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Performing Arts


 kicker: Chubby Checker & The Wild Cats are featured guests

Telluride's historic Sheridan Opera House kills two birds with one big event, celebrating New Year Eve and the 50th anniversary of the Twist. The December 31st gala features the one and only Chubby Checker, in person with the Wild Cats. Doors open @ 9 p.m. Chubby Checker performs @ 10:30 p.m.

In July 1960, a 19-year-old Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans in Spring Gulley, South Carolina) revolutionized pop dancing when he stepped on to the stage of New York's Rainbow Room and put his spin on '"The Twist," a song written and originally recorded by Hank Ballard just two years earlier that had never gotten traction.

15 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Jeb's serious (?) conversation with Susan]

 

Jeb & friend
Jeb & friend, KOTO LipSync

Even in a town as non-traditional as Telluride, there are still some sacred cows, rather hams. And turkeys. We are talking about Christmas dinner, with sides of cranberry sauce and mince meat pies. Except in Tuna, Texas, where tuna is "the feast of choice."

Sunday, December 19 – Wednesday, December 22, Jeb Berrier and his Second Stage Productions – Berrier, Buff Hooper, Bubba Lee Schill, Kelsey Patterson – host an evening of holiday fun at the Sheridan Opera House with their adaptation of "A Tuna Christmas."

"A Tuna Christmas" is the second in a series of satires on Southern life and attitudes set in the fictional town of Tuna, Texas, "the third smallest town" in the state.

14 December, 2010 /

Trailblazers+Sam, 2010
Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers,
plus Sam Bush, TBF 2010

It's always exciting to see the preliminary lineup for the coming year's Telluride Bluegrass Festival. As we go through the list we look for favorites returning, and performers we don't know so well making the list, maybe for the first time.

This year's early release is no different. Brian Eyster of Planet Bluegrass cautions that there will be additions to the list, but this is the TBF lineup as we know it now. Got your tickets yet?

11 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Paul DiStefano's conversation with Susan

 

 

kicker: Ames Conservatory's big production takes place this weekend, 12/10 – 12/12

Polar Homeboy Paul DiStefano is a Telluride success story:  He grew up in Telluride, became a street magician and is now poised to become a dancer on the world stage.

In September 2009, Paul showed up at the Telluride Dance Academy, now the Ames Conservatory. His idea was take classes with former prima ballerina and artistic director Valerie Madonia. Within six months of intense study, pedal to the metal (or toes to the boards), Madonia felt confident enough in Paul's emerging talent to recommend him for an audition at the Joffrey School of New York, where Valerie regularly taught.

10 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Mark Galbo's conversation with Susan]

 

What Now?!? Telluride local Mark Galbo is an innovative educator and a leading voice in contemporary music education. His unconventionally relaxed and spontaneous approach to teaching has endeared him to thousands of students across the country. But especially in the Telluride region.

See on why Saturday night, December 11, when nine all-kid bands, 45 kids aged 7 – 18,  take the stage of the Sheridan Opera House to perform material from Green Day to Taio Cruz, from the Beatles to Bad Company. The event also features a collaboration between the Rock and Roll Academy and the Telluride Karate Studio in a first of its kind choreographed rock and roll martial arts demonstration.

09 December, 2010 /

Polar kicker: Theatrical dance event features exclusive guest appearance by Ted Keegan of Broadway's "Phantom of the Opera."

Yes, you read the headline correctly. The Telluride Dance Academy is not serving up the usual Christmas diet of sugarplums. I am saying Telluride is not succumbing to the tweeness that afflicts the rest of America and mounting yet another production of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker."

What's more, there is no longer a Telluride Dance Academy.

Next thing you know, I'll be saying there is no Santa Claus.

Which is what the little boy in another Christmas classic, Chris Van Allsburg's "The Polar Express" was starting to believe.

This coming weekend, Friday – Sunday, December 10 – December 12, at Telluride's Palm Theatre, the brand new Ames Conservatory presents its inaugural holiday production: "The Polar Express."

08 December, 2010 /

[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Rhonda Muckerman]

 

Darkness-to-Light The thought of it makes some people quake in anticipation and others shiver with angst and cold. Whichever your camp, in Telluride, all over America, you own it. In this country, Christmas belongs to everyone, not just Christians who celebrate the birth stories about Christ, but also Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, even atheists.

The secular holiday is Chipmunks and Charlie Brown, Grinches and Scrooges. It is Rudolph and giant conifers, baked ham and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and one too many tipples of eggnog. The holiday season is classic movies such as “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street.” But most of all, Christmas is music. Perhaps no other holiday in the world is more closely associated with music than Christmas. Locally, Christmas music means the Telluride Choral Society's WinterSing, one of the premier opening events of the holiday season.

The Telluride Choral Society is under the able direction of Rhonda Muckerman.

07 December, 2010 /

[click "Play" to hear R.J. Rubadeau's conversation with Susan]

 

Gatsby_CVRdj_front_300 Telluride local Bob Rubadeau is familiar with launches. He is, after all, a major league ocean sailor, a Cape Horn veteran. But Rubadeau is also an author of both fiction and non-fiction works of contemporary literature. This time we are talking books – or book – not boats.

On Tuesday, December 7,  6 p.m., in the Program Room of the five-star Wilkinson Public Library, Bob finally shows his hand, revealing the final chapters in his protagonist Wit Thorpe's trials to find the real killer in his latest novel: Gatsby's Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery. Seems Wit, a Telluride native and the local Peeping Tom for hire, has been charged with 1st degree murder of a quick succession of victims, all linked as major shareholders in an attempt to acquire the Valley Floor. And despite what the local Sheriff may think – he describes Wit as "our own Ted Bundy" –  Wit admits that he "probably didn't do it."

Rubadeau's readers across the country have tracked Wit closely over a nine-month publishing odyssey in part on Telluride Inside... and Out, a key partner in the author's premier Community Publishing 101 project. Other partners include the Wilkinson Library, Between the Covers Bookstore, The Telluride Writers Guild, and Beacon Hill Publishers. The latest addition to this stellar lineup is artist Roger Mason, who donated the cover art.

06 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear vintage Roger Mason on painting and book covers]

 

Gatsby_CVRdj_front_300 If you live in the R-1 school district, you know the name "Rubadeau." But I am not talking about her. I am talking about him. After a nine month publishing odyssey tracked closely by Telluride Inside... and Out, author Bob Rubadeau just completed his latest mystery, Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery. And the author picked the work of another Telluride celebrity, Roger Mason, for the cover art.

On Tuesday, December 7, 6 p.m. in the Program Room of the Wilkinson Public Library the final chapters in Wit Thorpe’s trials to find the real killer will be unveiled - along with Mason's deliciously dark image.

04 December, 2010 /

 Jen Julia, director of Telluride's Sheridan Arts Foundation's Young People's Theatre is one twisted sister– and that's a good thing. Generally speaking, when it comes to adapting chestnuts for her actors, Jen goes her own way. This time, she is following the crowd. Sort of...

Take Disney's latest (the 50th) animation,"Tangled," the story of Rapunzel, about an exiled princess who has never been to a hairdresser. In this version, the girl has been shut up in a castle by the evilest of evil stepmoms in the Disney pantheon, Mother Gothel, because her golden hair has the power to heal wounds, cure disease and reverse the aging process. (Hmm, hair as Botox.) Throw Pixar's bravura effects into the mix and voila, everything old is brand spanking new.

02 December, 2010 /