Copious Notes

Antony & Cleo: Sexy, absurd tragedy

Longtime collaborators Walter Tunis, Adam Luckey and Joe Ferrell share a light moment during rehearsal at the University of Kentucky's Guignol Theatre for SummerFest's Antony and Cleopatra, which opens Wednesday in the Arboretum. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Rich Copley.

If the words “Shakespeare history play” don’t make you think funny and sexy, SummerFest has a production that aims to change your mind.

Director Joe Ferrell sees a Bonnie and Clyde type of humor and steamy sexiness in that whacky Mediterranean couple, Antony and Cleopatra.

But Ferrell says the cast he has is a key to bringing that out in his production for SummerFest, which opens Wednesday at the Arboretum on Alumni Drive.

“All of these folks have done major roles for years, and there are so many ages and types represented here,” Ferrell says, acknowledging the all-star cast seated around the lounge area outside the Guignol Theatre in the University of Kentucky Fine Arts Building.

That ensemble includes Sidney Shaw, who played Julius Caesar and King Lear for the Lexington Shakespeare Festival; Paul Carelli, who played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing for LSF; Eric Johnson, whose leads have included one of the Three Musketeers and Henry Drummond in Inherit the Wind; Walter Tunis, whose many turns include Macbeth and Adam Luckey, who plays leading roles like postmen deliver mail.

“There’s a great deal of comfort here, and that gives you an ability to try different things and serve Joe’s vision of the play,” Shaw says. 

Tunis says that having a cast of high-caliber players, “illuminates some of the smaller roles,” and thereby illuminates the play. Ferrell cites Shaw’s role as Alexas as an example. In Shaw’s performance, he becomes a character who sees through a lot of Cleopatra’s facades.

“It’s an Alexas that I have not seen before,” Ferrell says.

One of the keys to bringing new colors to the characters is for the actors to make sure they are acting and not reciting.

“The language is so beautiful, you just want to stand there and proclaim it,” Shaw says. “But it has to be done with action and intent.”

Intent is a particular key with Antony, a character who essentially gives away a nation for one woman.
Antony and Cleopatra can be a long play, running as long as four hours in some productions. For SummeFest, where two-to-two-and-a-half hours is the target time, Ferrell has had to cut quite a bit.
“We decided that the focus of the audience is on the title characters,” Ferrell says. “So we stuck to telling that story.”

Therefore, Johnson and Ellie Clark, who play the title pair, have been encouraged to make their relationship very physical, driving home the point to the audience that they can’t keep their hands off each other, which sets the play’s events in motion.

That’s kind of obvious when you think about it. What may not be so apparent if you haven’t studied the script is a juxtaposition of absurdity and tragedy. Ferrell likens that to a scene in Bonnie and Clyde where a getaway driver struggles to park a car while the title couple engages in what becomes a bloody bank robbery.

In Antony and Cleopatra, he sees the same humor in the couple’s death scenes, where Antony’s ineptitude has him bleeding to death for quite a while and where a servant brings Cleopatra asps to do her in saying, “Enjoy the worm.”

Tunis observes, “There hasn’t been a night of rehearsal we haven’t cracked up.”

Terry Withers, who plays Maecenas, says, “The play doesn’t easily fit any category.”

But for them, this production is easily filed under rewarding and enjoyable, which is why they’re all more than happy to come fill even minor roles.

“We all know each other,” says Kim Dixon, who plays Iras. “We love acting together, and we love acting for Joe.”

Backsoon

Copious Notes is going to take a few days off to celebrate the Fourth of July, and I hope you do the same. See you, Sunday.

Hawk Nelson in Winchester July 5

Jason Dunn performs with Hawk Nelson at the Ichthus Festival last month. Copyrighted photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Click the play button to hear excerpts of our interview with Jason Dunn:

Hawk Nelson is my Friend might sound like a goofball title for an album, unless you’re on myspace, Facebook or one of the other social networking Internet sites out there.

If you are, you’ve probably snickered at a message saying someone you’ve known for life, “. . . is your friend.” Heck, it may even say, “Hawk Nelson is your friend,” which is fine with the band’s frontman, Jason Dunn.

“Today with myspace and Facebook, everyone is looking for friends and to see how many friends you can obtain,” the singer said backstage at last month’s Ichthus Festival. “The whole friendship theme is something we’ve always believed in, since day one. It’s never been about putting us on a pedestal above our audience. It’s all about being on the same level.”

Dunn said that level is under God, and looking to God for hope.

“Kids are looking for friends,” Dunn said. “Jesus was a friend to sinners . . . he was the greatest friend of all.”

Using the social networking phrase as an album title is also a good reminder to the band, Dunn says, not to view themselves as superior to their audience, even though, “We have a cool job. Some kids regard that a stardom, or whatever. But we have sweet jobs, and we feel very blessed to be able to do this.”

Hawk Nelson, which swings back through Central Kentucky to play George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester Saturday night, has been doing that job for three albums now and finds itself settling into a career as recording and touring artists.

“It feels like a career now,” Dunn says. “This is what I do for a living, and it feels weird to say that, because this is what I dreamed of doing since I was a kid.”

Growing up in Canada, Dunn says he didn’t necessarily tune his ear to Christian rock.

“We grew up listening to bands like Blink 182 and Good Charlotte,” Dunn says. “Christianity wasn’t a genre of music in Canada. That’s just what we believed in, we believed in God, and we played clubs, and that’s just how we did it.

“But here in the U.S., Christianity is like its own genre of music, and I’m still getting used to that. We all believe in Jesus, and that reflects in our lyrics, but our music sounds more like what we grew up listening to.”

BlondeTV: That's TRIPLE threat

Vocal coach Seth Rudetsky breaks down this week's episode.

Last week on Leagally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods, we saw Emma, the competitor who came to the competition with Reese Witherspoon looks and Broadway in her veins, finally rally and live up to her promise.

This week, we saw her go home.

It was a somewhat stunning turn of fortune because, despite battling bronchitis, she seemed to turn in a good dance audition with the lightning fast "shake your junk" sequence from Positive.

But three other competitors turned in great auditions, and this week really emphasized the point that all three elements of the triple threat are essential to make it on Broadway. That's why we had two of the most talented actors and singers, Emma and Autumn, standing in the casting office: They were not that great on their toes -- or in four-inch stiletto heels, as the case was.

Natalie, Bailey and Lauren were the standouts with Rhiannon doing just well enough to avoid a private audience with the judges.

In the course of the show, Emma allowed that she had not taken a dance class in five years, and that is probably the key to why she didn't make the final five. For all her self-awareness, for her maturity and for her savvy, it's kind of strange that she did not prepare better prior to the competition for the dance auditions that were sure to come.

So yes, in her bitter closing comments, Emma is right: Bailey, 20; Lauren, 19; and Rhiannon, 19, are "children," under-aged for the role. But they and 24-year-old Natalie kicked her butt on the dance floor. And yes, she was sick. But we're at a juncture in this competition where one bad day alone will not kill you if the judges think you have a shot. So sending home Emma, who looked like a front runner out of the gate, was a statement that she was not working for them. And while it is understandable that she's frustrated, she bears a great deal of responsibility for her early departure because she neglected one of the three pillars of the triple threat.

Program notes: That "vote for the worst" challenge was a provocative little device that went nowhere. If you didn't see it, the competitors were told late night, in the midst of prepping for their demanding audition, to pick the worst actor, singer, dancer, etc. Autumn took charge, turning it into a best list, but we never heard about it again. Reality TV.

A fun note of Broadway reality was that the Legally Blonde set is full of stairs and tracks for set pieces that, "eat stiletto heels," according associate choreographer Denis Jones. We also learned that Laura Bell Bundy dances in higher heels than the four-inch "Pepto-Bismol" numbers the competitors wore last night.

rctalk: Jon Foreman's 'Spring' and 'Summer'

Switchfoot frontman Jon Foreman has just completed a series of four seasonal EPs.

Jon Foreman | Spring and Summer EPs

The Fourth of July week seems to be an appropriate time to to praise a great American songwriter. With his Spring and Summer EPs, Jon Foreman has cemented himself as just that. We should add that the Swithfoot frontman is a brave songwriter, as some of the lyrics on these recordings will land him in Dutch with some of the Christian music community that has made him a star, and an exquisite craftsman.

Like on the first two EPs, Fall and Winter, Foreman is freed from any constraints or obligations the band format holds, and he uses that space to perfectly augment songs with what they need. I do not know if Foreman recorded these six-song sets sequentially, but the last two -- which have just been released on one CD,  same as the first pair -- show growth over the intitial efforts.

The closest thing to Switchfoot is Summer's Resurrect Me, which sounds like Switchfoot gone to seed, in a good way -- a great little cacophony of clangy steely guitars over a steady4-4 beat. Seriously, it could slip into a Switchfoot set with no problem.

But there are numerous songs that couldn't, their string and wind accompaniments perfectly accenting the songs, but also making them distinctively Foreman's.

Foreman is also a much more blunt songwriter on his own. The rap on Switchfoot's songs have often been that they are brilliant, but so couched in metaphor and cleverness that the listener could easily miss the point -- and this is a point of concern to some who question Switchfoot's commitment to Christianity.

There is no missing the point here. Some faith-community listeners may wish Foreman was murkier when they hear Instead of a Show, a tune as incendiary as anything Derek Webb has written. In the song, Foreman lambastes the church for putting on shows while ignoring the hurting world around it.

Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show
Instead, let there be a flood of justice

Some will be angry with  Foreman for saying it. Some will say it needed to be said. Either way, Foreman grows as a challenging songwriter. But lest anyone use Show to question Foreman's faith, these EPs have some of his most spiritual writing to date, such as Spring's Your Love is Strong and Summer's House of God, Forever, an interpretation of Psalm 23 that ranks with 24 as one of the loveliest things Foreman has written.

As far as we know, things are good in the Switchfoot camp. They released a track for the Prince Caspian soundtrack last month, and have a tour in the offing with Third Day and Jars of Clay. But this solo voice Foreman has started using is quite compelling. Let's hear more.

Concert alert: Hawk Nelson is in Winchester at 6 p.m. July 5. We'll have more on Hawk later this week, but click here to buy tickets.

Elaborating on '80s movies

Several of the contributors to our celebrity lists of '80s classics commented on their choices. While the Gutenberg edition of the paper has its space limitations, we're in the blogosphere, baby, where word counts are not an object. So, here are the lists from some of our pickers with a little elaboration. Yes, it goes a while, but let's get you started on '80s movies and see if you're overcome with brevity. After Chuck, we have Anne Deck, Brad Riddell and a list from Top Gun scribe Jack Epps, Jr., whose comments are featured in our '80s movies story.

Charles Edward Pogue, screenwriter
The Georgetown resident’s screenplays include 1980s hits Psycho III, D.O.A. and The Fly.

1. Those Lips, Those Eyes -- The story of my life...I'm the starry-eyed kid (Thomas Hulce) and the jaded,cynical pro (Frank  Langella). A story about the seduction of theatre.  I watch this movie whenever I get depressed about the drama game to remind myself why I got in it.

 

2. Barbarosa -- Best western of the 80's. Willie Nelson & Gary Busey. Western legend transcends to western myth.

 

3. Excalibur -- King Arthur's story will always a dying fall. John Boorman's depiction is the best yet.

 

4. Flesh+Blood -- Paul Verhoeven's quirky epic about the Middle Ages slamming into the Renaissance.

 

5. Body Heat -- Kasdan's brings back Film Noir and gives us Kathleen Turner.

 

6. My Favorite Year -- Peter O'Toole ... another great performance; another missed Oscar. (Rich comments: Hard to compete with Gandhi.)

 

7. Bull Durham -- For my money, not a better baseball movie.

 

8. Blood Simple - just edges out Raising Arizona; but the Coen Bros. had to be on the list.

 

9. Crimes of Passion -- Enfant terrible Ken Russell at his mind-boggling loopiest with Tony Perkins and Kathleen Turner along for the outlandish ride.

 

10. The Fly -- A purely selfish choice, I know, but it would probably be on there anyway ... even if I hadn't co-written the screenplay with David Cronenberg.

 

A few near-misses: The Dead, The Dresser, Matewan, Blue Velvet and Airplane.

Movies of the 1980s

Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox and the DeLorean in Back to the Future, which apparently has become a classic. Below: Tom Cruise in Top Gun, which reflected a positive attitude toward the military in the 1980s.

Tomorrow: Some Kentuckians with film and/or 80s connections weigh in on their 80s favorites.

It’s fun to have a chance to see a favorite film from our teens at The Kentucky ­Theatre this week, but it’s also a little jarring for us thirty- and forty-somethings to see our high school years now labeled as “classic.”
But those are the terms under which The Kentucky is showing Back to the Future on Wednesday as part of its Summer Classics series.

Is it really possible that this 23-year-old Michael J. Fox gem has attained a status similar to that of Gone With the Wind and Casablanca?

Shouldn’t we reach early retirement age, at least, ­before our youth is packed away in this kind of nostalgic box?

Nah.

“Twenty years is plenty of time to look at something and determine whether it has stood the test of time, still holds up and has ­resonance today,” says Jack Epps Jr., chair of the ­Writing for Screen and Television program at the University of Southern California and writer of 1980s hits ­including Top Gun (1986) and The Secret of My Success (1987).

Montana Miller, assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State ­University in Ohio, says that VH1’s I Love the ’80s and ’90s nostalgia series have morphed into I Love the New ­Millennium.

“They’re reminiscing about the decade before it’s even over,” says Miller, whose specialty is youth culture. “As one colleague commented, ‘There’s no nostalgia like new nostalgia.’ There are now no rules on what can be ­considered classic.”

So, maybe The Kentucky Theatre’s next move should be to book the 2004 “classic” Spider-Man 2.

But we’re talking ’80s, and as much as it pains my Class of ’86 heart to say it, Epps and Miller are right. Enough time has passed to step back and look at the movies of the 1980s, what they said and what stood up.

Shakespeare at Equus Run slide show

For the second consecutive year, Actors Guild of Lexington is presenting Shakespeare at Equus Run Vineyards. We went out June 21, the first night of summer, to soak up some of the flavor of the event. Click play to watch our slide show. There are two performances left this weekend.

For a larger version of this slide show, visit hlphoto.com.

EW's New classics: Up for debate (of course)

John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Is it really the No. 1 classic movie of the lat 25 years?

Last weekend, the editors of Entertainment Weekly dropped their annual summer double issue and gave  us a good two weeks of debating material.

Is Pulp Fiction really the best film of the last 25 years?

Does Amy Winehouse's year-old debut already deserve Top 10 classic status?

Public Enemy doesn't make the Top 50?

Yes, it's another set of lists. We say that with no derision, because hey, we're going to give you some lists on Sunday. Lists are fun, because they are always a matter of opinion, which means most everyone who reads one will have some modicum of disagreement with it.

EW's new lists are pretty ambitious: The New Classics is 1,000 of the best movies, TV shows, albums, books and other stuff over the past 25 years. My favorite list was actually the final one: Tech, where they named the, "top 25 innovations that changed entertainment."

Even there though, I'd argue against ranking the iPod at No. 4, below the DVD player, Napster and TiVo. Yes, the DVD is a cool advance in home video, but it still was just another method of delivering the videos in some tangible form. The iPod introduced the concept of owning a whole album without leaving your home, or even just picking and choosing the songs you want; singles, but you choose what's a single. It's the most radical change in the distribution of recorded music since the beginning of recorded music. How do you top that?

See, arguing it is almost inescapable.

Pulp Fiction, for me, was a good place to start. I've always considered it a bit overrated, over romanticized. Good movie, snappy dialog and engaging story structure, but not quite all that.

But if you want to argue towering influence, then its No. 1 seems a bit more legit. How many Pulp wannabes have we seen since 1994? Interestingly, Forrest Gump, the movie that beat Pulp Fiction for the Oscar for best picture, isn't even on EW's Top 100. (It's worth noting that EW has always been in love with Pulp.)

There are some nice picks on the movie list, such as Blue Velvet at No. 4, acknowledging the off-kilter brilliance of David Lynch, and giving Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View a nod at No. 24. The Helena Bonham Carter starmaker ushered in the chick-flick-as-literary-costume-drama era we're still in today.

 The music list had several nice visionary choices, such as Madonna's self-titled 1983 album at No. 5, OutKast's Stankonia at No. 12, and R.E.M.'s Life's Rich Pageant at No. 32. All were great albums, and all set the stage for the artists' subsequent chart toppers -- Like a Virgin, Speakerboxx/The Love Below and Document, respectively. But then, somehow, Nirvana's Nevermind is left off in favor of MTV Unplugged. ?!

See, debating is sooooo easy. And fun.

I will also give EW props for trying to limit the number of entries from any one artist to one or two. I seem to remember years ago when Rolling Stone dropped a list of the best rock albums ever, and half the Top 10 was by The Beatles. But then, that list also gave this young rock fan a lot of listening to go do.

And this list from Entertainment Weekly seems to come at a perfect time, right before the laziest days of summer. I'd write more, but I've got some watching and listening to do.

P.S.: A very cool thing about the Top 50 stage list is that four of the shows -- Angels in America (No. 1), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (17), Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk (24) and Topdog/Underdog (49) were all directed by Frankfort's own George C. Wolf. People, we don't revere this guy enough.

Summer classic: 'The Wizard of Oz'

Idina Menzel as Elphaba and Kristen Chenoweth as Glinda perform Defying Gravity, the green witch's anthem from Wicked, at the 2004 Tony Awards.

For 64 years, we knew how to take The Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West: She was the green-skinned meanie who wanted to kill sweet Dorothy, and her little dog, too. She commanded the  Flying Monkeys and an iconic cackle. And she looked remarkably like mean old Elmira Gulch, who tried to take little Toto away from Dorothy, before the Kansas girl rode her tornado to Oz.

We hated the Wicked Witch of the West, and a remarkable performance by Margaret Hamilton only enhanced our loathing (ding).

What was that -- "loa-thing, pure and un-adulterated loa-thing."

It's that contempt anthem from Wicked, the hit Broadway musical that turned the whole Wizard of Oz story on its head.

Was the green witch actually wicked? Or was she merely suppressed by a conformist regime led by the Wizard himself? Were she and Glinda actually good friends whose bond was strained by the "good" witch's inability to break away from the establishment? Were they in fact in cahoots to stage the Wizard's banishment from Oz so Glinda could take over and Elphaba could escape with her true love, Fiyero, aka The Scarecrow?

Kinda casts a whole new light on the whole "Wicked" witch deal, eh?

Well, whether you adhere to the original story in L. Frank Baum's novel or the new take, based on Gregory Maguire's 1996 novel, there's no denying the 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz is a bona fide classic and well-worth seeing on a big screen. The transformation from black-and-white Kansas to color Oz is particularly stunning shown floor to ceiling, as it will be at 1:30 and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday at the Kentucky Theatre. The Wizard is this week's entry in the Kentucky's Summer Classics series. Admission is $3.

BlondeTV 4: Serious

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Emma's rendition of Serious with Richard Blake, who plays Warner in Legally Blonde -- The Musical.

When Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods (aka, the most insanely long reality show title ever) began, Emma and Cassie S. were the two competitors that seemed to have the deepest convictions that they belonged in the race to succeed Laura Bell Bundy.

Emma claimed a Broadway bloodline of parents who met in the original Grease and went on to Broadway careers. Cassie's sense of entitlement came from . . . um . . .

Well, tonight, we found out why one was right and one was, well, delusional.

Emma was not having a good week. An advancing case of bronchitis gave her a horrid cough and was draining her energy. By the time she got to the vocal rehearsal, she couldn't get through a song without hacking. But, when Seth Rudestsky advised her to see a doctor, she'd already made the appointment. She got seen -- presumably got a prescription of some sorts, and was able to have the comeback audition of the week. Rhiannon was the judges' darling, but Emma, whose campaign had been foundering, was on with her timing and even her singing, all of which impressed the judges, who were aware of her condition.

Cassie S., on the other hand, had another clunky audition, but when she was put in the bottom three, again, she told the confessional camera, "This is ridiculous. I busted my ass the entire night. Come on, give me credit. I've never even seen the material before. Doesn't that say something for me."

Cassie, no one had seen the material, and at least four of your competitors gave auditions the judges loved. Frankly, I think they dragged Autumn into the casting office to scare her, sort of like they did with Emma last week. Maybe Autumn will respond similarly.

Anyway, in the casting office, when the judges suggested Cassie could be a swing or understudy, she protested she wanted to be the star. Well, she's not going to be on Legally Blonde, because the judges sent Cassie and her little 19-going-on-12 attitude packing.

Tonight actually had a twin killing -- the math of a July 21 finale told you this had to happen, sometime -- with Celina also being eliminated.

"Maybe Elle Woods isn't my part," she said, before entering the casting office.

Ah, self awareness. How refreshing.

Appreciation: George Carlin

George Carlin performs in 2007 at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by E. Pablo Kosmicki.

George Carlin's legacy will be as a counter-culture figure who pushed boundaries along with folks like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, ushering in an era of topical humor that now finds a home in living rooms across the country with works like The Daily Show.

His essence though, was in tamer skits such as the comparison of football and baseball (the following from Baseball Almanac):

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home!

Or, my personal favorites was A Place for My Stuff, where he observed that your stuff is stuff and other people's stuff is crap (sometimes, he used a different word).

That was Carlin's gift. He was an observer. Jerry Seinfeld was as much a inheritor of of his mantle as Jon Stewart or Bill Maher. Observation is one of the most basic elements of comedy. Carlin observed his life. He observed the world. He observed a lot of crap. And he spun all of that observation into routines that were side-splittingly funny, and he didn't worry a whole lot about who he offended along the way.

Carlin crossed the line on purpose.

Maybe most to his credit, he never stopped doing that. Yes, he mellowed with age. His Thomas the Tank Engine character was his loveliest creation. I remember watching it with one of my children and thinking, as many parents probably did, "I'm watching the guy who did the seven words you can't say on television on a kids show."

But he never took his eye off our world, and boiled it down into routines that would crack you up, make you think, maybe even offend you.

Carlin not only made us laugh, he made us observers, and he changed his art form. That's a legacy few people who pick up a microphone to tell jokes can claim.

Read: The New York Times thorough obituary of George Carlin.

rcTalk: Superchick's 'Rock What You Got,' Chapman update

Superchick are (L-R) Max Hsu, Brandon Estelle, Tricia Brock,  Dave Ghazarian, Melissa Brock and Matt Dally. Photo courtesy of inpop records.

Superchick | Rock What You Got

Superchick breaks the silence -- as they often do -- of a quiet couple of months for new releases in the Christian rock market with their fourth studio album, Rock What You Got.

If you've read my reviews before, you know I kind of revere album four as a signpost in the career of a band, where it should be settling into a professional act and revealing a mature voice after having made an initial splash and then having to crank out follow-ups in the midst of hardscrabble touring. It's usually the album that indicates where the act is going to go.

Rock What You Got has some mixed messages.

On the one hand, Superchick, fronted by Hoosier sisters Tricia and Melissa Brock, has definitely refined its sound. In a genre where a lot of sound-alike bands leave you scratching your head and saying, 'Who's that?' when you listen to the radio, the Brocks' vocals over the scrappy distortion of guitarists Dave Ghazarian and Melissa and buoyant, loopy rhythms of their backers is hard to mistake. But under producer, songwriter and keyboardist Max Hsu, that sound has not stagnated. Remaining distinctive, he has slipped in an orchestrated undercurrent that can be as simple as Breathe or grand as Stand in the Rain. And the band as a whole is tight and intriguing. Bassist Matt Dally had a great moment in Pure on the last album, Beauty from Pain, and everyone has moments such as that here.

But in content, Rock sometimes sounds stagnant. The title track, for instance, while catchy, still feels like a retread of Beauty from Pain's Anthem, or several other empowerment sing-alongs in the 'chick catalog. Not that we don't like the anthems, such as Hey Hey, which wins with its tempo and grit. There are several pain ballads that also sound repetitive, particularly Hold and Breathe in the middle of the album. Superchick mines a lot of despair and defiance for its material, but sometimes seems to have tunnel vision.

This is a band that definitely has identified a group it wants to speak to: teens, particularly girls feeling like outcasts and struggling with peer pressure. That's a worthy mission, but heading into album five, hopefully the group will explore a broader range of topics to address. Superchick has a lot going for it. It would be a shame to see the band founder because it's saying the same things over and over again.

Back on the road: Steven Curtis Chapman is set to resume touring next month, with 15 dates scheduled into September, including a string of August baseball game dates with the Atlanta Braves, Colorado Rockies and Houston Astros. Chapman and his family suffered a tragedy last month when their 5-year-old adopted daughter Maria was killed in an accident at their home outside Nashville. Chapman has canceled all of his international dates.

New Tomlin: You may already be hearing Jesus Messiah, Chris Tomlin's new single, on radio, considering its being touted as the most-added multi-format song in Christian radio history. We now have a release date and title for the whole album: Hello Love drops on Sept. 2, and will include several tracks we heard on the latest Passion album, God of This City, including God of This City and Sing, Sing, Sing.

Live Casting Crowns: If you loved Casting Crowns' recent performances at Rupp Arena or Ichthus, you can take the experience home with The Altar and the Door Live CD and DVD, Aug. 19.

Edmund Desiato

Edmund Desiato in a photo circa 1960. Below: Desiato and Adam Luckey in this year's production of Arcadia at Actors Guild of Lexington. Herald-Leader photo by Charles Bertram. Bottom: Desiato and an unidentified actor in Luv at the Nashville Barn Dinner Theatre in the late 1960s. More photos are on the continuation of this post.

It is one thing to read about Edmund Desiato, but a whole other thing to hear him talk about his career and upcoming production of Barrymore. Click the player below to hear an 8-minute excerpt from our interview with him:

Edmund Desiato will be the first person to tell you he’s no John Barrymore.

“I’m not an idiot,” Desiato says in a ­gravelly voice deepened by cigarettes and with a lingering New York accent. “There was only one John Barrymore.

“I’m doing what Christopher Plummer did,” Desiato says, referring to the actor who originally played the acting legend in William Luce’s play Barrymore. “Plummer played himself, with the characteristics of John Barrymore. That’s the way I am going to play it.”

Desiato is performing in Balagula ­Theatre’s production of Barrymore for three nights this week at Natasha’s Bistro. It’s a play that the well-traveled actor says he ­always has wanted to do. And while Desiato’s career does not have the national, historic status of Barrymore’s, it is one of the more colorful and diverse ones on the Lexington stage.

It started when Desiato, now 71, entered college in New York, and attempts to study classical guitar and violin didn’t work out.

“I was going to Fredonia State Teachers College in New York State,” Desiato says. “I got involved in a theater group because my faculty adviser was Jo Oatfield, who once upon a time had been an actor on the West End of London and in New York in the ’20s and ’30s. And she knew Fran Fuller, who was the director of the American Academy in New York.

“So she called me into her office one day and said, ‘Mr. Desiato, you did very well in the play’ — I played Priam in Tiger at the Gates, and she thought that was quite a feat for a young man — ‘and you’re doing rather well in English and in history. However, there are other subjects that you have to master when you are in college, and you’re not mastering them. So, I’ve called your father, and I’ve called Ms. Fuller, and you’re going to audition at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.”

With that decree, Desiato auditioned, and he was accepted.

“My father drives me in for the first day of classes for the new season, drops me off at the corner of 52nd and Broadway, reaches into his pocket, gives me a $100 bill and says, ‘You want to be an actor? Act.’”

And he did.

Tim Russert

Tim Russert doing what he did best, interviewing the most powerful figures in American politics. Photo of Russert and President George W. Bush by White House photographer Eric Draper | AP. Below: Russert by Kathy Willens | AP.

I read that Tim Russert died while I was in the midst of covering a severe thunderstorm passing over the Ichthus Festival last Friday, so there was only a minute to take in the shock and the loss before getting back to work.

Over the last week, there's been plenty of time to absorb my own feelings and those of many others. The consensus, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that we have lost a smart, objective and incisive voice in political journalism. He was instructive and challenging in an era where both pundits and viewers seem more and more inclined to scurry to their ideological corners.

 As a self-proclaimed political junkie, I'll miss Russert, and it's a particularly cruel twist of fate to us and him that we lose him in the midst of the most historic Presidential election in most of our lifetimes.

But Russert's passing has also served as a wake-up call to me, and I would guess maybe others.

It's a call I made to my doctor.

Russert suffered from heart disease. No, this isn't the story of a middle-aged, overweight workaholic that didn't take care of himself. By most accounts, including NBC News medical editor Nancy Snyderman on the Today show, he was aware of what ailed him and he was treated for it, exercised and watched what he ate.

But either something was missed, or something was going to happen no matter what.

"This is a very sad statement that underscores the humbleness and the humility of medicine," Snyderman said on Today, "that as much as we want to do right by every patient, there are some things that slip by us, and perhaps this is the reminder to all of us that there's a higher order."

The saddest thing in Russert's passing is not the loss to politics or journalism. It's the loss to a family that by all accounts had a great husband, father and son. Russert had a life of professional accomplishment and family harmony so many of us aspire to, and we want those lives to be complete.

My father died of a heart attack when I was 12, and since then I have missed him more than anyone knows. I missed him at graduations, seeing me get my first job, my wedding, the births of my children, and I have simply missed his presence, love and counsel, though God has blessed me with a great father in-law and brother in-law.

This is not a family history I want to repeat, and reviewing the life of Russert, I know there are things he wanted to see and experience with his family. You think about the future when a little pain swells in your chest or you have a few minutes where a deep breath is out of your reach.

Maybe sometimes we are over reliant on celebrity tragedies as reminders to take care of ourselves when we know, for instance, millions of people die from heart disease every year, and we know what's going on inside ourselves.

But better that than no wake up call. So I am going to talk to my doctor about a few things maybe I have been ignoring too long. There will probably be others that will do the same, taking cues from Russert's passing. ABC News reports doctors are already seeing a Russert effect.

It's the little something we can gain from this tragic loss.

What are the classic 1980's movies?

With Back to the Future (1985) set to be the offering at the Kentucky Theatre's Summer Classics series in just under two weeks, we want to ask you something: What other films of the 1980s should be considered classics?

Yes, it is hard for many of us in our late 30s and early 40s to fathom that films we saw in high school are now being regarded as "classic." But if they are, we might as well weigh in on what has stood the test of time.

Is it a big spectacle like E.T. (1982)?

Is it one of those John Hughes movies, like Pretty in Pink (1986)?

Or is it a highly regarded film not necessarily associated with the decade, like The Color Purple (1985)?

Could it be, like the Summer Classics Series shows us, it's a little bit of all those types of films. I want your thoughts, so please e-mail me or comment below and let's get a list going. I'll report back what I hear in a coupla weeks. 

Above: Is 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off a classic?

The Ichthus 2008 photo album

Alex McCarty, 16, left and Kimmi Howard, 16, of Richmond, Ky., decided to take advantage of the muddy campsite after heavy rains from Friday night left tents destroyed and the grounds soggy at Ichthus in Wilmore, Ky., on June 14, 2008. Copyrighted photo by Emily Spence | staff.

We're going to close out our Ichthus 2008 coverage here with our third annual Ichthus Festival photo album. It chronicles one of the craziest Ichthus' I ever covered, not so much in the enormity of any individual challenges faced, but in the cumulative roller coaster of the week, from Monday night's severe thunderstorms to a perfect Saturday night for Casting Crowns. The album chronicles that, as we at the Herald-Leader had broader photo coverage of this Ichthus than any of the previous 38 festivals. Enjoy, and if sometime in the deep cold of winter, you want to revive some Wilmore memories, we'll have them here for you.

Also, check out Emily Spence's final Ichthus video, about the mud sliding, along with all of the other Ichthus videos.

And, and, and . . . read the Ichthus diary from Destination 7 and Jenna Youngs.

Summer classic: Psycho

Norman Bates' House is one of the many creepy presences in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

The first time you see Psycho, it terrifies and shocks you with certain scenes, particularly the iconic shower scene and the unveiling of Norman's mother.

On subsequent screenings, it creeps you out.

It's one of the many masterstrokes of this movie and Alfred Hitchcock's whole career that he made a movie that operates on one level when you first see it and other levels on subsequent showings. The images that resonated with me the first time I saw it were the clotting blood running down the shower drain and Mother's face -- a scene that nearly sent 11-year-old me  through the wall when I first watched Psycho on our independent UHF station's regular Saturday night feature.

Now, I think of the scene of Norman eating dinner in the Bates Motel Office with all of the stuffed birds casting shadows on the ceiling. I think of the house on the hill that we don't enter until near the end, and we don't want to. I think of Janet Leigh's lonely, drowsy drive that ends at the Bates Motel.

And I think of this prophetic exchange between Norman and Marion:

Norman: We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?
Marion: Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough. 

Having seen it numerous times on the small screen, I'm anxious to see what the impact of these and other scenes will have in the theater when the Kentucky Theatre shows Psycho at 1:30 p.m. at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday as part of its summer classics series. Admission is $3.

BlondeTV 3: Time to grow up (Cassie S.)

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Cassie S.'s Omigod You Guys audition. Was she she good? Did her fellow contestants bail on her?

I hope, hope, hope that if Cassie S. looks at herself on Legally Blonde The Musical -- The Search for Elle Woods in five to seven years, she will be mortified by how she acted on the show. In three episodes, she has emerged as a classic reality show villain -- narcissistic without reason and ready to throw her weight around without inhibition.

Already, the judges have opened themselves up to the question: Did they keep her around, just for the drama? (To be fair, on his wrap-up video, Seth Rudetsky pointed out on his video blog that in the scene where Cassie S. seems to be messing up, she is actually singing the harmony and nailing it.)

But the 18-year-old from L.A. is far from the only contestant to succeed Lexington's Laura Bell Bundy, who is soon leaving her Tony-nominated performance as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde -- The Musical, who has some growing up to do. Even 28-year-year old Selina seems to have come to this competition with a very candy-coated expectation of what Broadway would be like.

She expressed amazement that the contestants would be given something new to learn at the last minute, scoffed at being asked to be in the ensemble (did you miss that cliche about no small parts, just small actors?) and cried about being talked to like a child.

Lauren was "shocked," they would be singing while working out as was Rhiannon, who employed the trademark phrase, "Oh my God," over auditioning while riding stationary bikes.

Once again, this show is giving viewers a good look at what it takes to make it on Broadway and play a role as demanding as Elle Woods. They blanch at riding a stationary bike and singing, but as Elle, they will be executing demanding choreography while being expected to simultaneously belt out a showstopper.

Lauren won the prize of some spa treatment and took along Cassie S. to be nice. All of them could have used the chat with Orfeh, who told them:

~ The need to be ready to, "be rejected 10,000 times."

~ "Grow a thick skin."

~ "Be in great shape."

Interestingly, Lauren ended up in the bottom four and a breath away from elimination, along with Emma (who must check the know-it-all, above-it-all attitude) and Selina (who must check her mocker, rocker vibe). But it was Lindsey, who just didn't seem to be putting forth much effort, who got booted. She actually seemed to have one of the more mature attitudes, admitting in her departure comments she sort of phoned it in, and that wasn't good enough.

Maybe she can rub off on the others from a distance.

Natalie and Autumn are not getting much screen time, but they do seem to be moving through the competition well.

The real Elle, Laura Bell, was on the red carpet at the Tony Awards Sunday night, wearing black. It seemed like a bit of a statement she's moving on from Blonde's hot pink world as she told the Associated Press she wanted to wear, "anything other than pink. ... I was like, `Give me something black!'"

Pretty much immediately after she departs Blonde, Bundy will be back in Lexington with fellow actor and Search for Elle judge Paul Canaan for her Take it from the Top Broadway workshop.

Bundy also talked to the New York Post's Cindy Adams about the end of Blonde and her desire to come home: ""I'm finally done in Legally Blonde -- The Musical in five weeks. With pre-opening rehearsals, I've played Elle Woods in this show eight times a week since 2006. I'm done in. It's hard to keep your energy up. Sometimes I don't utter one word all day until I go onstage. My home's in Kentucky. I haven't seen my family in months. They've been here, but I can't spend meaningful time with them. All I want now is to go home. Go to the beach. Sleep. Let my mother feed me.

"I've lost so much weight my costumes are falling off, but nobody's fixing them because they're making new ones for my replacement next month. One bunny costume is so loose, the butt moves after I do."

Christian music update: Violins rock at Ichthus

Mike Hogan performed with the David Crowder Band Saturday night at the Ichthus Festival. Copyrighted photo by Rich Copley | LexGo. Below: Jonathan Chu performing with Todd Agnew in Mitchell, Neb. Photo from Chu's Myspace page. Bottom: John Porter of Mile7. Photo from Mile7's website.

The numerous Guitar Hero controllers slung at the Ichthus Festival reinforce the six-string's dominance in rock and at Ichthus. But there was a little four-string instrument that also had a subtle, but noteworthy presence in Wilmore this weekend: the violin.

It started with John Porter of Battle of the Bands champion Mile7 pulling out his violin for a few numbers and ended with Casting Crowns' Melodee DeVevo showing her well documented skills with the instrument during Casting Crowns' festival-closing set. In between, we were treated to moments such as the opening of the set by Skillet, one of the hardest rocking bands on the main stage lineup. The band's intro, a countdown of sorts, was teasing the crowd with anticipation of one of Skillet's trademark explosive openings. Instead, we got some virtuoso violin from Jonathan Chu, who has also toured with Todd Agnew. Throughout Skillet's set, he continued to remind us what an important instrument it is in the band's music, esepcially in powerhouses such as Savior.

The David Crowder Band's Mike Hogan was also responsible for key moments in the band's music, such as the searing bridge in You Are My Joy. And then there was DeVevo, coloring most of Casting Crown's hits with her box.

This is not foreign to rock. Boyd Tinsley has been an exciting rock violinist for the Dave Matthews band for years, contributing moments such as an honest-to-goodness violin hero moment to their tune Jimi Things and playing a key role in the intro to Ants Marching. Lisa Germano has been an exciting violinist for numerous rockers, most notably John Mellencamp.

It's great to see this happen more and more in Christian rock. We can get real comfortable with guitar, bass, drums and keyboard and forget a broad palette of sounds available out there. And it gives the audience a chance to hear a really fine instrument that has been around for centuries and takes genuine skill to play. That's not to take anything away from the guitar slingers out there. There was certainly some guitar virtuosity out there. Mile7's mainstage set concluded with a guitar-violin duo that showed both Porter and lead guitarist John Cloninger as masters of their instruments.

But I do daresay there probably aren't many violinists out there playing professionally in classical music, rock or other genres who haven't put in years of study with teachers and in ensembles honing their craft so that even in an non-traditional setting they can blow you away. I always say people innately recognize something genuinely exceptional when they hear it, like the opera singer who astounds you with the national anthem before a baseball game. And we heard quite a bit of it from one little four string box at Ichthus this year.

Here's to  hearing more, and even more diversity of sound in years to come.

New video: The foul weather Friday kind of derailed some of our video plans out of Ichthus, but Emily Spence has a new one documenting Day 2 of Ichthus. Watch it here.

Our 2008 Ichthus photo album will post on Wednesday including shots you've seen here and in the Herald-Leader, and many you haven't.

More music: If you didn't get enough music out of Ichthus, or if you didn't get to go and are in the mood for some live Christian rock, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom has an attractive trio Saturday: Rebecca St. James, Superchick and Sanctus Real. BTW, for what it's worth, RSt.J hasn't been to Ichthus in a looooong time.

Ichthus: The closers

Casting Crowns' Melodee DeVevo and her husband Juan DeVevo perform at the Ichthus Festival, Saturday. Below: Chris Huffman sports his UK T-shirt. Copyrighted photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Chris Huffman makes the quietest returns home. The bassman for Casting Crowns is a Glasgow native who still has family in the Bluegrass State. But he's so quiet back there, plucking away on his Sting Ray bass  behind Mark Hall, and CC is so associated with Georgia, it isn't until you see him rockin' his Wildcats T-shirt that you remember, "Oh, yeah. Welcome home."

As we said in the paper today, Casting Crowns isn't the band you go for to close out a festival with a big party, and that's the way Ichthus has closed in recent years. But they are probably the biggest act in Christian rock today, and while they still bear no resemblance to rock stars, it is more amazing that this is basically a youth group worship band than it was two years ago, when CC last played Ichthus. If they stay true to form, they should be back in Georgia leading worship this morning.

But performing on a beautiful night in Wilmore, Kentucky, the band struck just the right chord, particularly considering the weekend. How could you hear Praise You in t