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Performing Arts

Scrooge. Tiny Tim. Bah -- humbug! The words from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol hang in the frosty holiday air like our chilled breath. More than a century and a half after its publication in 1843, the story of the miser-turned-humanitarian remains a fixture in the tinsel-strewn landscape of the season.

Peter Ackroyd is the foremost living biographer of Dickens and chief literary critic of The Times of London. He also wrote the Foreword to the most recent Christmas gift book put out by Red Rock Press, A Christmas Dinner. Ackroyd weighs in on the enduring popularity of Dickens tale and its grizzled protagonist.

17 December, 2008 /

[Click the play button to hear]

Jeb Berrier is Robin Williams on skis: a deranged lunatic with exhibitionist leanings and talent to burn.

During the Christmas season, the actor/director likes to hang with a few of his close friends, fellow actors, and put on a holiday play at the historic Sheridan Opera House. In general, we are talking tour de farce.

Case in point, this years romp: Bob's Holiday Office Party.

Office Party is a lewd, crude alternative to standard holiday treacle such as Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.

Showtime is 8 p.m., December 18-22, at the Opera House.

In this irreverent, crude, fast-paced, ferociously funny production an insurance ace Bob Finhead (Jeb) prepares to host yet another annual holiday boozefest. His guests are his neighbors, the genetically challenged denizens of Neuterberg, Iowa, a paean to small-town America, where life happens. And all is not well.

17 December, 2008 /

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The Beats

Tonight, December 13, 7PM at the Sheridan Opera House the Rock And Roll Academy will be performing its Fifth Annual Winter Rock Concert. This year's show will feature nine all-kid bands ranging in age from six-years to eighteen years old. The line up includes:



13 December, 2008 /

Those who know her, know that Susan is a prolific writer. That has not changed. Plus, she has help now. A few of you may have noticed you were missing your email notifications of new material to read (called a "feed") from TI...O. We are so very glad that along the way, someone cared enough to point it out. For one thing, it helped alert us to an issue that we have now resolved, and for another, it meant that someone was out there paying attention!

12 December, 2008 /

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David Lingle

Around the world no holiday is more closely associated with music than Christmas. Locally it would not be Christmas without the Telluride Choral Society’s annual WinterSing. Along with Noel Nite and the Dance Academy’s “The Nutcracker,” the concert series signals tinsel time in toy town.

WinterSing continues this weekend on Friday, December 12, and next Tuesday, December 16, 7 p.m. at Christ Church.

There are songs that constitute the soundtrack of the season, evoking images of Jack Frost nipping our noses and kids listening to sleigh bells in the snow. Artistic director Dr. David Lingle chose not to include the all-time classic, Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” on his play list, but audiences will get to hear other seasonal chestnuts: “Sleigh Ride,”  “Joy to the World,” sung by local teen a cappella group Emanon, and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” by Camilla Gardner.

Lingle describes this seasonal sampler as an “eclectic mix of holiday favorites – and then some.”

11 December, 2008 /

In the face of the undeniable fact that year after year, town after town around the world thrills to the spectacle of a twinkling Christmas tree on growth hormones and a flurry of snow at the end of Act I that would cause Telluriders to call in sick in the morning, it is hard to believe “The Nutcracker” first opened under a cloud in 1892 at St. Petersburg Maryinsky Theatre.

11 December, 2008 /

CCL_reindeer-sleighpull1 Add comedy to the list of unsolved mysteries right after the Big Bang and black holes.

In the Woody Allen movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” one character describes what tickles our funny bones and wrinkles our noses as “tragedy plus time.”

Steve Martin famously described comedy as “what makes you laugh, but not puke.” He also said: “Comedy is not pretty.”

Check out the faces on the Opera House poster promoting the upcoming appearance of Chicago City Limits. The members of the comedy troupe are not pretty either. But they are widely regarded as very funny.

09 December, 2008 /

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Rebekah Diaddigo,
Sugar Plum Fairy

Thanks to the gift of memory, we make Nat “King” Cole rituals of the holidays. Folks dressed up like Eskimos build frosty snowmen. As chestnuts roast on an open fire, we sit squinched into a favorite armchair staring at presents piled high under a tree. Suddenly, magically, a little girl becomes a leggy pre-teen gawking at sugar plums dressed like fairy queens. In cities around the world,’tis the season of “The Nutcracker” ballet.

Locally, the Telluride Dance Academy, under the direction of artistic director/choreographer Valerie Madonia, is mounting its “Nutcracker” production this weekend at The Palm on Friday, December 12, 7 p.m. and on Sunday, December 14, 3 p.m.

The event features a large cast ranging in age from 3 – 50+, including local notables such as Jeb Berrier as the Rat King, Buff Hooper as Madam Bonbon, Ashley Boling as Uncle Drosselmeyer, the mysterious Merlin of a man, who has traveled the world gathering exotic gifts and stores beyond imagining. It is Drosselmeyer who gives Clara the present of a Nutcracker.

09 December, 2008 /