ArtsBeattag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-13962092009-11-13T17:34:42ZTypePad'Man of La Mancha' extendedtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6955c5c970b2009-11-13T12:34:42-05:002009-11-13T17:34:42ZJohn Fredo and John N. Kaczorowski star as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in MusicalFare Theatre's production of "Man of La Mancha." Photo courtesy MusicalFare Theatre. MusicalFare Theatre's edgy production of "Man of La Mancha," the musical based on Cervantes' "Don Quixote," has been extended for two performances, the theater announced today. Because of audience demand, the theater will tack on two matinee performances on Dec. 5 at 4 p.m. and Dec. 6 at 2 p.m. My review of the musical is pasted after the jump. -Colin Dabkowski REVIEW ★★★ WHAT: “Man of La Mancha” WHEN: Through Nov. 29 WHERE:...Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/man-of-la-mancha-extended.htmlBay Area poets headline "Big Night"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a686caf2970b2009-11-12T09:09:23-05:002009-11-12T14:09:23ZIt's been more than a half century since what came to be known as the "San Francisco Renaissance" first reverberated through American poetry and post World War Two America, but its legacy runs deep through the culture of spoken word performance and the spirit of collaboration between various poetry, music, and the visual art forms extending into the 21st century. Although Walt Whitman ("...a Kosmos, of Manhattan the son..") may have been the first American poet to write of "urban affection," it was in the mid 20th century San Francisco Bay area that a different social model for a distinctly...Poetry Beathttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/bay-area-poets-headline-big-night.html'Beyond/In' artists announcedtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a67917e6970b2009-11-11T11:32:44-05:002009-11-11T19:03:57ZIt's still a year away, but already the excitement surrounding the next incarnation of "Beyond/In Western New York," the ballooning biennial that launched in 2005, is palpable. This morning at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, director Louis Grachos, consultant Bruce Ferguson and project leader John Massier announced the size and shape of the coming exhibition, slated for Sept. 24, 2010. Its broad theme, "Alternating Currents," is meant to reflect on the conflicting forces that make up the Western New York -- its glorious history and shaky present, its utopian idealism and dystopian reality, a desire to stay and a need to...Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/beyondin-artists-announced.htmlZagajewski's poetry of the cosmic world and the human facetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6b1e13b970c2009-11-06T12:46:52-05:002009-11-06T17:46:52Z"Poetry summons us to life, to courage/ in the face of growing shadow./ Can you gaze at the Earth/ like the perfect astronaut?" writes Adam Zagajewski in "Houston, 6 p.m." from his collection Without End: New and Selected Poems (2002). This creative tension between engagement and reflection--the sense of holding up a darkened mirror to the transfigured world--has made Zagajewski one of the most admired contemporary poets in Europe and North America. Zagajewski, the acclaimed Polish language poet (born in the city of Lvov in what is now the Ukraine), essayist, novelist, and 2004 winner of the biennial Neustadt International...Poetry Beathttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/zagajewskis-poetry-of-the-cosmic-world-and-the-human-face.htmlOf goats and murderers and moviestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6b133c6970c2009-11-06T09:15:14-05:002009-11-06T14:37:03ZMovies are not life. Any fool knows that. But sometimes the horrors on front pages and the 24-hour news stations are so brutal that it's almost as if we needed to be reminded. Sometimes movies get lucky when they're caught in history's wake. Usually they're not. The current case in point of a phenomenally unlucky movie is Grant Heslov's "The Men Who Stare at Goats," a wild, black comic satire on New Age military shenanigans in Iraq. It is being nationally released today, just as the nation is mourning the shocking and horrific deaths of 12 people Thursday afternoon in...Blog Editorhttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/of-goats-and-murdereres-and-movies.htmlErie County funding for the artstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6542a68970b2009-11-04T17:18:18-05:002009-11-05T16:49:46ZThis has been available for a couple of weeks now, but I want to post up the page of Erie County's proposed 2010 budget that outlines funding recommendations for arts and cultural groups. In all, the county has allocated $5,066,500 to 43 arts and culturals. Check out the recommendations in a PDF below, or download it here.Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/erie-county-funding-for-the-arts.htmlHumanities-speak gone wildtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6a971ce970c2009-11-04T16:24:55-05:002009-11-04T21:34:27ZOver at Modern Art Notes, Tyler Green links to the College Art Association's list of papers to be presented at its annual conference, summarized here by the Art History Newsletter. This is the kind of thing I love to read, simply for the utterly confounding, intentionally obfuscating and always entertaining terms certain writers and academics sometimes use to sex up the titles of their papers. My fave: “Pray, Sir, Whose Dog Are You? Nobility and Animality in Eighteenth-Century French Hunting Pictures.” This list, which is definitely one for the ages, reminds me of Gary Kamiya's much-circulated essay for Salon, jokingly...Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/humanitiesspeak-gone-wild.htmlAccentuate the positivetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6a5cefd970c2009-11-04T15:29:22-05:002009-11-04T20:29:22ZAnyone who's seen more than a handful of productions at Buffalo-area theaters will tell you that when it comes to accents, a select few actors can pull them off, and plenty of them can't. It's not uncommon for a cast -- otherwise eminently capable and moving in their portrayals of German sergeants or cockney housewives -- to adopt accents that approach camp in their complete lack of resemblance to the source dialect. To my ear, and I suspect to many others, a lack of consistency in the accent department can have the effect of throwing even a fine production off-kilter....Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/accents.html'Pictures Generation' wins odd new art awardtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a64f994d970b2009-11-03T13:06:09-05:002009-11-03T23:01:28ZA photograph by Cindy Sherman from her "Untitled Film Stills" series. Part of "The Pictures Generation," a 2009 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. "The Pictures Generation," a show that closed earlier this year at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been dubbed the best group show of the year in something called "Rob Pruitt Presents: The First Annual Art Awards." This new collection of awards -- part genuine contest, part performance art piece, part fundraiser -- was jointly sponsored by the Guggenheim Museum and Calvin Klein. It's an unconventional award, to be...Colin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/pictures-generation-wins-odd-new-art-award.htmlTalking theater on WECKtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d83451b85a69e20120a6a0a813970c2009-11-02T12:55:17-05:002009-11-02T17:55:17ZLast Thursday, Constance McEwen Caldwell of the Theatre Alliance of Buffalo invited me to participate in the alliance's weekly radio segment with Loraine O'Donnell on WECK AM 1230. O'Donnell, a well known local actor who recently appeared in the Irish Classical Theatre Company's production of "Blood Brothers," grilled me about the News' star rating system, my background in journalism and theater and the challenges of critiquing Buffalo's wide-ranging and diverse theater community. Download the segment here, or listen below: TAB-102909 --Colin DabkowskiColin Dabkowskihttp://blogs.buffalonews.com/artsbeat/2009/11/talking-theater-on-weck.html