Jun 12 Arts and Culture Crime Novelist Charlie Newton Marries Truth and Fiction Novelist Charlie Newton weaves complex plots of crime and corruption out of unrelated true stories. The rape and murder of a young girl and a strange history of biological warfare in Japan collide in “Start Shooting,” the Chicago native’s acclaimed second novel.While a gang war threatens the city’s bid for the Olympics, a guitar-playing cop and a desperate actress from the same gritty Chicago neighborhood are forced to confront corruption, violence and the legacy of a family murder. By Erin Keane Jun 12 Arts and Culture Crime Novelist Charlie Newton Marries Truth and Fiction Erin Keane
Jun 11 Arts and Culture Kentucky Natives Win Tony Awards Ashland native Steve Kazee picked up a Tony Award last night for Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance as Guy in "Once," the Broadway adaptation of the 2006 film an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant who spend a week together writing and playing music. "Once" won eight Tony awards this year, including Best Musical.Kazee graduated from Morehead State University and has appeared in many television and stage productions, including a run as Sir Lancelot in "Spamalot." By Erin Keane Jun 11 Arts and Culture Kentucky Natives Win Tony Awards Erin Keane
Jun 11 Arts and Culture New ‘Lysistrata’ Adaptation Opens at The Bard’s Town The Bard’s Town Theatre is resurrecting the ancient Greek story of Lysistrata in the premiere of a new comedy about sex, politics and patriotism. By Erin Keane Jun 11 Arts and Culture New ‘Lysistrata’ Adaptation Opens at The Bard’s Town Erin Keane
Jun 8 Arts and Culture “Pilgrim Song” Screens This Weekend in Louisville The annual Flyover Film Festival is this weekend in Louisville. One of the films on the roster is Pilgrim Song, a film shot in Louisville, which tells the story of an out-of-work musician who decides to walk the entire length of the Sheltowee Trace.Pilgrim's Song co-writer and director, Martha Stevens, and the film's star, Timothy Morton, spoke with WFPL's Erin Kean on Friday's Byline. By Laura Ellis Jun 8 Arts and Culture “Pilgrim Song” Screens This Weekend in Louisville Laura Ellis
Jun 6 Arts and Culture Speed Museum Begins Staff Re-Organization The Speed Art Museum has eliminated eight full-time staff positions. The cuts were made in anticipation of the Speed’s $50 million renovation and expansion project, which will close the museum to the public until September 2015.The affected positions are spread throughout the museum’s divisions and include jobs in visitor experience, collections, facilities, education, IT and security. By Erin Keane Jun 6 Arts and Culture Speed Museum Begins Staff Re-Organization Erin Keane
Jun 5 Arts and Culture Back with the Band: Drummer-Turned-Filmmaker Produces My Morning Jacket Documentary Once upon a time, a guy from Louisville named Christopher Guetig played drums for My Morning Jacket. Those were the hard-touring van years, between the By Erin Keane Jun 5 Arts and Culture Back with the Band: Drummer-Turned-Filmmaker Produces My Morning Jacket Documentary Erin Keane
Jun 4 Arts and Culture Review: Typographical Dystopia a Love Letter to the Printed Word Five years ago, when playwright Jordan Harrison began writing “Futura,” the death of print still sounded like an ominous prophecy, one that could be enlarged into the stuff dystopian fantasies are made of. Today, that dread is palpable to some, and the paperless future is almost here.In “Futura” (named after the typeface that functions as a lovely metaphor in the first part of the play), an oppressive government has collected all writings into one big file called “The Collection” and outlawed paper, books and even writing by hand. Just talking about cursive is a transgressive act. Knowledge of a secret file with original scans of published books is treason. The resistance fighters want their freedom in the form of privacy.Directed by Amy Attaway, “Futura” opened Theatre [502]’s second season last Friday. “Futura” fits well within Theatre [502]’s stated mission to produce plays that are both recent and relevant.The relevancy of “Futura” is undeniable. We’re fumbling through a liminal space, not fully paperless but moving, perhaps inevitably, in that direction. I took notes during Friday’s performance in a small lined notebook with a pen, but I typed this review on a plastic keyboard, and I’ll read it off a small phone screen later. According to the play, each process lights up different pathways in my brain. The words written in my small lined notebook are allowed to stay private, while the key-stroked, uploaded review is public.“Futura” opens with Professor Lorraine Wexler (Laurene Scalf) delivering an extended monologue, a lecture on the history of typography. The monologue is both a lyric love letter to movable type and the inevitable unraveling of the professor’s historian veneer of detachment. She’s also the author of an academic paper titled “The New Alexandria,” which may or may not implicate her in a dangerous resistance scheme. When she’s kidnapped by young rebels Grace (Betsy Huggins, a firecracker) and Gash (Drew Cash, who simmers beautifully) under the command of missing dissident Edward (Tad Chitwood), we learn just how dangerous Lorraine’s knowledge might be.Because we spend so much time solo with Lorraine in the first third of the story, the play is heavily weighted toward her concerns. When we learn that she and Edward don’t share the same vision for rebellion, Edward’s passion can’t stand up to hers. And while Chitwood and Scalf are both formidable talents, individually convincing, their on-stage chemistry doesn’t quite live up to the stormy conflict the two need to share. That we’ll follow Lorraine and her love of the handmade antiquity feels like a foregone conclusion, but it would have been nice to dwell on Edward's complex questions of the value of technology for a while first.Harrison is a witty writer, but this play tends to err on the serious side. The nods the playwright does make to dystopian literary tropes are played fairly straight by the actors except Huggins, who goes all-out in her portrayal of the archetypal loose cannon. On stage, it can be a fine line between a knowing wink and an elbow to the ribs, but very understated sly references to genre can disappear or appear merely derivative when they’re not.Because the action is confined to rebel spaces, even within the university lecture, we never fully see the citizens bowed under the “stupor of convenience,” and so the lure of technology isn't quite examined fairly, in all its complexities, within the world of the play. That undermines the danger of its potential for oppression and assumes the play is preaching at least somewhat to the choir.Ultimately, though, the paperless future is no longer a hypothetical threat, something dangerous that can be reversed if we only pay close enough attention (though the idea that it will take an oppressive regime to bring us to that point is fantasy enough–we’re going cheerfully, for the most part). “Futura” is a play that will make you think about the value of the human impulse to create, the sacrifices of the preservationists, and the ongoing tension between honoring the past and encouraging progress. And yet it never resorts to blind technophobia, either.What do we trade for convenience and access? Is what we lose worth what we gain? I’m happy to see Theatre [502] engaging its audience in these vital questions.“Futura” through June 9 in the Victor Jory Theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville. By Erin Keane Jun 4 Arts and Culture Review: Typographical Dystopia a Love Letter to the Printed Word Erin Keane
Jun 4 Arts and Culture Louisville Music Entrepreneur Launches Digital Video Platform Todd Smith has been a musician, a record producer and most recently, the owner of a record label, the now-defunct Louisville-based Label X. He says Label X did everything right – solid artists with fans, radio play, coveted television spots – but none of that translated into sustainable record sales. By Erin Keane Jun 4 Arts and Culture Louisville Music Entrepreneur Launches Digital Video Platform Erin Keane
Jun 1 Arts and Culture Theater Highlights for This Weekend: Erin Keane on Byline Arts and Humanities reporter Erin Keane gave a quick rundown of some worthy local theater to check out this weekend on Byline Friday afternoon, including a dystopian play by Theatre [502], and a play about surrealist painter René Magritte for young audiences produced by the Alley Theater. Of course, the galleries and restaurants of Market Street are alive tonight for the monthly Tr By Brad Yost Jun 1 Arts and Culture Theater Highlights for This Weekend: Erin Keane on Byline Brad Yost
Jun 1 Arts and Culture First Friday Five: June It’s fine to hit the downtown First Friday Trolley Hop without a plan. By Erin Keane Jun 1 Arts and Culture First Friday Five: June Erin Keane
May 31 Arts and Culture Theatre [502]’s ‘Futura’ Is Now When director Amy Attaway started working on Jordan Harrison’s typographical dystopian play “Futura,” she had just bought her first iPad. One of the first news stories she read on her tablet was about Encyclopedia Britannica discontinuing its print edition. The sinister future Harrison devised, where handwriting, printing, paper and books are outlawed and all written materials are part of “The Big Collection” in the cloud, suddenly felt very close. By Erin Keane May 31 Arts and Culture Theatre [502]’s ‘Futura’ Is Now Erin Keane
May 30 Arts and Culture Novelist Creates Own Drinking Game at Readings Louisville author Patrick Wensink has discovered one simple strategy to help people pay attention during book tour readings. He’s made a drinking game out of his.“I’ve always felt like the worst part of a book reading is the book reading,” says Wensink. “I’m as guilty as anybody. I’ve sort of zoned out in the past and haven’t paid attention to every word.”Wensink hands out a list of six words before he reads an excerpt from his new novel. Every time he reads one of the key words, everyone (author included) takes a sip.“I did a reading last month in Portland and I finished two and a half beers in, what, ten minutes? Fifteen minutes, maybe, depending on how fast I read? I suffer for my art, I guess,” he says. It might be a gimmick, but at least it’s thematically sound. Wensink’s new book, “Broken Piano for President,” is a dark comedy about a loser who tends to black out after a couple of beers.Wensink’s hero Deshler Dean parks cars for a living. His experimental band, Lothario Speedwagon, is going nowhere fast. Dean’s life sounds like a recipe for failure, but in Wensink’s absurdist world, his problem becomes a strange gift.It turns out Dean is brilliant when he’s dead-to-the-world drunk. He invents an addictive fast-food burger. His band signs a record deal. It’s the fantasy every hard-partying twenty-something in a dead-end job hopes will come true.“He’s a mid-twenties guy who just drinks a lot. When I was writing this book, I was a mid- twenties guy who drank a lot,” says Wensink. “As the story progresses, he realizes he’s been doing a lot while blacking out. He’s been more productive drunk than while he’s sober.”This isn’t the first book tour Wensink has livened up with an unorthodox performance. For his last novel, “Black Hole Blues,” he conducted a trivia contest about his book’s villain.“I made up a game show called ‘Death to Kenny Rogers,’ where people could win Kenny Rogers prizes by answering stupid questions I made up, that were completely false, about Kenny Rogers and what a horrible human being he is,” says Wensink. “I felt like I had to one-up myself.”If Wensink’s readings sound more eventful than the average author appearance, it might be due in part to his recent work with Project Improv. Wensink says improv comedy has made him a stronger reader of his own work.“Once you bomb on stage at an improv comedy show, you have no more fear when you’re up there reading from a book,” he saysWensink will read from “Broken Piano for President’ at Second Story Books Friday at 6:30 p.m. The event, the author says, is BYOB.“What could be better for a book about a guy who is more productive when he’s drunk than sober than to watch the author get drunk on stage and get drunk with him while you’re watching?” says Wensink. By Erin Keane May 30 Arts and Culture Novelist Creates Own Drinking Game at Readings Erin Keane
May 29 Arts and Culture Surreal Play Introduces Kids to Magritte Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte was known for his playful use of mystery–men in overcoats and bowler hats floating, an apple or a boulder suspended in mid-air. Sometimes silly, always evocative, he captured the imagination of art lovers of all ages. By Erin Keane May 29 Arts and Culture Surreal Play Introduces Kids to Magritte Erin Keane
May 29 Arts and Culture Win VIP tickets to the International Mystery Writers’ Festival WFPL is proud to sponsor the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Owensboro June 14-17. The festival will feature performances of 3 new mystery plays, daily book signings and author workshops including an evening with Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition. By Aaron Glantz May 29 Arts and Culture Win VIP tickets to the International Mystery Writers’ Festival Aaron Glantz