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Monday night, March 28th, State Theater is hosting a special advance screening of “The Huntsman: Winter War”. The movie doesn’t actually premier until April 22. Interested? The movie starts at 7 pm but arrive early! Seating is limited. Make sure to print out the flyer on the Facebook page and BRING a valid student ID as well.

I’m excited because having seen “Snow White and the Huntsman” I’m interested to see another part of the story. I enjoyed Charlize Theron as Ravenna much more than Kristen Stewart’s Snow White in the first one, so am happy she was brought back for this film. Chris Hemsworth embraced traits of Thor, a character he portrayed in another film series, last time he took to the screen as the Huntsman. I’m interested to see if he changes any of that in this movie. Watch the trailer below and see what’s in store for the advance screening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2-_OQL9fBk

The Oleander Review, after being out of print for a few years, has returned with force! At a release party and reading on Friday, Literati was packed full with standing room only; the best turnout I’ve seen at a reading there. There were even light refreshments of coffee, tea, bread, cheese, and snack meat. Sarah Sala and Amanda Nichols, the original co-founders of Oleander, were there as well. Nichols with her baby boy (who was so cute) and Sala opened the reading with some of her pieces. They were fun, at times touching, and steeped in depth. She read a poem about surfing that included the line “trampoline of black matter”, which just was so beautiful to me. Others included a catalog of excuses for not going to class and two science based poems, that somehow managed to reference Miley Cyrus. It was a great beginning and the rest didn’t disappoint.

The overall event was a huge success and I encourage everyone to stop by Literati and buy a copy for just $5. There was so much talent, I can’t hope to do all of them justice so here are some pieces that were read Friday which stood out to me:

“If You Can’t Stand the Kitchen” by Moe Koltun was dynamic and fast paced poem. It sounded great spoken and was an almost epic style narrative in verse. My favorite line was “more carcass than being” which in the mists of the poem was so graphic and perfect it made me squirm.

Grace Daley Bydalek got up to read her piece “Peaches” talking about how it was only five lines. Don’t preface your poem with criticism; because it may be only five lines but it was simple, elegant, and beautiful and that’s all it needed. One of my favorites.

“The Summer of Emily and Ice Cream” by Miranda Hency put me back in time to previous summers. I was there. And the ending and was probably my favorite part: “…and my travelling box of/ “to read” books/ shrunk in size. I transferred them to my bookshelf, casting black shadows/ that spelled Emily”. This is such a nice idea and I can relate; books I read with others or while with others always remind me of them.

Jordyn Fishman has two pieces of art in the journal and talked about them at the reading. They are called “4 Girls” and “Yo Can I Bum a Cig”. Even without hearing her speak about them, you’ll hear what she has to say just by looking.

Megan Koopman read her prose piece “Schadenfreude”. I really enjoyed this work and she had a very nice reading voice. She made some really beautiful connections linking construction and her character’s grandfather, equating power tools with new life. Comparing Detroit to an empire in some really vivid language.

There were so many more talented readers and the issue is full of many more. It’s sure to be a great read, make sure and get your copy!

The pseudo-hip-hop group, Young Fathers, is coming to The Blind Pig on March 27th. I say pseudo-hip-hop because while they are more hip-hop than rock or pop or folk or another genre, Young Fathers are still very far from anything resembling mainstream hip-hop. They exist in their own genre of beat-driven, electronically fused, vocally soothing, and strangely dance-able sound. It’s the kind of music that makes you want to break out your best interpretative dance moves and jam and shake as if your heart is leaping from your chest and making quite the mess. Check them out here.

Young Fathers will be joined by HXLT and Captwolf. The doors will open at 9pm and tickets are $15.

Audience members at Friday night’s ComCo show were treated to an improv show with live music and a guest appearance by former ComCo member, Guy Madjar. Guy graduated in December but was back in town during this show. The performance began with every member dancing together in a surprisingly together opening number. With the unique addition of music they created a fun filled musical improv show, with members singing song lyrics, in unison, as easily as they would say them.

After the opening, the show proceeded with a number of short form comedy games. One of my favorites was where one player, Michael Duczynski, left the room. The remaining actors took suggestions from the audience on how he got to work, what problem he encountered, and how he overcame that problem. Then the absent player was called back into the room and had to explain to his boss why he was late to work, as the other players acted it out for him. He had ridden a subway sandwich to work; that one was more complicated for the obvious reason that it was a subway BUT he had to also mention that it was a sandwich part. The problem he faced was intoxication and he overcame it by meeting Christ, both of which he succeeded in getting fairly quickly. That one is one of my favorites simply because of how much fun it is to watch the actors pantomiming the clues and having to get creative when wasn’t immediately obvious.

Perhaps the only moment where the show lagged a little was the game where they were putting on a movie and then kept changing the genre of the film; on Friday, genres ranged from Westerns to a National Geographic documentary. Despite a good title, “My wife left me”, it just didn’t pick up steam.

The rebound was quick though as the next two games were called “Sing it” and “Bucket of Death”. “Sing It” took place in Hell, per an audience suggestion, and whenever the keyboardist started playing a song, the person who had been talking had to start singing. It went over really well and both Kelsey Fox and Maya Crosman were not afraid to belt it out! The “Bucket of Death” game was met with some whispers from the audience- A ComCo actor holds their breath while putting their face in a bucket of water and then hits the table when they next to be relieved, and another actor takes their place, all the while trying to perform one continuous scene. Despite the audiences hesitation it was a huge success, especially when Adam Konig came back from his turn in the Bucket of Death with a really spectacular head swish which sprayed an impressive amount of water across the stage. And then he tried to pass off the fact that his head was dripping wet from nerves about the exam they were supposed to be taking.

Before closing with ComCo’s traditional games “World’s Worst” and “Innuendo”, which are always a crowd favorite and didn’t disappoint, they played one of their long form games. What in past shows has been a book, narrated by the author Kelsey Fox, while the other players act it out, was instead a failed Musical! Entitled Sauna from an audience member’s suggestion, it was original, hilarious, bizarre, and overall put on with the usual ComCo flare. Having seen previous ComCo shows, Friday night’s was one of their best most innovative performances.

Here are some highlights from Sauna: The Musical!, probably not coming to a theater near you (apologies for the my amateur photography skills)

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MUSKET has continued to surprise me with their musical choice and amazed me with their performances. Big Fish was a triumph and a joy to watch. This comes as no surprise though, as MUSKET’s performances have always been amazing. Big Fish is different though, as it ran for a very short time for on Broadway and only received mixed reviews. MUSKET had to take this unknown musical and present to an audience. This is both a blessing and a curse as the audience has no preconceived notions, but also will be less attached to the music and plot of the performance. MUSKET Was able to overcome this and make the musical something that one could grow attached to.

In this musical, we are first introduced to the father/son duo of Edward and Will Bloom at Edward’s wedding. This initiates the true conflict of the plot as Will asks his father to not tell his stories at the reception, giving us a clue as to what their relationship is like. Of course, Edward doesn’t listen. In the beginning of the musical, the actor portraying Edward, Ben Reitemeier, seems to be overacting. He’s very hammy, but as the musical progresses, you come to realize that this is the perfect acting needed for the character. The character is a fantastical storyteller, always making himself the brave, noble hero. This hammy acting really accentuates the characters peculiarities and make him an entertaining watch.

Throughout the rest of the piece, we transition between the present real-world, and the fantastical world of Edward’s stories as Will tries to understand who his father really was. The first story we get introduced to is the tale of how Edward was told of his death by his hometown’s witch. This is where the musical really starts to shine. Kat Ward plays the witch and is easily the funnest part of the entire musical. Kat Ward pulls out all the stops as the witch and sings her heart out. I watched in amazement as I couldn’t believe the performance I was watching. This is truly the best part of the entire performance.

This plot continues on until we come to the end and Will realizes why Edward only told fantasy stories and never really revealed who he truly was. The rest of the musical is very adeptly performed and is a delight to watch, though none of it is as impressive as the witch sequence.

Some negatives of the play do not come from the performances, but from the actual script/music of the play , something that MUSKET can’t change. Two of the problems, revolve around Will’s wife. First, the writer found it necessary for some reason to state the entire plot of the story through Will’s wife’s line. This was completely unnecessary and treats the audience as children. Secondly, Will’s wife did not have a large part in the story as it mostly focused of Will and Edwards relationship and Will’s mother, Sandra mediating the relationship. This made it necessary for them to find ways to keep the wife out of the narrative. This was very obvious and could have been handled a lot more effectively.

In addition, the character of the doctor was completely unnecessary. He could’ve been cut out of the narrative entirely without losing anything. This was further made apparent as the actor did not do justice to the character. His line reads felt unnatural and the characteristics did not match the tone of the scenes that he was in.

Overall, this performance was spectacular. For those who have never heard of Big Fish, but still saw the performance, I am sure this is now a favorite musical of theirs. It was a fun, sappy time that audiences will love.

Avoiding homework on a Sunday night? Come see the RC Drama students perform in the Keene Theater! The event is titled, wittily enough, “BEWARE the Ives of March: Five Farces by David Ives”. David Ives is best known for his comedic one-acts. The New York Times has even referred to him as the “maestro of the short form”! His collection of short one-acts, All in the Timing, won the 1993 Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for Playwriting and many of his other works have been extremely well received.

The performance on Sunday, March 20th, starts at 7:30 pm, is 1 hour and 30 minutes for 5 of his one-act plays, and supposed to be hilarious! Also, it’s FREE to all students. It’ll be interesting to see so many of his works shown in collaboration this way and will make a nice end to the weekend.