A&E

Local business honored for promoting films

Local law firm Mallor, Clendening, Grodner, and Bohrer received the 2006 Arts Leadership Award in business Feb. 22. This award, presented by the Bloomington Area Arts Council, recognizes businesses that have shown outstanding support of the local arts scene. "We wanted to recognize a business that supported the arts through more than just financial giving," said Danise Alano, assistant director of economic development for the city and member of the selection committee. "(The firm) has donated countless hours of pro-bono legal work for various causes."

Voice-over major performs both on airwaves and stage

If you have ever listened to WIUX on 100.3 FM, you've heard the catchy promos, a wide range of University information and a taste of the diverse variety of music. You've also heard the luring voice of junior Zach Pollakoff, which appears on the station at least every 20 minutes. Pollakoff writes and edits his own on-air spots and records the promos, the station identifications and the public service announcements. This isn't just something Pollakoff does in his spare time. This is his major, and he created it himself.

Our Town

Cody Fosdick swings a baseball bat backstage before rehearsals for the opera version of the Thornton Wilder play, "Our Town." Fosdick, a performance diploma candidate in the Jacobs School of Music graduate program, is one of two students sharing the role of George Gibbs. "I know it's stupid," he said as fellow cast member and second-year graduate student Liz Baldwin laughed at his admission, "but I'm supposed to be a baseball player."

Actors shine in 'Our Town'

A boy threw up on the stairs of the school bus on my fourth-grade field trip to see "Our Town" at Indianapolis Civic Theatre. I remember the teachers didn't want the rest of us walking over his pile of vomit, so they opened up the emergency exits on the bus and made us all crawl out into the streets. To this day, that is all I remember about the play. But after watching the world premiere of Ned Rorem's opera, "Our Town," Friday night at the Musical Arts Center, I realized it's perfectly OK if that's all I remember. Because those little moments in our lives, "ticking clocks and shoes and socks," according to J.D. McClatchy's libretto, are the most important parts of life.

EMBRACE

Live From Bloomington looking for cover art

Books shouldn't be judged by their covers, but that is precisely what members of the Union Board will be doing -- CD covers, that is. The annual CD art design competition for Live From Bloomington will come to an end Tuesday, said Live From Bloomington Director Tracy Johnson. The CD is a compilation of nine local bands that will perform April 6 at various venues for Club Night -- an annual event to showcase local music live while simultaneously raising money for a good cause.

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, dies at 81

LOS ANGELES -- Don Knotts, who won TV immortality and five Emmys for playing the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" with self-deprecating humor, was remembered by his friend and co-star as a comedic genius who wrote some of the show's best scenes. "Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions," Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Actors make 'She Stoops' a laughable success

During the rehearsals leading up to this week's performances of "She Stoops to Conquer," director Fontaine Syer said repeatedly reminded actors that "The acting style this material requires has certain things in common with 'I Love Lucy.'"

Author offers insight on poetry, cancer

His yellow Mini Cooper pulled up to the circle outside the Musical Arts Center five minutes before his scheduled reading Sunday afternoon, and poet J.D. McClatchy emerged from the passenger seat. McClatchy and his companions left the car on the curb for his entire 45-minute lecture. McClatchy, an English professor at Yale University, was in Bloomington for ArtsWeek and to celebrate Friday's world premiere of "Our Town," the opera for which he wrote the libretto. McClatchy said he is a poet and an opera writer but he likes writing poetry more.

Saying 'no' to engagement chicken

I love to cook. I love it even more when I don't have to do it. Luckily, I don't live in an era where such domestic talents are a woman's main value. That notion is a thing of the past. Yet, Glamour magazine doesn't think so. In this year's March issue, a reader named Laura wrote in to share her success with a previously published Glamour recipe, called "Engagement Chicken," which she paired with her recipe of "Hook Him Apple Pie."

Umphrey's McGee to play Indianapolis

Umphrey's McGee perform Saturday at the Murat Egyptian Room in Indianapolis. The band formed in South Bend while attending the University of Notre Dame. The members say they still consider Indiana to be a home base for support and have played in Bloomington at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater and the IU Auditorium. The current tour is in promotion of the band's second DVD, "Wrapped Around Chicago: New Year's at the Riv." This is its second live release of a performance in Chicago.

'Tommy' brings rock concert with plot to Buskirk-Chumley Theater

It's a full-out rock concert with dancing and a plot. That's how University Players technical director and senior Greg Hofmann described The Who's rock opera, "Tommy." The University Players is performing the show at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Tickets are free, but seating is limited to about 600 per show. The show is appropriate for mature audiences, and haze will be used in the air.

Tale of mistaken identities on stage this weekend

Mistaken identities. Love. Lust. Relationship crises. Laugh-out-loud humor. No, this is not a reference to the typical events of a weekend at IU, but rather to Sir Oliver Goldsmith's comedy of manners, "She Stoops to Conquer," which will run at 7:30 p.m. Friday through March 4 at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre. According to the press release, the performance "combines slapstick visual humor with perfectly phrased wit to create a uniquely comedic brew." This 18th-century comedy centers on the independently minded, well-to-do Miss Kate Hardcastle, played by graduate student Renée Racan Rodríguez. Her hand has been promised in marriage to Sir Charles Marlow, played by graduate student Eric VanTielen, a timid young gentleman reluctant to enter into a relationship with a stranger, finding upper-class women to be immodest and hypocritical.

Ceremony to rename music school Friday

The Jacobs School of Music, renamed in November after receiving the largest single gift from an individual donor of $40.6 million, will celebrate its new identity with a naming ceremony and concert at 4 p.m. Friday in Auer Hall. IU President Adam W. Herbert will provide opening remarks for the event, and son of donors Barbara B. and David H. Jacobs, David H. Jacobs Jr., will attend as well as Jacobs School of Music Dean, Gwyn Richards, according to a press release.

COOKING DEMONSTRATION

Two naked actresses plus one clothed man: Anything wrong with this picture?

NEW YORK - Pick up this month's Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair and you'll see two lovely young stars-of-the-moment, Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, posing alluringly in the altogether. Open the foldout, and you'll even see Johansson's bare buttocks. What you won't see is a third, equally lovely young actress, Rachel McAdams of "Wedding Crashers" fame. It seems McAdams arrived at the photo shoot and decided she didn't want to take her clothes off.

New tap dance club seeks members

Students with "any inkling to tap dance" are encouraged to join a tap dance club being developed by senior Kyle Daley and IU tap dance instructor Allana Radecki. Daley said she has created flyers to post and promote the club, which she hopes will begin meeting in the next couple of weeks. She said "all different types of people with all different levels of tap dance skill" are invited to attend club meetings, where students have an opportunity to practice tap dance.

SIDEWALK RUNWAY

Historic deal signed to return looted treasures to the Met

ROME -- New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art will return 21 looted artifacts to Italy in exchange for loans of other treasures in a deal signed Tuesday that the Italians called a model for other museums with stolen goods in their collections. Met chief Philippe de Montebello said the agreement with officials from the Italian Culture Ministry "corrects a number of improprieties and errors committed in the past" and would encourage museums to put in place new legal and ethical measures.

Talent in our town

The Bloomington community and IU are proud to collaborate once again on ArtsWeek, an annual two-week arts festival. After 22 years, the festival has continually expanded to include dance, exhibit, film, music, talk and theater events. Mike Wilkerson, ArtsWeek coordinator and director, explained that the festival was originally ArtsWeekend and was mainly a venue for art programs on campus to showcase their talents. "However, as the festival evolved, we started getting more involvement from community organizations," Wilkerson said. "The biggest change that has occurred for this festival is that the community has now come to feel that they are full partners in this and really want to contribute significantly."