Marc Black Performs Friday, Feb. 28
at Stone Soup Kitchen in East Atlanta
Marc Black, who’s been named “Folk Artist of the Year,” will perform a house concert Friday at Stone Soup Kitchen in East Atlanta.
Black has performed and recorded with Pete Seeger, Art Garfunkel, Taj Mahal, Jack DeJonnette, Rick Danko and Peter Schikele, and has collaborated with Ritchie Havens. Levon Helm invited Black to play one of the Midnight Rambles, and Happy Traum says his songs are “timeless” and feature “deep grooves, excellent playing [and] top-notch guitar and vocals.”
Marc plays a finger style blues in the traditions of Mississippi Hurt and Tim Hardin. His song, “No Fracking Way,” recorded with John Sebastian and Eric Weissberg, has become a worldwide anthem for the anti-fracking movement. His “Pictures of the Highway” CD has reached #6 on the Fold DJ Chart.
While still in high school, his band, the Blades of Grass, reached the top forty and performed alongside of the biggest acts of the day, including the Doors, Van Morrison and Neil Diamond. Black has since recorded more than a dozen CDs, including one “pick hit” in Billboard Magazine and another, which was recognized as a “minor masterpiece” by famed music producer John Hammond Sr.
Black plays a house concert Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Stone Soup Kitchen (404-524-1222). Doors open at 7 p.m. Stone Soup Kitchen is located at 584 Woodward Avenue Atlanta, GA 30312.
Broadway star Tovah Feldshuh, who recently starred in the 2013 Tony Award-winning revival of “Pippin,” will give a special matinee performance of her song-and-dance cabaret “Tovah: Out of Her Mind!” in honor of Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat. The gala, titled “Stu, Long Overdue,” celebrates Eizenstat’s decades of service to his native city and his family’s long-standing commitment to Ahavath Achim Synagogue.
In her one-woman show, four-time Tony nominee (“Golda’s Balcony,” “Yentl,” “Lend Me a Tenor” and “Saravà!”) Feldshuh portrays a number of characters and sings Broadway tunes by the Gershwins and Jules Styne. The Boston Globe selected “Tovah: Out Of Her Mind!” as the best one-person show of 2000.
In addition to performing in a dozen Broadway shows, Feldshuh has acted in numerous films, including “Kissing Jessica Stein,” for which she won the Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress, and “A Walk On The Moon” with Diane Lane. Her portrayal of Israel’s iconic Prime Minister, Golda Meir, in “Golda’s Balcony,” was the longest-running, one-woman show in Broadway history.
“Stu, Long Overdue” will be held Sunday, March 30 at Ahavath Achim Synagogue’s Main Sanctuary in Buckhead at 2 p.m. Feldshuh is expected to perform at 2:30 p.m. Tickets will likely sell out fast as they did last year when Feldshuh narrated last year’s AA Synagogue’s 125th Year Celebration. For information and tickets, visit www.AASynagogue.org/tickets.
Jazz Roots-New Orleans, originally scheduled for February but canceled due to the snow, will arrive Thursday, March 27 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Aaron Neville headlines the event. The opening act has not yet been named.
R&B/soul/country/pop star Aaron Neville has had numerous hits on the Billboard charts, including “Tell It Like It Is,” “Don’t Know Much” and “Everybody Plays the Fool.” He has won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for his collaborations with Linda Ronstadt for “Don’t Know Much” and for “All My Life.” He also won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Trisha Yearwood for their tune “I Fall to Pieces.”
Jazz Roots-New Orleans will be held Thursday, March 27 at 8 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Lily Balsen and Evan Cleaver, Photo: Greg Mooney
Just after presenting one of the all time highs in original plays, Janece Shaffer’s “The Geller Girls,” the Alliance brings a major low, the winner of the Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition winner “In Love and Warcraft” by Madhuri Shekar.
Just cause I hated it, doesn’t mean it’s awful as so much of the audience laughed and laughed. My date and I, both in our 50s, had no idea what all the laughter was about. Perhaps if I were in my twenties or thirties, the attempts at romance and the references to computer games may have resonated with me, but the script seemed to lag and lag. What made it worse was the “acting.” I have seen high school students act better than these actors, far better, save for an excellent performance by Diany Rodriguez who played multiple characters, all exceedingly well. Bobby Labartino also did a good job playing a number of characters. I won’t get started on the other actors as there is no need to be mean.
I’m afraid I just got so busy with my work that I couldn’t find the time to review “The Geller Girls,” but I want to state this for the record: It is an outstanding play, with twists throughout it and a script that steadily moves forward at a rapid pace with sentient characters from the late 1800s you feel as if you know them. If Broadway is looking for a great play, “The Geller Girls” is the answer.
Schaffer’s plays have been performed at theaters around Atlanta for a few years, and never before have I been a fan of any of them. However, “The Geller Girls” is a homerun. Perhaps in a few years, a Shekhar play will strike me the same.
“In Love and Warcraft” runs on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre through Feb. 23.
Multi Grammy Award-winner Aaron Neville, of the Neville Brothers, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band will perform a concert called “New Orleans!” at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on Thursday.
One of the most popular New Orleans jazz bands today–you’ll be dancing in the aisles if you let yourself go–the Dirty Dozen Brass Band opens the show with traditional New Orleans jazz fused with be-bop and funk.
Next, R&B/soul/country/pop star Aaron Neville takes the stage with his band. Neville has had numerous hits on the Billboard charts, including “Tell It Like It Is,” “Don’t Know Much” and “Everybody Plays the Fool.” He has won two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal for his collaborations with Linda Ronstadt for “Don’t Know Much” and for “All My Life.” He also won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration with Trisha Yearwood for their tune “I Fall to Pieces.”
New Orleans! will be held Thursday, Jan. 30 at 8 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Four stars from the original cast of Broadway’s Jersey Boys will be performing the hits of the ’60s at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre this Sunday. Tony Award-winner Christian Hoff, Michael Longoria, Daniel Reichard and Tony Award-nominee J. Robert Spencer will sing their favorite “Sixties Hits” from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Motown, The Four Seasons, The Turtles and more.
Watching the stars of “Jersey Boys” was like watching Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Their voices and acting were phenomenal, so I expect no less from these stars. Their rendition of “Happy Together” sounds more like The Turtles than its lead singers Flo and Eddie did when the duo performed at Atlanta’s old Electric Ballroom in the late ‘70s.
Longoria, who created the role of Joey in the original Broadway cast of Jersey Boys, would later star as Frankie Valli.
Reichard played the Four Seasons star composer Bob Gaudio, a role he created at the La Jolla Playhouse. He also played the title role in the New York City Opera’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide.”
Spencer originated the role of Nick Massi in “Jersey Boys” and originated the role of Dan Goodman in the Broadway production of the rock musical “Next to Normal.”
Hoff starred in the original cast production as Tommy DeVito, one of the founding members of The Four Seasons and won a Tony Award for “Best Featured Actor in a Musical.” Hoff holds the world record for “Most Character Voices in an Audio Book” for “Tell Me How You Love the Picture,” based on the career of movie producer Ed Feldman. In it, he performs 241 separate voices, including Jack Lemmon, Eddie Murphy and Joan Crawford. No wonder The Midtown Men’s renditions of these ’60s hits sound so authentic.
The quartet performs Sunday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
When reading about Pat Conroy’s abusive childhood, my dysfunctional family life seems not so dysfunctional. But then I’ll read something that brings me back to a horrible memory, and I’m not so sure. No matter whose childhood was worse–Pat’s clearly was–there are few people who could tell a story as compelling as he.
This Sunday, The New York Times best-selling author, whose two novels “The Prince of Tides” and “The Great Santini” were made into Oscar-nominated films, will speak at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta. Former Atlanta Journal-Constitution book reviewer, now an Atlanta Magazine columnist, Teresa Weaver, will host the talk. She conducted an interview with him that was published in the magazine’s November issue, which features riveting excerpts from Conroy’s new memoir, “The Death of Santini.”
“The Great Santini” was based on Conroy’s family and his emotionally and physically abusive father, Marine Col. Donald Conroy. “The Death of Santini” continues the tale, but it’s not wrapped around the “fictitious” Lt. Col. Wilbur “Bull” Meechum family. In his memoir, Conroy introduces readers to his family and tales about his father: A father who backhanded him after a Little League game for making errors, who slapped him in the face for missing a tackle, and who cheered to his son’s opposing team, “Cut Conroy’s legs out from under him!”
“Every time my father took off in an airplane,” Conroy writes, “I prayed that the plane would crash and his body be consumed by fire. For thirty-one years, this is how I felt about him.”
My sister told me we have to see him this Sunday at the Jewish Book Festival. On the way home from his talk we may cry about his past and ours. Or we may say, “At least our lives weren’t that bad.”
Pat Conroy speaks at the MJCCA at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Numerous other authors will speak there this week:
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 12:00 pm (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
Andrea Pomerantz Lustig, How To Look Expensive: A Beauty Editor’s Secrets to Getting Gorgeous Without Breaking the Bank
Andrea Pomerantz Lustig is known around the offices of Glamour magazine as the “Beauty Sleuth,” thanks to the popular beauty column and articles she has written for the magazine for the last decade. In How to Look Expensive, she combines her own experience with coveted secrets she’s learned from the experts to help readers achieve red-carpet looks without putting them in the red.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 8:00 pm (Member: $18 / Community: $24)
Alan Dershowitz, Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law
America’s most prominent legal mind and the #1 bestselling author of Chutzpah and The Best Defense, Alan Dershowitz, recounts his legal autobiography, describing how he came to the law, as well as the cases that have changed American jurisprudence over the past 50 years, most of which he has personally been involved in.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2:00 pm (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
One Program; Two Authors
This program will be “In Conversation” with Melissa Long, Anchor, WXIA-TV
- Lynn Povich, Good Girls Revolt! How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
Lynn Povich, the first female senior editor in the history of Newsweek, tells the unknown story of a landmark sex discrimination suit brought by 46 young women at Newsweek against the magazine in 1970. Through the lives of young female journalists at Newsweek today, Povich shows what has – and hasn’t – changed in the workplace.
- Lori Rotskoff, When We Were Free to Be Free to Be: Looking Back at a Children’s Classic and the Difference it Made
If you grew up or raised children during the era of mood rings and lava lamps, you probably remember Free to Be . . . You and Me—the groundbreaking children’s record, book, and television special that debuted in 1972. Conceived by actress Marlo Thomas, it inspired generations of girls and boys to challenge stereotypes, value cooperation, respect diversity, and reach for any dream. The book’s editors and contributors combine personal narrative, and historical analysis, to address how progressive children’s media still speaks to families today.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 4:30 pm (Member: $9 / Community: $14)
One Program; Three Authors
- Robert Weintraub, The Victory Season: World War II, the Homecoming, and the Birth of Baseball’s Golden Age (*Local Author!)
In the spring of 1946, Americans were ready to heal. WWII was finally over, and hundreds of players, including stars like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Joe DiMaggio returned home to get back to baseball. Robert Weintraub brings to life the on-field action, as well as the little-known tales of ballplayers at war.
- Larry Ruttman, American Jews and America’s Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball
The Jewish presence in baseball extends beyond a few famous players such as Greenberg, Rosen, Koufax, Holtzman, Green, Youkilis, and Braun. The stories tell the history of the larger-than-life role of Jews in America’s pastime. American Jews talks about growing up Jewish and dealing with Jewish identity, intermarriage, religious observance, anti-Semitism, and Israel. Each tells about being in the midst of the colorful pantheon of players who, over the past 75 years or more, have made baseball what it is.
- John Rosengren, Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes
Delving into the life and career of America’s first Jewish superstar, author John Rosengren brings us a definitive portrait of a man who overcame the prejudices of a world in turmoil to achieve baseball immortality and become a hero to a generation of Jewish-Americans. As an outsider who rose to the top of the nation’s quintessential game, no one represents the American experience quite like Greenberg.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 7:30 pm (Member: 18 / Community: $24)
Closing Night – This program will be “In Conversation” with Theresa Weaver, Columnist, Atlanta Magazine
Pat Conroy, The Death of Santini
In this powerful and intimate new memoir, The Death of Santini is a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle, and a poignant lesson in how ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can conquer even the meanest of men.
Visit MJCCA for tickets to all speakers.
Clayton Landey and Carrie Walrond Hood; photo: Greg Mooney
If “Warrior Class,” now playing on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre, doesn’t wow you, surely the acting will. In this Mamet-like drama about an aspiring politician who is blackmailed by a college girlfriend, Nathan Berkshire (Clayton Landey) holds the reins behind political careers. Politician Julius Lee (Moses Villarama) is the pawn in this game played by Berkshire and Lee’s former college sweetheart, Holly (Carrie Walrond Hood). Brilliant acting by Landey and Hood.
“Warrior Class” was written by Kenneth Lin, the winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition in 2006. The following year The Dramatist magazine named him one of “50 to Watch.” The Cornell and Yale graduate is now a writer for Netflix’s political show “House of Cards” starring Kevin Spacey.
Directed by Eric Ting, “Warrior Class” runs on the Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre through Nov. 17.
Two ghost movies I remember from the ’80s: “Ghostbusters” and “Ghost.” I’m not quite sure which–if either–would best be put to music, but someone thought the chick-flick “Ghost” would work well, so here it is: “Ghost the Musical” playing at the Fox Theatre.
The musical features an original pop score from multiple Grammy Award-winners Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard. Stewart was half of the duo The Eurythmics, which he formed with Annie Lennox. As well as co-writing “Man in the Mirror” and “Hand in My Pocket” from Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller,” Ballard co-wrote and produced Alanis Morissette’s album “Jagged Little Pill.”
“Ghost the Musical” runs Nov. 5-10 at the Fox Theatre.
Kathleen Wattis, Wyatt Fenner, and Joe Sykes; Photo: BreeAnne Clowdus
Part Theatre of the Absurd and part science fiction, “Pluto” is a supernatural odyssey with a three-headed talking dog (Alison Hastings), a quaking refrigerator, a death Martian (Joe Sykes) and gore. Time stands still at 9:30 a.m., while what actually occurs at that time changes over and over like Kurosawa’s “Rashomon.”
Stefanie Friedman is a delight as the vixen tease, Bailey, and Sykes pulls off a natural and believable performance as Death.
Written by Steven Yockey, directed by Melissa Foulger, featuring Wyatt Fenner and Kathleen Wattis, “Pluto” runs at Actor’s Express through Nov. 24. The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission.
