MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A two-week acting camp that will give young people an experience with theater and drama takes place in Middletown next month.
The camp runs 9 a.m. to noon, Mondays through Fridays, June 10-14 and June 17-24.
The acting camp is open to students ages 6 to 13. Healthy snacks will be provided.
The cost is $200 per child.
“Acting builds confidence, self-esteem, and helps discover new talents. That, plus it’s a lot of fun,” said camp director Jessica Sage.
Sage has been teaching acting as well as directing theater for 17 years. She hopes this camp will be a place for young people to be expressive, creative, and spontaneous in a noncompetitive environment.
“Young people need a healthy and safe way to express themselves,” Sage said. “Creating characters allows them to do that.”
Campers will have the full experience of putting on a show – everything from learning lines to performing in front of an audience.
They will rehearse a play, “The Not So Grimm Fairy Tales,” and perform on the last day of camp.
All campers will have their own parts in this spirited and funny tale. Children also will play improvisation games, have daily talent shows and learn vocal skills.
Campers will perform for invited friends and family on the last day of camp at 11 a.m., followed by a cast party.
To enroll and for more information go to www.actlakecounty.com , call 415-328-6363 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
LAKEPORT, Calif. – This year’s Lake County Symphony’s annual Mothers Day concert will feature the words and music of Broadway, presented under the talented direction of conductor John Parkinson.
The concert will take place beginning at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 12, at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre, 275 S. Main St. in Lakeport.
Entitled “Salute to Broadway” the show will feature some of the most beloved numbers from the Great White Way, including those from a virtual who’s who of noted composers, most of whom did their best work during the so-called Golden Age of Broadway Musicals, namely the 1920s through the 1960s.
The opening medley will consist of themes from “Give my Regards to Broadway” (George Cohan); “Ain’t Misbehavin’” (Fats Waller); “My Funny Valentine” (Rogers & Hart); “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face” (Lerner & Lowe); and “Thou Swell,” (Rogers & Hart).
Other selections are from George and Ira Gershwin’s “Strike up the Band” which was a 1930 musical hit satirizing America’s tendency toward gunboat diplomacy, and dance sequences from “Fiddler on the Roof,” the 1964 play with Zero Mostel playing the part of Tevye in turn-of-the-century Russia and his attempts to marry off his daughters in traditional ways.
The wedding dance No. 1 features second daughter Hodel and her beloved Perchik, while the second – “To Life” – is the sequence for Chava, the third daughter. The lyrics were written by Jerry Bock, with music by Sheldon Hornick.
No tribute to Broadway would be complete without Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Parkinson fills the bill with selections from “The King and I” followed by the “American in Paris Suite” by George Gershwin. It is one of his best-known compositions; inspired by the years he had spent in Paris, evoking the sights, sounds and energy of the city during the 1920s.
Some of Lake County’s favorite vocalists return to the Soper-Reese Theatre to perform with the Symphony.
Soprano Shelly Trumbo-Mascari will take the stage to sing “I Get a Kick Out of You” the Cole Porter classic from his hit musical “Anything Goes” which was later released as a movie under the same name.
She also will sing “summertime” from the opera “Porgy and Bess” by George and Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward.
“As Time Goes By” is another selection arranged by Parkinson for soloist Trumbo-Mascari. It was written originally by American composer Herman Hupfeld for the 1931 Broadway musical “Everybody’s Welcome” but the song long outlived the play when it was reintroduced in the Academy Award winning 1942 movie “Casablanca” and served more recently as the title and theme of the popular British television series “As Time Goes By” starring Judy Dench. On this number Trumbo-Mascari will be joined by other members of her musical family including her father and mother Walt and Bonnie Trumbo and 18-year-old daughter Jade Holling, a senior at Lower Lake High School.
The CLPA Youth Orchestra, under the direction of Susan Condit, will present two pieces during the performance.
The first, “Tango Espressivo” by Matt Turner is an energetic and passionate accompaniment for the most popular of the South American dances.
The Turner composition features a strong, rhythmic bass driven by the lower strings that complements the g-harmonic minor melody presented by the violins. Turner is known internationally as a highly talented improvisational cellist and pianist and has shared the stage with such noted artists as Natalie MacMaster, Marilyn Crispell, Randy Sabien and Bobby McFerrin.
The second number is the theme from the hit Broadway musical and movie “Les Miserables.” On this piece members of the senior Symphony will sit in with the young performers. They are Andi Skelton, Sienna S’Zell, Jeff Ives, Clovice Lewis, Patricia Jekel and Austin Ison.
Conductor Condit said that playing with the professionals gives her students invaluable experience. “We hope all of them will play with the Symphony some day, and this is one way to prepare them” she said.
The concert will end with a rousing orchestral version of “76 Trombones” from the musical “The Music Man” by Meridith Willson.
The annual Mothers Day Symphony concert has become a holiday tradition in Lake County, and therefore advance ticket purchases are advised.
They are $20 for members of Clear Lake Performing Arts and $25 general admission and can be obtained online at www.soperreesetheatre.com or by calling 707-263-0577.
There will be an open rehearsal at the theater at 11 a.m., to which young people under 18 are invited to attend free of charge. For others a modest admission fee of $5 will be charged.
COBB, Calif. – The Cobb Mountain Artists will host Marlene Healey as its second Wednesday artist on May 8.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place beginning at 7 p.m. at The Artisan Realm 16365 Highway 175, Cobb.
English born artist Marlene Healey has enjoyed a successful career for 30 years.
Her formal education in the arts and sciences began in the 1970s and early 1980s at community colleges and Arizona State University.
In 1984 she entered a juried exhibition at ASU and was awarded an exhibition in the Wood Gallery in Tempe, Arizona.
She has been creating and showing widely since. Her work is in collections of many well known corporations and celebrities.
Her abstract style is derived from textures and colors witnessed in the natural world and transformed through her active imagination into sophisticated modern works of art.
Healey’s inspiration comes from the natural world: in rust forming on old pipes and trickling downward; in the La Brea tar pits with cracks of jagged earth splitting open; in life giving water dancing its way along with bright green fronds of wild grasses.
Her burning desire to make art is a winning formula for this local successful artist.
For more information contact Glenneth Lambert, 707-295-6934 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
If you had to divide your favorite things between yourself and somebody else, what would you keep? Patricia Clark, a Michigan poet, has it figured out.
Fifty-Fifty
You can have the grackle whistling blackly from the feeder as it tosses seed,
if I can have the red-tailed hawk perched imperious as an eagle on the high branch.
You can have the brown shed, the field mice hiding under the mower, the wasp’s nest on the door,
if I can have the house of the dead oak, its hollowed center and feather-lined cave.
You can have the deck at midnight, the possum vacuuming the yard in its white prowl,
if I can have the yard of wild dreaming, pesky raccoons, and the roaming, occasional bear.
You can have the whole house, window to window, roof to soffits to hardwood floors,
if I can have the screened porch at dawn, the Milky Way, any comets in our yard.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2004 by Patricia Clark, whose forthcoming book of poetry is Sunday Rising, Michigan State University Press, 2013. Poem reprinted from She Walks into the Sea, Michigan State University Press, 2009, by permission of Patricia Clark and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Hollywood delivers surprises when you least expect them. Who would guess that director Michael Bay, famous for big-budget action films like the “Transformers” franchise, would come up with a stunning dark comedy?
Bay likes to blow up things, wreaking havoc and creating mayhem, just for the fun of it. As he indulges his every fiery whim, the director wants the audience to get its money’s worth for his love of gratuitous excess.
“Pain & Gain,” a comedy of the absurd and devoid of major explosions, is definitely not a film in director Bay’s wheelhouse. It would be like Mel Brooks directing an Ingmar Bergman-like depressing Swedish drama.
The story is about three dim-witted bodybuilders at Miami’s Sun Gym, whose minimal brain power has been further atrophied by the use of steroids and other drugs, hatching a kidnap scheme of a wealthy fitness client.
The ringleader is Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), a personal trainer with delusions of grandeur who has been affected by a motivational speaker (Ken Jeong) to become in his words a “doer” instead of a “don’t-er.”
Lugo targets his filthy rich client Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a man of dubious character himself who has likely acquired his wealth by less than savory means, sheltering money off-shore and investing in a string of franchise delis.
To assist in his desperate scheme to achieve the American dream with ill-gotten gains, Lugo recruits fellow physical trainers Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson).
Doorbal has lost his sexual prowess due to an excess use of steroids. This is a problem because he wants to marry his plus-size nurse girlfriend (Rebel Wilson) and settle down to suburban living.
Recently released from prison, Doyle found Jesus on the inside and now wants a clean living, and yet the sway of Lugo leads him astray, to say nothing of his newfound fondness for cocaine.
The scheme is to kidnap Kershaw and force him to sign over his waterside mansion and numerous bank accounts. The trio of losers is so bad at execution of the plot that it takes them several tries to nab their victim. Each failed attempt proves funnier than the previous one.
Once they have Kershaw stashed in a warehouse, the cretins engage in awkward and ham-fisted efforts to torture their captive into submission. For his part, Kershaw proves very resilient and not easy to break.
In fact, they can’t even kill Kershaw, who ends up in a hospital where the police find it difficult to believe the victim’s story. Only a retired detective (Ed Harris) begins to suspect that his colleagues messed up.
Meanwhile, for a time, Lugo and company live high on the hog, buying expensive homes, and in the case of Doyle, snorting a lot of dough right up the nostrils.
One of the funniest scenes involves Lugo clumsily trying to ingratiate himself with his new wealthy neighbors by hosting a Neighborhood Watch meeting, assisted by his two cohorts high on drugs.
This trio of criminal lame-brains is so incompetent that even their most egregious acts of violent unlawful behavior are patently ludicrous and thus disturbingly and diabolically funny.
There’s nothing in this film that glorifies these thugs and their moronic plans, nor makes them into sympathetic characters. No, these guys are first-rate losers, destined for the eventual fall.
Like most delusional characters, they also don’t know when to quit. Thanks to Doyle’s frantic need for coke money, a scheme to kidnap a porn king (Michael Rispoli) goes even more badly.
“Pain & Gain” has a warped sense of humor. A casual scene at a barbecue to destroy physical evidence appears inspired by the Coen Brothers (“Fargo,” a prime example).
Every so often, a subtitle flashes on screen as a reminder that this is a true story, something that becomes increasingly difficult to believe since the entire chronicle of weird criminality is so utterly nutty.
However uneasy one may feel on occasions of some nasty violence being perpetrated, “Pain & Gain” is insanely funny, crazy, wacky, strange, weird, ludicrous, disturbing and often unsettling.
Despite claims to the contrary, Michael Bay likely took a few liberties with the true story – you know, the obligatory dramatization needed for a two hour movie.
In a follow-up to this movie, a smart move will require reading the series of articles, upon which “Pain& Gain” is based, from Miami New Times columnist Pete Collins. I know that’s my plan.
TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL UPDATE
Speaking of Mel Brooks, as he’s mentioned above, one of the highlights of the TCM Classic Film Festival, recently concluded in Hollywood, was the presence of the famed comedy director for a showing of “The Twelve Chairs.”
Brooks talked briefly about his filming experience in the then-nation of Yugoslavia, cracking a few jokes about dictator Tito’s use of the country’s only vehicle on Saturday nights.
In the canon of Brooks’ comedies, “The Twelve Chairs,” sandwiched between “The Producers” and “Blazing Saddles,” is often overlooked. Among other things, it’s a subdued but comically brilliant skewering of the Soviet Union.
TCM celebrated the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kramer’s zany comedy “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” a rare feat for a director whose career was all about message movies like “The Defiant Ones” and “Judgment at Nuremberg.”
For the festival, the film was screened in its original 70 millimeter format on the big screen of the Cinerama Dome, which Kramer’s widow described as having been built exclusively for the release of this comedy.
Sadly, the recently deceased Jonathan Winters was scheduled to appear with other cast members Barrie Chase, Mickey Rooney and Marvin Kaplan to talk about the filming.
“It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” is notable for the large cast of characters involved in a madcap search for buried treasure.
Comic greats like Phil Silvers, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle and Don Knotts graced the screen and are sadly missed. Kramer’s homage to American comedy still stands as a masterpiece.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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