Feature Soft-soaping hardcore theater
Local directors want to push their audiences – but not out the door. Welcome to the season of the veiled reference. “Sometimes in that production, we played to 14 people; there were more people on stage and in the crew than were in the house.” San Pedro Playhouse Artistic Director Frank Latson is recalling last…
Music Current Choice
Ravi Shankar Father and daughter Norah Jones isn’t the only daughter of Ravi Shankar with a recording career of her own. Anoushka Shankar, who grew up splitting her time between London, California, and India, and unlike Jones spent a great deal of her childhood with her father, decided to walk at least a bit in…
Arts Like bluebonnets in spring
If you haven’t sampled high-school theater lately, you’re missing the perpetual drama of hormones in bloom The Current asked me to write a “What’s coming” article for the high-school theaters in San Antonio, which is impossible to do succinctly or objectively, as I am friends with half of the theater teachers in San Antonio. Most…
Music Trash compactors
In the flesh, and coming to the Sanctuary On The Fleshtones’ new album, Beachhead, singer Peter Zaremba exhorts his bandmates to “get serious about not being serious.” It’s a mantra that the group actually took to heart nearly 30 years ago when Queens, New York roommates Keith Streng and Jan-Marek Pakulski first crossed paths with…
Arts Social intercourse
Current Online Web Exclusive The busy girl’s (and guy’s) guide to being seen in all the right places As our hot summer days segue into hot autumn days, I’ve found it a tad difficult to wrap my brain around the scads of fall fashions filling the racks. Who can think of wearing tweed when it’s…
Screens What price infamy?
Nicolas Cage’s Lord of War wanted to do “something big” with his life Yuri Orlov is a paragon – and parody – of American immigrant success. Born in the Ukraine to parents who feigned Jewishness in order to obtain exit visas, he sweated through childhood in the kitchen of the family restaurant in Brighton Beach,…
Music Sound and the fury
A week on the scene Dead reckoning A last-minute addition to this week’s schedule should provide SA with one of its most exciting club shows of the last several months: And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at the White Rabbit. The Austin band, which agreed to squeeze the San Antonio show…
Arts Drama in real time
Current Online Web Exclusive theatreASAP holds creativity’s feet to the fire, but the shotgun wedding is a happy one “I really hope Sheila doesn’t kill us for this,” director Mellissa Marlowe told her three-member cast as the group took refuge in the women’s dressing room of the Magik Theatre Saturday morning. Marlowe was concerned about…
Screens Get out the vote
Manhattan Short Film Festival 8pm, September 16, 17, 23, 24 $7.50 adult, $5 students Urban-15 Group 2500 S. Presa 736-1500 Finalists in the Manhattan Short Film Festival include, from top, The Instructional Guide to Dating, Hibernation, Crickets, Cuco Gomez-Gomez is Dead, and La Ruta Natural. Viewers can participate in selecting a winner from the dozen…
Arts A cool norther
No one wants to hear that Austin is hipper than SA, but in theater, it’s definitely weirder Even though spending your hard-won lucre on local arts offerings is always the noble thing to do, the performing-arts season in Austin is often just too tempting to resist. Here’s a run-down on some highlights of Austin’s 2005-6…
Screens : A ripe old cheese
‘An Unfinished Life’ buries a strong cast in heavy-handed sentiment A fine line stands between sentiment and sap, and Swedish native Lasse Hallström has spent his career stepping across it. In his winning 1985 crossover film, My Life As A Dog, an atmosphere of beautiful strangeness and some fine performances kept cute melodrama at bay…
Screens : Armchair Cinephile
To infinity and … you know I’m not often impressed by the “Wow, has it really been that long?!” sort of observation, but I experienced it from a different angle looking at the 10th anniversary special edition of Toy Story (Disney/Pixar). I was delighted by the film when it premiered and still am, but the…
News Payback time
FEMA reimbursements can be tardy and incomplete Mayor Phil Hardberger had calm in his eye two weeks ago as he announced that San Antonio would open its doors – and its checkbook – to Hurricane Katrina evacuees. “We’re not going to get caught up in bureaucracy,” he said, in one of the defining moments of…
Screens Special screenings
Monthly Movie Night The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream Dir. Gregory Greene (2004) This critically acclaimed film looks at the implications of World Oil Peak for the American suburb. The film screens at 6 p.m. Sunday, September 18, at the Congregationalist United Church, 500 Pilgrim. $5 suggested donation.…
News Radio free Astrodome
Prometheus and Houston’s KPFT fight to prove that Low Power FM is just the tool for a community in need Prometheus Radio, the low-power FM advocacy organization named for the Greek Titan who gave fire to man in defiance of Olympian bureaucracy, has found a human face that could broaden support for and understanding of…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres A romantic comedy set in the afterlife, Just Like Heaven plays matchmaker with lonely architect David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) and Elizabeth Martinson (Reese Witherspoon), a ghost who decides to stick around her old apartment to keep David from getting comfortable after moving in. In Lord of War, Academy Award-winner…
News Just show up
SA’s Red Cross volunteers support the relief effort On September 1, Mayor Phil Hardberger announced that San Antonio would accept as many as 25,000 of the New Orleans residents forced to evacuate in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. People who were interested in volunteering to help with the relief effort were directed to call 2-1-1…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Current Online news politics culture News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Over the moon Eclipse Cafe,14439 NW Military at Huebner, will open on September 26. Chef Louis Halfant, has designed a menu that includes wood oven-baked pizzas, fresh salads, market-fresh seafood, and a number of nightly specials. Halfant hopes to create a…
Arts Annie, get a rope
The Majestic’s Broadway season is half-moribund, but there’s still reason to smile, Sunshine Another year, another Annie. Yes, everyone’s favorite musical of the Great Depression – and ruthless exploitation of the proletariat by Daddy Warbucks – sings its little heart and eyes out this winter in the Broadway in San Antonio series at the Majestic…
Music Smooth mess
In its 22nd year, the controversial Jazz’SAlive searches for a pulse Several years ago, Wynton Marsalis appeared on a talk show to discuss the future of jazz. At one point, a self-described jazz lover in the studio audience expressed indignation that the people of his community had failed to turn up for a concert by…
Arts Modern love
SOLI Chamber Ensemble thrives on passion for one another and very contemporary music Last May, for the first time in almost two years, core members of the SOLI Chamber Ensemble gave a stunning, intense performance at Blue Star Contemporary Art Center. Specializing in music from the 20th and 21st centuries, SOLI’s program included the Messiaen…
Food & Drink Fresh off the farm
At Rancho de la Chuparrosa, the Community Supported Agriculture program lends a hand on the farm in return for fresh produce On Saturday mornings, Rancho de la Chuparrosa can be found in the farmers’ markets at Madhatter’s Teahouse and Artisans Alley, selling its vegetables, chicken, and locally produced beef. Earlier in the summer, my husband…
News Stonewalled
Oswald Nelson, are you out there? A handful of evacuees stepped off buses that arrived early at KellyUSA on September 2. A few of them lit cigarettes and stretched their legs after their long ride from New Orleans to Houston, then onward to San Antonio. Oswald Nelson stood in the shade of an adjacent bus.…
Food & Drink Swell or swill?
Copa Wine Bar stretches your palate and your pocketbook I recently attended a for-the-trade wine tasting featuring some very heavy hitters. Retailers and restaurateurs were buzzing around the tasting tables like greedy bees. If you arrived there early enough, there were iconic reds, such as Grange from Australia. Even with my late arrival, I managed…
News Party lines
Current Online Web Exclusive Toll opponents rattle sabers C.A. Stubbs stood on the sidewalk in front of the Convention Center last week and watched about 40 members of the Texas Toll Party walk a picket line along Market Street. “Carrying a sign has never been my cup of tea … but a lot of people…
Food & Drink MRE not so eto
The MRE burger, from sealed pouch to plate, is reportedly a favorite among soldiers, who will pay $10 for the delicacy, which includes barbecue sauce, squeeze cheese, and a mini bottle of Tabasco. Its 4 a.m. at Base Operations and theres just enough time to gulp down some cold water and grab an MRE from…
News Back in class
Local universities accepting displaced students Term papers and finals exams are routine, but few students confront a Category Four hurricane as part of their college careers. Thirty colleges and universities in the Gulf Coast region were forced to close after Hurricane Katrina, displacing an estimated 100,000 college students. San Antonio colleges and universities are accepting…
Food & Drink Agent orange
Local Tex-Mex eateries are going cheap on the cheese Back in the day, the big question for patrons of Tex-Mex restaurants was Corn or flour? Today, patrons should be asking, “What kind of cheese do you put on the enchiladas?” Consider this a rant. First, a bit of history. Back in the 1960s, a majority…
News Speed reads
Delay on Lowe’s hearing City Council has granted a four-week continuance on what has become known as the “Lowe’s Case,” and won’t decide on the zoning case until Thursday, October 6. Councilman Chip Haass asked for the continuance to allow additional public input. The company, NEC BUL 1604, Ltd. is requesting a zoning change for…
Music Still crazy
New Dick Cavett collection captures rock’s Woodstock-era growing pains In an era when when our prime-time pleasures include Tommy Lee sleeping through a college chemistry class and INXS auditioning no-name singers, it’s hard to remember when rock music was a scarce commodity on television. In the late ’60s, you could catch the major pop acts…
Arts The book of life
The Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts is a magnificent library looking for a clientele When Robert Tobin designed his eponymous gallery at the McNay Art Museum to look like the library in his Oakwell Farms home, he hoped that local academics and theater professionals would make it a library of their own. Tobin’s collection of…
Music CD Spotlight
True West If you want to understand Kanye West, consider the two times he has vented his hair-trigger rage in public: once, to express heartfelt frustration with the Bush administration’s efforts to help African Americans devastated by Hurricane Katrina; the other time, to complain that he failed to win Best New Artist at the American…
News Best foot forward
Contemporary dance takes a big leap toward San Antonio’s center stage During the past 10 years or so, modern dance has been suspiciously absent from the local arts scene. Aside from the occasional touring company, there are few opportunities for audiences to see contemporary dance. How is it, in a city this size, that one…
