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(02/14/08 5:28am)
When she isn’t working on her own limestone sculpture pieces, local artist Amy Brier is spending her time doing commissioned work around Bloomington. \nThis June, Brier will participate in the 12th annual Limestone Symposium in Bloomington at the Bybee Stone Company. The workshop is held through the John Waldron Arts Center. It is a three-week program in which participants get to sculpt and carve their own works of art out of stone. \n“To me it’s just as much of being an artist, because I’m facilitating all these people who just love to be out there banging on stone,” Brier said.\nRecently, Brier assisted in the completion of the carvings inside IU’s Simon Hall, which opened in October 2007. While she did not carve the pieces herself, she made life-size clay models that the carvers could reference. \nIn the creative process, Brier worked with biology professor Elizabeth Raffto to come up with the proper symbols for the inside of the building.\n“The theme is what IU is known for in the life science research, and so it’s an E. coli, ink cap mushroom, a fly, a mouth, an ear of corn and a paramecium,” she said. \nBrier currently teaches 2-D design and 3-D design studio art classes at Ivy Tech and will also collaborate with Ivy Tech to bring some limestone pieces to its campus. In the fall, she and an international carver will begin work on sculpting limestone pieces that will ultimately remain on campus in an event called “The Limestone Duet.”\nBrier said she has been carving limestone for some time now and it is her favorite material to work with.\n“I like it because it’s soft and I can work it by hand. And I like the fact that it’s very uniform looking; so that when people look at it they’re not looking at a beautiful piece of stone, they’re looking at the shape that it’s been carved into,” she said. “I like to carve really is what it is. So I enjoy the process and that’s kind of what keeps me going.” \nShe said she carves what inspires her, such as scenes of nature and western culture. She has even developed her own interactive artistic process called “roliquery.” Brier carves a design into limestone balls and when rolled in sand, the limestone carving leaves the imprints behind. She has carved everything from snowflakes to koi fish into these balls, which can also be cast into bronze or other materials.\nBrier plans to create one of her roliquery pieces in sand for Ivy Tech.\n“I always knew I wanted to be an artist, and I come from a family where that was encouraged, so that was good,” Brier said. \nBrier was born in 1960 and raised in Providence, R.I., surrounded by a loving and nurturing family, she said. She received her degree from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts in 1982 and then studied abroad in Cortona, Italy, through the University of Georgia.\nWhen Brier began to consider graduate school, IU’s School of Fine Arts and the state’s reputation for limestone drew her to Bloomington.\n“When I decided I wanted to go to grad school, this was just the logical place because of the combination of the good university and my favorite stone,” Brier said.
(02/11/08 6:06am)
This past weekend, magic, love and mystery came alive in Bloomington during the performance of “Magia, misterio, amor y desamor” at the John Waldron Arts Center.\nPresented by Grupo de Teatro Vida, a Spanish language performance group, the show consisted of three short plays. Performances were held on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. \nWith each play performed in Spanish, the three actors’ actions helped cue audience members about what was going on. Before each play, the director also came out and explained the synopsis of each play in English, which was helpful to those in the audience who weren’t Spanish speakers. \nThe first play, “The Cave of Salamanca” (“La cueva de Salamanca”), written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, was humorous and entertaining. It told the story of a woman, Leonarda, and her maid, Cristina, who planned to unite with their lovers while Leonarda’s husband was out of town. A young student then sought shelter at their house and agreed to keep the ladies’ affairs secret. When Leonarda’s husband unexpectedly returned, the student saved the day with his tale of magic from the Cave of Salamanca. \nThe second play, “Let’s Get to the Point” (“Vayamos a lo profundo”), written by Argentine author Griselda Gambaro, was more of a monologue between one actor and the audience. In this short play, Fernandez, an Argentinian magician, was auditioning to work with magician David Copperfield – yet before she even auditioned, she delivered a performance of her own to the audience. She talked about her outstanding ability as a magician, yet attendees learned throughout the monologue that she did not quite understand many tricks, especially those performed by Copperfield. Throughout her monologue, she even got the audience involved through applause and walking through the aisles. In the end, she decided that her magic would be considered more mysterious than most magicians, and with this she was content. \nThe last play was the longest and perhaps the most complex of the three. It was a tale of love and tragedy. “The Love of Don Perlimpin and Belisa in the Garden: Erotic Halleluya in Four Acts,” (“Amor de Don Perlimpin con Belisa en su Jardin: Alleluya Erotica en cuatro cuadros”) was written by Federico Garcia Lorca. This tale was of a 50-year-old man, Perlimpin, who was urged by his maid to marry again. With the urging of his maid, Perlimpin proposed to his beautiful neighbor, the much younger Belisa. After they were married, it was revealed that Belisa was actually sleeping with five different men while Perlimpin was sleeping. Soon Perlimpin learned of what is going on and, still much in love with Belisa, pretended to be one of her suitors. Once Belisa revealed her love for one of her suitors, Perlimpin planned to commit suicide and kill the suitor with whom Belisa is in love. \nIn an ironic twist, after Perlimpin has stabbed himself and stumbled into the garden where Belisa is, he learned that he was the mysterious suitor she loved. In the end, Belisa is shocked, yet still has no comprehension of Perlimpin’s death or previous plans. \nAudience member Francisca Escoriza said she enjoyed the performance. \n“It was really well prepared,” she said, commenting the second play was her favorite. “I’m going to keep coming back.”
(02/07/08 6:00am)
Inspired by many types of music, Bloomington-based band The Buzzkills started as a side project that eventually grew into something more. The band consists of five members: Jonathan Barnett (bass), Kyle Gilpin (guitar), Matt Schory (drums), Patrick Ward (guitar) and John Weston (guitar). All members contribute vocally. The band has been playing together for about a year and a half, but Gilpin and Weston just joined the band in the fall.\nWhile the band considers a wide range of music to be its inspiration, a lot of its music is influenced by classic rock and the band classified its earlier sound as “Led Zeppelin-esque.”\n“We all grew up on classic rock. We’re all children of Zeppelin,” Schory said. Yet the band members were also influenced by the music they began listening to at a young age, such as ’90s alternative – Weezer, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine and even Korn.\n“A good chunk of us all started out as metal heads,” Schory added. The band explained they currently have a sound that is more The Beatles mixed with the Foo Fighters.\nTired of the bands that play the same exact set everywhere they go, The Buzzkills like to make every show a little \nbit different. \n“I feel like we’re finally finding a good way to meld, doing the crowd pleasers, but also doing our artistically-pleasing originals,” Schory said. \n“Awww Honey” is one of the bands original songs that gets a great reaction from the crowd.\nThe band likes to focus on original songs but also likes to play covers, letting each member of the band pick a song to cover and then rotate. “Probably the biggest argument in the band is which Zeppelin tune to cover,” Weston said. \nWhile the band explains that they have gotten a lot of grief for playing covers in the past, they say it has definitely paid off for them to be able to play in venues such as The Bluebird. \nThey consider The Bluebird to be a “home base” and their favorite place to play. “There’s a lot less to worry about when you play here. If something goes wrong you know it’s going to be taken care of,” Ward said. “If we get bigger and we start playing bigger venues, I’m sure we’ll still make tribute and come back here no matter what.”\nCurrently, the band is busy trying to get exposure locally and in nearby states with weekend tours, and it will also be entering the studio, starting Feb. 14, to record its first album. The band will be recording locally at Attic Recording, which was started by their good friend Eric Day.\n“We talked about doing it in a place like Echo Park,” Schory said. “We have the money to do it if we wanted. I’d rather work with someone who actually genuinely cares about what we’re actually doing. I grew up with the kid and he’s a wonderful engineer, really knows what he’s doing.”\nSong-wise the band is thinking of the album as a big EP with about seven to 10 songs that really focus on their best material. \n“I feel like seven to eight songs is a really good number for a small band in a local community to do rather than a full length, 15-song album,” Schory said. \nWhen they have finished recording, the band says they plan to do an album release show at none other than The Bluebird.\nAfter working on recording, the band hopes it can widen its appeal by playing at clubs similar to The Bluebird across the Midwest. \n“We’ve been playing somewhere on a really consistent basis,” Schory said. “The name is getting some exposure. So we’ve just got to start from scratch in other markets now.”
(01/31/08 6:10am)
After hearing that Sony Pictures was making a film about the rise and fall of sisters Mary and Anne Boleyn in King Henry VIII’s court, I knew I had to read the novel first. The film, which opens Feb. 29, is based on Philippa Gregory’s best-selling novel “The Other Boleyn Girl.”\nThe novel is an intriguing tale of the rivalry between the two sisters, Mary and Anne, to win the love of the king. Set during the time of the Tudors, in the 1520s and 1530s, Mary and Anne are played like cards for the advancement of their family. They have no choice but to do everything in their power to win the king’s affection. However, there is one problem: He just so happens to be a married man. While Mary seduces Henry VIII, she is always mindful of the Queen, Catherine of Aragon. When her affair subsides, Anne steps in, beginning the cutthroat rivalry between the two sisters. Anne attempts to drive out the queen and make her own way to the throne.\nWhile Gregory paints a beautiful picture of the English countryside and glamorizes the life of English nobility in this 661-page novel, it can certainly drag on at times. Halfway through the book, I was hoping to near the end. The process of Anne and Henry’s marriage and Anne’s coronation goes on for pages. Gregory also goes into great detail about the sex lives of Mary and Anne, as well as everyone else in court. Ancient cuss words and sexual innuendoes make for a good laugh, but half the book seems to be littered with unnecessary sex scenes. The reading of the book conjures up images of the Showtime series “The Tudors.” The novel also is not quite as historically accurate with some of the character’s actions as well as some of the dates, but there should be some leeway when it comes to works of historical fiction. I think that Gregory’s dramatization humanizes his characters and makes their royal situation relatable to the reader.\nIt was certainly a long read, but one that was intriguing. It made me want to learn more about the Tudors as well as Anne and Mary Boleyn. The novel provided a lot of detail and background that I think will make the film that much more enjoyable. Plus, I am one who thinks it better to read a novel before seeing the film version. If you don’t want to read the novel, the film does look quite promising ... let’s just say it features Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson. Now what could be hotter than that?
(01/24/08 5:10am)
For Professor David Baker, teaching and music are two things that go hand in hand. He can’t do one without the other. Well-dressed in a casual suit with a blue dress shirt and tie, he was ready to talk about the blues to his class last Friday morning. Baker moseyed over to the piano, as he passionately talked about the pentatonic scale. \n“Easy to remember, easy to play,” he said as he effortlessly began traipsing his fingers over the ivory keys to demonstrate the scale. “I can walk in any club and say blues and we’re ready to play,” Baker said to his M393 History of Jazz class. There is a commonality to the music that Baker wants to teach his students to appreciate.\nBorn in Indianapolis in 1931, Baker said he’s not sure what got him started with jazz, although he said the options for what he could play in the 1930s and 1940s were severely limited. Although no one in his family played music, the radio provided Baker with a variety of jazz music after school, such as Nat King Cole and Louis Jordan.\n“I suspect I would have chosen jazz anyway, simply because it’s what I heard on the radio,” Baker said.\nHe received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education from IU and while studying here in the 1950s, he improved his skills as a trombone player. As a student, he also played in the orchestra and concert band because ther ewas no jazz band at the time. Since then many of his recordings were as a trombone player. \nOver the course of his career, he has toured with the likes of Quincy Jones, George Russell, Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson. Currently Baker only plays the cello and the piano.\nIn 1966 he returned to IU as a professor and is currently the chairman of the Jazz Studies Department at the Jacobs School of Music. While music will always be Baker’s passion, teaching is something that just seemed natural to him. Everything else in his life “spins off of that,” he said.\n“I remember the stories of Madame Boulanger, the great composer in France, who taught Aaron Copland, she taught Quincy Jones, she taught George Gershwin, and she used to ask the people who came to study with her, ‘why do you want to be a composer?’ and the only answer acceptable was ‘I don’t want to be a composer, I have to be a composer.’ I have to be a teacher,” Baker said.\nBaker’s students couldn’t agree more. \n“I think that he’s so interesting. I love how hands on it is,” said sophomore Deeanna Bisesi. \n“He has a very informal and friendly style of teaching, but still manages to get the important points across,” said junior Matt Lawrence, “he teaches as if he is telling a story.”\nAlong with teaching students about music, Baker still composes and conducts, and is the conductor of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, which he co-founded with Gunther Schuller, in order to promote the works of composer and jazz artist Duke Ellington. He received the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ “Living Jazz Legend Award” for lifetime achievement last March. He has received numerous other awards, including the Jazz Education Hall of Fame Award and has been honored as an Indiana Living Legend. This February, Baker will perform in Egypt with his orchestra.\nThough he traveled a lot in his earlier days, Baker said of all the places he has performed, he loves Bloomington the best. \n“My family, all of them just about are here, and then all the teachers that I studied with and the ones who are still alive are here,” he said. “And then, this is where my students are.”
(01/09/08 6:03am)
A runaway at age 14, Catherine James experienced a life not even the toughest of souls could imagine. She was not raised with a silver spoon in her mouth, nor with the loving, picturesque family of a Norman Rockwell painting. Catherine James was a girl of the ‘60s whose complex and emotional past would only make her intriguing future among stars and everyday people all the more enthralling.\nIn her new book, “Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit,”, James tells the story of her life thus far. From her bewildered childhood with her dragon-lady of a mother, to raising her son on her own as a teenage mother, James shares it all, even including her dalliances and friendships with famous musicians and artists.\nJames seems to have found her calling with “Dandelion,” her first published work. In just about 200 pages she pulls the reader into her life. She makes her situation relatable and leaves you wanting more. The retelling of her childhood with mother Diana is like a scene straight out of Mommie Dearest - Everything except the wire hangers bit. She was both physically and emotionally abused by her mother, while Mimi, her guardian angel of a grandmother, swept in time and time again to rescue her from her cruel existence.\nWhen her home life became too much to bear, Catherine did what any normal teenage kid looking for answers would do in the 1960s: She ran away to Greenwich Village in New York City. She was inspired by the advice of a young songwriter, Bob Dylan, who told her “It’s only life.”\nFrom there, her adventure only got crazier. She worked with Andy Warhol in his studio, partied with Jimi Hendrix five days before his death, moved across the pond to be with Denny Laine of the Moody Blues, and from him got her angel of a son, Damian. When things didn’t work out with Denny, she lived with Eric Clapton at his country estate, moved in with Mick Jagger and partied with the Beatles.\nA seemingly normal teenage girl, she seemed to always be in the right place at the right time, and when life handed her lemons she made lemonade – lots of it. While at times “Dandelion” may seem like the typical hippie, it-girl story of self-discovery that seems to turn in circles as far as plot twists go, it is James’ charm and unyielding determination to make a better life for herself and her son that really makes the book. The juicy details of her encounters with rock gods and legends make you wish you were in her shoes and make the book an alluring tale of free spirit in the 1960s. In the end she learns to make peace with her turbulent past and finally gets the happy family life she’s always wanted.
(01/08/08 9:55pm)
IU is just one of the many universities across the nation that has recently been hit by the effects of the Deficit Reduction Act, and one campus group and some federal legislators are rallying to deflect its negative impact.\nThe act, which took effect in January 2005, caused a drastic increase in the price of birth control across the country. As a result of the act, federal funding to college health centers and other clinics have been cut, causing these places to lose the discount on birth control they once had from drug companies, said Kathryn Brown, an IU Health and Wellness Center health educator. \nSenators Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced the Prevention through Affordable Access Act in early November to combat rising birth control prices. The bill has yet to reach the Senate floor.\nThe goal of the bill is to reverse the price hike implemented by the Deficit Reduction Act and provide the security of discounted prices of birth control for college-age, as well as low-income, women.\nIndiana representatives from national groups, such as Planned Parenthood, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the National Organization for Women, have said they are all in support of the new bill.\nThe IU Health Center once offered students a wide range of generic and name-brand birth control options at lowered prices, but since January, affordable prices have been hard to come by, Brown said. \nEven the cheapest and most widely used forms of birth control have felt the weight of the price hike. \nBrown said NuvaRing, a popular form of birth control among students, was originally only $12 a month before January but has since quadrupled to $48 per month. \nOn IU’s campus, the newly formed group Spiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom is taking a stand against high prices, said junior Jenn Queen, an intern for the group.\nQueen said it is already hard enough to obtain birth control and the current situation has put a lot of women “between a rock and a hard place.”\n“We’re on (birth control) for a reason, and to make it virtually impossible for people to have access to, that is not justified,” Queen said. “It’s taking away rights.”\nSpiritual Youth for Reproductive Freedom hopes to start a chalking campaign on campus to make students aware of the new bill, Queen said.
(01/07/08 4:28am)
Partygoers flocked to a white-washed ranch house on the north side of Bloomington last fall to see three best friends play music together as Yells Fire in a Crowded Theater.\nThe popular local band has gained recognition beyond the Bloomington scene by traveling across the country playing shows and releasing a new EP in Japan through the Japanese label Bells On Records. The band is currently recording a new album and working on a deal to sell the CD at Hot Topic. \nThe band is ecstatic about the release and lead singer Patrick McGinley said they want to make it to Japan some day since they have already received great feedback from over there. \n“We want to go some place where people want to hear us,” he said.\nThe band often plays basement shows and shows around the U.S. when they can find time off from school to travel and when they have a permanent drummer. This particular basement show was among friends, but all the band members prefer playing for strangers instead.\n“I love my friends but it doesn’t provide the gratification a stranger can,” band member Roderick Deerr said. “Especially when you see some kid in the crowd singing along and you have never seen that person in your life, but they know your song.”\nMcGinley, Deerr and Brian Meredith, all 23 years old, have been creating music since their sophomore year of high school back in 2000.\nNot long ago, they went by the name McSmokerson, but Deerr explained that “after our drummer quit, and we started going in a different direction as a band and as people, it felt like it was time for a change.” \nMeredith said that their style of music is often coined as melodic-punk. While the band has been through a slew of drummers in the past seven years, that hasn’t stopped the creative process. Currently, a roommate, Zac Canale, is stepping in as the interim drummer. \nMcGinley is the primary songwriter for the band. \n“Half our songs are some kind of political or social commentary,” Meredith said, “We touch on things like religion, politics, love, social biases, statutory rape and Bill Gates.”\nTowards the end of their performance the guys struggled to keep the audience interested as some friends head upstairs. Canale abruptly left the drum kit in the middle of the set, so the guys were stranded up there without a back beat, but they managed fine as three. They always do. \n“We are three best friends and a drummer, and always will be,” Meredith said.
(10/25/07 3:17am)
Tuesday night, the Monroe County Civic Theater’s production of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” premiered at The Cinemat, 123 S. Walnut St. Although the rain might have prevented more people from coming out to see the play, it went on without a hitch, and was a wonderfully produced tale of what happens when the dual personalities of a person fight for power.\nIt took director Russell McGee and his cast three weeks to get the production together and ready to present to the public. In the tiny screening room of the Cinemat, chairs were lined in rows and the stage was set with antique furniture, including an old wooden table, oil lamp, liquor decanter and a few other pieces. \nThe stage setting gave the play a modern feel, but at the same time, the elaborate costumes of the actors took the audience back to the time of Victorian England. The actors were decked out in bowler hats, pin stripe pants, lavish lace dresses, dress suits and antique jewelry.\nPerhaps the most important costume element was the masks. At the start of production, each actor was asked to define his or her character in one word. That definition was then put to use in the creation of each character’s mask and inner persona. The masks represented the underlying quality of each character and stressed a major theme of the play: the duality of man, and the fight between good and evil. \nThe central fight of good and evil took place between Dr. Jekyll, played by IU alumnus Ryan Powell, and his notorious alter-ego Mr. Hyde,excellently portrayed by IU senior Karynne Korbacher. Korbacher wore a darkened mask with tinges of red to signify the rage of Jekyll’s alter ego, and lurked around the stage, taunting Jekyll into darkness.\nMcGee said the repression of desire is one of the major themes he hopes the audience takes away from the performance. \n“I think we do deny ourselves a lot of what we, as humans, actually desire,” McGee said.\nThe Monroe Country Civic Theater’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” will be 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday and Nov. 5 and 6 at the Cinemat. Tickets are $8. The show will also be at the Merry Mac Players in Martinsville, Ind., at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Nov 2 and 3. Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.
(10/12/07 2:07am)
Friday night, the SoFA Gallery will open two new exhibits to the public. \nThe first, “Field of Vision: Contemporary Jewelry and Holloware” will showcase the unique and sophisticated works of both national and international artists. The second is “Personal Objects: Personal Spaces,” an exhibit dedicated to everyday objects made personal through computer-aided design, by Nicole Jacquard, an assistant professor of metalsmithing.\nThe establishment of the “Field of Vision” exhibit has been two years in the making. With the help of a jewelry auction last December and the help of several grants, those involved in metalsmithing at IU were able to jumpstart the exhibit this fall.\nCo-curator of the exhibit Sim Luttin said that the metalsmithing department wanted to bring a show like this to IU to show the diversity of metalsmithing and jewelry design, as well as IU’s tradition in the holloware field. The exhibit also pays homage to Alma Eikerman, who started the metalsmithing program at IU and to whom the exhibition is dedicated.\nThe work includes everything from broaches, necklaces and teapots to sculptured vases and more. Luttin and Jacquard said the exhibit will showcase old techniques of metalsmithing and jewelry-making in new ways.\n“Even (with) the new twists that people are taking on with very old traditional techniques, like enameling, there’s some very beautiful work that’s more experimental that’s being done,” Jacquard said.\nLuttin also hopes that aside from influencing people to think about these new techniques and the diversity in the field, the exhibit will inspire students in choosing their artistic field.\nWith the inclusion of acclaimed national and international artists, the exhibit is expected to draw a large crowd both locally, interstate and nationally.\n“We’re really fortunate to have a big gallery space like SoFA Gallery to put this kind of caliber show on,” Luttin said.\nThe idea to combine the two shows was something Jacquard wanted to do to show the contrast between what is being done with traditional material in metalsmithing and what can be done with new technologies like rapid prototyping.\nThe objects in Jacquard’s exhibit include everyday items like dishes, spoons, vases and candlesticks, to name a few. Avoiding mass production with the use of this new technology, all the items are specifically personalized with patterns that each have a sentimental quality to Jacquard. The technology Jacquard uses allows her to print special patterns onto her work. She incorporated prints of Australian money, ticket stubs and certain flowers that she gathered throughout her travels into a collection of sculptured spoons. \nJacquard equates it to the spoon collections people start up when they travel to different locations. \n“A lot of my work has to do with souvenirs, as well as nostalgia and memory and how you remember things,” Jacquard said.\nJacquard hopes her show will open up the world of computers to art students, and show how they can create work meaningful work with the aid of a computer no matter what their discipline.\nBoth exhibits will premiere tonight with a reception at the SoFA Gallery from 7 to 9 p.m. and will be on display through Nov. 17.
(09/16/07 11:37pm)
Last Friday night, couples, families and friends laid out their blankets on the grass and set up folding chairs as they prepared for a night of Shakespeare when the Monroe County Civic Theater debuted a contemporary version of “Romeo and Juliet,” at Third Street Park.\nAs 7 p.m. rolled around, a representative of the MCCT announced, “Even though the play is set in modern times, let’s not let modern disturbances interrupt the actors.” With this note, people silenced their cell phones and settled in for a less-than-two-hour production of “Romeo and Juliet.”\nThe play opened with something many Bloomington residents can relate to: football. The grassy area in the middle of the park was set up as a football field, with yellow goalposts adorning each end of the stage area. The actors, in Bloomington South and Bloomington North High School football jerseys, kicked off the homecoming game between the Bloomington South Capulets and the Bloomington North Montagues as an introduction to the rivalry about to ensue throughout the production. Microphones helped the audience hear the dialogue and exchanges between the actors.\nThe line “do you quarrel sir?” in original Elizabethan, spoken by Gregory, played by Justine Kalb, segued the play from a well-played scene of football to an excellently choreographed on-the-field brawl between the Capulets and Montagues. The fight was so realistic that I almost feared for the safety of some of the actors. It helped draw the audience into the rivalry that would soon tear the play’s two lovers Romeo, played by Nate Stanger and Juliet, played by Ana Delong, apart.\nThe Capulets’ win in football led to the homecoming dance and banquet, where Romeo and Juliet met again. Romeo arrived in style with his friends in a yellow Jeep Wrangler as they drove onto the field for the start of the dance.\nFrom the beginning of the play, the sway of contemporary music guided the scenes and helped underscore the character’s emotions. The homecoming dance opened up with the song “Play that Funky Music,” as the actors strutted onto the field and began dancing. The famous scene in which Juliet pines, “Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo?” was underscored by The Fray’s hit song “How To Save A Life.” Other songs included throughout the production were Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and Avril Lavigne’s “Innocence.” The inclusion of music throughout the play brought a modern touch to the original text.\nThe modern Bloomington twist made the production unique and brought new elements to the realm of Shakespeare. The audience seemed to agree.\n“I’m glad they have Shakespeare in the park in Bloomington. It makes for a great night,” said audience member Craig Howard. “It was really cute, a cute performance.”\nBloomington resident Walter Owens thoroughly enjoyed the production.\n“I think the person who abbreviated the original and brought it up to date should really be commended,” Owens said.\n“Romeo and Juliet” will run at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Bloomington’s Third Street Park, which is located behind the City of Bloomington Police Headquarters, 331 S. Washington St.
(09/14/07 2:22am)
One of Shakespeare’s best known plays, “Romeo and Juliet” will be modernized tonight and given a Bloomington spin.\nRussell McGee and the Monroe County Civil Theatre will premiere the play at 7 p.m. Friday in Bloomington’s Third Street Park.\nThe ensemble cast includes many members from the Monroe County area, including students from both Bloomington North and South high schools, IU’s theater department and other local performers.\n“It’s really cool, because the whole community is involved,” said IU senior Erin Sullivan , who will be playing the role of the Nurse. “Middle-school kids to older citizens and just everybody is involved.”\nBut this isn’t everyday Shakespeare. McGee brings a modern twist to the play by showcasing the rivalry between the Bloomington North and South football teams. The Capulet family will don the football jerseys of Bloomington South, while the Montagues will represent Bloomington North in their football jerseys.\nThe decision to use the two Bloomington football teams seemed natural, because rivalry is a major theme of the original Shakespearean text, McGee said. \n“I just took what was there and used a concept based on that,” McGee said. “Since Bloomington North and South already have that rivalry, it’s something I knew a modern audience here would be able to relate to.”\nMcGee also hopes the football element will bring in a larger crowd that might not normally attend theater events, but would be attracted to a weekend football game. \nThe modern twist makes the play more fun and easy to understand, Sullivan said. She also said that it’s ironic and downright funny that trained actors will be playing football in a production.\n“Many people are more familiar with the Leonardo DiCaprio version (of “Romeo and Juliet”) and stuff, which is fun,” Sullivan said. “But this hits home.” \nOther modern touches to the play include a homecoming dance for Bloomington South, as opposed to the masked ball originally in the script. Modern music will also underscore the actions of the performers. With the help of a sound designer, songs from Evanescence and Avril Lavigne, among others, were chosen for the production. \nThe recent song “Innocence” by Lavigne will be the theme song for Romeo and Juliet, McGee said. \nAnother twist: The cast will not be performing on the Third Street Park stage, but rather on the grassy round of the park, so viewers can watch the play from all angles. The staging is something new and completely different, McGee said. He SAID he hopes it will draw the audience in as the play progresses. \nCast and crew members say spirits are high before opening night. \n“There’s always this tension and nervousness as it approaches,” says Bloomington South senior Ana Delong, who plays Juliet. “But I’m excited for the show – I’ve been telling everybody to come.”\nMcGee is excited about the entire process. \n“I think they’ve done their work. I’ve done my work,” he said, referring to the actors. “There’s always going to be people who like it or dislike it, there’s not anything I can do about that, but I think we’ve done the best work that we can and I’m proud of what we’ve done.”\n“Romeo and Juliet,” will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sept. 21 and 22 in the Third Street Park. The show is free but donations are accepted.