Comedian, author, actor LEWIS BLACK is scheduled to perform at Louisville's Brown Theatre on February 26. Tickets are currently on sale via The Kentucky Center box office.
As reported via News-Leader.com:
Comedian Lewis Black, known for ranting about his frustrations on topics from politics to religion, is coming to Springfield this weekend.
Black isn’t known only for his live stand-up but also for his work on Comedy Central, “The Root of All Evil” and a segment on “The Daily Show” called “Back in Black.”
Lewis said he thinks most people enjoy his show because they, too, are frustrated with the things he rants about.
“People are frustrated, and that frustration has been going on since I started on the road 20 years ago. Generally, they get a kick out of how frustrated I am.”
People don’t get as angered by his routine as you might think, Black said.
“Those who come to the shows have seen me and have some sense of me,” Black said. “Sometimes though I will say something and they get upset, but most of them get it. The people who don’t like me don’t come see me; they just avoid me.” Read more...
As reported by Elizabeth Kramer in the Courier-Journal, January 29:
Since it was founded in 1994, Complexions Contemporary Dance has been a crowd-pleaser with its mix of classical ballet and modern dance influences, as well as its dancers, often noted for their muscularity.
Desmond Richardson
The company’s repertoire springs from the choreographic vision of its co-founders, choreographer Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson, the company’s primary dancer and Rhoden’s muse.
Desmond Richarson, Debbie Allen, Dwight Rhoden (photo credit: Exposay.com)
Complexions performs one-night only at Louisville's Brown Theatre on Friday, February 3. Tickets start at $25. Ticketing & Details...
The two met while dancing in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and worked with the company’s founder and legendary choreographer before his death in 1989. Rhoden joined the company first, with Richardson following a year later.
“Immediately, Alvin put us together because we’re pretty much polar opposites — him with his clean, classical lines and me with my raw qualities and panther-like movements,” Richardson recalled in a telephone interview.
Soon afterward, Richardson became enthralled by some of the choreography that Rhoden was trying out on other company members during nonworking hours. Then Richardson started working with Rhoden to flesh out the budding choreographer’s ideas.
“The minute that I actually began any of his movement I just felt an extreme kinship with it,” Richardson said.
In 1992, Rhoden got the chance to put his work featuring Richardson on stage when Judith Jamison, Ailey’s successor as the company’s artistic director, commissioned the choreographer to create the “Frames.”
Not long after, the two left the company to create Complexions to investigate different genres of dance with dancers from diverse backgrounds. The diversity is exemplified in part by Richardson, who didn’t set out to become a contemporary dancer. His roots are in hip-hop.
“I got into the whole thing because my (hip-hop) coach at the time said, ‘You should take some dance classes,’ ” he said. “So I did and I got into the High School for the Performing Arts school and they trained me.”
Richardson received further training when he joined Ailey’s company and later worked to learn more classical dance in Germany. Since then, Richardson, who some critics have hailed as a “virtuoso,” has been the star dancer of Complexions. Read more...
Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt are scheduled to perform at Louisville's Brown Theatre on March 11. Tickets go on sale to the public Friday, January 27 at 10 a.m. via The Kentucky Center box office. Ticketing information...
As reported in the upcoming February issue of ESQUIRE:
LYLE LOVETT "WHAT I'VE LEARNED"
A man doesn't wear a red cowboy hat.
I don't know what it is about the shower that generates creative thoughts. Maybe it's the hot water. Maybe it's being unencumbered even by the restriction of clothing.
Sometimes when your parents come up the hard way, they expect you to come up the hard way, too. But my parents gave me every opportunity. Much to my chagrin, I was the only boy in tap and ballet class when I was four years old.
If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem and you're screwed.
Success is getting to do what you love to do.
It's the inspiration and excitement that you get from being amazed when you give a vague direction to a guitar player like Dean Parks — "Make it sound a little more purple" — and then hear him play exactly the right thing.
The better your bandmates, the better you're going to look.
I got into a significant scrape with a bull of mine. My leg was broken. Really, it's a miracle I can walk. That bull was just doing what he does naturally. I learned to keep my guard up and allow him to be himself. That's my definition of respect.
You have to be really good to get away with smashing a guitar.
I've always thought that writing isn't really that hard. It's having a good idea that's hard.
You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common.
I joke that I've never been burdened by having an actual hit. There's something to that. My records have sold enough to make the record company money to help me keep my job. But I've never had anything so firmly ingrained in the mind of the public that I'm expected to repeat it.
Rosemary Clooney once came up to me in the lobby of the Four Seasons in San Francisco. This was back in the late eighties. She said, "I like your music." Oh, man, that makes you feel good. It makes you want to try so much harder. It makes you want to never let Rosemary Clooney down. Ever. Makes you want to make sure that she's right.
When I was a kid, I watched The Mike Douglas Show after school one day. Buck Owens was the guest. Mike was asking Buck about his songwriting. The familiar questions: What comes first — the music or the words? Do you write it down as soon as it comes to you? Buck said: "No. I never write anything down. I figure if it's good enough, I'll remember it." And that has always stuck with me.
Do I hear music in wine? Depends on how much I drink.
Jack Valenti was one of the most amazing speakers I ever heard. He spoke in paragraphs. Every sentence was beautifully tailored. Exactly what you'd like to do with your hats, shirts, and shoes.
If someone gives you a belt buckle, it's like a piece of jewelry. It has the same sort of emotional significance. It would be something you would intend to keep forever.
On matters of the heart, one's reason can be affected in ways that just can't happen in any other circumstance. The same sort of thought you might be able to apply in one area of your life you just cannot access from any functioning part of your brain. It's completely unavailable to you. Which is sort of what's wonderful about it.
I'd like to have kids. I'm still hopeful.
Kids should never feel unsafe. Maybe demonized by one another, and humiliated, all that great high school stuff that you live through. But they should never have to fear for their safety.
A record company doesn't keep you for vanity or because they like you. They keep you because you make them money. They might take you to lunch if they like you.
The concept on training a horse is pressure and release. Make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy. Put pressure on an animal until it does the thing that you want it to do, then take the pressure off. Whatever the animal's doing when you take off pressure is what he learns to do.
Here's a question for you: Is it possible to be religious without being judgmental about other people's religions?
I've never been ready to do a single thing I've ever done in my life. I haven't been prepared enough, haven't studied enough, haven't known enough. You can never be ready. There's just so much to know.
Everything informs us about everything else, doesn't it?
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/lyle-lovett-quotes-0212#ixzz1kb8qG5jH
This performance goes on sale to the general public Friday, January 27, at 10 a.m. through The Kentucky Center box office and website.
WFPK Presents
An Acoustic Evening with
LYLE LOVETT and JOHN HIATT
Sunday, March 11, 7 p.m.
Brown Theatre on Broadway
For fans of: John Prine, Tom Waits, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Ray Lamontagne...
Video: Lovett, "Nobody Knows Me"
Video: Hiatt, "The Open Road"
In the last 20 years, LYLE LOVETT has managed to attract a cult-like following while working outside of any specific genre of music. An intelligent, elegant and somewhat detached performer, Lovett masterfully serves up multi-layered songs that hold audiences spellbound, watching and waiting for the arch of his brow or the shrug of a shoulder, a sign that precedes his delivery of the emotional depth-charge at the heart of each carefully crafted tune. The Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and actor has a new recording – RELEASE ME – scheduled to drop in February 2012.
One of America’s most prolific songwriters, JOHN HIATT bristles with raw energy…the need to communicate with his audience written boldly in every line on his face. Lover, fighter, rabble-rouser, Hiatt takes these roles on willingly in songs that agitate, educate, and ultimately liberate his listeners. His most recent release – DIRTY JEANS AND MUDSLIDE HYMNS (2011) - pairs themes of hard times, devotion and desperation with blistering Blues guitar riffs.
Standard Tickets: Prices start at $45, reserved seating, fees apply. Standard tickets are available at http://www.kentuckycenter.org/, by phone (502.584.7777, 502.562.0730 TTY), and in-person at The Kentucky Center box office.
View Access Services available for this performance. To insure the best seating location, please make your Access Services reservations at the time of ticket purchase.
"Thank You" to our Partners! Sponsored by WFPK 91.9 FM.
Here's a handful of stories about artists who will be performing soon at The Kentucky Center and Brown Theatre in Louisville, KY.
Review: Mike Birbiglia's new film version of "Sleepwalk With Me"
From The Huffiington Post, reviewer describes the film adaptation of Birbiglia's award-winning show as "candid, heartbreaking, and most importantly, extremlely funny throughout."
Mike brings his new one-man show "My Girlfriend's Boyfriend" to Louisville's Brown Theatre on February 4. Tickets start at $27.50.
Bonnie Raitt prepares to release new recording after 7-year hiatus
As reported in Rolling Stone, Raitt will release SLIPSTREAM in April on her new Redwing record label. Raitt took a break from performing following the deaths of her parents, brother and best friend. Stay tuned for news regarding Bonnie performing in Louisville.
Review: Lyle Lovett, "Release Me"
BlogCritics.org reports "Lyle Lovett is always versatile and entertaining, and an expert singer/storyteller. On his upcoming recording, Release Me, he delivers unique, enjoyable songs as always, ranging from bluegrass to Texas swing to blues, jazz, and gospel, all with his own unmistakeable touch. This release is particularly significant, as it represents Lovett's final work with Curb Records, his label since his debut in 1985. He finishes his stint with the label as he started, with quality work from beginning to end." Read more...
Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt will perform together at Louisville's Brown Theatre on March 11. Tickets go on sale to the public this Friday, January 27 at The Kentucky Center box office: www.kentuckycenter.org, (502) 584-7777, (502) 562-0730 TTY.
As reported by Erin Day on Louisville.com, article - http://www.louisville.com/content/kentucky-native-alecia-whitaker-promotes-her-new-novel-carmichael%E2%80%99s-bookstore-books
I believe there few people on this Earth who look back with a sincere fondness for their adolescence. For any creature, that uncomfortable halocline between childhood and maturity is filled with its own special potion of traps and confusion that lead many of the smartest animals into a frenzy of bad poetry and ill-fitting clothing. For late-bloomers such as myself, the awkward process – oh, let’s call it a dance – of cultivating those first buds of our adult selves is something with which I can still greatly empathize, the last vestiges of a younger me having only recently met their end at my local Goodwill. It is with a kindred spirit, then, that I promote Carmichael’s event with native Kentuckian and young-adult novelist, Alecia Whitaker.
Originally hailing from a small farm in Cynthiana, Kentucky, Alecia Whitaker now daylights as an actress and writer in Manhattan. With performances in the New York City Fringe Festival and as an acting ambassador for The Kentucky Center Governor’s School for the Arts, Whitaker has made the transition from small town to big city a seemingly easier task than for the protagonist of her new novel, The Queen of Kentucky. Set in a small rural community of Kentucky, the coming-of-age tale follows the adolescent trials of 14-year-old Ricki Jo as she struggles to find her sense of self somewhere between her rural roots and her aspirations of “sophistication”.
Join Whitaker Friday, January 13th at the Carmichael’s Bookstore Frankfort Avenue location for an event launching The Queen of Kentucky. Starting at 7pm, Whitaker will present her book in all glorious and youthful woes and will be available for discussion. Now on sale in hardcover for $17.99, pick up a copy of Queen and kick off your weekend with a grateful look back into the yesteryears of self-discovery.
Carmichael’s Bookstore has two area locations: 1295 Bardstown Road and 2720 Frankfort Avenue
For more information about Alecia Whitaker and The Queen of Kentucky visit the event page or call the Frankfort Avenue store at 502-896-6950
Please join us at the MeX for our 3rd installment of the new Artist Conversation series!
After over a decade of producing Dracula yearly, Actors Theatre was ready to pull the plug on the outdated script, one which had been tinkered with and rearranged, but never really suited its long time director Bill McNulty. Though he had never written a full length play before, McNulty undertook the task of drafting a new adaptation of the classic story in just 10 days, drawing on the former script and the novel, as well as his own interpretation of the horror genre in which it fits.
Join us Monday January 30th to talk about what it’s like to tell this story year after year, how his production has changed, scaring busloads of Kentuckiana children, and why Van Helsing talks so much.
Adaptation: Developing Dracula
with Bill McNulty
Prominent Louisville actor and member of the Resident Company at Actors Theatre Bill McNulty has played many roles in the evolution of its seasonal spectacle Dracula. As an actor, director, and ultimately adapter of the classic Bram Stoker novel, Mr. McNulty will shed light on the creative process that has led to the much loved thrill ride’s current incarnation.
Barrett Cooper of the Savage Rose Classical Theater Company recently understudied Mr. McNulty’s role in the show and will be interviewing him.
Monday, January 30th @ 7:30 PM in the MeX Theater
Tickets go onsale Monday, Jan 16th
$8, $5 for students w/ ID
Available at the door and from the Kentucky Center Box Office, or by calling (502) 584-7777 or 1-800-775-7777.
Click here for more information about events like this in the Mex Initiative series.
