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[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Jennie Franks]

People like secrets. Knowing them makes us feel important, even powerful. Here's one: the Telluride Playwrights Festival. Like the Telluride Musicfest, the Telluride Playwrights Festival is one of the best kept secrets on Telluride's summer cultural calendar –  despite the fact both events feature blue chip talent and reinforce the Telluride brand on world stage.

Last year, for example, the Telluride Playwrights Festival presented a play by Jan Buttram. Her "Phantom Killer” went on to get produced at the Abingdon Theatre in New York City this past February and received great reviews. Another Playwrights Festival alum, Tracy Shaffer, will see her Telluride script, "(W)Hole," go up in Denver this fall. Given the track record, it is a safe bet the  scripts written by this year's crop of carefully vetted playwrights – Philip Gerson, James Still and James McLindon, each highly regarded in the fields of theater and television – will meet with similar success. The best part: You can say you knew them when.
06 July, 2010 /

In addition to the 3 films already scheduled for tonight's Montainfilm in Telluride fundraiser, there is screening of "Bag It", all the stuff about plastics we have conveniently ignored. The program at Telluride's Historic Sheridan Opera House includes "Making the Crooked Straight", "Alone on the...

05 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Susan's interview with Jim Riley]

Sunset Show Summer traffic in the Telluride region is generally concentrated in our box canyon: the town of Telluride is central ops for all the major festivals, which tend, however, to concentrate their activities over long weekends. Mid-week the action shifts "uptown" to Telluride's sister town, the Mountain Village, where every summer Wednesday night, 6 p.m. rain or shine, the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association presents the Summer Concert Series.

In its 11th year, the popular program draws on average 1,500 – 2,000 music lovers to the grassy slope known as Sunset Plaza at the top of the Chondala (Lift 1), where everyone seems to enjoy an opportunity to catch up with one another as much as revel in the sounds.
05 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Susan's conversation with Dr. Cohen]

Mark-cohen-skull-02 Like the Telluride Musicfest  (just over) and the Telluride Playwrights Festival (ongoing this week through July 13) the Telluride Science Research Center (TSRC) is another of the towns well-kept secrets, despite the stature of the participants. The Research Center's mission: to inspire substantive scientific inquiry, breakthroughs, and discoveries by hosting scientific meetings in an open environment conducive to productive collaboration and positive contributions to research, policy, and education. To those ends, TSRC has provided meeting services for top scientists, who have met in the Telluride region every summer since 1984.

The Pinhead Institute, dedicated to teaching young people and adults bio-literacy, and TSRC collaborate from time to time, for example, to present Tuesday night Town Talks, 6 – 7:15 p.m., a program in its eighth year.
04 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Greg LaRock's interview with Susan]

LaRock, Greg - Eight O'Clock Alley - 8 bit The Sheridan Arts Foundation's Telluride Plein Air is a robust weekend of fine art and music, culminating over the Fourth of July weekend starting July 2 with a Quick Draw and Sale, 10:30 am – 12 p.m.; the Oak Street Park gala premiere and silent auction,  5 – 8 p.m. and  gala concert featuring Janis Joplin's original band, Big Brother & the Holding Company, 8 p.m. (The sale of works by Telluride Plein Air artists continues throughout the weekend, interrupted only by the Fourth of July parade, 11 –  noon.)

Telluride Plein Air traces its lineage across the pond to the end of the 19th century.
02 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Susan's podcast with David Brankley]

The BeanMountainfilm Telluride celebrates the First Thursday of every month with the Telluride Council's for the Arts & Humanities' ArtWalk, a meet-and-greet on the street to experience the town's fine art and retail scene. (Stores stay open late until 8 p.m.) All participating venues are on or within walking distance of Main Street. For a list of what's going on where, go to www.telluridearts.org.


For the July ArtWalk, the spotlight is on artist David Brankley, whose concise, compelling paintings are on display at The Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities'  Stronghouse Studios, 283 South Fir (one block south of the Village Market). The artist's reception is from 5 – 8 p.m.
01 July, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Lucy Boody's conversation with Susan]

Lucyboody Amy Jean Boebel is on a roll. All summer long the owner of Sapsucker Studios, 299 Sputh Spruce, is displaying the work of remarkable women like herself. In June, it was Ally Crilly's elephants. In July, it is Lucy Boody's scarf art, the artist's first one-woman show.

Lucy Boody was once upon a time the Town of Telluride's dogcatcher, a job she "co-chaired" with Michael Saftler. But there is a little more to her story than jailing our furry friends.

01 July, 2010 /

Princeofpersia_smallposter Thesecretofkells_smallposter For the week of Friday, July 2 through Thursday, July 8 Telluride's Nugget Theatre is presenting two movies, "The Secret of Kells" and "Prince of Persia."

"The Secret of Kells" was nominated for an Oscar as Best Animated Feature. We have come to think of animation as a 3D concept, but properly done, flat drawings can engage at least as well as the "Transformer" variety. From the trailers, I would say that "Kells" does that. The art work is beautiful: Remember "The Man Who Planted Trees"? That movie was what I thought of when I watched the clips of "The Secret of Kells." The story is about a young Irish monk and a magical book, a hero's quest, and is rated PG.

Another hero's quest, a magical dagger, a rogue prince, a mysterious princess (always about to be kissed), the sands of time: "Prince of Persia" promises plently of action, a fair amount of violence, and is rated PG13. Your Gameboy playing 14 year old will probably love it.

See the Nugget website for trailers and reviews, and below for showtimes.

01 July, 2010 /
[to hear BBHC's Sam Andrew talking to Susan, click "Play"]

BBHCoriginalnologos Telluride's Sheridan Opera House welcomes Janis Joplin's original band to town. Big Brother & The Holding Company are performing live concert at the historic venue on Friday, July 2. Show time is 8 p.m. Doors and box office, 7:30 p.m. (Stop by the Sheridan Opera House courtyard from 5-8pm just prior to the show for a free Gala Premiere and Silent Auction, featuring paintings created by artists attending Telluride Plein Air’s 7th Annual Celebration of Outdoor Painting.  Complementary wine sampling and snacks provided.)

Janis Joplin brought her big, bad, bluesy voice from the red dirt of Texas to San Francisco, when "The Haight" was the heart of the drugs, sex and rock 'n roll flower child days of the 1960s. Virtually overnight, thanks to a man named Chet Helms, she went from drifter to a superstar universally described as "the greatest white urban blues and soul singer of her generation." That is, thanks to Helms and the band he managed, Big Brother & The Holding Company, which became Joplin's surrogate family.
30 June, 2010 /