Category Archives: Special Events
Reporting from the other side
Is it over?
For the first time in three weeks, a day in my Google Calendar is completely, utterly empty. There’s nothing there but the date – June 11 – and a blank expanse of white space. My brain is fried, my innards are pickled, my back is killing me, and my culture tank is fully [...]
The end is near
This would seem to be it.
Yesterday’s Piccolo Finale was a sweat-soaked circus of blanketed picnickers who tried bravely to ignore the heat, but they may as well have tried to ignore the pull of gravity. Ninety-six degrees hung over Hampton Park like Hell’s own furnace turned on us, and in the end even the lure [...]
Throwing stones in Glass houses
Ninety-six degrees out there and rising. If we didn’t have calendars, that number alone would tell us the festival is drawing to a close and throwing open the door to the dog days of summer. There’s just about 28 hours left in Spoleto Festival 2007 – which means it’s not over yet for this Spoleto [...]
Philip Glass ‘Conversations With’ venue change
Both of the two performances of Philip Glass’ Book of Longing in the 800-seat Sottile Theatre have been completely sold out to date. For a composer people seem to love to hate, that’s pretty impressive. I’ve just received word from Spoleto that his Conversations With appearance scheduled for today at 5pm has generated such a [...]
Hotter than Dutch love
The twenty-something hipster quotient at Friday’s Spoleto Soiree was off the charts and into another realm altogether. You could have powered a small city for a week on the sexual energy crackling around the Gaillard Exhibition Hall, fueled by several open bars, pulse-punding ung-cha-ung-cha from a DJ in the corner, enough liquor to fill the [...]
CBT brings Angel Oak gig home
Second rain casualty: Charleston Ballet Theatre’s two performances with chanteuse Christine Kain that were to have taken place at Angel Oak on John’s Island this afternoon have been rescheduled for tomorrow at 1:30pm and 4pm at the dance company’s studio at 477 King St. Choreographer Jill Bahr says the company will be honoring all [...]
But wait, there’s more!
With the openings of Shen Wei Dance Arts and Major Bang in the rear-view mirror (I caught only the latter of those two last night; I’ll see Shen Wei tomorrow night), the Big Festival is plowing through its slate of yet-to-be-seen productions and turning them into continuing-through productions. On tonight’s docket: the opening of medEia, [...]
Music man
Thursday morning’s tribute concert to Gian Carlo Menotti played to a Sottile Theatre that was stuffed to the exit signs with memorializers and, let’s be frank, those who didn’t care much about Menotti one way or the other but were only too happy to take in a free concert by the SFO. I’d wager that [...]
New York Times on the local arts beat
There’s a new Spoleto blogger on the scene, at least for the moment: New York Times arts reporter James R. Oestreich, posting yesterday evening at 9pm on the Times’ new Arts Beat blog. In the past year, the Times has rolled out a seemingly endless series of blogs administered by staff writers and reporters. One [...]
Getting forensic on Spoleto 2007
The 31st Spoleto Festival USA is officially in the past tense. It’s now time to get forensic on the thing. But that’s less easy than it sounds. Part of the difficulty in summing up the festival after the fact lies in its nature; as Mayor Riley noted during the mid-festival tribute to founder Gian Carlo [...]