I was held hostage for a short while by an agro-
astronaut, while visiting the American Air and Space Museum in Washing-
ton DC yesterday. Even Kermit the Frog and Dorothy's shoes from the Wizard of Oz were part of the experience, together with everything from man's desire to get into the air to the space missions. We watched an Imax movie of Space Station in 3D in which we floated alongside the first men and women to inhabit the new station, 220 miles above Earth. It is the story of a unique partnership between 16 nations building a laboratory in outer space, which was quite something to participate in as objects felt like they were thrown out of the screen towards us, luckily missing out heads by inches.
Coming across the Avenue Q cast performing Fiddler on the Roof recently on You Tube was a treat. Avenue Q and the revival of Fiddler on the Roof joined up at last year's BC/EFA's concert to present 'Everyone's a Little Bit Jewish'. If you want a laugh, you can find the words of the skit on Playbill's website here!
I think it's time to see Avenue Q again. We are back in NYC tomorrow and let's see if we can get tickets? Incidentally you can now download an interesting Podcast of Avenue Q here. Join Avenue Q creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx as they discuss the evolution of the show, Princeton and Kate Monster visit with actors Howie Michael Smith and Mary Faber plus Rod, Nicky, the Bad Idea Bears, Lucy the Slut and Trekkie have a little fun along way too.
Composer Philip Miller's REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape & Testimony is inspired by and based on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceedings, which broke South Africa from its apartheid past in the 1990's and ushered in its democratic present. The work combines South African vocal soloists (including the opera superstar Sibongile Khumalo) and a string octet with a 100-voice choir made up of members of the Total Praise Choir of Emmanuel Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New York, a group of South African ex-pats led by the Lion King choirmaster Ron Kunene, and the Williams College Choir. The piece also incorporates sampled audio recordings taken directly from the TRC hearings - testimony from victims of apartheid atrocities and their lawyers as well as the torturers, soldiers, and government officials on trial. Through this testimony the collective memory of South Africans was built. REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape & Testimony is an extraordinary and important work - a real artistic excavation of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. The United States premiere was hosted in Brooklyn on 6 July 2007. We were there! More information about the piece can be found here. You can see video clips of the production here.
Arriving in New York and being taken straight off to a live outdoor concert in Prospect Park in Brooklyn was indeed a treat. Ritchie Havens opened the concert and formed the support for the South African Cantata (see separate article). Now for those of you without a memory, Ritchie opened the incredible 'Woodstock Festival' in 1969. No, I too was but a kid, but I remember it well from the wonderful movie 'Woodstock' made of the three-day festival of peace. love and music. His "Freedom, freedom, sometimes I feel like a motherless child ..." brought back memories and we chatted after his performance. You can watch the original 1969 clip at Woodstock.
Our first "Ame-
rican Valen-
tine's Day" as I called it, 4th July was like an event straight out of a Hollywood Movie. This morning we were invited to taste 'American Celebrations' in a 4 July parade in Skokie, closely followed by another in Evanston. The strangest patriotism with everyone and their dogs waving flags, something I haven't quite witnessed before. Every club, youth group, old aged home and the like parade through the streets in their vintage cars, their trucks and even in wheelchairs just to wave their flags and shout their tribute to the greatest nation on earth as some of the paraders called it!
This week we met up with renowned Chicago puppeteer, Michael Montenegro, who built the puppets for the current production of 'The Puppetmaster of Lodz' which is in its final week's run at the Writer's Theatre in Chicago. Michael and his enormously talented partner, Laura Nyman Montenegro, a writer and illustrator of children's books, live in Evanston in Chicago. Montenegro co-founded the Zapato Puppet Theater in Evanston a few years ago and has been making extraordinary puppet theater in Chicago for more than 15 years, but only recently has his work been turning up on the stages of some of Chicago’s major companies. Michael has an old studio, in the middle of his leafy garden, filled with paintings, sculptures and extraordinary puppets, who lie around like little invalids, all so needing the puppeteer's magic to bring them back to life, which only Michael does so well.
I was held hostage for a short while by an agro-
