Personalities

IMG_0714 IMG_0713 Telluride is hosting around 250 airline personnel, members of the North American Airline Ski Federation (NAASF)  this week, March 28- April 2. Telluride Inside... and Out spoke last week with Telluride coordinator Demian Brooks who provided an event overview. Dem is a pilot with Delta Airlines and a Telluride local. The schedule for the week included race training, races for both experienced (A Racers) and newby racers (B Racers), parties, barbeques, dinners, and connections with old friends.

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Tracy Shaffer as Mrs. Robinson

by Tracy Shaffer

After a prolonged "heartbreak hiatus," I really felt no need to step back onto the stage. The slow slide of a dramatic divorce, sudden shock of single motherhood, and a stairway fall that took my brother’s life were enough to send me to my room. Though life in general was good, I was not ready to step that far out on a ledge, so to speak, and act again.

Long before the sideways years, I’d fallen out of love… or so I thought: 25 years in the spotlight had left its mark. I was tired of having to be given "permission" by the casting process in order to create. I loved the times when I was "first" but exhausted by the times being "second." “Lift yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again” sounded like heavy lifting where acting was concerned. I chose instead to let this deeply defining part of me go.

A day at the office Phillip Brooks with Dad Telluride is justly known for it's "interesting" skiing and I certainly enjoy that aspect of the mountain. Perhaps less well-known is the fact that Telluride is also a friendly, family, meet friends...

[click "Play" for Rhonda's DOERS conversation with Susan]

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Rhonda and daughter Ellen

An inspired musician and teacher named John Yankee was the driving force behind, and first director of the Telluride Choral Society in 1995. Yankee created a community within a community for both kids and adults, and developed the ever popular "Sings." When Yankee left in 2002, Dr. David Lingle stepped into those large boots, leaving his distinct imprint on Telluride's sonic landscape: Masterworks, musicals with the Telluride Repertory Theatre, collaborations with the Telluride Dance Academy. Now Lingle has left town, heading for red dirt country and another chorus to lead. Taking up his baton, the Telluride Choral Society's first woman director, Doer #366: Rhonda Muckerman.


Rhonda was on a Grail quest to find her spiritual family, when she moved to Telluride – a place she saw in a dream, but had never heard of – right around the time Yankee & Friends founded the Telluride Choral Society. She pulled into town one balmy July day. Lots of people were milling around Main Street and a film by Almodovar was playing at The Nugget. A foreign film in a pea-sized town? Promising. A meeting with Telluride Choral Society member/ music teacher Ulli Sir Jesse sealed the deal. After a brief trip back to Seattle where she had been teaching music, Rhonda returned in August and had 25 students within a month. In short order, she also met her husband-to-be, Peter Muckerman, at a meditation class, an event two psychics in San Diego predicted would happen: "There's a man and a little boy waiting for you." (Muckerman has a son Elliot.) Kismet in 3-D.
[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Megan Rood]

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Megan Rood

Telluride's San Miguel Resource Center presents an Artists' Showcase & Open Mic Night, part of the continuing celebration of International Women's Day and Telluride's homegrown Phenomenal Woman's Week. The event takes place Thursday evening, March 11,  6– 8 p.m. at Tellurie's Ah Haa School for the Arts.


The suffragettes. Their names come back to us in waves, like way distant echoes. Even the name Betty Freidan, the woman who presided over the birth of modern feminism, resonates like some fire-breathing dragon of yore, which she was, in a way. Freidan's compatriots and love children, Gremaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Wendy Shalit, Katie Roiphe, Naomi Wolf, and Susan Faludi all paved the way, but still, women continue to struggle to find the ideal mix between feminism and femininity. Except perhaps in Shangri-Las like Telluride, where no one has a problem with women having it both ways. In Telluride, we paint our nails and break them too. In Telluride, where women run companies and mountain trails, a poet is a mom, a singer, and helps run a family orchard; KOTO's musical director writes music herself and plays a flaming guitar;  and a gallery director moonlights as a lead singer in an all-women's rock and roll band (with the music director).
[click "Play" to hear Jon Turk's conversation with Susan]

Jon Turk On Wednesday, March 3, starting at 6 p.m., Telluride's Wilkinson Public Library hosts two back to back writing events chock-a-block with thrills and spills. Promise.


Program One, a joint venture between the Library and Between the Covers bookstore, features author/scientist/adventurer Jon Turk, who plans to read from his latest book, "The Raven's Gift."
[click "Play" to hear Scott Grossman speak about his direction of the TAB Fashion Show]

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Scott Grossman

It's the pitch perfect tribute, Robert Presley to a "T": "Out of Your Comfort Zone/Step Out of the Box," director Scott Grossman's theme for the 2010 Telluride AIDS Benefit no-holds-barred fashion show. The annual event takes place at the Telluride Conference Center in the Mountain Village, Thursday, February 25 for the Sneak Peak and Saturday, February 27, for the super nova explosion. Doors, 7 p.m. Show time, 8 p.m.

Outrageous. In your face. Fearless. Talented, Funny. Smart. Generous. Those are just a few of the words Presley's friends used to describe the man who inspired the AIDS awareness event and major bash that manages to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for HIV/AIDS interventions and prevention education around the globe.

[click "Play" to listen to Judy Shepard's conversation with Susan]

10521 It's been a long trip over bumpy roads for the woman who was once a stay-at-home mom and sometimes substitute teacher who enjoyed a game of card with friends. Today her presence in Telluride brings greater urgency to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and hope to the gay nation.


International spokesperson, activist and executive director of the non-profit that bears her son's name, Judy Shepard is everywhere you want to be during Gay Ski Week in Telluride.



It's looking like deja vu at The Peaks Hotel & Spa in Telluride's sister town, The Mountain Village. And that's a good thing.

Way back when The Peaks was Telluride Inside... and Out's next door neighbor, the joint was always jumping. The Peaks' Great Room was a go-to place for locals to meet apres-ski, a hang-out where conversation and drinks flowed unedited and friends applauded friends providing first-rate nightly entertainment. Then the bubble burst way before the bubble burst. Now it's all coming back, ahead of the curve – again.