Best Art Restorer in Atlanta
Master Framing and Art Conservation Studio
Repaired late 1800s painting
If you have a damaged antique painting or picture frame, it might be able to be repaired so well that even you couldn’t tell where it once had been marred.
I recently inherited an antique oil painting from my mother and had left it leaning in front of the sofa until I could hang it under a picture light. One night when I was frantically looking for a remote control, I pushed the sofa forward and heard a crash. I had forgotten the picture had been there. I looked down and saw a 4-inch T-shaped gash in the middle of the painting.
That night I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was how irresponsible I was. I wasn’t worthy of an antique painting. I was a bumbling idiot who had ruined one of Mom’s oldest and most valuable paintings. Throughout that night, all day Sunday and Monday morning, a repetitive recording ran through my mind, “I mess up everything in my life. I just want to die.”
Monday I called numerous art galleries and art schools within 100 miles, hoping a student or professional could fix the hole. I was directed to an art gallery, which just happened to be in Marietta where I live. When I brought in the oil painting the owner assessed it and said it dated back to the late 1800s. Looking at my sullen face, he said, “Don’t worry. It’s no problem. We can fix it and make it look like new.” The price for the repair would be nearly $3,000.
I didn’t tell my sister, my only living sibling, that I ruined the painting. I made this mess, and I was going to find a way to fix it. But I wasn’t going to pay $3,000.
Before Mother died, she had told us to contact Robert Ahlers to sell some of the finer contents in her home. Robert Ahlers holds estate sales and specializes in antiques, so I called him and asked if he knew of an art restorer. He referred me to Susan Jones at Master Framing and Conservation Studio in Chamblee. She looked at the damage and said the repair would cost $400. Although I had recently gotten laid off from my job– within one week of Mother dying–I accepted her offer.
I didn’t have high expectations. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could fix a big hole in the middle of a painted canvas. But when I picked up the painting, even up close, the damage and repair were imperceptible.
Jones repairs all sorts of antiques. I received no discount or compensation for writing this piece. To see photos of antiques before and after repairs, visit Master Framing and Conservation Studio.
The national touring company of “Something Rotten,” which ran for nearly two years on Broadway and received 10 Tony nominations, including one for Best Musical, will be in Atlanta for five days in April.
Set in the 1590s—this energetic musical tells the story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, two brothers who are desperate to write their own hit play while the “rock star” Shakespeare keeps getting all the hits. When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world’s very first musical.
With its heart on its ruffled sleeve and sequins in its soul, Something Rotten! is “The Producers + The Book of Mormon x The Drowsy Chaperone. Squared!” (New York Magazine).
Direct from Broadway, Something Rotten! is a “big, fat hit!” (New York Post).
“Something Rotten” runs April 17-21 at the Fox Theatre.
The Alliance Theatre is presenting two one-act plays by playwright-in-residence Pearl Cleage, “Hospice” and “Pointing at the Moon.”
“Hospice” looks at a contentious relationship between a 47-year-old mother, Alice (Terry Burrell), and her daughter, Jenny (Tinashe Kajese-Bolden), a movie critic. Lasting for what seemed to be more than an hour, this mother and daughter snipe at each other nearly the entire time, on and on and on.
Jenny, who is about to give birth any hour, is living in her mother’s old home. Jenny and Alice have been estranged for decades after her poet mother left her to pursue her own interests in Paris. Alice, bald from treatments for cancer, recently moved back into the home to die. The two rehash the past, Jenny blaming her mother for leaving her when she was 10 and never returning, and Alice defending herself.
It is not until the end when there is a resolution that I really appreciate this show. I cry. All’s well that ends well, and this ends so well.
“Pointing at the Moon” is the second one-act. It’s livelier and more upbeat than the first play. My companion, a journalist and journalism teacher, asked me after the show what that play was about. I burst out laughing. I had no idea.
Two one-act plays by Pearl Cleage, presented by the Alliance Theatre, directed by Timothy Douglas, run through April 15 at the Southwest Arts Center.
L to R: Ben Barlow, Jacobi Hollingshed and Julia Weeks
“The Flick” is only the second show I’ve seen at Out of Box Theatre in Marietta, but I really like this theater for its originality. The theater and productions are reminiscent of Off-Off-Broadway shows that I used to see while living in NYC back in the 1980s: small theaters and shows that are daring, different, and endings that aren’t tied up in a pretty big bow to show all’s well that end’s well. Sometimes things don’t end so well, and don’t begin well either. So it is with “The Flick.”
Avery (Jacobi Hollingshed), age 20, has just arrived on the job working in an old movie theater that still plays films on reels. Sam (Ben Barlow), 35, has been working there for years and longs to be promoted to run the projector. Rose (Julia Weeks), a pretty flirtatious college student, was promoted to that job ahead of him. She’s the cool chic who manipulates both men. Sam and Avery take tickets, make popcorn and sweep up after everyone has gone. Avery remembers the details of movies from the past 30 years and can play Six Degrees with the names of any two names actors. All three seem to be sad depressed characters, and not much happens until the second act.
“The Flick” won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for drama, so you’d think I would have liked it more. But the first act lagged and lagged. I was ready to walk out during intermission but was glad I watched the second act. The show finally picked up the pace, especially when Skylar (Jeffrey Allen Sneed), the newest employee arrives, but that didn’t happen until the end. There are a couple of poignant scenes where Avery divulges his past, Sam reveals some family problems and Rose really listens and shows compassion for the men.
If you go, be prepared for a long show and long pauses in between lines, especially when Sam and Avery speak. L-o-o-o-o-n-g pauses. L-o-o-o-n-g pauses. Many of them weren’t organic and some seemed unnaturally forced. The pauses drew out the production so much that the show clocked in at nearly three hours. Three. Hours. I kept wanting to shout, “Pick up the cues!”
Still, I like this Marietta theatre. Out of Box Theatre is a tiny theatre hidden away in a warehouse of building with probably 50 seats at most. Both shows I’ve seen had actors that were either OK or good. Not bad. Not great. I can deal with that because although I didn’t like this play, this theater takes a chance and brings progressive plays to the stage.
Written by Annie Baker, directed by Matthew Busch, “The Flick” runs through March 25 at Out of Box Theatre in Marietta.
Following on the heels of Mary Rodgers’ best-selling 1972 children’s book “Freaky Friday,” which spawned two Disney movies, one starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, comes the new musical “Freaky Friday.”
The play differs from the movie, but the premise remains. A teenage daughter, Ellie (Abby Holland), and her widowed mother, Katherine (Jennifer Alice Acker), both think the other has life so much easier and wish to trade places with the other for just one day. A magic spell makes it happen.
Katherine, in Ellie’s body, gets a first-hand look at high school life and goes weak at the knees over her daughter’s high school crush, Adam (Christian Magby). Ellie, in Katherine’s body, feels the opposite about her mom’s fiance, Mike (Frank Faucette), and averts his romantic moves by offering him fist bumps instead of kisses.
A live band plays the music, which hails from the Pulitzer Prize-winning composers of “Next to Normal” and “If/Then,” Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. The script was written by Bridget Carpenter, whose writing credits include “Friday Night Lights” and “Parenthood.”
My best friend from high school, J.P., who became a high school teacher enjoyed the show and said the students acted the way her students behaved. She and many other audience members seem to have fallen under the magic spell that switched mother and daughter.
J.P. said I didn’t fall under the spell because I can’t relate to high school, but that’s not true. I thought “Bring It On,” about two competing high school cheerleading teams, was one of the best musical plays I’ve seen on an Atlanta stage.
As for the musical “Freaky Friday,” I enjoyed a few fine performers in the cast of 19 actors, most of whom play multiple characters. Acker, Magby, Brittani Minnieweather, and Jill Hames stood out for their singing and acting, and Randi Garza and Jeff McKerley stood out for their acting.
Book by Bridget Carpenter, directed by Heidi Cline McKerley, “Freaky Friday” runs through April 22 at Horizon Theatre.
Other cast members:
Cat Catlin
Daniela Cobb
Miranda Dyer
Sloka Krishnan
Hannah Lake
Amy Levin
Joseph Masson
Shaun MacLean
Russell Scott
Juan Carlos Unzueta
Alexis Young
One of Atlanta’s greatest jazz bands, the Joe Gransden Big Band, performs Monday at the Georgia Ensemble Theatre in Roswell. Trumpeter and singer Gransden normally hits a slew of great standards, including those by Ol’ Blue Eyes and Ella, and plays a few original tunes.
Holding a regular gig for years at Cafe 290, Gransden’s band has played in clubs around the country, including in New York at The Blue Note, but it will be nice to see him in a quiet setting where everyone will be tuned into the music. And Gransden plays such great music.
Tickets are available for Monday, March 12 for $30 at the Georgia Ensemble Theatre.
This Saturday four Jewish comics, an Italian-American, an African-American, an Indian and a Vietnamese-American, take the stage at the MJCCA to perform their stand-up routines.
Mike Capozzola, Gina Gold, Joe Nguyen and Samson Koletkar will share their own experiences about being “undercover” members of the tribe.
The comics will perform this Saturday, Feb. 10 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Contact the MJCCA for tickets.
The Koresh Dance Company will be performing next weekend in Atlanta. Called “one of the best contemporary companies in Philadelphia” by the Broad Street Review, the choreography blends ballet, modern, and jazz with Israeli folk dance.
Reviewers around the country have called the choreography “eccentric,” “hot,” “hip,” “turbocharged,” and have said viewers leave “bedazzled.” The company, which tours internationally, was founded in 1991 by Israeli-born choreographer and artistic director, Roni Koresh. He trained at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City, and in 1984 he began performing with Shimon Braun’s acclaimed Waves Jazz Dance Company in Philadelphia. Koresh won a People’s Choice Award in 1987 as Philadelphia’s Most Outstanding Jazz Dancer.
The Koresh Dance Company tours nationally and internationally. Koresh is a multi-year recipient of choreography fellowships from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His choreography has been commissioned by numerous dance companies across the country.
The Koresh Dance Company performs Saturday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 28, at 5 p.m. at the Marcus Jewish Community Center Atlanta.
Rachel Sorsa, Mark Cabus. Photo: Dan Carmody/Studio 7
Georgia Ensemble Theatre hits it out of the park with “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical.” The famed singer of the 1950s and ’60s struggles to overcome depression, an addiction to pills and a loveless family. Clooney starts out as a young girl singing duos in Kentucky and continues singing even as her starlight has faded. A talented musical trio backs up Clooney (and the other characters) with her greatest hits, including “Come On-a My House,” “Botch-a-Me,” “Mambo Italiano,” and “Hey There.”
The two-person cast features Rachel Sorsa as Clooney and Mark Cabus, who plays a string of characters, including Clooney’s psychiatrist, sister, mother, and movie actor husband José Ferrer. Cabus portrays the young girl and older women and the male characters in a truthful manner so they are all believable. Although the dancing is not the greatest, the singing and acting are first-rate.
Written by Janet Yates Vogt & Mark Friedman, directed by James Donadio, “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical” runs in Roswell, Ga., through Jan. 28 at Georgia Ensemble Theatre.
Prudes beware: “Hand to God” is no genteel puppet show. Think of the raunchiest scenes from “South Park,” “Book of Mormon” and “Avenue Q,” multiply by two, add some crude language, sex with a minor, Penthouse puppetry and comedic, maniacal characters, and you’ve got yourself a show that received five Tony Award nominations, including one for Best Play.
This is a fast-moving show about a schizophrenic boy, Jason (Ben Thorpe), his seedy highly sexed mother, Margery (Wendy Melkonian) a church pastor, Greg (Allan Edwards) and the church’s puppet-making class. There are scenes, such as the one in which the pastor fights an unruly puppet by spraying holy water on him, that are laugh-out-loud funny, and there are sex scenes that will turn many cheeks pink.
I think back in my twenties or thirties, I would have found this irreverent comedy more amusing. Still, the stellar performance by Thorpe, who plays both a shy, introverted teenager and a puppet besmirched by the devil, alone makes this show worth seeing.
Written by Robert Askins, directed by Marc Masterson, the Alliance Theatre’s production of “Hand to God” runs through Nov. 12 at Dad’s Garage.
Cast:
Alexandra Ficken as Jessica
Patrick Wade as Timothy
