ice.

I spent the morning reading about Anderson, watching Anderson’s videos and listening to Anderson’s music, and I have to say I enjoyed “Only an Expert,” a portion of Homeland, more than any of her better-known material from the 1980s. It’s clearly about some big ideas, the kinds of ideas you’d like to talk about if you’re interested in culture and society and politics and art. Very cool, very contemporary stuff.

Only here’s the rub: If you could have that conversation (and when you’re dealing with someone with the celebrity of Anderson, as a practical matter that’s a privilege you must to earn), would it take you any closer to the subject? Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the latest list of Piccolo Spoleto shows that, according to the box office, are either sold out or have just a few seats left:

Remaining performance of Scheer and McBrayer is sold out.

Always Patsy Cline. Shows left: 6/5/2008 at 8:00pm; 6/6/2008 at 6:00pm ; 6/7/2008 at 2:30pm; and  6/8/2008 at 4:00pm. Footlight Players Theatre, 20 Queen Street.  Admission:  $29 adults, $27 seniors/students.

Mary Kay Has a Posse. Shows left: 6/1/2008 at 4:00pm; 6/2/2008 at 7:30pm; and  6/5/2008 at 5:00pm .  Theatre 99, 280 Meeting Street (Above The Bicycle Shoppe).  Admission:  $15

Louis Prima. The Wild One. Shows left: 6/1/2008 at 7:00pm; 6/4/2008 at 8:00pm; 6/7/2008 at 3:00pm.  Village Playhouse Theatre, 730 W. Coleman Blvd. Mt. Pleasant.  Admission:  $25.

God’s Trombones. Shows left: 6/1/2008 at 8:00pm and 6/7/2008 at 8:30pm. Footlight Players Theatre, 20 Queen Street.  Admission:  $25 adults, $20 seniors/students

A Complete History of Charleston For Morons. Only show with seats still available is 6/7/2008 at 3pm.  Theatre 99, 280 Meeting Street (Above The Bicycle Shoppe).  Admission:  $15.

St. Petersburg (Russia) String Quartet. Only show left is 6/2/2008 at 6:00pm. New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church, 22 Elizabeth Street.  Admission:  $10

Duda Lucena Quartet. Only show with seats still available is 6/2/2008 at 10:30pm. Upstairs at Mistral Restaurant, Festival Entrance at 180 Meeting Street.  Admission:  $15

Tommy Gill Trio. Only show with seats still available is 6/4/2008 at 10:30pm. Upstairs at Mistral Restaurant, Festival Entrance at 180 Meeting Street.  Admission:  $15

Piccolo Harbor Cruise. Rolling on the River Review. Only one with tickets still available is cruise featuring Rob Keiter and Friends on 6/5/2008 at 8pm.