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 …

Fringe is an exciting part of the annual Spoleto Festival and often provides some pleasant surprises.

JAZZ HAND, Tales Of A One Armed Woman, starring Mary Theresa Archbold and her husband Pat Shay, is a great example.

“Jazz Hands” is the name of a famous dance number from the Bob Fosse musical “All That Jazz.”

Mary Theresa - born without her left hand and forearm - provides many variations of events in her life relating to that missing limb.

Some are awkward, most are funny and ALL are inspiring by a lady who’s getting along with her life.

Here she is pictured, dancing with God, who answered her musical question “Why didn’t You Make All Of Me?”

She announced there are two more performances at the American Theatre. Do yourself a favor. Go see her.

Applaud with BOTH hands.

More Chucker on Spoleto at Chuckography.

There’s no Janet today — and Harriet is sick too! So it’s an all-male show on your ‘cast today as Geoff hosts with Dan and Jack acting as his wingmen. Geoff was obviously out too late last night, as he keeps thinking that it’s Wednesday and not Thursday, but apart from that I think we almost make sense …

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.

As promised, here are the latest videos from SpoJo Don D. Lewis. He’ll have more over at his site…

First up, Gradual Lean:

Gradual Lean at Holy City Homecomin’ from Don D. Lewis on Vimeo.

Next: Clay Ross’ Matuto…

Clay Ross’ Matuto at Holy City Homecomin’ from Don D. Lewis on Vimeo.

Who hasn’t heard of “The Have Nots!” ??? Its seems they are everywhere…including all over this year’s festival, calling their shows “Piccolo Fringe” and “Piccolo Cheap Laughs”. Last night I got to see the latter in the last running of “Big Dicktionary” (” Stars Bar”; American Theatre) put on by funny men Timmy Finch and John Brennan, who not only hung out greeting every single audience member as they strode past with their tickets and beer in hand, but afterwards offered up an invite to anyone interested in drinking with them (”So…uh…we like to drink…“).

Sitting on a plush over sized blue couch with their comrade, fellow “Have Not”, Andy, and “Have Not in Training”, Meaghan, I realized how much of a family these guys really are. It isn’t all about the laughs. Its about performing, learning from, and supporting the whole troupe.

“Big Dicktionary”, I learned quickly, was entitled as so because the entire show was based on words randomly selected from a (guess?) big dictionary. Ahem, and please note the spelling. I was simply amazed at how two people could keep an audience in an uproar over the words (in order) Physiological Psychology, Quasar, and Emissary.

Favorite quotes:

“I was down at Eric Clapton’s place in Jamaica where its okay to smoke reefer…just as long as it’s not heroine.”

“Here at Outback we offer the ‘Dingo’ (drink)…it’ll kill your baby.”

A theme throughout the entire show was the significant discovery of the irreversible ailment caused by drinking “Dingos”: Thinking Through Your Thighs (which also in turn causes talking through them as well). Don’t ask…I wouldn’t do it justice.

Best parts?

Eight people arriving late, being put on the spot, having imaginary roses strewn at their feet, and watching Timmy and John recount for them the entire show thus far…in fast-forward (it involved several fabulous impressions of the space monkey who’s head exploded and later was transfered through a telescope, “Coco”)

A standing ovation and the “first ever experienced” improv encore for Timmy and John, rightly deserved because I think they possibly played 15 different characters each, interchangeably, and with great gusto.

If you can’t fit in any laughs in the remaining few days of Piccolo, don’t forget that Theatre 99 regularly hosts improv. Check them out at: www.thehavenots.com

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.

Yesterday evening, I headed down to the Holiday Inn at Folly Beach for the 5th Annual Felder Film Festival. I had stumbled upon this event last year, and it turned out to be one of my favorites, so it was one of the of the first things to get on my Piccolo schedule this year.

According to the creators, the festival’s mission is the following:

…to help train, develop, and promote South Carolinian motion picture directors, producers, writers, and actors, and to create a forum for them to compete in the national market.

The film shorts, most clocked in at 12 minutes or less, ranged from the deeply moving The Last One Standing to the comedic Cupcake, The Killer Kitten.

My favorites were Fear A Following, a treatise on paranoia, and Lost and Found, a thoughtful work on how guilt can block us. The retro exhibition film, Living Dolls, was creepy fun and reminiscient of the 70s TV thriller Night Gallery.

Read the rest of this entry »

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