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Contents
ODLE PLAY AMONG SIX ABOUT LOVE
KAMI RUSHELL SMITH IS A 10 IN “NINE”
SECRET GARDEN IS MAGICAL AT WHEELOCK
KIRSTEN GREENIDGE TALKS ABOUT WRITING
WHERE ARE THEY NOW………
HONORING THE LIFE OF JAMES SPRUILL
LIVING LEDGENDS – MUSEUM OF AA HISTORY
LILLY’S PURPLE PURSE
SEEING IT LEE’S WAY AT HIBERNIAN HALL
WHEN MAHALIA SINGS
BLACK HISTORY AT BOSTON CITY HALL
558 MASS AVE CELEBRATES BLACK ART – SUN.

ODLE PLAY AMONG SIX ABOUT LOVE
(pictured: Kaili Turner)
“How do I love you?” the 19th century poet responded famously. “Let me count the ways.” Six local playwrights came up with imaginative variations on the theme of love Elizabeth Barrett Browning so movingly probed long ago. The result was an afternoon of theater that amply demonstrated love’s highways and byways is a topic that’s arrived safely into the 21st. Some of the one-acts were hilarious, others disturbing. Every one of them got you to thinking about the intricacies of the hearts of men and women.

Clifford Odle had a dandy whose premise is, as they say, ripped right from the headlines. “Our Girl In Trenton” juxtapoised a newly elected black mayor waxing importantly about the high ethics of her campaign while back at the office two of her workers find that his marriage is no impediment to their embraces. Sonya Joyner was suitably smug as the newly elected black official while Kaili Turner smilingly followed where her desires took her with a shy but willing Marc Harpin.
On the more worrisome side Lyralen Kaye took a serious look at what happens to a pair of lovers who met at alcohol and drug recovery meetings in “Rescue.” In her well written piece that moved along in real time, the lithe Julia Short as Sunny and the muscular Joan Mejia as Jake found that physicality was the least important connective point to a happy relationship.

Yet another play looked at a confession of gay impulses between two boys from Southie that reached its apotheosis at the Broadway T stop as strobe lights flashed with a pronounced disco throb. The exceedingly well written “Birdbaths, ‘Twilight,’ And Other Sundry Topics” from Rick Park was a treat with actors Derek Fraser and Bryan Hoy matching Park’s writing with wit and panache.

Another Country Productions (named after the novel by James Baldwin) showed with this staging at Boston Playwrights Theater, Feb. 3-5, that they truly believe in their mission to offer diverse, innovative, and multicultural work. The other playwrights on the bill were Mark Harvey Levine, Ginger Lazarus, and Alison Potoma. Take note of all these names so that when you see them next, you’ll head to their shows.

By Kay Bourne

KAMI RUSHELL SMITH IS A 10 IN “NINE”

(pictured: Kami Rushell Smith)

Whether dressed in a slave’s tattered rags or an elegant gown right out of Italian “Vogue”, Kami Rushell Smith has that “wow” factor. But she’s more than a pretty face. Smith fills those clothes with real people.

“When I first look at a character,” said the actress currently in SpeakEasy’s production of “NINE,” “I find the humanity. I find out what’s different about this character than myself and also what’s similar. What makes this character tick.”

Circumstances dictated many dimensions of her two most recent roles. In NINE, Smith says of her role Our Lady of the Spa, one of the bevy of women surrounding filmmaker Guido, “because she owns the spa, she’s ever present. Sometimes she’s Guido’s confidant,” at other times she’s running her business.

Clothes do make the woman, Smith found. “Getting into the costume, this elegant gown designed by Charles Schoonmaker, was helpful” in my identifying who she is. Schoonmaker, a 4-time Daytime Emmy Award winner and resident costume designer at Jacob’s Pillow for seven seasons, also designed the costumes for Harriet Jacobs, the story of a slave girl’s resistance in which Smith played the title role.

The 1982 Broadway musical “NINE” based on the classic film 8 ½ by Frederico Fellini, and featuring a book by Arthur Kopit and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston continues at the Boston Center for the Arts through Feb. 20. As Guido, the Fellini character, approaches his 40th birthday, he’s facing personal and career crises; utmost he needs an idea for a new film after suffering three flops yet his mind is clouded by his current relationship with three women and memories of women in the past.

Smith’s role before “NINE” was the title character in the Underground Railroad Theater’s production of “Harriet Jacobs” by Lydia Diamond based on a mix of a slave narrative published prior to the Civil War in 1861 and Jean Fagan Yellin’s monumental biography of the narrative’s author Harriet Jacobs (“Harriet Jacobs, A Life”) published in 2004. Harriet Jacobs’s recollections of life as a slave in Edenton, North Carolina are capped by seven years hidden in a crawl space to avoid the sexual advances of her master, the town’s doctor. (She then escapes North).

“I’m from the South,” says Smith who grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi (birthplace of rock and roll’s Elvis Presley), and I was and still am an avid reader, as was Harriet (although it was against the law for slaves to read). “As a diary keeper, I loved to read. In my school, reading was not the cool thing to do.” When the doctor’s wife, Smith’s mistress, finds Harriet reading a novel the woman flings the book into a wash tub filled with water as well as admonishing Harriet.

Smith was the youngest of three sisters, “the only one interested in theater.” Her father, a lawyer worked for the federal government, her mother was the director of the housing authority in Tupelo. The entire family traveled North to see Smith in “Harriet Jacobs” which “they loved. Both my parents grew up right after the Civil Rights Movement and both have been pioneers in their fields. The story of a woman who beat the odds in dire circumstances was appealing to them.” There’s a family visit planned for “NINE.”

In what is a contrast to her role in “NINE” and most certainly to the intellectual minded Harriet, Smith the season before, when she was earning a master’s in musical theater, played April in the Boston Conservatory’s student production of “The Life,” which was directed by Jacqui Parker. Like many actors of color she was leery of playing a prostitute. These roles, along with domestics, were about the only parts offered to black actresses for decades in the Broadway theater and were usually one dimensional if not racist stereotypes. “I struggled with myself about auditioning,” said Smith. One of her reasons for trying out was the opportunity to work with Parker.

“She brought a safe place to explore the character,” says Smith, “to find the humanity and to probe what brought her to this situation. It’s not portraying a prostitute that’s the problem, it’s reflecting back on the history of theater.

“I look at it as a useful exercise in preparation for a Law and Order episode,” she says jokingly.

“I feel like with my schooling and the roles I’ve had a chance to do that I’m trained to play a wide variety of characters. And my number one goal is to tell their whole stories,” she said. In that vein she credits the strengths of directors whose work has informed her abilities to develop a role, for other examples, Megan Sandberg-Zakian (Harriet Jacobs) who emphasized knowing about “what was happening in the world at the time” the story takes place and Paul Daigneault (“NINE”) who is “inspiring because his vision is so clear. He imparts the story for each character so his direction is more than blocking, it’s knowing why they are going where they’ve gone.”

Among others, she adds Steve Maher into the mix of directors she’s learned from. Smith played Lady MacBeth in the “MacBeth” done by Shakespeare Now! performed at Mass College of Art in 2009. Smith was a radiant Hero in Actors Shakespeare Project’s “Much Ado About Nothing” also in 2009 which played at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury.

Smith attended college at Carnegie Mellon “because they offered me a great scholarship,” she says. She minored in theater participating in the student theater troupe Scotch ‘n Soda where as an undergrad Stephen Schwartz provided an original musical “Pippin Pippin” (which eventually became the Broadway show Pippin). Her senior year Smith performed in the 40th anniversary production.

Her major at Carnegie Mellon in writing which was journalism, grant writing, manual writing, and other practical writing skills has led to jobs such as her current position running Bostix.org. for Arts Boston.By Kay Bourne

NINE continues through Feb. 20 in the Roberts Studio Theater in the Stanford Calderwood Pavillion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St. in Boston’s South End. For more info you can phone 617-933-8600 or go on-line to www.SpeakEasy.com.

Official Website of Speakeasy Stage Company

SECRET GARDEN IS MAGICAL AT WHEELOCK
The clash of two ornery children provides the fireworks in “The Secret Garden” at the Wheelock Family Theater.
This version, which hews closely to the 1911 children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, is the work of WTF stalwarts Susan Kosoff (a founder of WFT), who wrote the book and lyrics, and Jane Staab, who composed the music as she has for many past productions at the theater. This production is an up-date of the script the duo created some 14 years ago.

Their work is being given an impressive staging, effectively directed by Susan Kosoff, with new music arrangements from Jonathan Goldberg.

Adaptations of ‘The Secret Garden” have been a perennial favorite over the past century – there have been three film versions: a silent version, a 1930s Hollywood adaptation with child star Margaret O’Brien and a more recent one, directed by Agnieszka Holland and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

On stage it is best-remembered from its 1991 stage version, which played on Broadway for nearly two years and is famous for its line-up of female talent: Lucy Simon (music), Marsha Norman (book and lyrics), Susan H. Schulman (direction) and Heidi Landesman (its Tony-winning set).

The story takes place in 1849 during the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria. Sour puss Mary Lenox (Katherine Leigh Doherty), orphaned at age 11 (in the WFT version), is repatriated from India to Yorkshire, England, the home of her uncle whom she’s never met. Rebuffed by her parents who didn’t have time for her, she is an angry child wearing a perpetual scowl. Waited on by servants (who even dress her), she can do little for herself. Doherty (a veteran of WFT productions who in the 7th grade originated the role of Jane Banks in the Broadway production of Mary Poppins) gives a sturdy performance of the little girl who matures a lot in the course of the show.

Archibald Craven, Mary’s uncle, is the owner of Misselthwaite Manor, which butts up against the foreboding moors. He is a retiring figure, absent in mind and spirit as he mourns the death some 11 years ago of his wife. He is also physically absent, staying away home a good deal. He is portrayed with aristocratic grace by Russell Garrett.

The task of keeping order in the house belongs to Mrs. Medlock, something of a less malevolent version of Mrs. Danvers from “Rebecca.” Jacqui Parker provides Medlock with a firmness that is appropriately scary. She also, though, makes it apparent that she has a great deal on her hands, particularly with the sick child whose tantrums set everyone scurrying. Given, however, that Parker has as wonderful a voice as anyone in this cast of exceptional singers (her most recent role was Billie Holliday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” at the Lyric), it’s a pity there wasn’t an aria for her in this script. Also, a song would have given her more of an equal footing with the other characters as being a multi-dimensional person.

Under Mrs. Medlock’s thumb is a housemaid, played with zest and great good humor by Jennifer Beth Glick, who won an IRNE last season for her performance as Gertrude in WFT’s production of the musical “Seussical.” Glick’s Martha Sowerby does her best to make Mary’s stay at Misselthwaite Manor a happier one even though at times it jeopardizes her job whose income her family desperately needs. Her brother Dickon, a fey character who talks to animals and totally has their trust, is charmingly portrayed by experienced actor Andrew Barbato (artistic director of Cellar Door Stage which does original children’s musicals). He too is pivotal to Mary’s personal growth.

The cranky gardener Ben Weatherstaff in a strong performance from Neil Gustafson, sees a kindred spirit in Mary. He is impressed when a robin takes to the odd child. The robin, which appears with some frequency, is a beautifully carved and painted wood puppet from props designer Marjorie Lusignan manipulated by a hidden stage hand.

Mary’s cousin, the invalid Master Colin Craven, son of the owner of the manor, is played with a nicely-honed venom by Ellis Gage. He is, by his own choice, hidden away, just as the secret garden is. Mary scales the garden’s wall, and, figuratively speaking, scales his wall too; but not without drama. Theirs is a clash of titanic brattiness through which they emerge far improved in behavior.

Matthew T. Lazure, who has done many of the Gold Dust Orphan shows, designed the magnificent set. Lazure effectively creates the panorama of the bleak manor with its long corridors off which there are many rooms, including the sick room of the willful Colin. While outside on the estate property with its formal gardens another garden is hidden behind a high stonewall whose gateway is covered with vines.

The first rate costumer Stacey Stephens has dressed them all with flair. And the talented Goldberg, at the keyboards, doubles as orchestrator and music director, conducting a capable 4-piece ensemble in a lyrical score where much of the dialogue is sung and there are many arias.

“The Secret Garden” has held a magical appeal for children and in the memory of adults who were fond of it growing up for over a century. The production at Wheelock Family Theater is a happy revisit to this favorite story.

The Secret Garden continues through Feb 27 at the Wheelock Family Theater, 200 The Riverway, Boston. Performances are Fri. nights at 7:30 with Sat. and Sun.matinees at three. There are also school vacation week matinees at one, Feb. 22-25. More info on-line at tickets@wheelock.edu.

By Kay Bourne
Official Website of Wheelock Family Theatre

KIRSTEN GREENIDGE TALKS ABOUT WRITING
(pictured: Kirsten Greenidge)
The truism that black people profoundly understand whites (it’s been a matter of survival) is exampled in Arlington resident Kirsten Greenidge’s “The Luck of the Irish.” Her perceptive drama about a black family who pays an Irish couple to buy a house on their behalf in 1950s Boston and the impact of that agreement 40 years later had a dynamic reading as part of the Huntington Theatre Company’s new play development program.

The up-and-coming playwright whose drama “Bossa Nova” starring Ella Joyce premiered a month ago at Yale Repertory Theater (the launching pad for many August Wilson plays) benefits from the Huntington Theatre Company’s broad ranging commitment to the development of new plays, particularly from local writers.

“The Luck of the Irish” read Feb 3 by a top flight cast of actors under the direction of Melia Bensussen was staged as part of the Breaking Ground reading series. Past Breaking Ground playwrights include Lydia R. Diamond, Ronan Noone, Theresa Rebeck, David Rambo, and Melina Lopez.

KBAR interviewed Greenidge by phone the following day regarding the importance to a playwright of the Huntington Theatre Company’s involvement in developing her script.

“Theater offers live bodies,” said Greenidge about the value of the reading to her. “You get an idea how the play’s working. Afterwards I can do re-writes based on making sure of the clarity of the story or cut for repetition. Also, I don’t write comedies so if I have a joke in there that doesn’t get a laugh, I’ll cut it.”

Greenidge says the Huntington Theater Company does “a wonderful job” supporting a playwright. She was active with their development program for two years starting in 2008. “I’d meet once a month with the other playwrights, there were four of us, to discuss each other’s work which we’d read beforehand. There was an hour devoted to each play in which you got feedback.”

Greenidge sets her plays in Boston and environs, as for instance, “103 Within the Veil” staged several seasons ago by Company One which looked at the life of a black photographer in the South End at the turn of the 20th century. “Bossa Nova” is set in a home and at a private girls’ school in the Boston area. She has had seven plays staged. “I live here,” she explained about locating her stories here. You write about what you know.

“Movies set in Boston are doing well. I hope my work about Boston will ride that trend,” she said.
By Kay Bourne

WHERE ARE THEY NOW………
(pictured: Tony Rose)

The interview with record producer and book publisher Tony Rose currently of Phoenix is the second in a series of conversations KBAR will run with artists who were active in Boston but now ply their art in other places.

1. How did Boston inspire you as an artist?

Roxbury inspired me by its harshness, to be strong, tough and determined to succeed. Along with the knowledge to find another way of life away from my reality of poverty, alcohol, drugs and extraordinary violence. Roxbury inspired me by the spoken word and activism of the men and women of the Sixties. Roxbury inspired me by the talent of the young men and women I met during the Boston Black Music Scene of the late Seventies, early Eighties. Roxbury inspired me by the beauty of its people, its women all through my creative life. Roxbury inspired me by the R&B music on the radio (WILD AM) in the Fifties and Sixties I heard while growing up in the Whittier St, Housing Projects. Roxbury gave me the St. Francis de Sales School on Cabot St. where I learned the power of God and the will to learn. Roxbury gave me my voice, my strength, my courage, my spirit to take on the whole world.

2. What is your happiest memory regarding a) living and b) creating in Boston?

The streets of Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester and it’s women during all seasons, all types of weather, the warmth and love they gave, that would include my wife of thirty years Yvonne Rose, and the day the truck pulled up to my house at 428 Talbot Avenue in Dorchester, October 19, 1979, with my first record on my own record company, Solid Platinum Records and Productions, that I had executive produced, and produced with Charles Alexander, Maurice Starr and Michael Jonzun, by my new act that I was just starting to manage Prince Charles and the City Beat Band.. A little 12inch record called “In the Streets”. We had all just met and known each other a few months, we were all struggling to be heard, to get some musical name recognition. The record gave us all a local, national and international name immediately and I guess you could say with a lot more hard work, we never looked back. I met Yvonne Willis that same year also. What a beautiful year. I had gone to see Pope John Paul II at the Boston Commons, September, 1979 and prayed with him for courage, strength, stamina and wisdom. I wanted to succeed so bad. I attribute that to all the people that have helped me, all the glory that God has given me, to that day standing on a hill at the Boston Commons.

3. What supports for your art did you find in Boston?

First the people from Roxbury, Mattapan and Dorchester, then becoming known to a strong media force in Boston who supported my efforts through promoting the records, shows, concerts, parties, all that I was doing.
The African American media was the first and greatest – the newspaper and radio – Kay Bourne at the Banner and the Seventh Son at WILD radio and then Boston television. We did a lot of work, with a great station at that time Channel 68, then Karen Holmes, Tanya Hart, Denise Rollins, Mel Miller, all my friends in Boston. They were wonderful.

4. What drew you to where you now create?

The peace and quiet. I lived in Boston, Los Angeles, back to Boston, New York City, London, Paris, back to Los Angeles, back to Boston, back to New York City, back to Los Angeles and then to Phoenix, AZ. I lived in the whole world traveling and working, making a whole lot of noise , living a whole lot of life, creating and doing creative business always. So the peace and quiet for me in Phoenix is good.

5. How has your new location affected your art?

It hasn’t affected it one way or another, as the goal is always to just keep moving forward. I moved back to Los Angeles in 1995 and sold my music catalogue in 1995 and transitioned from the recording industry to the book Publishing industry in 1997. Since moving to Phoenix in 1996 I’ve written and published three best-selling books. Formed Amber Books and Colossus Books which incorporated to Amber Communications Group, Inc. and has a catalog of over one hundred titles, making it the nation’s largest African American Publisher of Self-Help Books and Music Biographies in the world, and started Quality Press in 2000, now the largest African American Self-Publisher/Vanity Press Book Packager in the country, having helped along with Yvonne, thousands of Self-Publishers publish their books.

6. Do you think of yourself as a Bostonian or otherwise?

I think of myself as a Roxburian, born and raised. The good and the bad. The best of the best.

7. What sort of a life have you made for yourself where you now are?

A very good life. A peaceful and quiet life, when I am here. Actually I am now just starting to really live here, meaning that I am getting involved in the city in a major way with the Phoenix Book Fair and Arts Festival which I founded in 2010. The city is sponsoring the Burton Barr Central Library and The Margaret T. Hance Park for our two day book fair use on October 21st and 22nd, 2011. It is going to be huge. With the digital Ebook age and getting older I don’t and can’t travel as much as I used to.

Bio. Tony Rose attended the University of Massachusetts and the University of California in Los Angeles. He was employed as a production assistant at the Burbank Studios (Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures), in the accounting and sales division at Warner/Electra/Atlantic Records (WEA), an accounts representative at Warren Lanier Public Relations and as an A & R representative at RCA Records, Los Angeles, California.

He returned to Boston and along with record producer Maurice Starr became the primary architect of that, which in the late 70′s and 80′s would be called “The Boston Black Music Scene” a movement that ultimately led to the discovery of the international blockbusters Prince Charles and the City Beat Band, The Jonzun Crew, New Edition and New Kids on the Block. In the 80′s he held recording / production deals with Virgin Records, Atlantic Records and Pavilion / CBS/Sony Records and has earned Gold and Platinum Albums and Golden Reel Awards for his musical efforts.

In 2004 he co-founded and became the Executive Director of The African American Pavilion at BookExpo America bringing together as exhibitors and attendees a community of thousands of African American book publishers and book publishing industry professionals, a feat that had been unprecedented in the 109-year history of BookExpo America. In 2005 he founded the Katrina Literary Collective, which has been responsible for collecting and donating over 90,000 books for the Hurricane Katrina Survivors and serves as a founding Director of the Harlem Book Fair National, The Harlem Book Fair/Roxbury, Mass and in 2010 founded the Phoenix Book Fair and Art Festival a subsidiary of the National Coalition of Citywide Book Fairs, Art Festivals and Pavilions.
He can be reached at 602-743-7211 or amberbk@aol.com. You can view his company at www.amberbooks.com and www.qualitypress.info.

HONORING THE LIFE OF JAMES SPRUILL
Renowned theater artist and scholar James Spruill, who died of pancreatic cancer on December 31 at the age of 73, will be memorialized, Saturday afternoon, February 12 from two to 4:30 pm at the Boston Center for The Arts. The Baltimore native had already made a name for himself as an actor in New York when he was called to Boston in the late Sixties to act in Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot” for David Wheeler’s Theater Company of Boston. Many young actors such as Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Jon Voight, and Robert DeNiro were helped to launch national careers from performances at the Jewel Box Theater but Spruill would make Boston his home and Boston would embrace him as one of their own. In turn, Spruill would himself launch actors into national careers from his position as a tenured associate professor of theater arts at Boston University and earlier as a teacher at Emerson College and as an artistic director of the Roxbury-based New African Company which he brought into being with actor Gus Johnson and ran for over 30 years with his wife playwright Lynda Patton. His research into the where-abouts of escaped slave and abolitionist William Wells Brown’s never performed play “The Escape:or A Leap for Freedom” led to Spruill’s staging the drama which he did twice. Interestingly, Well’s play was written in 1868, a century before the founding of The New African Company in 1968.

LIVING LEDGENDS – MUSEUM OF AA HISTORY
LIVING LEGENDS AWARDS
FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 11, 2011
Four Seasons Hotel Boston

In April 1833, William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the antislavery newspaper, The Liberator, and founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society made his first trip to England intending to raise funds for a school for black children. Before he left Boston, Garrison gave a farewell address on April 2 at the African Meeting House. The next evening a group of black Boston leaders presented him with this silver cup. Garrison’s letter of gratitude acknowledged the gift “as a pledge of your friendship and appreciation of my labors in that noblest of all enterprises, the rescue of the whole colored race from servitude and degradation.” A replica of this cup is presented to the Museum’s Living Legends.
For more information, please email the Development Office at development@maah.orgor call the Museum at (617) 725-0022, ext. 222.

LILLY’S PURPLE PURSE
The irrepressible mouse heroine of Chester’s Way and Julius, the Baby of the World, Lilly loves everything about school, especially her teacher, Mr. Slinger–until he takes away her musical purse because she can’t stop playing with it in class. Lilly decides to get revenge with a nasty drawing of “Big Fat Mean Mr. Stealing Teacher!” but when she finds the kind note he put in her purse, she’s filled with remorse and has to find a way to make things right again. Based on the story book suitable for ages 4 to 8. Two shows remaining, Sat. & Sun. afternoons at two, Feb, 12 & 13 at YMCA Greater Boston, 316 Huntington Ave. near Jordan Hall. For more info go to info@bostonchildren’stheatre.org.

SEEING IT LEE’S WAY AT HIBERNIAN HALL
What a night! A free opening reception for the first exhibit in the Center Gallery, “Seeing it Lee’s Way,” will be held on Thursday, February 17, 6:00-7:00 p.m. The selection of photographs by Elliot Lee, curated by his daughter Patti Lee, depicts the South End and Roxbury during the 1970s. The public is invited to view the photography and greet the curator in the third-floor meeting room, and then segue into the ballroom for our weekly supper club, Cafe Tatant.

Milton Wright, accompanied by keyboardist Alonzo Harris, will offer a program of love songs at 7:30 in honor of Valentine’s Day. Four emerging young singers will be special guests: Shaffney Terrell, Zakiyyah Sutton, I Rose, and Supreme. As always, the music will be served up with a fine meal prepared by George Huggins of Ethnica Gourmet. Admission $12, meal and show combo $28, combo for two $54. Reservations preferred; contact Dillon Bustin: dbustin@madison-park.org or 617-849-6322.

WHEN MAHALIA SINGS
WHEN MAHALIA SINGS
A JOURNEY WITH THE WORLD’S GREATEST GOSPEL SINGER
PRESENTED BY MIXED MAGIC THEATRE
· PERFORMANCES: 2/4-2/20

FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS @8PM, SUNDAYS @4PM

Jackson was a giant in a world of musical and social giants, listing among her friends some of the world’s most respected entertainers, writers and civil rights leaders. Though she reigned as a pioneer interpreter of Gospel music, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was described by Little Richard as “the true queen of spiritual singers.” This original play (with music) takes you on a train ride from Jackson’s hometown of New Orleans to Chicago, and traces her life and the story of America in the throes of deep change. It is a celebration of musical greats that inlcude Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, Thomas Dorsey, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. It is also the story of her friendship with Martin Luther King and her commitment to the civil rights movement. Written & directed by Jonathan Pitts-Wiley.

BUY TICKETS

GROUPS OF 15 OR MORE: PLEASE EMAIL BOXOFFICE@CMACUSA.ORG TO GET GROUP DISCOUNT CODE INFORMATION.
Cambridge Multi Cultural Arts at 41 Second St., East Cambridge. For more info 617-577-1400 or go on-line www.cmacusa.org.

BLACK HISTORY AT BOSTON CITY HALL
In celebration of Black History Month, Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events presents exhibitions at Boston City Hall from January 10, 2011 to February 25, 2011. The three exhibits include the AAMARP artists in The Scollay Square Gallery.

Urban Celebrations, selected works from the African-American Master Artists in Residence Program. AAMARP is a center of excellence in multicultural visual and performing arts dedicated to creating an enriching cultural environment for a diverse community through exhibitions, concerts, performances, lectures, and workshops. Founded in 1977 by Dana Chandler, AAMARP today provides studio space for artists whose work has made an invaluable contribution to Northeastern University and to the vitality of the African-American art scene in Boston and throughout the nation. It remains a prominent center for discussion of the African Diaspora cultural growth and development. AAMARP is an adjunct of the Department of African American Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. The participating artists include Kofi Kayiga, Gloretta Baynes, Susan Thompson, Jeff Chandler, Walter Clark, Bryan McFarlane, Khalid Kodi and Hakim Raquib.

Also on exhibit are works on paper from Elisa H. Hamilton and Memories of Haiti’s Earthquake curated by E. Barry Gaither.

558 MASS AVE CELEBRATES BLACK ART – SUN.
The League of Women for Community Service is hosting a Black history month program ”History of Black Art in Boston: Then and Now,” this Sunday, Feb.13 from 2-4p.m. at 558 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA Our own Chandra Ortiz will be presenting, along with Edmund Barry Gaither, director and curator of the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. (see the attached program)

In Boston’s Historic Southend558 Massachusetts AvenueBoston, MA 02118Phone: 617-536-3747www.leagueofwomen.org

Official Site of the League of Women for Community Service

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Contents
“NIGHT CATCHES US” ON BIG SCREEN IN BOSTON
DAVENPORT: FROM “NEIGHBORS” TO “BROKE- OLOGY”
DRUMMING, MUSIC AND ALVIN TERRY IN RUINED
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO……
BILL T. JONES’ “BODY AGAINST BODY” AT THE ICA
RICK BERRY ART AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
SOUTH AFRICAN ART AT B.U. PART OF TIM HAMILL SERIES
HATIAN ARTIST EXHIBITS AT THE MIDDLE EAST
Guided visit of the Museum of the NCAAA
5 PLAYWRIGHTS: LOVE LIKE THEY SEE IT AT BOSTON U.

“NIGHT CATCHES US” ON BIG SCREEN IN BOSTON
(pictured: Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie)

African American filmmaker Tanya Hamilton finds a mystery in recent history with her fictional “Night Catches Us.” At the height of the Black Panther movement in Philadelphia, a policeman is shot, a Black Panther lies dead in a shoot-out with the police, and an activist leaves town under the cloud of suspicion that he fingered the Panther’s where-abouts. .

Ten years later, Marcus returns.

The Color of Film Collaborative in association with The Roxbury International Film Festival (with Future Boston Alliance and Night Life Executives) premieres the New England screening of “Night Catches Us,” directed and written by Tanya Hamilton.

The urban family drama starring Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington will screen in a commercial theater for one night only. The film event takes place Thursday, Jan. 27 at 7:30 is at The Stuart Street Playhouse, 200 Stuart St., downtown Boston theater district.

“We live in a world where we continue to combat a lot of the issues that the Black Panthers were concerned about,” filmmaker Hamilton told the KBAR in a recent phone conversation about why she believes her movie has relevance to today.

She also wanted to tell a story that contains the Panthers’ concern for “the idea of community, a movie that gives a voice to the people who are working class and working poor.” Other concerns she admires in the Panthers’ ideals was their interest in health and how to manage health issues on a community level; how to address poverty, “alleviating it and the need for it, and their belief in getting legal aid to people who can’t afford lawyers.”

In the movie, Patricia, played by Kerry Washington, moves throughout the community in her role as a lawyer for little or no recompense. She, like the Panthers with their free breakfast for children, provides neighborhood children with milk and cereal and juice at her kitchen table. (Interestingly, many of the ideas thought up by the Black Panthers later became government services, such as breakfast in schools for children below the poverty line).

“The role of women seemed largely to be as workers for the Party,” comments Hamilton, who adds that Patricia, as with the other characters, however is not a stereotype but multi-dimensional.

Another character points up an aspect of the Panthers less commented on, “as men to look up to by young people who were fatherless,” she said. This aspect is revealed in the character of Jimmy, played by Amari Cheatom. Other principals in the drama are Jamie Hector as DoRight and Wendell Pierce as Detective Gordon.

Filmmaker Hamilton says she “finds their world fascinating. There’s a great humanity in it and it is an under-told story which has been misrepresented as one-dimensional.”

She also finds fascinating in the Black Panthers story, “the idea of being at war yet in your own neighborhood and your own country.”

Hamilton, 42, was born in Spanish Town, which is about 20 minutes outside of Kingston, Jamaica. Her mom brought her and her brother here in the 70ties where they settled in Silver Springs, Maryland. She attend Cooper Union and went on to graduate school at Columbia where she majored in painting (the design of her scenes in “Night Catches Us” reflects her original passion).

Two of Hamilton’s films have been shown at the Roxbury Film Festival, but Color of Film Collaborative’s founder and artistic director Lisa Simmons says that by July of this year “Night Catches Us” will already be out on DVD (as part of Magnolia Pictures distribution). “We wanted to give people the opportunity to see the film on a big screen, as well as, create a buzz for the festival coming this summer.”

By Kay Bourne

Tickets for the movie Night Catches US

DAVENPORT: FROM “NEIGHBORS” TO “BROKE- OLOGY”

(pictured: Johnny Lee Davenport)

Johnny Lee Davenport has scored a trifecta!

Last month he earned raves for his role as a bereaved dad in “Vengeance Is the Lord’s” at The Huntington Theater Company. Currently he’s an adjunct professor and beleaguered dad who looks out his window to see that the neighbors who’ve just moved in constitute his worst nightmare in Company One’s production of the controversial “Neighbors” (a debut script from Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, 26). And even before that run concludes Feb. 5, the Boston-based Equity actor starts rehearsals at the Lyric Stage for “Broke-ology” about a family at a crossroads.

Says Davenport about the hat trick, “I am really grateful.”

When the KBAR began our conversation with Davenport he was on the bus in a snow storm traveling to New York for an audition, this time hoping to land a spot with the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Company. He dreams of being in every one of the Bard’s plays, having chalked up 26 to date. The Equity try-out is for “The Comedy of Errors,” one of the plays he’s missing in his quest. At this point his phone – or mine – stops transmitting.

The next day Davenport is back in Boston, having not even been seen by the casting director. “Too many actors turned out,” he said. Acting is a highly competitive occupation. “I never thought I would work in my chosen field,” confides Davenport, who, born in Shreveport, Louisiana, grew up in the Jim Crow South.

Not many years back there was a dearth of roles for actors of color but opportunities have multiplied thanks to emerging black playwrights, area black theaters, more experienced African American directors, and theater companies interested in diversity. Davenport sees himself as a Boston-based actor. He likes the city’s “history of audacity” such as the Boston Tea Party and its environment that “fosters African American theater companies.”

He says of the third play in this trilogy of roles that he is pleased to have been asked by the Lyric’s artistic director Spiro Veloudos to work at his company. “He saw me in one of the Shakespeare plays I did with Actors Shakespeare Project. Afterwards, he told me that he needed to find a vehicle for me.

“Recently he phoned me with the news he had this play “Break-ology” he’d like to stage but he wouldn’t do it without me. It was all very flattering.”

The play will be directed by Benny Sato Ambush, a professor at Emerson College in the theater department formerly with American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and George Bass’s Rites and Reason black-oriented theater on the campus of Brown University. “Broke-ology” was written by emerging playwright Nathan Louis Jackson, 32, a Kansas City denizen who saw his family drama featuring a father with MS like his own father staged at Lincoln Center. Break-ology opens March 25, running through April 23. Neighbors is now playing, through Februay 5th at the Boston Center for the Arts. By Kay Bourne

Official Website of Company One

DRUMMING, MUSIC AND ALVIN TERRY IN RUINED

(pictured Alvin Terry)

In a Congelese bar and bordello, the women raped and brutalized by soldiers – and because of their condition now ostracized by their families – play host to men out for an evening, among them the very men who terrorized them.

Lynn Nottage’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama, Ruined, currently at the Huntington Theater Company stage through Feb. 6, gives voice to these casualties of a civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has raged for decades, while suggesting the reasons behind the horror.

As the drummer ensconced on stage throughout the play, Alvin Terry observes the goings-on, while playing the rhythms that back the dancing and singing. “I love playing music,” he said in a recent interview with the KBAR. “I feel it’s something I’m supposed to be doing.” Terry, who is married to sculptor Fern Cunningham, has performed with such artists as Archie Shepp, Avery Sharpe, Ricky ford, John Faddis, Leonard Brown, and Bill Lowe.

For “Ruined,” the playwright herself wrote several songs to be performed by the girls in Mama Nadi’s bar accompanied by a two-person band of guitar and drums.

As well, composer/arranger Aaron Meicht provided music for the Huntington production to be performed by the electric guitar and a makeshift percussion set designed in collaboration with Meicht and Terry. Meicht notes that the biggest difference in the music from production to production is the percussion because of how much freedom he encourages the drummer to have while building his drum set. Terry has included a Makuta drum (a traditional instrument from Central Africa a bass drum made from a rubber trash can, various cymbals, and a few shakers.

“Ruined” is Terry’s second theatrical venture. Last season he performed in the Company One production of “The Emancipation of Many and Miz Ellie” by Lois Roach, which was directed by Victoria Marsh at the Boston Center for the Arts. The drama took place at the end of the Civil War in the plantation South.

“Our heritage is our culture. The way we speak. The way we walk. Our accomplishments. Our talents that we have. It’s all a little bit different from other people because of what we endured. Our people who made something out of nothing. They believed that God would come and save them. That’s how they endured,” he said.

Terry is pleased with the compositions and arrangements provided by Meicht which Terry says is in the tradition of Central Africa. And he can see the influence too of African American music on the Congolese music performed in Mam Nadi’s bar. “There’s a part where the soldiers are dancing to the music we’re playing. It’s a steady beat, almost like disco but very layered, as layered as an onion.”

He is disturbed by the rapes that are the background story to the goings on in the bar. “It is very difficult for me to watch it,” he says of the parts of the play that reference that violence to women. “I’m hurt by it.”

“I don’t like the mighty trampling over the weak,” he says of the soldiers’ behavior generally.

He says of the play overall and his role in it, “you laugh, you cry. We move you every minute. One minute you are happy, the next you are plunged into one horror or another. And the music carries you.”

In the final analysis, says Terry, “it’s like the blues. You feel better because you got it out. ‘Ruined’ is really a great play.”
By Kay Bourne

Official Website of Huntington Theater Company

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO……

(pictured: The Warrior G.R.I.O.T.)

Where Are They Now?

The interview with poet Michael Bonds currently of Atlanta launches a series of conversations KBAR will run with artists who were active in Boston but now ply their art in other places.

1. How did Boston inspire you as an artist?

I grew up in Boston and on those serious and animated streets of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan. As with many “urban communities” it wasn’t difficult to find inspiration in all the “nouns” that make up the grammar of my city. All I had to do was come up different “adjectives” to describe Boston. As New York has approximately “8 million stories”, so too does Boston have a number of its own stories to tell. Just how many, I don’t know. But I can honestly say that I starred in, witnessed and maybe even authored in some of the sentences, paragraphs and chapters that make up the biography of my city. I love Boston.

2. What is your happiest memory regarding a) living and b) creating in Boston?

My happiest memories of Boston are the wonderful experiences I had living amongst the diverse cultures that live in such a intimate environment. The communal aspect I discovered after my brush with the darker side of life in Boston gave me a healthy respect for the important things like freedom of speech, religion and culture. In my opinion, Boston is a microcosm of America. With its people, attitudes, injustices and history it wasn’t difficult to find my niche and create my own space in Boston from which I could launch myself and my ideas.

3. What supports for your art did you find in Boston?

My arts found support mainly from the community. However, being an art activist I was supported by the politics of the city and the social justice affiliates and nonprofit sector.

4. What drew you to where you now create?

As an artist there comes a time when you must grow and living in Atlanta allows me the opportunity to explore my art and discover my potential. I’m sure I will probably out grow this place as well.

5. How has your new location affected your art?

Atlanta has opened doors and made me one of many again. In Boston I was Warrior and known by many so it wasn’t difficult to find approval. Here I am hungry again and building a new network.

6. Do you think of yourself as a Bostonian or otherwise?

Of course I am a Bostonian. I will always be a Bostonian from Roxbury. As Ed OG of Ed OG & the Bulldogs said it: “I’m from the Bury the Bury but not the fruit y’all . . .

7. What sort of a life have you made for yourself where you now are?

I am graduating from Bauder College with a degree in Criminal Justice in May of 2011. I have a new grandchild. YES a “Grandchild” and I am developing a youth program designed after the many wonderful and effective programs I worked with in Boston.

Artist Bio

The Warrior is an internationally respected poet, author, spoken word artist and people mover (motivator) from Boston’s Roxbury community a member of the “Blackout Arts Collective,” he won Boston’s “Best Spoken Word Album” Award in 2008 at the “New England Urban Music Awards.” Published in various anthologies, he is the author of “”Gunz, Poems & Rosez, the Experience Strength and Hope of Michael Warrior Bonds”

He has performed with Dead Prez, Saul Williams, (Harvard University),Chico Debarge, (Hartford CT.) and Hip Hop legends Kurtis Blow and Whoodini (Rissell Auditorium, Boston) just to name a few.

He has 5 albums, I paperback and 2 chapbooks and 2 DVD’s to his credit. He “Has Poems Will Travel” He can be reached at mw.bonds@gmail.com .

Official Website of The Warrior G.R.I.O.T.

BILL T. JONES’ “BODY AGAINST BODY” AT THE ICA

(pictured: Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company)

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents the WORLD PREMIERE of “Body Against Body ” by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.

One of the most innovative voices in contemporary dance and theater, Bill T. Jones returns to the ICA fresh off the Kennedy Center Honors and a Tony Award for Best Choreography for the Broadway musical FELA!. With Body Against Body, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company returns to Jones’s roots in the avant-garde with a program that revives and reconsiders the groundbreaking works that launched Jones and his late partner and collaborator of 17 years, Arnie Zane, on the downtown New York dance scene of the 1980s.

Performances take place Feb. 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Feb. 6 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $45 reserved, $40 for members and students, and can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling (617) 478-3103.

RICK BERRY ART AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

Rick Berry – Seeing in the Dark
Gallery 360, Northeastern University through March 1, 2011 Seeing in the Dark, art by Rick Berry, continues through March 1 at Gallery 360, Northeastern University. Massachusetts based artist Rick Berry, is internationally recognized for his unique and powerful “expressionist figurative” works. Executed without models, photography or preliminary drawing, his process is one of discovery in the medium. Berry’s paintings blend mythic and visionary themes with a strong social vision. The human body is the lyrical evocation of anything from emotional narratives to evolutionary conjectures. Self taught, Berry began his art career in underground comics as a teen. He has produced hundreds of covers for books and comics, and worked in film before transitioning to creating gallery art. His work is exhibited nationally and in Europe, and can also be found in private collections throughout the world.

SOUTH AFRICAN ART AT B.U. PART OF TIM HAMILL SERIES

(pictured: Tim and Bobbi Hamill)

The Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts and the Boston University Art Gallery will exhibit 170 works by South African artists in two major exhibitions celebrating The Caversham Press.

Running February 8 through March 27 at the 808 Gallery and BUAG at the Stone Gallery, the exhibitions speak to Caversham’s history as it reflects artists’ responses to the dramatic political and cultural shifts that have occurred in South Africa over the past two and half decades.

Opening receptions for South Africa: Artists, Prints, Community / Twenty Five Years at The Caversham Press (808 Gallery) and Three Artists at the Caversham Press – Deborah Bell, Robert Hodgins and William Kentridge (BUAG at the Stone Gallery) will be held on Wednesday, February 9, 6-8pm. William Kentridge will also be this year’s featured artist in the seventh annual Tim Hamill Visiting Artist Lecture, held Monday, February 28 at 6:30pm in Morse Auditorium. All exhibitions and related events are free and open to the public.

HATIAN ARTIST EXHIBITS AT THE MIDDLE EAST

Open invitation to see new paintings by Haitian artist Lanise Antoine Shelley (actress studying at A.R.T., Harvard University).

Water: Skin dark” Showing at The Middle EastRestaurant, 472/480 Mass Ave. in Central Square. Feb. 6th through 28th, 2011.Artist reception held Sunday Feb. 6th at 5pm to 7pm Please come and enjoy FREE food, dancing, poetry, music and art.

Acrylics portraits fused with text and Haitian folklore. “Water:Skin Dark” is the coming of age of a young girl’s journey from an orphanage in Haiti to the classrooms of Harvard University. A portion the proceeds to aid the US Foundation for the Children of Haiti, in Port Au Prince. For more info: Luniseantoine@gmail.com

Guided visit of the Museum of the NCAAA

The National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) fosters and presents the finest in contemporary, visual and performing arts from the global Black world. The museum presents a wide range of historical and contemporary exhibitions in many media, including painting, sculpture, graphics, photography and decorative arts. Tour the museum with Director E. Barry Gaither, hear of the building’s history and of the current exhibitions.

Saturday, January 29, 1pm-3pm

Meet at the Museum of the NCAAA, 300 Walnut Ave, at 12:50pm.

$5. Purchase an RSVP online or by calling 617-417-1006.

5 PLAYWRIGHTS: LOVE LIKE THEY SEE IT AT BOSTON U.

(pictured: Cliff Odle)

Roxbury resident Lyralen Kaye, SAG/AFTRA is Producing Artistic Director for an upcoming production of Points of View: 5 Playwrights Tell Love Like They See It.

Among the plays is Our Girl in Trenton which tells the story of the campaign for the first African-American governor of New Jersey in which the staff struggle with romantic and sexual ethics on the job.

Known for the sold out production SLAMBoston, Diverse Voices in Theatre, Another Country brings a new multi-cultural and diverse one act festival to the Boston Playwrights Theatre, this one focused on the absurdity and drama of love in all the wrong (and right) places.”Of course the festival focuses on multiculturalism and diversity,” says Kaye, “That’s what we do. It’s exciting now to take audiences into the worlds of intimacy and romance, where characters struggle just as much with right and wrong as they do in our more political plays.”

Follow The Color of Film   

Join the Color of Film for the New England Premiere of Night Catches Us at the Stuart Street Playhouse on Thursday, January 27th, 2011 at 7:30pm. .

This screening is a one night only event, so don’t miss it!

Get tickets here: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/148065

Trailer:

Director: Tanya Hamilton
Writer: Tanya Hamilton
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington
Producers: Ron Simons, Sean Costello, Jason Orans
Featuring a musical score by The Roots

From the Official Site:

In 1976, after years of mysterious absence, Marcus (Anthony Mackie, “The Hurt Locker”) returns to the Philadelphia neighborhood where he came of age in the midst of the Black Power movement. While his arrival raises suspicion among his family and former neighbors, he finds acceptance from his old friend Patricia (Kerry Washington, “Ray,” “Lift”) and her daughter. However, Marcus quickly finds himself at odds with the organization he once embraced, whose members suspect he orchestrated the slaying of their former comrade-in-arms. In a startling sequence of events, Marcus must protect a secret that could shatter everyone’s beliefs as he rediscovers his forbidden passion for Patricia.

Thursday, January 27th, 2011 at 7:30pm.

Stuart Street Playhouse
(formerly Cinema 57)
200 Stuart St
Boston, MA 02116.

Tix available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/148065

Follow The Color of Film   

Contents
“PEERS AND PATHWAYS” – A MUST SEE EXHIBIT
COLORED GIRLS: STANDOUT PERFORMANCES OF HOPE
ROCKETTE TALKS ABOUT DANCING
GOSSETT TALKS ABOUT HOLLYWOOD LIFE AND ERASICM
MFA NEW WING OPENS NOV. 20 – FREE
SOJOURNER’S TRUTH – THIS WEEKEND ONLY
UP-COMING EVENTS & COMMUNITY INFO

“PEERS AND PATHWAYS” – A MUST SEE EXHIBIT
(from l. to r. Hakim Raquib, Gloretta Baynes, Reggie Jackson, Klare Shaw, Eric Meza, Ekua Holmes, Lou Jones and Omobowale Ayorinde)

When playwright Lorraine Hansberry penned the line “to be young, gifted, and black” (which diva Nina Simone powerfully riffed on as a lyric), artists of color grabbed onto the notion of identifying with their culture and heritage.

It was in this era, in the 70s, that seven young African American artists associated in one way or another with Mass College of Art banded together. They participated in a group show in Boston at the time. They hung out and they talked. They supported and advised one another. Their friendship and sense of connectedness has lasted through the years to the present day.

A vibrant exhibit “Peers and Pathways,” splendidly curated by Ekua Holmes (’77), one of the participating artists, with assistance from AAMARP’S Gloretta Baynes (’76), is eloquent testimony to collaboration and to the importance of nurturing gifted individuals.

Whether or not you know the back story, however, the exhibit is a stand alone treat as well.

A visit to the President’s Gallery on the eleventh floor of the Tower Building at Massachusetts College of Art and Design will reward you with a sampling of the current work of Omobowale Ayorinde, Ekua Holmes, Reginald Jackson, Lou Jones, Eric Meza, and Hakim Raquib.

The late Rudy Robinson is also represented with black and white prints from the collection of the Museum of the National Center of Afro American Artists which are feeling their age or, should I say, you feel as if you’re looking at pictures taken awhile back.

The other works in Peers and Pathways have a more pristine air. This crispness probably emanates from their coming from these living artists’s own collections suggesting they’re newly printed for the show. (Coincidently, the multi-talented Robinson who was also a furniture maker has a bench in the collection of the newly expanded Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

The President’s Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm. For more info you can contact MassArt’s gallery at 617-879-7333.

The eloquent photographs of Reggie Jackson are not only aesthetically lovely but profoundly referential. A driving interest in these photographs taken while on one of his numerous and lengthy stays in resistance communities in northern Ghana is the traditional ways these Africans had for spiritual nurturing and for survival under sometimes extreme conditions, including successfully withstanding slave catchers. Jackson, more formally Dr. Reginald Jackson, Phd,, a professor emeritus from Simmons College whose most advanced degree is in visual anthropology, was well prepared to take on this life’s work of preserving a people’s fortitude for others to appreciate.

Young American black musicians, particularly those with street cred, have, some of them, made fortunes in purveying their hip hop messages on video. To do so, they’ve relied on such talents as film director Eric Meza to make an earful into an eyeful. Running on a loop are such products as Ice Cubes “Dead Homiez,” Public Enemy “Can’t Truss It,” and Boston’s own Bobby Brown “I Gotta Get Away,” along with a host of other shoots in that vein. In an entirely different style, also professionally strong, is Meza’s music video for “I’m Calling You,” the theme from the movie “Bagdad Café.”

Boston 19th century poet Amy Lowell in her “Patterns” ponders as she wanders her rigidly laid out garden paths how society mores have constricted and suffocated her; by contrast Omobowale Ayorinde’s explorations in his handsome and large manipulated photographs of the patterns in modern buildings feel liberating. The 1975 Mass College of Art graduate and currently an instructor at the Rochester Institute of Technology finds dancing rhythms in repeating shapes and lines.

Hakim Raquib relates how he was stopped dead in his tracks on his way out of Roxbury to a Cape Cod summer vacation spot by a huge revival tent that had been set up in the Dudley Station area. He only caught a glimpse of the giant white canvas out of the corner of his eye but he knew, perhaps as only an artist would, that the “canvas cathedral” and the worshipers gathering to praise God within its canvas walls cried out to be memorialized which Raquib has done to stunning effect.

As the refrain from the popular song goes, who can I turn to when nobody needs me, the nationally celebrated photographer Lou Jones was just the right mentor at the right time for neophytes Ekua Holmes, Omobowale Ayorinde, and others of this now distinguished group who sometimes felt misunderstood or inappropriately guided at Mass College of Art. Among the photographs from Jones in “Peers And Pathways” is a shot he says took him years to get, a look at the New Orleans’s Preservation Hall Jazz Band with their feet up, so to speak. Jones, who has photographed nearly everywhere in the world, it seems, and at every kind of occasion from the Olympics to scenes of laborers in Haiti, always tells a story you want to hear in his pictures.

By contrast, Ekua Holmes, as her name suggests, has not strayed far from home in her life and in her charmingly executed collages. At least for the past decade, she has been exploring Roxbury as she remembers the community in her growing up, a place that felt secure to a child. That’s not to say there isn’t an edge to her work as she delves deeper and deeper into memoir, which like African retentions, of late expresses the feeling of subconscious memory. The series here, which you could spend a long time taking in, is, as the collages’s prime source, made from a shoebox of old photographs given her by a distant relative of people she didn’t know but is related to, at least distantly, from sisters holding hands to Uncle Jack in drag.

The free catalogue that goes with the show is a keeper. It is handsomely designed and with informative essays, particularly the lengthy, well researched and well written overview of these artists and their times from Klare Shaw, senior program officer at the Barr Foundation.

By Kay Bourne
Massachusetts College of Art and Design Calendar

COLORED GIRLS: STANDOUT PERFORMANCES OF HOPE

Ntozake Shange’s 1970s stage play about the struggles of several black women is to say the least, a piece of work that makes you reassess where and who you are in your life at whatever particular moment you hear her words.

Tyler Perry’s movie version captures those famous chreo poems and intertwines them with a cinematic narrative that fills the back story of the six main characters of the play, to make it more “moviesque.”

Some of the lyricism is lost in the expansion of the narrative, but much of Shange’s message still comes through loud and clear: Black women endure much, but their strength, compassion and perseverance gives them the ability to overcome incredible difficulties, although, unfortunately, with a price.

You will be moved by the powerful performances from Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose and Loretta Devine. They have given this work their all and have clearly digested and lived with the material to bring it to the screen in an array of explosive, heartwarming and intensely moving work.

I know people have taken issue with Tyler Perry and his ability to bring to the screen such a revered piece of work, so in response to that I give you a quote from Ntozake Shange that appeared in the LA Times; “Shange, who consulted on ‘For Colored Girls,’ praised the film. “Mr. Perry has done the best he could. The actresses are powerful and sensitive,” she said.

She added however, that the movie reflects his vision, not hers: “That’s why I’m a poet and he’s a cinema artist.” A book, a play, a movie, all different mediums with different elements, each drawing from a significant piece of work.”

So that said, go see the film and then decide, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

By Lisa Simmons
Official website of For Colored Girls the Movie

ROCKETTE TALKS ABOUT DANCING

(pictured: Nirine S. Brown)
Radio City Rockette Nirine S. Brown has her suitcase at the ready. A six year veteran of the most renowned chorus line in the world, the New York native, Queens born, precision dancer has never performed at the famous Art Deco style music hall in Rockefeller Center.

“I love to travel,” the 5’6″ performer exclaimed in a recent phone call with the Kay Bourne Arts Report. “I have a check list of places I want to go.”

With 31 tours of the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular!” about to go on the road, Brown chose Boston. “I hear the city has amazing food,” she says as one reason she opted for the hub. Her most important consideration, however, was to ensure her grandmother could see the show and “New York is really close so she can make the trip.”

The extravagant production with a cast and crew of nearly 100 people (not to forget the camel and other animals for the manger scene) opens at the Citi Performing Arts Center Wang theatre Friday, DECEMBER 3 for 53 performances, concluding Wednesday, December 29. For more info you can call 866-348-9738.

They’ll unpack more than 300 costumes and 200 hats, all of the designs exclusive to the show. From a design unaltered since it was used in the original production in 1933, for example, comes the outfits for the Wooden Soldier. These hallmark costumes were the invention of Hollywood film director Vincente Minnelli (father of Liza) whose movies include the classics “Meet Me In St. Louis,” “An American In Paris,” and “Gigi.” To top off the white pants and red shirts is a 24-inch hat, including the plume on top which elevates the height of the tallest Rockette at 5’10″ to 7’10′ from top to toe. Headdresses that are even higher are the 17 inch antlers (that light up) for the line’s reindeer number.

Brown won a coveted place in the Rockettes when she was studying dance in the school at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at 9th Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan.

“I wish I could tell you a story about how my aunt or a cousin danced with the Rockettes so I had an ‘in’ but really all I did was try out cold,” says Brown. She spotted an audition notice at the Ailey school, “part of the Rockettes diversity outreach,” she said. Black dancers have been hired for the Rockettes only since 1988. “Times have changed,” she said.

Brown was hired from her first audition, which is something of a rarity, as dancers return time and time again to try for the famed line where tapping, ballet, and ensemble work are the requirements.

“There’s a lot of competition,” notes Brown who believes it was “that spark, that twinkle,” that won her a place with the Rockettes. “You have to love what you do. You can’t fake that.”

She also urges hopefuls not to give up if they don’t get in on the first try. “Timing plays a big part of it too. Don’t give up. A dancer may leave the show who is exactly your height.” Brown’s background before getting the job was in high school at New York’s Talented Unlimited High School and full scholarships with Alvin Ailey and Ballet Hispanico.

The Christmas show is a two month gig and Brown has put her off time to good use. Last year she toured with international singing star Shakira and performed at the FIFA World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa. Here she was doing African dance which is “two very different styles compared with the Rockettes. (You can view Shakira’s “Waka Waka/This Time For Africa” number including Brown dancing, which is the on various You tube shorts on-line).
“Dancing with a star, you are an accessory; with the Rockettes everyone matters, from Mrs. Claus to the sheep to the dancers,” she said. “We’re an intergral part of the whole.”

By Kay Bourne
Official Website of Radio City Rocketts

GOSSETT TALKS ABOUT HOLLYWOOD LIFE AND ERASICM

(pictured: Louis Gossett, Jr.)
Renowned actor Louis Gossett, Jr.’s long and sometimes turbulent life has been significantly defined by belief. Really getting into a role relies on “a system of belief” he noted in a recent phone conversation.
An Actor And A Gentleman (John Wiley & Sons, 2010), the title of Gossett’s recently published memoir, immediately brings to mind his Academy Award performance as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and A Gentleman.

The respected African American stage and screen actor made wise by the turmoil as well as the pinnacles of his career visits the Boston area for three difference speaking engagements:

Monday, November 8, he was the guest speaker at the venerable Ford Hall Forum taking place in the Rabb Auditorium, Boston Public Library in Copley Square. The talk by Mr. Gossett, followed by a public discussion moderated by Boston-based popular scribe Phyllis Karas, who co-authored Gossett’s book. The sixth and final event in the forum’s fall season was as always open to the public, as has been the tradition of these forums that date back to 1908 and which have hosted such a variety of figures as W. E. B. DuBois in the early years to Al Gore, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Garrison Keillor in recent times.

For people aware of Gossett’s current undertaking in life, the title also underscores his civility as he goes about convincing listeners of the importance of erasing the petty meanesses that keep us at each other’s throats. One glance at the cover of his book with Mr. Gossett gazing directly at you, his arm across his chest as if reciting the pledge of allegiance, evidences a man on a mission.

The next day, Mr. Gossett addressed some 2200 middle school students at Lynn City Hall where he will also talk anecdotally about his long career, his struggles for pay equity as a black man in Hollywood and with drugs and alcoholism that took him years to overcome, and his current work to eradicate racism and violence, which includes bullying and gay bashing.
Then on Wednesday, Gossett, whose Emmy-award winning role as Fiddler in the 1970s TV mini series Roots has also elevated his image to indelibility for Americans, spoke at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis.
That appearance elicited fond memories from Gossett’s of his growing up in the then largely Jewish neighborhood in southern Brooklyn’s Coney Island. The area was home to an amusement park that was a source of employment for him as a youth and where his neighbors and his family showed a strong belief that he had the potential to go a great distance which he acted upon.

“People stuck together,” says Gossett, who recalls his father going out fishing which netted a large catch of cod they distributed to neighbors for blocks around. “Whether they salted it or fried it up, depending on their culture, the cod was food for a week,” he said.
“We need to put that sense of being in this life together and that belief in our children today,” said Gossett. “My family and neighbors were not trying to make me a model black person but saw me as one of the exceptional ones of the kids in the neighborhood.” Other children treated likewise also have had outstanding careers from Neil Diamond to Harvey Keitel. These days the old gang gathers for reunions annually.

Belief has been a two way street all along for him.

“In the arts,” he says, “it’s how strongly you believe in what you’re doing that makes you stand out.”

The experience can be just as transforming for the audience as a stunning incident in Baton Rouge evidenced.

Gossett had been invited to the city to receive an honorary degree from the community college there. Earlier in the day he’d happened to meet with local police officers as part of his being shown around town by the mayor, a friend. Not many hours later, his security guard told Gossett that one of these officers, who is white, had been shot in the chest and was lying in the hospital in a coma.

“Several of the policemen asked me to go visit him and talk with him,” Gossett writes in his memoir. “I had been there only a few minutes, just holding his hand and talking with him softly, when he opened his eyes.

“The first words that he spoke were, ‘I can’t get down and give you forty right now, Sergeant. Maybe later,’” which are lines from An Officer and A Gentleman.
“What he gave me that day was a gift I will never forget,” writes Gossett.
Mr. Gossett says he wasn’t’ going to prepare a speech for any of the three occasions. “I don’t do speeches.
“I speak from the heart and I trust and have faith that the next words are going to come out. I will be telling anecdotes from my life just as I have in the book,” he said.

By Kay Bourne

Official Website of Louis Gossett Jr.

MFA NEW WING OPENS NOV. 20 – FREE

(pictured: Al Loving’s “Cube 27″)
The Harriet Powers “pictorial Quilt”, made by an ex-slave from Athens, Georgia between 1895 and 1898, hangs in the new Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s Art of the Americas wing. This treasure by an African American has been occasionally displayed in the past but mostly kept in storage for the last 60 years.

A more recent acquisition, contemporary African American artist Al Loving’s “Cube 27″ (1970) also resides in a gallery in the glorious, 5-story glass building designed by Foster + Partners. Last year, the MFA had the winning bid of $84,000 for the coveted Loving painting at the Swann Galleries in New York.

From a watercolor by Paul Revere depicting the Boston Massacre with Crispus Attucks and his fellow unarmed Bostonians falling from a rain of bullets fired by the British Red Coats’s muskets is hung in the room where the Revolutionary silver smith’s plates and teapots are displayed. In another gallery there’s a newly acquired Alan Rohan Crite oil showing children playing beneath the artist’s living room window in Lower Roxbury.
The MFA is clearly on the road to inclusion of people of color, late as are most museums, but not too late.

As well, the new galleries display the work of artists from the two American continents North and South, and Central America in-between with Mexican artists prominent.

This is not your parent’s MFA where the shuttered doors on Huntington Ave. fostered the notion that residents of surrounding neighborhoods were unwelcome.

Those doors and the ones facing the Fens are open now, ready for the throng of visitors the museum will surely host. The new MFA has come into being under the leadership and vision of Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum. Elliot Bostwick Davis, who has the John Moors Cabot chair, leads the curatorial staff for the new wing.

The new wing officially opens 10:30 am, NOVEMBER 20 with a Community Day of free entrance and events to celebrate. The community day is sponsored by the Bank of America.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino has proclaimed this Saturday, “MFA Day” to mark the momentous day in the museum’s history. The museum expects large crowds and recommends using the T, either the Green line E train to the MFA stop, the Orange line to the Ruggles stop or Bus #39 to the MFA stop or #8, 47 or CT2 buses to the Ruggles Street stop.Official Website of the MFA<

SOJOURNER’S TRUTH – THIS WEEKEND ONLY

“I will shake every place I go to,” black abolitionist Sojourner Truth famously pledged. An itinerant minister, she had been born into slavery in the North, upper New York state on a farm, and had endured a horrific childhood and heart breaking young adult years.

Her best known speech “Ain’t I A Woman” definitely shook up the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, as did her preaching to the powerful about prison reform and against the death penalty. She railed against slavery prior to the Civil War.
Firebrand actress Ramona Lisa Alexander portrays this important visionary in “Sojourner’s Truth” for a weekend of performances beginning Friday NOVEMBER 19 at the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street in Roxbury, a block from Dudley Station next to the firehouse.

The Boston area premiere features live music by teen musician Stephany Marryshow, who gives the drama a modern day angle. She provides musical narration singing gospel songs and playing the guitar (she taught herself the guitar by watching You Tube).

The production is staged by the Holyoke based Enchanted Circle Theater and directed by Melissa Penley, who is known for doing provocative theater with special concern for survivors of sexual violence.

Written by Priscilla Kane Hellweg and Rachel Kuhn, “Sojouner’s Truth” will be performed for two matinees on Friday, NOVEMBER 19, at 10am and 1pm, Saturday night at 8pm, and finally on Sunday, NOVEMBER 21, at 2pm. For more info, you can phone 617-849-6322.

Official Website of Madison Park Development Corp

UP-COMING EVENTS & COMMUNITY INFO

Bunker Hill Community College presents a program of Eric Dolphy’s music by the Oliver Lake Quintet (Oliver Lake – alto saxophone, Freddie Hendrix – trumpet, John Kordalewski – piano, Wes Brown – bass, Yoron Israel – drums), Thursday, NOVEMBER 18, from 1 to 2:15 pm. This event is open to the general public, free of charge. It will be in the auditorium, room A-300.

November 18, 6:30 pm, Get to know artist Mark Bradford (pictured above) in a lively conversation with New Yorker writer Hilton Als and the ICA Chief Curator. Mark Bradford’s exhibition will be hosted at ICA starting Friday, November 19 until March 13, 201. Through his collaged paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations, Mark Bradford explores issues of class, race, and gender in American urban society. An archeologist of his own environment, Los Angeles, Bradford uses found materials-peeling movie posters, hand-lettered “FOR SALE” signs, endpapers used to perm black hair, salvaged plywood-which he layers, embellishes, erodes, and reconstitutes into abstract compositions. For more information, click HERE. The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston is located at 100 Northern Avenue on Boston’s waterfront.

Film Screening and Community Panel Discussion November 20, 10 am at Wheelock College: Please come to a Screening of “Beyond the Bricks” followed by a discussion about the film and the issues it raises. Produced by Washington Koen Media, “Beyond the Bricks” is a documentary film project and national community engagement campaign created with the goal of promoting solutions for one of America’s critical problems in education: the consistently low performance of Black males in school.

On December 2 Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall (184 Dudley Street, Roxbury) begins a weekly Thursday night supper club series. The Diane Richardson Group (Diane Richardson – voice, Bill Lowe – trombone, John Kordalewski – piano, Ron Mahdi – bass, Ralph Peterson – drums) will perform on opening night. Drinks are served at 6:00 pm, dinner at 7:00, and the music begins at 7:30. Visit http://www.madison-park.org/node/190. Or, for ticket information call 617-849-6321 or e-mail dmccroey@madison-park.org.

Isabel Wilkerson, the first black woman to win a Pultizer Prize in Journalism, who now teaches at Boston University as a Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction, has chronicled the decades long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life, “The Warmth of Other Suns:Voices of the Great Migration.”

She will discuss her epic and read from the book at a reception and book signing beginning at 4:30 pm, Thursday, December 2. The discussion takes place at Boston University’s Photonics Center, Room 206 (8 St. Mary’s Street, Boston). It is free and open to the public.

Call for submissions – SCRIBE Boston

Announcing SCRIBE Boston – a new annual publication for youth, being published in Spring 2011. We are looking for submissions of poetry, short stories or prose from students who live in the city of Boston and attend school, grades 6 – 12. We seek writing on a broad variety of topics and encourage students to be creative and to submit their best work. Students whose work is selected for publication will be expected to participate in a one day writing camp. A public reception will be held where students will present their work.

For more information and application guidelines, go to the website www.scribeboston.org. E-mail: info@scribeboston.org.

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The Color of Film Collaborative and the Haley House Bakery Cafe’s Dinner and a Movie (DAAM) will be held on October 22, 2010 with a screening of American Faust: from Condi to Neo Condi. Directed by British filmmaker Sebastian Doggart, this powerful documentary examines Condoleeza Rice’s controversial tenure as Secretary of State: from her upbringing in civil rights-era Birmingham to her close relationship with President Bush in the White House.

Doors open at 5:30 dinner at 6 and movie at 7:30; menu TBA. Tickets are $25/person.
Contact robin@coloroffilm.com for more information.

Official Website: http://www.americanfaust.com/
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Join TCOF and RIFF for An Evening with Spike Lee on October 6 at Boston University’s Metcalf Hall. Following a short screening of clips from Mr. Lee’s work, he will speak on his life, work and the ability of film to affect social change.

Please note the event will NOW be held at Metcalf Hall on the 2nd floor of the George Sherman Union, 775 Commonwealth Avenue.

RSVP required – please contact ddasilva05@hotmail.com for more information and to RSVP.

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Contents
COLTRANE CONCERT SURE TO DELIGHT
McWHORTER BACK ON STAGE AT THE BCA
EXCITEMENT ABOUNDS FOR ANNUAL SPELLING BEE
ONE WOMAN COMEDY AT M.I.T.
AFFLECK’S “THE TOWN”
UP-COMING EVENTS & COMMUNITY INFO

In essence, the JCMC “explores the observable fact about John Coltrane’s music that the more you know of it, the more there is to be known about it,” says Price.

By Kay Bourne
Official Website of the John Coltrane Memorial Concert

By Kay Bourne
Official website of Speakeasy Stage Company

By Kay Bourne
Official Site of the Speakeasy Stage Company

“The solitude of doing math was hard for me. I enjoy time alone but with math there’s an awful lot of that. And it’s hard to share math with other people, even for mathematicians to communicate with each other.
“I’m a person who likes to touch people’s heart, to share emotional things with them, and to share the beauty of an aesthetic that’s accessible,” she said.

By Kay Bourne
. Official Website of The Central Square Theater

by Colette Greenstein Official Website of the movie The Town

THE FORD HALL FORUM announces its fall series of free public discussions, and invites you to join experts and opinion leaders defining our world today. Questions from the audience are provided equal time as the speakers’ remarks. Come listen, question, and take part in this series of conversations that has been at the heart of Boston’s cultural and intellectual life for more than a century:

• SEPTEMBER 30 – “AIDS, Social Justice and The Politics of Transformation” * What does prejudice, violence, substance abuse, and poverty have to do with stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS?
• OCTOBER 7 – WHO IS WINNING THE CHILDHOOD OBESITY BATTLE? * Who is responsible for policing childhood obesity and what are the unintended consequences of the methods we’ve tried so far?
• OCTOBER 28 – “AN EXTRAORDINARY UPBRINGING” * How did Condoleezza Rice’s parents shape the life of this extraordinary leader? CONDOLEEZZA RICE discusses her new memoir
• NOVEMBER 4 – “ELECTION 2010 and COMMUNITIES OF COLOR”
• NOVEMBER 8 – “AN ACTOR AND A GENTLEMAN” – LOUIS GOSSETT Jr. discusses his new memoir

All events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Click here for details.
THE MAKANDA PROJECT, a jazz ensemble, will play at the ROXBURY FOUNDERS DAY, Saturday, SEPTEMBER 18, held annually in Roxbury Heritage Park, Eliot Square on Fort Hill. The group is dedicated to performing the music of woodwind player and composer Makanda Kenneth McIntrye (1931-2001) who grew up in Roxbury and went on to chair one of the first African American Arts Departments (State University of New York at Old Westbury).Other artists at the celebration at the Dillaway Thomas House include Boston’s Poet Laureate Sam Cornish, and author Rochelle O’Neal. The event is sponsored by the Roxbury Action Program and the Heritage State Park running from noon to 5 pm is open to the public and is free, and will include Writerways Institute Free Books for Children.
DISCOVER ROXBURY presents a Highland Park Harvest Walk. After the April showers, May flowers, and a summer of growing, find out what Roxbury’s harvest looks like. Three months after the spring Highland Park Garden Walk, return for a follow up with the Highland Park/Fort Hill gardeners on Saturday, SEPTEMBER 18, 10am-12pm Rain or shine. Bring your questions and learn tricks of the trade for preparing gardens for the winter. The tour is led by the aptly-named Tom Plant. Please wear sturdy, comfortable shoes for walking up and down irregular ground. Begin at the Cooper Educational Ctr & Community Gardens, 34 Linwood St. Purchase $10 tickets in advance by calling 617-427-1006.
“CAMELOT” at the Trinity Rep in Providence, until OCTOBER 10 King Arthur has everything – peace, prosperity and a happy marriage . . . but will the arrival of the handsome Lancelot change Camelot forever? Trinity Rep’s reimagining of this musical masterpiece is a rich tale of love, honor, and the quest to create a legacy. For tickets and information click here.
Marshall Hughes will direct “Of Mice And Men” John Steinbeck‘s classic tale of brotherhood and the lives of migrant workers set during the Great Depression for the Roxbury Repertory Theater. The director of Visual, Performing, and Media Arts at Roxbury Community College and a founding director of RRT was given. the Kenneth A MacDonald Award for sustained excellence and devotion to community audiences at this year’s Independent Reviewers of New England’s award ceremony. “Of Mice And Men” will have 11 performances OCTOBER 27 – 30 and NOVEMBER 4-6 at RCC’s main stage. For more info you can phone 617-541-5380.
The Boston Athenæum presents author TARIQ RAMADAN, who will discuss his book “What I Believe,” on Tuesday, OCTOBER 12, at 6 p.m. This event is open to the public and admission is $15. For more information call (617) 227-0270. Dubbed “a Muslim Martin Luther” by the Washington Post’s Paul Donnelly, Tariq Ramadan is one of the most prominent-and controversial-voices of Islamic reform. His passionate criticism of American foreign policy has earned him enemies: in 2004, the Bush administration denied him entry to the United States under provisions of the Patriot Act, a ban that was lifted in January of this year. His outspoken criticism of Shariah law and dictatorships has made Ramadan enemies as well. As of 2009 Ramadan was persona non grata in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Syria because of his criticism of “these undemocratic regimes that deny the most basic human rights.”
SAVE THE DATE for OCTOBER 22 – DINNER & A MOVIE Screening of the film “American Faust: from Condi to Neo Condi” a documentary film that takes a look at the rise of Condolessa Rice from her segretated southern past to one of the most powerful women in politics. Doors open at 5:30, Dinner at 6, Movie at 7:15. More details in next month’s KAY BOURNE ART REPORT (KBAR).
In 1956, five teens from Roxbury recorded their original song “Ka Ding Dong.” It hit and the G-CLEFS became stars. The Doo Wopp Hall of Famers (one of the few groups performing with its original members) open for ’50s teen idol Bobby Rydell (“Volare”) at the “20th Annual Barry L. Price Center Fundraiser and Concert,” NOVEMBER 5, at the Brookline Holiday Inn. The non-profit rehab provides services to adults and teens with developmental disabilities. For more info call 781-239-1480.

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