The Lyric Theatre Blog

I just saw THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS at the Lyric.  Monty Python with shades of Heironymous Bosch, Salvador Dali and a touch of Goethe done in a rich tapestry of animation.  A very interesting movie! Terry Gilliam’s work from Monty Python clearly is the high point of this movie, although it is much darker than  his work in the past.  The policemen’s chorus, for example, is much like “I’m a Lumberjack.”  The head popping through the earth and having a road come out his mouth, the driver popping out of the woman’s head after it is taken off her body, and the animated landscapes are pure Monty Python but he adds touches of Salvador Dali and Hieronymous Bosch to spice up the tapestry of facades.  The bets with Satan and the trickery add a darkness to the movie, since Dr. P’s daughter is the ultimate prize after youth and longevity/immortality run their courses.  I don’t know if I would recommend this movie to just anyone but it is a movie that, 10 years from now, you will say “I saw that at the Lyric.”

I am interested in hearing what people thought were the best in movies and live events at the Lyric over the past year and 10 years.  We have a FaceBook group - Lyric Blacksburg Best Events Ever - or you can post them here.  Let us hear what you liked and what programming you’d like to see.  We are facing a possible huge budget cut on the coming year, so it can help us program what the community wants within our budget means.

Become a member!  Join the Lyric as a member and get money off tickets, special advance tickets to live events, and know that you’re helping keep the Lyric the living, beating Heart of Downtown Blacksburg.  As a member, you are also able to vote for board members at the February Annual Meeting of the Lyric.  We can use your support and you know you need the Lyric as a healthy, viable entertainment source now and in the coming years.

Volunteers Welcome!  the Lyric needs volunteers to staff the concession stand, sell tickets and help with office work.  Volunteers are also needed to help staff the Community Arts Information Office.  Not only will you get the satisfaction of keeping the Lyric alive and relevant, you get FREE POPCORN! How can you pass up a deal like that??

So join the Lyric.  Tell us what your favorites of the past were and what you’d like to see in the future.  Help keep the Lyric Theatre YOUR Theatre!

Please feel free to forward and post this announcement to anyone who might be interested or who might know of people who would be interested. Thanks!

Muse: A Celebration of Women in the Arts – Call for Performing Artists from the NRV

Audition for a performance in support of Women’s Month and the Community Arts Office and Information Center

Muse Productions is looking for local female performing artists from the New River Valley area of Virginia for our 2010 production. The show date is Friday evening, March 19th, 2010. Our inaugural event in March 2009 was such a success, we are proud to announce that the show is now an annual event. You can find out more info regarding Muse Blacksburg at our website www.museblacksburg.com.

We would love to collaborate with some new artists. We are looking for professional quality female performing artists who would like to be involved in a collaborative effort variety show.

Muse began as an idea among three Blacksburg muses who are artists themselves and lovers of the arts. They see the arts as an integral part of all our lives. Art creates meaningful experiences that encourage people to engage our world and help us become more aware of ourselves and the connections we have to others.

To celebrate this idea, we are honored to be producing our second annual Muse: A Celebration of Women in the Arts. The visions of the show are to …

• Raise funds for the Lyric’s new Community Arts Office and Information Center which will foster and promote arts and culture in the NRV
• Honor Women’s Month by celebrating and showcasing the rich variety of artistic expressions that are created by female artists within our community.
• Create a event that will increase community awareness of these female artists

We are holding an audition at the Lyric on Saturday, September 19th starting at 10 am. All interested performers must be available for the show Friday, March 19th, a tech rehearsal Saturday, March 13th and be able to meet with us for a couple planning meetings which will be scheduled later to help organize the show.

If you are interested in auditioning, please contact Jennifer Speiden by e-mail at joyifer@yahoo.com or by phone at 540.552.2596. We will share with you what we are looking for in performers, our expectations and details regarding the audition as well as answer any questions you may have.

Thank you!

Danielle Donaldson
Heather Schaerer
Jennifer Speiden

Tragically, not long after we had signed Mike Seeger for a Live @ The Lyric concert Friday November 13, we were notified that he had a rapidly spreading cancer and would have to cancel.  As has been reported in  many locations, we were sad to learn of Mike Seeger’s death shortly there after.  I speak for many who were looking forward to this concert by such a renowned scholar of Appalachian music.  Mike Seeger was a hero to me as a musician from when I first heard of the New Lost City Ramblers up to today.  Others have spoken more eloquently than I could ever hope to, but, while  his presence will be sorely missed, the Angel Band has one heck of an addition!

In place of Mike Seeger we will be welcoming the band Cadillac Sky to the Lyric stage.  Cadillac Sky is an up and coming bluegrass band that I find reminiscent of the Del McCoury Band: hard driving contemporary bluegrass highlighted by great original songs that can still harken one’s heart back to Bill, Jimmy, Lester and Earl.  From what I have seen, they put on one heck of a good show as entertainers instead of just pickers.  Let’s give them a warm Blacksburg/NRV welcome and let them know they aren’t second in out thoughts but rather a band we want to see and buy their CDs!

We received some nice comments from Russell Chisholm at the Easy Chair Coffee Shop and Blacksburg Reads Used Books that got deleted along with all our other comments.  I just wanted to post a link to his site here and say thanks for his support!!

http://blacksburgreads.com

First a spoiler alert - I am in love with Rachel Weisz’s character Penelope.

Now that I have got that off my chest, if you haven’t seen The Brothers Bloom, GO SEE IT!  What a great movie.  I am guessing you need to see it at least twice, since as much happens in the background as in the fore ground.  And if you love the twists and turns of language, you will have chills up and down your spine, such is the good language, puns, and nonsense.

Every character has quirks.  You know the movie is about cons and stings but the twists that abound keep you guessing about who is zooming who.  Just when you think you have it figured out, the red turns brown and the world’s greatest card trick has a trick of its own.

Imagine the Monty Python gang doing The Maltese Falcon with Murder on the Orient Express and the Sting.  Add a dash of tenderness, a good soundtrack of music and a bit of the Marx Brothers and you have The Brothers Bloom.  Only two more nights, so GO OUT AND SEE IT!!!!!!!

How can one review a movie that defies comprehension.  It seemed to me that Kafka and Moliere got together and made a movie about Woody Allen with sidetracks of aliens from a sick psyche.  Interesting?  Yes.  How cans someone’s mind twist the space/tome continuum in so many ways?  You can’t call them plot twists because the plot shifts with transgendered miniature tapestries in a Berlin gallery.  When players hire players to play their lives while they …. anyway, if you’re up for a bizarre evening of conversation following a movie, Synecdoche, New York  is the one to see!