As small child eccentric tunesmith Beck, along with his sister Channing were given plastic
shopping bags. They walked Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles with their grandfather picking up
cigarette butts. When Beck had collected three bags full his grandfather glued hem
together.
AL HANSEN
The stately Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville will stage an exhibit of artistic works by both
unorthodox pop artist Beck and his grandfather, noted artist Al Hansen, titled Playing With
Matches, opening October 28.
Beck Hansen, the creative catalyst behind the groundbreaking 1996 album Odelay and the hit
single Loser, has been invited to attend the show's members-only preview Oct. 27. The next day,
his mother, Bibbe Hansen, is scheduled to participate in a public panel discussion and oversee an
original "happening" -- a sort of spontaneous interactive performance -- in the style of the
grandfather.
Hansen is best remembered for anti-traditional work, including that sculpture of cigarette butts
that was inspired by Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and a work fashioned from Hershey bar
wrappers.
Hansen thought Hershey bars were a phenomenon because they didn't advertise and were highly successful. He intended to make the Hershey Bar wrapper his signature piece and began a series
of collages with words cut from Hershey Bar Wrappers. The first half dozen also had Charlie in
the name such as Charlie Chaplin and Charlie Chan.
Hanson was born in Richmond Hill, Borough of Queens, New York City in 1927, the son of a
crane operator who drove his crane home every night, parking it in the yard of the house.
Interested in art as a toddler he copied what he saw in the newspaper, simultaneously teaching
himself to read, reportedly Pinocchio being his favorite. Upon entering PS 55 he was the only tot
who could both read and write and was an expert in spelling. When he cut class because he
preferred to be on the sidewalk drawing pictures his mother defended him and bought him more
crayons.
He left Avenue 101 to join the US Air Force, serving as a paratrooper in World War II and was
honorably discharged. During his time with the Army Of Occupation in Frankfurt, Germany, he
pushed a piano off the top of a 5 story bombed out building. Later, back in New York City and all
over the world, he performed this act many times.He later titled it "Yoko Ono Piano Drop" after
his friend and contemporary.
Hansen found Warhol with two bullets in the
stomach
As an early member of the Fluxus Art Group his pieces were performed at several early
international Fluxus Festivals. His pioneering work in the fields of "performance art" and
"Happenings" is well documented. In 1965 he wrote the seminal performance art book, "A
Primer of Happenings and Time Space Art" published by Something Else Press.
He explained a "happening" as follows: "If you turn on a flashlight while looking for your keys,
that's nothing. When you turn a flashlight on and off 50 times on a stage, that's art."
As a habitu‚ of Andy Warhol's Factory, he was both influenced by and influenced the 1960's
pop art movement. Hansen is also the man who in June, 1968 was walking into Andy's studio as
Valerie Solanis of SCUM The Society to Cut Up Men, smelling of gun power. Upon entering the
studio Hansen found Warhol on the floor with two bullets in his stomach. He lived.
A 1998 mixed media titled Special Police by Hansen's
grandson Beck
In addition to Performance Art, Hansen created thousands of collages mainly based around the
image of the Venus Figure. Eternally fascinated by the Venus of Willendorf, he strove to continue
the connection between those first primal art instincts and his own body of work.
In the early 1980's Hansen moved to Cologne, Germany because an art gallery liked his work, and
established an art school - the Ultimate Akademie and continues to be an integral part of the
world's premier art city.
He returned to Brookhaven, Long Island when his father became ill staying to nurse the man until
he died before returning to Germany.
It was in Cologne on June 21, 1995 that Hansen died of a heart attack. He was 67. A memorial
service in Cologne was followed by a Viking funeral complete with a burning ship.
The Beck and Hansen art exhibit is Oct. 28-Jan. 7, 2001 at Cheekwood.
Terri Smith, who's coordinating the visit of this international touring show from Canada, said the
focus is on the "cross-pollination" between the styles and the generations of the radical,
Dada-inspired grandfather and the grandson, a highly eclectic artist many fans consider
a genius.
CHECKS THAT CLEAR AND
PROMOTION, PROMOTION, PROMOTION
On July 17 a musical stage adaptation of the classic movie White Christmas
has its world
premiere at the MUNY Theatre in St. Louis. Broadway and cabaret star Karen Mason stars in
the roll that Rosemary Clooney immortalized in celluloid.
"Number One - go to Los Angeles first. I think a lot of the people who are getting the parts, go
there, get TV series and then you can write your own ticket for pretty much of anything," she
ruefully laughed.
"If you feel that you just have to be in New York, which is what I've always felt, then come here
and just do it. Or wherever you are, just do it," said Karen referring to performing. "If
you're in your home town, just keep working, keep singing, keep trying. Keep learning.
And, then
when you come to New York just find ways that you can keep your skills sharp. Keep learning.
Audition, sing whatever and wherever you can. Do benefits, and help out, be around people
who know things. The more you are around that and the more you can learn from people who
have been doing it a long time, the better off you'll be. I think you learn from doing."
"Sitting in a class room, I don' think, is as helpful to you as putting yourself on the line.
When I
think of the things that I though the business was all about when I first started and what the
reality of the business is, I wish I had been smarter earlier," she confessed.
"I think I thought that if you were really talented that you would be rewarded. And,
I think it's not
quite that way. I think there are a lot of talented people who don't have
the business skills to
protect themselves."
Mason suggests constantly auditioning, working anywhere with virtually any project and then
taking some classes in business and public relations management.
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Study how to sell yourself. The market demands that you be more than
talent that other people take care of. You really need to know more about the business and
promotional aspects."
"Yes, you need to have those skills You want talent to be the thing that will sustain you your
whole life, but I don't think necessarily that is totally the way it is. I think marketing is a skill, a
talent that I wish I had developed earlier."
"What that does it puts you into then a different category. And, perhaps will get you around
people who can take you to that next step.of marketing with people who know more about But,
it is about putting yourself in the right arenas, and knowing how to market that."
"Recently I've been doing a lot of shows where you're asked to learn one or two new
songs - brand new songs - for just one night. That is hard, very hard. You find yourself spending
all of your time just going over the lyrics - over and over and over. But, I do really think that is
keeping my head sharp. It's forcing me to really keep active."
And what does Karen demand in her contracts?
"Checks that will clear," she chortled. "I've had too many of them that have bounced in my
lifetime."
Karen doesn't necessary think it's harder for a woman - just that men and women have different
problem arenas.
"I think it's a hard grind for everybody. Men have different pitfalls. But for women - certainly -
the idea of buying into that you have to be what everyone thinks of as a stereotypical beauty to be
successful, I think is a pitfall. As a result I think women are constantly beating
themselves up
about how they look. It's more so in show business because we constantly know those are the
standards by which we are judged.All of the women in the United States are always judging
themselves by magazines."
To stay in performing readiness Karen, who has guest-starred on Law & Order and As
the World Turns and well as seeing her recording of Hold Me featured on Guiding
Light win the 1998 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Song, takes care
of herself.
Karen won an Outer Critics Circle Award for her role
in
And The World Goes Round.
"I love to read and I read all of the article I can find about decibel levels I always have ear plugs
with me. When my husband and I go see friends perform, we put on ear plugs. It doesn't
drown out the sound it just protects my ears. Can't stand the noise. It just gets me.
I prefer to be
able to hear it and work harder to hear it than to have it blasted at me. "I need to take care of my
hearing and to take care of my voice. I don't think I"m probably as crazy as some about
taking
care of your voice. Some people take it to a kind of a crazy neurotic level.
"But, you do have to protect it. And, you can't see it. It's very tiny, and it's
affected by all kinds of
stuff. If it's humid, if it's dry. The stress and the pressure. I carry all
of my strain in my shoulders.
It goes directly there. That couldn't be worse. To sing you really have to be
relaxed and yet in
control of muscles And, if you're feeling at all tired, or under stress it's going to go
to the place
that you're the most vulnerable."
Karen had the honor of both opening and closing the acclaimed ASCAP Sunday evening cabaret
series at Rainbow & Stars - being a last-minute sub for an ailing Rosemary Clooney, the woman
whose role as Betty in White Christmas Mason now re-creates on stage.
"She's always seemed like such a real person," said Mason commenting on Clooney. "She still
has
the chops. She still has that ease, which I think is so incredible. When I was doing Sunset
I went to see Rosemary Clooney at Rainbow and Stars I had done Rainbow and Stars maybe a
month and a half before. She had some of the music in front of her, she had difficulty getting on
stage, never moved and yet, you were riveted."
As for Mason she juggles being married to songwriter/record producer Paul Rolnick with a
hectic
professional schedule. "You just make it happen," responded Karen about her marriage."You
try to accommodate and take care of the people around you who need you. You and your
partner work it out. The good thing is my husband does not travel a lot.
He's a songwriter/record
producer, so he is more of a home body, and he understands the business.
I don't have to explain
too much to him."
What he doesn't understand are his wife's shopping habits. She's a QVC addict.
"I love to shop and I love bargains!" she laughed. " There is nothing better than a bargain.
I do love a sale. I used to buy stuff that I had no use for, but my husband had kind of
clamped
down on that. I am sort of like that a channel surfer who buys. I'll buy a case of
glue dissolver
saying 'We really need that stuff that dissolves glue because the price is so good.'
My husband said
that he is going to put a parental block on the TV."
MONTREAL LAUGH A
LOT
Comedy festivals are springboarding comedians into livelihoods. In many aspects the various
comedy fests have replaced comedy clubs as the best avenue towards securing an agent or a
paying gig. From wanna be laugh makers to the big yuks themselves the funny folk are heading to
Montreal.Tim Allen, William Shatner, King of Queens star Kevin James, Monty Python's
Eric Idle and Family Feud's Louie Anderson are among the stars participating in
Montreal's 18th edition of the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival July 13-23.
TIM ALLEN
More than 1 million people attended last summer and the event remains one of the key laugh
festivals on the continent.
James, former Montrealer Shatner, Idle, Allen, and Anderson will each be hosting galas at the St.
Denis Theater, which are the main comedy showcases at the festival. Other performers slated
to appear at the festival include D.L. Hughley from The Hughleys, Saturday Night Live
alumni Jim Breuer and Rich Hall, Bob Saget, Kathy Kinney from The Drew Carey Show,
U.K. comic Harry Hill, former Conan O'Brien regular Andy Richter, Pauly Shore, pop star
Kim Stockwood, Bobby Slayton, Dom Irrera, Andy Kindler, Jeff Rothpan and Suzanne
Westenhoeffer.
Christopher Titus will perform his solo show Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding, which
inspired his hit midseason Fox sitcom Titus. In addition, San Francisco puppeteer Basil
Twist will bring his underwater puppet/music/dance show, Symphonie Fantastique, for a
20-day run at the Monument National. The festival will also host the North American premiere of
Gumboots!, a South African-flavored song-and-dance show featuring a cappella singing
and contemporary percussion.
The festival has an expanded film section this year following its recent merger with Montreal
genre-film festival Fantasia. The film programs include short-picture section Eat My
Shorts; a showcase of nine features,Comedia; and Comedy Classics, which
will this year pay tribute to Buster Keaton. There is also a parallel French-language festival,
Juste Pour Rire, with performances by Franco funny men Anthony Kavanagh, Michel
Boujenah, Normand Brathwaite, Martin Petit, Mario Jean, and Maxim Martin.
SWEET CHARITY
JULIE, ANDREWS, CHEVY CHASE AND ALEC
BALDWIN
served as auctioneers at yesterday's benefit for
the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor at a party catered by Robbins, Wolfe Eventeurs.
Among the prizes gaveled down were a walk-on part in the Broadway production of The Full
Monty, a phone machine message recorded by Andrews, a happy-birthday song phoned in
from Nathan Lane, and a pair of Harry Winston pave diamond earrings.
ACTOR'S FUND OF AMERICA'S PHYLLIS NEWMAN'S
HEALTH INITIATIVE will benefit from a performance
of Clare Booth Luce's The Women, Monday, July 17 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, NYC.
The all star cast includes: Bebe Neuwirth as Joan Crawford's "Crystal," Eartha Kitt as Mary
Boland's "Countess De Lave," Sandy Duncan as Marjorie Main's "Lucy," Karen Ziemba as
Norma Shearer's "Mary," Rita Moreno as Phyllis Povah's "Edith," Hazelle Goodman as Joan
Fontaine's "Peggy," Elaine Stritch as Rosalind Russell's "Sylvia" plus Tsidii Le Loka as the
English nanny plus Lea DeLaria, Dee Hoty, Holland Taylor, Mary Testa and Phyllis
Newman in smaller roles.
With all that talent on board the tickets are dirt cheap at only $250,
which includes a pre-theatre cocktail party. If you don't have your reservations -
shame.
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TOMMY
The Who's
classic 1969 rock opera has opened a three week run at the new Renaissance Center in Dickson,
Tenn. The facility is promoted as having world class technological capabilities and this
production is expected to test the use of those technical bragging rights.
Since the stage musical version opened on Broadway in New York in 1993, it has toured
throughout the United States and Europe.
Written by guitarist and composer Pete
Townshend, Tommy started as a rock opera about Tommy Walker who goes through a
traumatic experience and falls into a form of autism. It evolved into a movie, for which
Townshend received an Academy Award nomination for the film score Tommy then
became a ballet, before Townsend adapted the story for Broadway.
This production involves 15 moving lights, 24 color scrollers, a live 5 piece
rock band on stage,
four pit singers and a chorus and five projection screens -- each 8-feet-tall and 10 feet
wide. The
center also rented 40 extra lighting fixtures, video equipment all under the
direction of technical
director Tom Stanziano, who was challenged with getting pyrotechnics to blow up a pinball
machine.
Production director is Leo Sochocki.
PETER TOWNSHEND
The most unique and challenging aspect of putting
the show together will be combining random clips of 3D animation effects, prerecorded
segments, slide images and live performance images to display on the five projection screens
during the performances.
Though projection screens were used for Broadway performances of Tommy, no one has
taken the production to the technological degree that Sochocki has, by making the on-screen
images interactive with the live performance.
The Renaissance Center's animation department is also working on the project to help
create the
visual combinations. One on-screen sequence involves an animation of a coin dropping into a
pinball machine and the ball bouncing around, juxtaposed with live images of Tommy on
stage as
he gets pushed around by thugs Pinball Wizard, I'm Free and Sensation symbols of 1960s
rock
music.
Stan Stanley, will be playing adult Tommy Walker, Drew Furr, 11, will play
10-year-old
Tommy. The production runs through July 23.
LOVE, JANIS featuring the songs of
Janis Joplin opens at The Bay Street Theater, Long Island on July 19 with a run through Aug.
6.
GODSPELL
Thirty years after the
dawn on rock musicals on the legitimate stage, a contemporary rock production of
Godspell returns off-Broadway. With music and new lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, directed
by Shawn Rozes, costumes by William Ivey Long, and produced by NET Theatrical Productions,
Godspell performances begin July 18 at the Theatre at Saint Peter's Church NYC. The
cast that will be singing Day By Day, Save The People and Learn Your Lessons
Well includes Shoshanna Bean, Tim Cain, Catherine Carpenter, Will Erat, Barrett Foa, Lucia
Giannetta, Capathia Jenkins, Chad Kimbal, Leslie Kritzer and Ellseo Roman.
HIGH INFIDELITY starring John
Davidson and Morgan Fairchild at the Promenade Theatre, NYC begins July 14 with the official
opening set for August 3rd.
Written by John Dooley, directed by Luke Yankee, produced by Jennifer Smith Rockwood, the
plot around centers around the body politic baring its behind. It's no longer politics-as-usual for a
U.S. Senator and his wife when they are forced by party leaders to participate in marriage
counseling in order to salvage their relationship and his floundering presidential campaign. The
spirited session takes on a life of its own when the therapist dupes them into dropping their
facades, dropping their drawers, facing facts and eventually themselves.
John Davidson, who has starred on Broadway, is making his off-Broadway debut in this
production. Morgan Fairchild recently starred in the Pulitzer Prize winning play Crimes of the
Heart directed by Gary Marshall at the Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles. She last appeared on
the New York stage in the 1981 Playwrights Horizon production of Geniuses. The five
member cast also includes Neil Maffin, J.C. Wendel and Daniel Ziskie.
WHO'S WHERE
LORRIE MORGAN will be
performing at the Grand Palace in Branson, Mo on July 13, August 17, and September
4th.
RON SEYKELL
the Bistro award
winning singer returns to Don't Tell Mama, NY on July 11th. His show will not only feature his
voice but his irreverent sense of humor when he channels the great Luvinia Johnson - Broadway
"dresser to the stars" - with all the dirt on Rosie, Oprah, Calista, and Hillary. Ron's music director
and arranger for this engagement will be Lenny Babbish and his director will be Scott Barnes. In
addition to his cabaret appearances Seykell has appeared as Marius in the long running musical
Les Miserables and portrayed Jan in the musical Metro. The open ended
engagement at Don't Tell Mama has Ron performing Tuesdays through Fridays.
RICKIE LEE JONES, RICHARD THOMPSON, AND SHAWN
COLVIN perform at the Pines Theater Summer Music Festival in
Northampton, Mass. on Friday, July 14.
MOISES KAUFMAN author of
The Laramie Project received a fellowship from Robert Redford's Sundance Institute, So,
Kaufman is in Utah turning his hit play into a movie script. Reports are that Barbra Streisand's
BarWood Production Company is interested in the movie rights.
FAITH PRINCE will star in the
revival of Bells Are Ringing which opens Nov. 3 in Pasadena. She'll be sensational in the
part. Take it to Broadway and Faith and is up for another Tony.
THIS AND THAT
SOPHIA LOREN as beautiful as
ever back in Las Vegas to attend the first year anniversary party of the opening of the Venetian
Hotel. She likes the place. She also attended the opening.
ROBERT GOULET rose to
superstardom playing Sir Lancelot in Camelot on Broadway and it seems the role made a
cutting edge impression on singer. Ever since he pretended to be a knight in shinning armor,
swinging that sword around, the Tony Award winner has collected the objects and we don't mean
tomato slicers. Goulet has a collection of authentic, museum quality, expensive swords - the kind
those round table dudes actually attempted to use. Goulet keeps them in his Las Vegas home, so
all guests need to be "on guard."
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Next Column: July 16, 2000
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