| Laurie Metcalf
Right out of college, she and a group of Chicago friends started Steppenwolf Theatre, which grew into one of America's most distinguished companies. (Her 20-minute monologue in Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead is an off-Broadway legend.) Later, she picked up a little sitcom called Roseanne, which rewrote the rules of television comedy with its unblinking look at blue collar life. Now Metcalf is exercising her gift for being up to the minute on Broadway, co-starring in David Mamet's new comedy November. It's a Mamet play unlike any other, with the structure of a classic comedy in the Kaufman & Hart vein but filled with scabrous jokes on such hot-button topics as the torture of prisoners, campaign fundraising, the Middle East and gay marriage. Nathan Lane stars as a U.S. President willing to shake down the national turkey lobby to save his faltering re-election campaign, with Metcalf as his lesbian speechwriter, who's not above a little blackmail to get married on national television.
At 30, Symphony Space Is in Fine Form
And when the curtain call came, they all returned to the stage. The staff's pride in the institution was evident at intermission, when a dozen employees walked up and down the aisles passing out glasses of Champagne to members of the audience more than 900 people. The co-founders of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller, then led a triumphant toast, acknowledging its executive director, Cynthia Elliott, and lifers on the staff, such as the education director, Madeline Cohen. The audience roared and clapped all evening. The "Selected Shorts," in which actors read short stories, were some of the best in the show. It's no wonder this series has become a nationally distributed public radio show. Roy Blount Jr. told of the wardrobe he once chose for hosting a "Selected Shorts" evening six different pairs of shorts.
willy waterton the sun times
With her comic Minnie Pearl bits, her fancy footwork and her 50,000-watt smile, it's easy to overlook how much music Linsey makes as part of this old-time country music variety show. Pianist Mel Aucoin, a regular with the Becketts in recent years, has more than four decades in the music business behind him, including a lengthy stint on the old Tommy Hunter show. He grew up in the thick of Cape Breton fiddle culture and has high praise for Tyler and Linsey and their place within the Ontario fiddle music continuum. "I'm out of breath when I'm watching those two," Aucoin said after Monday's first show. "They're as fine a fiddlers as you'll hear, wherever you go. They're as good as you're going to get. It doesn't get any better." Sometimes we forget that around these parts, where as Sun Times columnist Jim Merriam once wrote, "the first family of fiddling" is a Grey-Bruce treasure we tend to take for granted.
Columbia Business School and Parsons School of Design Students Develop ...
NEW YORK, Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- From forward-looking concepts for the Chanel shopping experience in 2012 to a luxury internet site for Bulgari, students from Columbia Business School and Parsons The New School of Design recently marked a semester-long seminar in which teams examined case studies to develop concepts for some of the world's leading luxury goods companies. The course, "Design and Marketing of Luxury Goods," featured projects for Faber-Castell, Lladro, LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics, and Saks Fifth Avenue, in addition to Bulgari and Chanel. The class functions as an incubator for new ideas for participating companies, not solely for product development but also for enhancing their customer base. This year's projects included increasing brand visibility in the U.S.
Art Deco tours show the various architectural styles of the era
Modern day South Beach is still a vibrant monument to the Art Deco designs of the late 1920s and '30s. The narrow streets are lined with hotels and buildings designed with curved edges, porthole windows and pastel-colored facades, all touchstones of the style. The Miami Design Preservation League is offering tours of the Art Deco district - guided, recorded and one that can even be done listening on a cell phone. On a recent sun-drenched morning, guide Erika Brigham, who has lived in the area since 1988, kicked off the tour with a lively talk about the architectural history of the neighborhood. She wore palm tree-shaped earrings, a gold-and-black speckled visor and a T-shirt promoting the annual weekend event celebrating Art Deco, which was scheduled this year for Jan.
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