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IMGP1428 After a five-year hiatus, the Telluride Repertory Theatre at last was able to bring back Shakespeare in the Park. "Merchant of Venice" opened Saturday night. 7:30 p.m. on the Main Stage in Telluride Town Park. Performances continue Wednesday, August 25 – Sunday, August 29. (The performance on Saturday, August 28, however, is a 1 p.m. matinee.)

Local actor-turned-director Jeb Berrier's choice of "The Merchant of Venice" to relaunch one the REP's most popular series was a bit like deciding to run a marathon after an extended illness. The material in this dark comedy is challenging to say the least, dealing as it does with racial profiling in the person of Shylock, whom the Bard portrays in a somewhat grotesque, anti-Semitic caricature. Shakespeare, however, specializes in shades of gray, begging the question: Is Shylock meant to be victim or villain?
23 August, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Art Goodtimes' take on the Mushroom Festival]

IMG_5180 "The mushrooms have two strange properties: the one that they yield so delicious a meat; the other that they come up so hastily, as in a night, and yet they are unsown," Francis Bacon, "Naturall Histories," 1624.

Probably the best mushroom harvest in years has upped the ante for the 30th Annual Telluride Mushroom Festival, Aug. 26-29.

Wild mushrooms have always prompted wild debate, because they make great eats, but also can kill you. In some parts of the world – Telluride is one such address - mushrooms are prized for their culinary properties. But elsewhere on the map, mycophobes associate fungi with witches and serpents oh my.
22 August, 2010 /
As a school girl, Telluride local Barbel Hacke received only F’s in English class. It was only heartache, of Berlin Wall proportions, that sent her packing for America to find refuge with her friend, and fellow German, Elizabeth Gick.

27 Throughout Telluride’s history, this remote box canyon has served as a mecca for immigrants running from home, searching for riches or following follies. The place has been a magnet for those in search of adventure and a path less traveled.



19 August, 2010 /
[to hear Erin Neff's conversation with Susan, click "Play"]

And now for something completely different.

Cabaret ad costume party The 37th annual Telluride Chamber Music Festival meets "Cabaret." The event takes place Friday, August 20, 7:30 p.m. at the historic Sheridan Opera House. In keeping with the decadence of the period in Germany before the rise of Hitler, the evening begins with a champagne reception and ends with sweets. Guests are asked to come in costume, although Telluride chic works just fine for the aristos in the crowd.

The culture of Germany's Weimar Republic, 1918-1933, encompassed the political caricature of Otto Dix and George Grosz, the beginnings of the far-reaching Bauhaus movement in architecture and interior design and the decadent cabaret culture of Berlin, documented by Christopher Isherwood in "Goodbye to Berlin," the book that became the musical "Cabaret." Cabarets, concert halls and conservatories performed the atonal and modern music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Kurt Weill, like the other arts, declared decadent under the Reich.
18 August, 2010 /

by Lauren Metzger
Marketing & Exhibitions Manager
Ah Haa School for the Arts

IndianSummer_wilsonrange-386x0 Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. It brings to mind new clothes, crisp blank notebooks and an abundance of newly sharpened pencils. While school is part of my past (thank god) I am happy that the Ah Haa School for the Arts still supplies it's own fall adventures that allow me to grow creatively and not be graded on.

I know that when I go hiking and exploring in our amazing Telluride backyard, I bring my camera and try my damnedest to capture the scenes surrounding me. And I have to admit I fail miserably. This is not to say that my pictures don't capture the beauty but they sure don't capture the depth of the beauty and the majesty of the landscape. So, I am excited to say that National Geographic photographer Dave Edwards is back this fall to give me some tips in making a strong photograph. Capturing dynamic compositions, learning about light, subject content and artistic elements are sure to help me blow my friends and family away. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and if I can truly learn to capture where I live, I will hopefully leave people as speechless as I am taking the picture when they view the picture.

17 August, 2010 /

What's the point of hibernating, when the enemy is out there year 'round? The Telluride AIDS Benefit is no longer limiting its fundraising efforts to the end of February/early March. (TAB 2011 is scheduled for February 28 – March 5.) On August 13,...

16 August, 2010 /
[click "Play", Jeb Berrier speaks to Susan about "The Merchant of Venice"]

Merchant_poster The Telluride Repertory Theatre brings back the very popular Shakespeare in the Park series with one of the most controversial play's in the Bard's literature, the tragi-comedy "The Merchant of Venice." The pared-down-to-the-bones production, directed by Jeb Berrier, takes place Saturday August 21 and Sunday, August 22, then again Wednesday, August 25 – Sunday, August, 29, 7:30 p.m. on the Main Stage in Telluride Town Park. (The performance on Saturday, August 28, however, is a 1 p.m. matinee.)

Individuals (like Hitler, and that's a fact) and regimes (like the Nazis) seeking justification for hateful, sometimes murderous policies towards Jews turned to "The Merchant of Venice" and their good buddy Shakespeare. Is the play anti-Semitic? Did Shakespeare knowingly and intentionally write a play that disparaged Jews? Or, was he a writer and visionary whose brilliant mind transcended the prejudices of his age? It is important to remember that just as we are everyone and everything in our dreams, the Bard is famous for speaking through all his characters. Those who choose to believe in Shakespeare's transcendence turn to Shylock's great speech about humanity and revenge, Act 3, Scene1:
15 August, 2010 /
Bag it for August 17 Telluride local, actor-director Jeb Berrier is wrapped up like a Christo monument these days - figuratively and literally.

Berrier's most immediate concern is the upcoming Telluride Repertory Theatre's production of "The Merchant of Venice," his debut as a Shakespearian director. Shakespeare in the Park opens Saturday, August 22. 

But when we meet Jeb the Actor in "Bag It," he is covered from head to toe in plastic bags. Directed by Telluride local Suzan Beraza, "Bag It" begs the question, How worried should we be about everyday chemicals? The answer: big time. Jeb, "Bag It's" Everyman, takes the viewer on a tragi-comic journey that explains why.

15 August, 2010 /