I love Donors Choose. Last year I donated via this site to some local teachers, helping them buy equipment and supplies for their classrooms. It’s an addictive way to give money. The teachers and their students will send you touching thank you notes in the mail along with pictures of them using what your donation allowed them to buy. It’s very gratifying, especially because I know plenty of teachers who pump their own money into their schools, simply in order to teach their kids.
Well, DonorsChoose just got a huge national boost, thanks to future president (in S.C.) Stephen Colbert. See the following note:
Dear Stephanie,
Last night, on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert and the founder of Craigslist urged viewers to support South Carolina classrooms through DonorsChoose.org! People from across the country have responded, making donations that will help more than 5,000 South Carolina students. To build on this incredible momentum, we need your help today.
If you accept Stephen Colbert’s challenge by giving to a South Carolina classroom project within the next couple of days, we can build a groundswell of support that will capture national attention.
We hope you’ll rise to the occasion! Scroll through and support one of the projects on Stephen Colbert’s challenge page, which demonstrate the needs of South Carolina classrooms and the commitment of South Carolina teachers.
Just for fun, we encourage you to view last night’s Colbert Report interview. Half way through the interview, it’s all about supporting South Carolina classrooms through DonorsChoose.org!
All the best,
Katie Bisbee
Ps. After funding a project, please forward this email to other South Carolinians to support our classrooms!
Show your support of our own native son and give your hard-earned cash to the teachers who can use your help.
Charleston native Stephen Colbert announced last night that he is running for president … “in South Carolina, the greatest state in American. Go Gamecocks and/or Clemson Tigers.”
Frantic calls have been placed, and creative ideas are flowing. Could Theatre 99 serve as S.C. Campaign Headquarters? Could the Charleston Comedy Festival host Colbert’s primary party? We invite him to pander to us and will let you know what happens.
You’ve got two more chances to see Art Forms and Theatre Concepts contribution to this year’s MOJA festival: the Langston Hughes’ play Tambourines to Glory. Read William Bryan’s review to see help you decide if it’s worth attending.
Tambourines to Glory Poetic performances of classic Langston Hughes
BY WILLIAM BRYAN
Tambourines to Glory Presented by the Arts Forms & Theatre Concepts, Inc
Oct. 5, 8 p.m.
Oct. 6, 3 p.m.
Footlight Players Theatre
20 Queen St., Charleston
$15-$20
Langston Hughes wrote a little, wrote a lot, and wrote a little more. He was most famous as a poet, be he also wrote novels, short stories, and, every now and then, a play. Art Forms and Theatre Concepts tackled his Tambourines to Glory last week as part of MOJA, taking us back to the heady days of Harlem in the ’50s.
Tambourines tells the story of Essie, a woman devoted to God, and Laura, a woman devoted to the money God’s name can bring. Essie gets evicted from her apartment and together the two women set up a small street corner church. Their church grows, along with its monetary income, with some lofty preaching and some fancy tambourine playing, and, oh yeah, with help from the devil himself.
AFTC’s Artistic Director Art Gilliard directed the gospel musical with assistance from musical director Howard Nathan Brown, Sr. The combination resulted in a performance that featured some noteworthy performances, more than a few laughs, and even a decent musical number or two, but for a gospel musical, this was the weakest part of the show.
De’ja Dee as the money hungry Laura Reed and Berita Martin in the role of the devout Essie Johnson worked well together, forming a palpable on-stage relationship. The loud and overbearing Dee is the kind of woman who wants to be able to live in the style to which she would like to become accustomed. Martin was diminutive beside her, strong in her faith in the Lord but unable to stand up to her commanding friend.
Perhaps the best actor of the production is Delvin Williams as Big-Eyed Buddy Lomax, the devil incarnate. From his first monologue, which is delivered before the curtain goes up, Williams had the audience laughing. He embodied the likable rogue, at least until partway through act two when his actions took a darker turn. A 10-time veteran of the AFTC stage, his experience showed, and he seemed to be having as much fun onstage as his character.
Lesa Annette Johnson as Gloria Dawn, a bluesy barroom singer, and her numbers give credit to her musical family and church choir background. Also making an impression is Trelony Ta’naia Frasier playing the innocent daughter of Essie. She sings with a simple sweetness and purity, seeming earnest and sincere during her hymnal of praise to God.
There were numerous technical issues with the show. The actors did not seem to be familiar with their microphones, resulting in varying vocal volumes and the sounds of scratching and thumping. Gilliard also chose to close the curtain for almost all scene changes, which, due to their unusually long length, left the audience with nothing to do but stare at the frescos on the wall or wonder if it was the end of the act. The scenes revealed after such long pauses in the action did not seem to merit the time they took to accomplish.
The worst part was the weak choir. Charleston Stage’s Gullah chorus from last month’s Gershwin at Folly production would have fit in perfectly here. The tambourine work was superb at parts, with multiple players meshing, however due to the volume problems, the singers were often drowned out during these numbers.
The MOJA Festival is a celebration of African-American and Caribbean arts, and while there may be little Caribbean to this show, the pride that Hughes felt for his heritage comes across strongly in his prose as presented by the AFTC cast. Technical problems aside, this show allowed the audience to visit a truly historic era in the history of Harlem, and let them do it with a laugh.
Last week, at Michael Graham’s farewell stand-up show, three local politicians “called in” to talk to Graham about his final column and the City Paper’s ten-year anniversary.
So, it’s official. Michael Graham has written his last City Paper column, and to celebrate the end of his obnoxious conservative missives, I’ll be heading to Theatre 99 tonight to watch a farewell stand-up show.
I got to hang out with Michael last night at our ten-year anniversary party and he gave us a little warm-up routine. He spent some time harassing our proofreader and resident John Edwards campaigner (she was wearing his button last night) Marilyn Armstrong for her choice in candidates. At least he was funny about it. Marilyn was thinking about bringing her Drinking Liberally buddies with her tonight so they can heckle with impunity.
Graham promises a great time for conservatives and liberals alike. He’ll be taking calls from Andre Bauer, Gov. Sanford, and Mayor Riley. I wonder if he’s got John Graham’s number.
Speaking of former state Sen. John Graham Altman III, he faxed over a congratulatory letter this morning. He was honored to be in our “most wanted” lineup and recognized our years of hard work, covering his ‘elected public service’ (his words). Of course, he got in a couple of shots. The funniest being our journalistic motto of: “this story/column is too good to fact-check.” Read the note in its entirety on Greg’s Press Time blog.
I walked down King Street earlier this evening and passed about ten people milling about outside of Cumberland’s, smoking in the vestibule. Please tell me how it’s better that smokers are now standing around outside bars and restaurants rather than inside enjoying themselves with a beer and a smoke?
A few steps later, at the corner of Liberty Street, another pocket of kids were puffing away. I think I’d prefer them to be inside. Then I could choose whether or not to go into a business that allows smoking. I probably wouldn’t take my kids into Cumberland’s, but I don’t have much choice when it comes to walking down the street.
In the lead-up to the Democratic presidential debate on Monday, I was so preoccupied with the tasks at hand — editing the newspaper, hiring a new editorial assistant, and putting together the next edition of Dish — that I totally neglected to grasp the significance of the presidential debate happening at the Citadel. I let four others from CP get press credentials, figuring I’d be riding my desk while the staffers had all the fun — again.
Then it hit me last Friday. The next president will be debating the most important issues of the day — the stuff we write about — just down the street, and I’m not planning on attending? WTF? With the help of D.A. Smith, I quickly made plans to volunteer with the Stonewall Dems, who would be checking in attendees at the Joe and working as ushers at the Citadel, because volunteer duty came with the promise of a ticket.
At 2 p.m. on Monday (the primetime of newspaper production around here), I left the paper in the trusty hands of Patrick Sharbaugh and headed out in the hot hot heat for an afternoon at the Joe. Volunteering was fun, meeting new people was great, and being outside and away from my desk was simply inspiring. I’ve got to do more of that.
After everyone was checked in, we jumped on a bus and headed to the debate. Unlike my credentialed brethren, who were sequestered in the media and spin rooms away from the action, I was up in the cheap seats with a prime view of the stage and video screen.
The debate was engrossing, but after nearly two hours in a backless stadium seat, my neck was creaking, so we snuck out and headed over to the afterparty at Deas Hall where the Democratic Party had the largest cheese spread I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it was the only food in the room. We figured it was a cost-saving measure — cheese being an affordable way to fill up lots of folks.
Big screens showed the debate being wrapped up, and soon the audience and candidates filtered in. Bill Richardson was the first to speak followed by Hillary, who got rushed by the adoring crowd.
At that point, the room was filling up and the piles of cheese were dwindling, so we snagged a couple of Hillary and Obama placards from the walls and headed to Hillary’s afterparty at the Mariott on Lockwood.
As D.A. Smith noted on her blog post, our timing was impeccable. We walked in, and Hillary took the stage to a full house. This crowd was more than adoring, it was fawning. And the secret service agents were everywhere. Man, these dudes are serious.
After snapping a few shots, we headed over to the bus shed for the Google/YouTube/CNN party. It was unbelievable. I’ll post more about that later….
We made a grave mistake in this week’s paper. There is not a July 4th fireworks show planned for Wednesday night at Brittlebank Park by the City of Charleston. The calendar listing in this week’s issue is wrong (it was left over from last year).
We apologize for the mistake and we encourage you to let everyone know that there will be no fireworks at Brittlebank next week. The RiverDogs fireworks show will happen on Tuesday night after the game.
If only we had known before Spoleto, we could have touted Patrick Sharbaugh’s Spoleto Buzz Blog as an award-winning production of the City Paper — because that’s just what it is. Friday afternoon in Portland, the winners of the annual alt-weekly awards were announced and Patrick’s blog took first place in a tight competition against the Arkansas Times and the Portland Mercury.
It’s a much-deserved pat on the back for Sharbaugh, who just spent 17 exhausting days providing insightful, street-level coverage of the beast that is Spoleto.
Congrats Patrick and great f’in job.
I’m currently in Portland at the annual Association of Alternative Newsweeklies convention where we’ve had a round-up of interesting speakers, from Arianna Huffington to Bill Hightower.
Unfortunately, I missed Huffington’s panel, but encountered her afterwards signing books. As she was inscribing my copy, she queried me on where I was from and asked if I was interested in “covering the races.” A bit flustered, all I could think of was, you know, the races — blacks, whites, etc. Being from Charleston, it was the first thing that popped into my head. But then I realized she meant election races. We exchanged cards and I quickly left to find some colleagues to tell me what the hell I had missed in the seminar. Turns out, she’s interested in altweeklies linking with the Huffington Post, enabling her site to become a hub for all the races across the country.
The convention’s been a blast and today, we have a free day in Portland, seeing as our flight got messed up and we were booked to leave last night instead of this morning. Oh well. Looks like we’ll have time to explore. We’re planning to hit the Body exhibit, which we missed when it was in Atlanta last year.
I’ll post some pics if I can ever find that damn camera cord.
Now that we’ve got two Spoleto issues down with only one to go, I’m able to get out and enjoy some of the festival. Meant to go to Caeti and Bills last night, but was too wiped out after a holiday weekend of too much work and not enough holiday. Made up for it tonight by seeing Harvard Sailing Team (who weren’t on my list until Stratton Lawrence gave them a glowing review). Their show was tight. It’s a big ensemble on a small stage, but there never seemed to be too many people or extraneous performers. They were all equally good and fun to watch.
After the show Theatre 99 doyenne Brandy Sullivan pushed me out the door with instructions to get over to the Caeti and Bills show, which was starting at 8:30 at the Charleston Ballet Theatre. I’m glad she got me over there. Funny, seamless, great dancing… What more could you want from an improv act?
A highlight for me and my date, (my eight-year-old son Jack, who was being allowed to stay up way past his bedtime in order to catch his first improv show) was walking into the CBT and seeing Jack McBrayer standing before us. McBrayer’s performed at previous Piccolos, but on this return, he’s riding the wave of a hit TV show — he plays Kenneth the page on 30 Rock, one of the best sitcoms EVER! (Please don’t bail on it Alec!).
My little fan was starstruck. And Jack McBrayer was equally struck by the fawning fan. I mean, how cute of an interaction was it. You’ve got a sweet, funny guy who seems a little surprised by a sweet little kid completely agog at being in his presence. I’ll let my Jack fill you in on the details of the interaction tomorrow. He was put in bed as soon as we got home (I swear, Ms. Belk, if you’re reading this! It’s the last week of school, so it’s not like he’s gonna be learning anything new anyway, right?!)
In the meantime, look at this picture! How adorable is that?!
Public service announcement: If you haven’t seen any Fringe shows yet, the Harvard Sailing Team has only one more performance on Thurs. May 31 at 6 p.m. at Theatre 99 while Caeti and Bills have two more. Thurs. at 9:30 and Saturday at 10 p.m. Get your tickets before they’re gone!
I'm the editor of the Charleston City Paper. I also co-own the paper with my husband Blair Barna and the publisher Noel Mermer. I could probably do a blog just about working with your spouse, but I'll spare you. Instead, I'll post random musings, political rants, foodie thoughts, and various other stuff that's relevant to the Charleston community.
Or maybe it will only be relevant to me.
