Were you art-full this past weekend?

Did you visit a gallery, attend a performance or catch a movie or bar band? Maybe you performed yourself. Please share how the arts filled your week and weekend.

EPAC’s ‘Sweet Charity’ has something for everyone

EDITOR’S NOTE: A regular attendee of Endicott Performing Arts Center shows shared with BAMirror the comments he posted on EPAC’s Facebook site following last week’s opening weekend of Sweet Charity. Performances conclude tomorrow (Sunday, March 24).

Reviewed by Ed Arnold

Another fine evening’s entertainment was provided by the cast and tech crew of EPAC for the musical Sweet Charity. When I go out for an evening, I want to be entertained with comedy, dancing, live music, and this show had it all.

‘Last Five Years’ puts pair in a pop opera time warp

Reviewed by Nancy Oliveri

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years opened last night (March 22) in Binghamton, a production of Half Light Theatre, one of the more recent entries into the theater community here. The show is not exactly a musical and is not exactly a play, but is more like an opera. I would call it a Pop Opera, but without any instantly sing-able melodies. I didn’t leave with any one song buffering in my head, just a sense of the work as a whole.

That’s OK, though, because it was good and, first and foremost, a love story — a story about the first and, no surprise here, what turn out to be the last five years of a couple’s angst-ridden, sometimes hopeful, but never really tender relationship. Performed in the intimate setting of the Roberson  Museum and Science Center’s third-floor ballroom, the show was accompanied only by Vicky Gordon, a fine pianist.

New Binghamton Philharmonic director charts ambitious course

EDITOR’s NOTE: Last fall, BAMirror began an occasional series of chats with recently appointed leaders of local arts organizations. Today we talk with the new executive director of the Binghamton Philharmonic.

By George Basler

Heidi Kelley knows this is a tough time to be the executive director of a symphony orchestra. She worked for a symphony orchestra in southwest Florida that ran into financial difficulties. She’s read about other orchestras, such as Honolulu and Syracuse, that have gone belly up because of money.  “In this industry, finances are a constant concern,” said Kelley, who became the Binghamton Philharmonic’s new executive director March 1 after working as executive director of the Abilene (Texas) Philharmonic. She succeeds Stephen Wilson, who is now executive director of the Fresno (California) Philharmonic.

Mobility documentary is as endearing as it is informative

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

Monteith McCollum’s visually affecting 2010 documentary, A Different Path, is a stunning combination of animated work and cinematography. The film, screened this past weekend at Binghamton University as a part of  the Harpur Cinema series “Forces of Nature,” takes its audiences into the lives of several ordinary people who have come up with some fairly creative ways to communicate their transportation troubles.

As someone who isn’t a fan of the documentary genre, I expected to be bored by preachy commentary on people who are against cars as a primary mode of transportation, but McCollum does a brilliant job of making his point indirectly.

What did you do in the arts this weekend?

I attended all three performances of Union-Endicott High School’s amazing production of Godspell. How were the arts a part of your week and weekend?

Cider Mill’s ‘Trying’ is a triumph

Reviewed by George Basler

At first glance the plot of Trying seems to be the worst kind of theatrical cliché. One character in the two-character play is a cantankerous, demanding old man. The other is a bright, efficient young woman who goes to work for him. Of course, they’re going to start the play clashing with each other. Of course, there going to end up feeling mutual respect and affection.
But don’t let the plot summary discourage you. Trying, now playing at the Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, is a funny, warm and poignant play that skillfully explores both the issues of aging and the stresses of young dreams yet to be realized. Canadian playwright Joanna McClelland Glass skillfully intermixes humorous and emotional moments without ever descending into false sentimentality. Like a skillful jazz musician finding new riffs on an old tune, Glass finds new insights in the off-repeated odd couple genre.
And the Cider Mill production is first-rate, with Paul Falzone and Marjorie Donovick giving outstanding performances.

United Cultural Fund grants total $228,000 for 2013

By Barb Van Atta

Broome County Arts Council Board Chairman Fred Xlander and Executive Director Sharon Ball today (March 13) announced the awarding of more than $228,000 in United Cultural Fund (UCF) grants for 2013. Seven arts and cultural organizations will share in $210,428 in UCF general operating support grants. Project grants totaling another $18,298 will be shared by 14 organizations and individual artists.

Comedy and commentary ring true in ‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

Elizabeth Mozer’s Binghamton University directorial debut, Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, follows a woman named Jean (Christina Catechis), who finds — what else? — the phone belonging to Gordon, a dead man, and begins to answer it. She meets his mistress (Jacobella Luongo); his mother, Mrs. Gottlieb (Sarah Lees); his brother, Dwight (Rob Tendy); his wife, Hermia (Arshia Panicker) and his organ-trafficking business associate, “the stranger” (also played by Luongo). On the surface, this is a situational comedy about a woman who keeps this man’s memory alive by keeping in contact with the people in his life, but ultimately it is a play about communication.

They Might Be Giants … of improv

Reviewed by Nancy Oliveri

OK, here’s the situation: Ten acting students, graduates of an eight-week improv class, gather to show the world what they’ve learned. On the barest of stages, and with only their wits, they need to think fast and act faster.

Last Saturday (March 9), Tim Mollen was about to put his improv students’ newly-acquired skills to the test at the JCC in Vestal, performing ad-libbed skits under his direction to a room full of people. Expectations were high.

Celtic Woman concert makes a mockery of Irish music

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

Never underestimate the gullibility of the American concert-going public.
A sell-out crowd attended the travesty of Irish music by Celtic Woman Tuesday night (March 5). at The Forum in Binghamton.
The promoters should have billed the fare as Irish rock, as the show was far more about stage effects than music from the Emerald Isle.

Sexual violence play at Know Theatre benefits crime victims

By George Basler

The issue of violence against women has been much in the news. Congress recently re-authorized the Violence Against Women Act. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is holding hearings on sexual abuse in the military. A rape and killing in India has prompted protest and self-examination in that country.
So a production taking place this coming weekend (March 8 and 9) in Binghamton is both timely and provocative.

What did you do in the arts this weekend?

Did you participate in the monthly art walk (as either a walker or an artist)? Were you in the audience for a high school musical? Did you, like me, try to catch up on Oscar winners that you hadn’t seen yet? (First thought after finally seeing Argo: Christoph Waltz must have been absolutely amazing in Django to have been deemed more worthy of the Best Supporting Actor award than the hilarious Alan Arkin.) Please join our conversation.

One night + three BU shows = Lots of feelings

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

The graduate students of Binghamton University’s theater department presented their versions of Elizabeth Wray’s futurist parable, Forecast; Thornton Wilder’s 1930s comedy, The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden, and Edward Allan Baker’s  family drama, Up Down Strange Charmed Beauty and Truth yesterday (Feb. 28) in Studios A and B in the Fine Arts Building.

Salsa Libre es muy caliente!

Reviewed by Nancy McKenzie Oliveri

According to its Facebook page, Salsa Libre, a Binghamton-based, eight-piece band with a Latin beat, was “formed in 1997  to give the Southern Tier spicy, sensual music for listening and dancing pleasure” The description continues that “the band has captured the sounds of the great Salsa, Mambo, and Merengue bands of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Santo Domingo,” prompting me to ask myself, “Where have I been?”