THE POWER AND THE PENIS

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

In the latest Tucson Weekly, you can witness my effort to cover four plays in the space of two reviews (damned economy). First, the anatomy lesson:

Everyone knows there are a lot of pricks in the theater world, and they're something of an obsession in two shows that opened locally last week. Live Theatre Workshop's late-night Etcetera series is presenting _The Penis Monologues_, which is exactly what it claims to be, except that the monologues are _about_ penises, not _by_ them. In contrast, coyness rules at Beowulf Alley's _3 Guys in Drag Selling Their Stuff_; the male members are unremarked upon and hidden beneath skirts, tee-hee. In this case, too, the title says it all; indeed, there's nothing more to this play than what the marquee announces.

You can find the full review, including a Latin anatomical pun I’ve been waiting 35 years to use, here. Then, on to something more serious:

Power—how to wield it, how to abuse it. That's the subject of two plays, written nearly 2 1/2 millennia apart, that opened in Tucson last week. A witch-princess exacts revenge in _Medea_ at the UA's Arizona Repertory Theatre, while an American president squares off against an ambitious industrialist in _Camping With Henry and Tom_ at Invisible Theatre. Warren G. Harding is the president in question in Mark St. Germain's _Camping With Henry and Tom_. Remember Harding? Probably not, unless you're an American-history enthusiast, and the Teapot Dome scandal rings a bell. Harding was initially, in the early 1920s, a popular president, but his administration was probably the most corrupt in American history, at least until George Dubya Bush came along. To his credit, Harding was never directly implicated in the scandals, and St. Germain depicts him as merely an amiable front man for a political machine; as Roger Owen plays him at IT, he's tender-hearted and intellectually bland. Not the sort of personality you'd expect to be able to stand up to a combative Henry Ford and cynical Thomas Edison out in the Maryland woods. … Euripides' _Medea_, in a fluid, colloquial translation by Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael, is onstage via Arizona Repertory Theatre. It's a student production directed with steadiness and grace by faculty member Brent Gibbs, but overall, it's an uneven effort redeemed by four strong young actors.

Get the details here.

STEMMING FORECLOSURES

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

President Obama Wednesday unveiled the $75 billion Homeowner Stability Initiative as part of a multi-faceted effort to slow foreclosures. He delivered the speech in Mesa.

You can read the text of the speech here, courtesy of NPR.

Here's the White House outline of the plan.

Next up on the bailout list...automakers want more money. Stay tuned for the details on that one.

After that, who knows?

HANSON ON THE MARKET

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

The e-newsletter of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra has landed in my e-mail box, with news that Tucson Symphony Orchestra music director George Hanson is applying for a job there. The Arkansas orchestra's budget is about half a million dollars less than the TSO's, according to the last figures I saw, so Arkansas would probably barely qualify as a lateral move for Hanson; most likely, he's hoping to run both orchestras at the same time (he has held simultaneous appointments in the past). True, Hanson has been in Tucson long enough that it may be time for him to think about moving on, but unless he were desperate to get out he'd be looking to move up in the orchestra world, not over. Here's a condensed version of the news item:

The Search is On! Nearly a year after ASO Music Director David Itkin announced he would be leaving the orchestra, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Board of Directors is pleased to name the five conductors selected as finalists in the search for the ASO’s next Music Director. The candidates are: Arthur Post * Currently Music Director of San Juan Symphony in Durango, Colorado (serving the four corners region) Philip Mann * American Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of San Diego Symphony George Hanson * Currently Music Director and Conductor of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Fusao Kajima * Music Director of the Bellevue Philharmonic in Bellevue, Washington André Raphel Smith * Currently Music Director of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra in Wheeling, West Virginia

NEW STUFF ON THE WEBSITE

posted to Rappaport's Notebook by Robert Rappaport

We have some new political things on the website in a couple of different places.

There's a new Political Conversations that focuses on the state budget cutting process. Christopher Conover interviews State Senator Al Melvin (R-Tucson). You can find it on the lower left of the KUAZ page, or just click here.

Depending on what time you're reading this, we also have live coverage of a forum from Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Tucson), talking about the federal economic stimulus plan, which the president is due to sign Tuesday.

If you missed today's forum (Mon, 10:00 -11:30 p.m.), we'll have another one Wednesday (11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m). from the UA. There's also another one Thursday afternoon (2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.) at Pima Community College, 4905 E. Broadway.

You can watch live streaming and get all the details here.

"PROCESS OF DISESTABLISHMENT HAS BEGUN"

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

A friend of mine, a professional musician, has been saying that given the legislature-imposed budget crisis in the state university system, the separate music programs at the UA and ASU should be consolidated into a single, world-class program, probably at ASU, which he thinks has better performance facilities and is in a much larger metropolitan center. But now I learn via Patty Mitchell’s blog oboeinsight that ASU is in the process of huge chunks of “disestablishing” its arts programs, particularly at the graduate level. You can learn what’s going to be eliminated here (scroll down to “Herberger College of the Arts"). Meanwhile, the UA, which is usually underfunded compared to ASU, is slower to announce its own cuts. We’ll have to wait and see what happens here.

ON THE BURGERS, NOT THE BOARDS

posted to Cue Sheet by James Reel

I’m seeing four plays this week (at this writing: one down, three to go), but nothing opened last week, so I have no theater reviews in the latest Tucson Weekly. I do, however, contribute to the Chow section:

Old joke: A hamburger walks into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve food here." The Midtown Bar and Grill does serve food, but it is a little discriminatory--it reserves its best service for the burgers.

The full review is here. Yesterday, a reader e-mailed me and wondered why I waste time reviewing mediocre restaurants when what this city really needs is informed reviews of the Tucson Symphony and Arizona Opera. On the subject of restaurant reviews, I just go where the editor sends me, and not every restaurant is going to be a winner. Regarding performance reviews, by the time a review of a short-run offering like a TSO cycle or an opera production would appear in the Weekly, the performances would have ended days before. Space is extremely tight right now, and I can barely squeeze two stories into the arts section because of declining advertising, so I’m going to focus on covering things that people can still choose to see (or avoid). I did review the TSO in this blog for a couple of years, but I wound up saying the same things about the same programming and the same kinds of performance, so if you can predict what I’m going to write, what’s the point of further writing?

I do know, however, that at least one refugee from the soon-to-shut-down Tucson Citizen may be interested in starting an online review site with fellow unemployed critics; if they can figure out a way to make money at it, we may actually end up with more coverage of classical music than we now have, since the Citizen has no real commitment to it.