MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A two-week acting camp that will give young people an experience with theater and drama takes place this month in Middletown.
The acting camp is open to students who will be entering first through fifth grades in the fall.
The camp runs 9 a.m. to noon, Mondays through Fridays, June 18-22 and June 25-29.
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 15 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, “Alice in Woodland,” and perform on the last day of camp.
Alice will be joined by her friends including the Cheshire Cat, March Hare, Mad Hatter and the Queen as she learns a big lesson in the forest.
All campers will have their own parts in this spirited and funny tale.
Campers will perform for invited friends and family on Thursday, June 28, at 6 p.m. and Friday, June 29, at 11 a.m., followed by a cast party.
To enroll and for more information call 415-328-6363 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Though most of us are not formally known as diplomats, many of us learn to be experts at domestic diplomacy, and the sorts of complex negotiations we find ourselves in can require a lot of patience.
Here’s Dan Gerber, who lives in California, showing us some of that patience.
Marriage
When you are angry it’s your gentle self I love until that’s who you are. In any case, I can’t love this anger any more than I can warm my heart with ice. I go on loving your smile till it finds its way back to your face.
Recently, I mused that sequels may sound good on paper but don’t work out as nicely as intended. “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” may well scramble this dynamic.
Of course, it’s been seven years since the original and one presidential election cycle since the first sequel. As a result, there may be a void in my memory bank.
Still, “Madagascar 3” is so lively, boisterous, funny and colorful that the realization of a second sequel is a worthy endeavor even though multiple directors and writers are attached to this project.
The quartet of Central Park Zoo animals have always been the central focus of the “Madagascar” franchise. Their presence is not only elemental but vitally agreeable.
Ben Stiller voices the handsome, pensive lion Alex, who frets uneasily about his role as king of the jungle. Nervous giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer) appears to be less of a hypochondriac this time around.
The garrulous zebra Marty, voiced by Chris Rock, delivers his thoughts at break-neck pace. Meanwhile, hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett-Smith) remains blissfully cheerful.
As the film opens, this quartet misses their old New York home so much that they have recreated the island of Manhattan out of mud and clay in the middle of the African desert.
They are stranded in the misbegotten corner of the African continent because the penguins and monkeys took off for Monte Carlo where they are attempting to beat the casino at the gambling tables.
Making their way across the Mediterranean, the quartet launches an elaborate plan to foil the schemes of the traitorous tuxedoed birds and their chimpanzee henchmen.
Orchestrated commotion at the casino is a funny chaotic scene, but it brings the unwanted attention of a fierce animal control officer named Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand).
Captain DuBois’ idea of dealing with runaway wildlife is to bag Alex as a trophy to be put on her office wall. She won’t be honored for her work by PETA anytime soon.
With the skills of a bloodhound and the instincts of a predator, the deranged DuBois makes a great villain. She is so relentless that she will leap tall buildings on a Vespa in hot pursuit.
Even international borders won’t stop the Captain’s manhunt (or should that be animal hunt?). The quartet, now reunited with the ones who deserted them, hook up with a shabby circus act for a nifty getaway.
The circus train is heading to Rome, but the prime attraction is the ill-tempered Siberian tiger Vitaly (Bryan Cranston), who no longer wants to perform after an unfortunate accident.
Vitaly is hostile to the circus interlopers, but the dim-witted sea lion Stefano (Martin Short) and the shapely trapeze artist jaguar Gia (Jessica Chastain) are more accepting.
The plot, so to speak, involves the animals putting on a really good circus show to get the attention of an American promoter who will take them to New York.
Of course, Alex and his friends have an ulterior motive; they want to return to the Central Park Zoo by any means necessary.
Meanwhile, complications arise as the inevitable romance blossoms between the shy, introverted Alex and the slinky, sexy Gia, who purrs like an Italian starlet in front of adoring paparazzi.
A weirder romance, played for great laughs, involves the wacky, ostentatious lemur King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) being madly infatuated with a huge tricycle-riding bear that never utters a sound.
The animation, rich in colors and texture, is so excellent that the use of 3D only enhances the action at some critical moments, including a dazzling circus act complete with fireworks.
In all respects, “Madagascar 3” is packed with action, spectacle, energy and humor that should prove appealing to both children and adults. Besides, the animals are really endearing.
How can you resist?
DVD RELEASE UPDATE
Not everyone subscribes to the Showtime cable network, so now we all have the opportunity to enjoy a terrifically funny series called “Episodes.”
The DVD release of “Episodes: The First Season” offers the perfect blend of British and American humor when a British husband-and-wife team arrive in Hollywood to produce an Americanized version of their hit British TV show.
Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly Lincoln (Tamsin Greig) must keep it together in order to navigate the shark-infested waters of Hollywood and survive with their careers, marriage and sanity intact.
This won’t be an easy task. Matt LeBlanc, playing himself, stars as the overbearing lead of the American TV series produced by the Lincolns.
Though it consists of only seven hysterical half-hour episodes, “Episodes: The First Season” is not something to be missed.
The second season premieres on July 1 on Showtime. It’s either time to subscribe or just patiently wait until the next inevitable DVD release.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Theater Co. is holding auditions for “The Cemetery Club” by Ivan Menchell, a light-hearted comedy about the coping skills of three women friends after their husbands have gone.
They have been friends for years, and meet once a month for tea and then go to the cemetery to clean up their husbands graves. What happens in between makes for lots of fun and laughter.
The auditions are as follows:
Saturday, June 16, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Weaver Auditorium in the Lower Lake Historical Schoolhouse Museum, Lower Lake.
Tuesday, June 19, and Thursday, June 21, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Lakeport Senior Activity Center, 527 Konocti Ave. in Lakeport.
There are parts for four women and one man. The characters are in their late 50s to early 60s. The play will be performed at the Lakeport Senior Activity Center the last two weekends in September and is a benefit for the “Meals-on-Wheels” program.
For more information contact director Marg Brooks at 707-263-5199 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or producer Cindy Strong at 707-349-5402 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Bill Holm was a Minnesota poet and essayist and a dear friend to many of us who live and write in flyover country. He is much missed. Mark Vinz has written this fine tribute to Bill.
Absences
“Even when you are not in a room, you are in it, your voice everywhere.” –Bill Holm
The message that’s recorded on the phone is unmistakably bad news, and then another call tells us it’s one we love— a sudden death while traveling, somehow appropriate for one who always seized life too completely to stand still.
A door slams shut, a wall has dropped away, and once again I’m driven back to empty pages, insufficient words, to rooms he always filled on entering— rooms lined with books, piano music, and good friends who raise their glasses one last time.
And now, as all the lights are blinking off in every prairie town we’ve ever loved, when all the toasts are made and songs are sung, when leaving is the only certainty, a single voice keeps echoing, along each dark, untraveled hallway of the heart.
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