Archive for the ‘Arts and the Stage’ Category

It’s shaping up to be a ”monster” year for aging, concert-going rock music fans. Rolling Stone magazine reports that Bruce Springsteen, The Eagles, Madonna and Van Halen will be touring in 2012. And Mick Jagger and  Keith Richards “met recently with their attorney to hash out details of how to mark their 50th anniversary together, weighing “ten nights in New York” and a few other big markets or “a full-fledged tour.”The somewhat younger crowd can look forward to concerts across the country by Adele, Radiohead, Lady Gaga, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Keys, Mumford & Sons and the Zac Brown Band. (You can see the Stones in person, the magazine also notes that all six episodes of the Ed Sullivan Show on which the Stones appeared, from 1964-69, are now available on two DVDs “with each lion-taming act, performance and after-shave ad intact.”)

“What’s the worst thing that can happen? I only do things that could end my career. That’s the fun!”

Hand-in–hand, gotbucks Harris Frank and activist Barbara Eagleton arrived for the St. Louis Beacon’s gala evening

Harris Frank and Barbara Eagleton

built around a performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Widow    of the beloved and former Sen. Tom Eagleton, Barbara tipped  that she has inked for a February date The New York Times op-ed    scribe Joe Nocera for her Women’s Democratic Forum. The topic of his Sunday piece was “the high cost of football teams.” Last year, The Beacon presented H.M.S. Pinafore with a super-star    cast that included Christine Brewer, David Robertson, Tim O’Leary and Hugh Russell, with Chicago Lyric associate conductor Craig Terry at the piano. Terry and Russell were back this year, for the Beacon’s “Mikado” but the 2012 cast was made up  of talented young men and women from our region, including  Keith Boyer as Nanki Poo, Heather Patterson as Yum Yum, Russell as KoKo, Mark Freiman as the Mikado and  Debbie Lennon as Katisha. “It’s the Opera Theatre model,” quipped Beacon associate editor Bob Duffy. “Find the best young talent around and help them build great careers.” Champagne was poured before the show in the Sheldon Concert Hall, and afterward gala-goers moved upstairs to a transformed banquet room, the Cabaret

Shirley Bynum Smith and Ed Wallace

Katishs, for a cabaret starring the inimitable Brewer, who started  off with Great American Songbook tunes. Craig Terry accompanied her, and good guy Ernie Clark spelled him at the grand. Among the    VIPs in attendance was longtime organist and chorus master at St. Michael & St. George Episcopal Church, Ed Wallace, who thrilled to a reunion with Shirley Bynum Smith, who once sang in his choir. The Beacon’s major benefactor Emmy Pulitzer arrived    minutes before the concert with her escort Roy Pfautch.

Emmy Pulitzer with Roy Pfautch

The world premiere of the film, “Space Junk,” will unreel at its world premiere on Jan. 14 in the OMNIMAX Theater. Don Kessler, retired head of NASA’s Orbital Debris Office and the daddy of “Space Junk” will be on hand. . .Nancy Kranzberg,the late Charlotte Peters and Harry Fender or celebrated maestro Buddy Moreno, who calls Delmar Gardens North his home these days, would have been far more entertaining than the shlock entertainment bill First Night presented at Grand Center. Moreno is getting well wishes on his 100th birthday from pals. His career was celebrated during the years after he appeared with the big bands of Dick Jurgens and Alvino Rey. . .Can it be so? Seems that Shaun Hayes, who’s mired in lawsuits, had premium seats during the World Series. . .

Which St. Louis travel agencies will offer package tours now that The New York Times has given its blessing to the newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the Arkansas Ozarks?  The Times review calls the concept, funded in Bentonville by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, “undenied brilliance” for its collection of 400 masterworks from the Colonial period to the present. The Newspaper of Record goes on to gush, “Much more than just a demonstration of what money can buy or an attempt to burnish a rich family’s name, Crystal Bridges is poised to make a genuine cultural contribution, and possibly to become a place of pilgrimage for art lovers from around the world.”  And in fitting with the philosophy of true philanthropy, admission is f-r-e-e.

The three Midwest advertising men pooled their talents to create a heartwarming tale for kids, that featured the dog, “Santa Paws,” and copyrighted their work in 1992.  In 2009-2011, Disney distributed its films “Santa Buddies: The Legend of Santa Paws” and “The Search for Santa Paws.”  The three ad guys, after seeing Disney’s “direct to video” films, researched their records and found that in 1996 Disney had expressed interest in their story to their agent, the William Morris Agency, Inc.

The three have filed a lawsuit against  Disney, et al in U.S. Dist. Court in St. Louis alleging copyright infringement and related state claims. Writes the plaintiffs’ barrister Albert Watkins, “It is my clients’ genuine hope the true spirit of Christmas will prevail and the defendants will do the right thing for all who believe in Santa and the magic of Christmas.”