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Entries categorized as ‘Entertainment’

Longshore And Mickey Mouse

March 8, 2010 · 1 Comment

Today, the Oscars are in the news.

It’s been a while since Col. Patrick A. Powers was.

But this is both the 50th anniversary of the town’s purchase of Longshore, and the season to think about movies, so let’s glance back at the colonel. 

He was the founder of Longshore Country Club in 1929,  as well as a pioneer in both “talking pictures.” He even contributed in a small way to the creation of Mickey Mouse.

Who knew?

Thanks to Brian O’Leary — the Longshore 50th committee’s ace researcher — for tracking down Powers, then finding this information on Wikipedia.

Patrick Anthony Powers (1870-1948), born in County Waterford, Ireland, was an Irish-American businessman, involved in the movie and animation industry of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s.

Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert, Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900-07. In 1907, they formed the Buffalo Film Exchange, which purchased films from producers and rented them to nickelodeons.

In 1910, Powers left Buffalo for New York City. He founded the Powers Motion Picture Company that merged with … others in 1912 to create Universal Pictures. He served as treasurer of the Universal Motion Picture Company.

Between the 1922 reorganization of Film Booking Office of America and October 1923, Powers, as one of the company’s new American investors, was effectively in command….In 1928, Joseph P. Kennedy and RCA head David Sarnoff merged FBO and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater circuit to form RKO Radio Pictures….

Without Col. Powers, would Walt Disney ever have created Mickey Mouse?

In 1928, Powers sold Walt Disney a Cinephone system so that he could make sound cartoons such as Mickey Mouse’s Steamboat Willie (1928). Unable to find a distributor for the sound cartoons, Disney began releasing his cartoons through Powers’ company Celebrity Pictures.

After two years of successful Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons, Walt Disney confronted Powers in 1930 about money due to Disney from the distribution deal. Powers responded by signing Disney’s head animator Ub Iwerks to an exclusive deal to create his own animation studio.

In his lifetime, Powers produced nearly 300 movies, most of them early silent films produced at Universal before 1913 or one-reel animated shorts. However, he is credited as a producer on Erich von Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1928)….

The New York Times obituary of 1 August 1948 notes that Powers, at the time of his death, was president of the Powers Film Products Company of Rochester, New York. He also had homes in both New York City and Westport, Connecticut….

Categories: Entertainment · Longshore · Looking back · People
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“Vaginas” Coming To Westport

March 2, 2010 · 14 Comments

I could have headlined this “V-Day In Westport,” but I wanted to make sure absolutely no one skipped over this very important post.

Hope Boone, Jessica Rae Patton and Marianne Goodell rehearse their monologues.

Next Sunday (March 7) at 1 and 5 p.m., “The Vagina Monologues” will be performed at the Westport Country Playhouse.  The performances’ primary beneficiary is the Domestic Violence Crisis Center.  Also benefitting:  V-Day’s City of Joy, a campaign to end the rape and torture of women and girls in Congo.

“V-Day Westport 2010″ involves women from all walks of life.  Some are actors or activists.  Others are 1st-time performers.  All hope to end violence against females, locally and globally.

“The Vagina Monologues” was 1st performed Off-Broadway in 1998.  Diving into the mystery, humor, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement of women’s experiences, it has been called “spellbinding, funny and almost unbearably moving…a work of art…a poem and a polemic, a performance and balm and a benediction.”

V-Day — named one of Worth Magazine’s “100 Best Charities,” and one of Marie Claire Magazine’s “Top 10 Charities” — has raised over $70 million in just 12 years.  V-Day Westport is part of over 4200 similar benefits around the world.

(“The Vagina Monologues” is directed by Jill Jaysen of Center Stage Theatre Company.  Click here for tickets, or call 203-227-4177.  For more information on V-Day Westport, email vdaywestporttvm@gmail.com; check out the Facebook “VDay Westport” page, or Twitter @vdaywestport.)

Jill Jaysen rehearses her cast.

Categories: Arts · Entertainment · Organizations · Westport Country Playhouse
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Be Billy Elliot

February 14, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Hey Westport kids:  Got nothing to do over winter break?

Audition for “Billy Elliot”!

The national touring company is holding auditions this week at New York’s  Pearl Studios.

Want to be the next Billy?  If you’re between 9 and 12 years old, and no taller than 4-10, be there this Thursday (Feb. 18) at 10 a.m.  You should have strong dance, ballet and/or tap talents, as well as an unbroken voice.  It’s probably good to be pretty far from puberty too.

Auditions for Michael (maximum height 4-10; natural actor with a strong singing voice; “funny, a real kid”) and Small Boy (no taller than 3-7; “ability to listen on stage, concentrate, and not fidget”) take place Thursday at 1 p.m.

Girls get their chance this Saturday, Feb. 20 at 10 a.m.  The casting folks seek “a variety of sizes, shapes and types, with expressive character and lots of personality, not the traditional ballerina.”

Click here for further details.

PS:  “All ethnicities are encouraged to attend.”

Categories: Arts · Children · Entertainment · Totally random
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Local Artists To Get Hung

February 6, 2010 · 3 Comments

Art By Local — an awkwardly named, but intriguing and inspired week-long event — won’t open until May.  But if you’re a local “emerging artist,” you can prepare for the juried exhibition and sale now.

Applicants must be at least 18 years old, live in Fairfield County and have no gallery representation or previous solo exhibitions.  Artists may enter up to 5 works of art in any media.

Entries must be accompanied by a $20 fee, a CD of up to 5 works, an artist statement and biography.  All work must have been completed after January 2008, and priced under $1,000.  The deadline is March 19.

Art work will be displayed in retail stores and offices in Sconset Square from May 15-23.  The show opens with a preview party on May 20, and closes with a day of art demonstrations, entertainment, food and activities.

It is sponsored by the Downtown Merchants Association and Westport Arts Center.

(For more information and an application form, click here or call 203-505-8716.)

Categories: Arts · Entertainment · Organizations
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Celebrate The Calendar

January 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Kids complain there’s nothing to do in Westport.  Parents complain there’s too much to keep track of.

CelebrateWestport.com hopes to help both groups.

Nestled within the town’s official website, the Celebrate Westport Community Calendar is the go-to spot for information on upcoming meetings, lectures, fundraisers, concerts, films, exhibitions, and kids and family events.

The aim, the site says, is to help Westporters “gather together, renew old acquaintances and share in the delight of all our community has to offer.”  But its real value is offering so much calendar information, in so many forms.

Users can click on any event for detailed information, including directions. They can create personalized calendars; forward listings to friends, and request email or text reminders or notifications of changes.

Users can also submit their own events.

Many of the listings — library events, synagogue book fairs, Positive Directions parent training – offer links to the sponsoring organization.

According to Nancy Diamond of the Arts Advisory Council, CelebrateWestport.com is the only townwide calendar without editorial filtering; the only one that accepts press releases; a place where not-for-profits can post dates for future galas (avoiding conflicts with different organizations), and a place where community-minded businesses like Barnes & Noble can promote free events like author talks.

Out-of-town events (like fundraisers) are fine, so long as they are sponsored by a Westport not-for-profit.  So are non-sectarian events (like a knitting circle) at churches and synagogues, though religious services are not listed.

The Celebrate Westport Community Calendar has been around since October.  It’s grown slowly but steadily under the direction of Megan Donaher.  The 24-year-old native Westporter was hired part-time by the town’s Arts Advisory Council, which manages the site.

Megan is expanding the depth and breadth of listings.  It’s not just about the Westport Arts Center and other well-known organizations; the goal is to include smaller groups that have less opportunity to publicize their events.

And, of course, to make the Community Calendar as much a part of every Westporter’s day as morning coffee and “06880.”

Categories: Arts · Entertainment · Organizations · People
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Repairs’ Reprieve

January 24, 2010 · 1 Comment

Generations of Westporters know Jim Honeycutt as a teacher — 1st of social studies, then computer education, now running Staples’ Media Lab audio and TV production classes.

Occasionally he alludes to his old rock ‘n’ roll days.  Now — in cyberspace, which he and his students are so wired into — there’s proof.

Honeycutt has created a podcast about Repairs, his folk/rock/country band of the late 1960’s and early ’70s.  He did it to demo an assignment he gave his Audio Production class:  Make a podcast about your favorite album.

Honeycutt’s podcast (click here to listen) offers a fascinating insight into the music industry, back in the day.  Repairs formed at Fairfield University, where Honeycutt and Peter McCann met through a freshman week orientation talent show.  Gradually, other talented musicians — including Honeycutt’s soon-to-be 1st wife, a Manhattanville College student — joined the group.

Their mostly original music featured tight harmonies.  It was wide-ranging, eclectic, sometimes even psychedelic.  Think a combination of Buffalo Springfield, Loggins and Messina, the Pozo Seco Singers, Jefferson Airplane and the Association (if you can).

Repairs was “discovered” in 1971, on Westport’s Jesup Green.  They were playing there — the podcast does not explain why — and in the audience was Andrew Loog Oldham.  The podcast doesn’t say why the producer of the Rolling Stones was at Jesup Green either, but he liked what he heard.  He signed Repairs to a contract with Rare Earth Records — a subsidiary of Motown — and in 1971 the label released the group’s 1st album, “Already a Household Word.”

The cover of Repairs' 1st album. Jim Honeycutt is at far left, wearing sandals.

It was not a huge commercial success, Honeycutt says in the podcast.  It did well in Westport, however — for a few weeks outselling the Beatles at Klein’s Department Store — and in parts of  Europe too.

Two more Repairs albums followed.  Neither achieved much acclaim, and eventually the band broke up.

Nearly 4 decades later, Repairs has found new life — in Staples’ Media Lab, on iTunes and throughout cyberspace.

They may yet become “a household word.”

Categories: Entertainment · Looking back · People · Staples HS · technology
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Westport’s Avatar

January 22, 2010 · 3 Comments

In 2007 Connor Murphy graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design.  He’d focused on studio-scale animation, and enjoyed internships working on productions like “Corpse Bride,” “Brotherhood” and “Underdog.”

Connor Murphy

Now the 2003 Staples grad needed a Real Job.  He wrote 1,300 personalized emails.  Finally, he landed work as a “glorified production assistant” at Giant Studios.  The company — specializing in “motion capture technology” for film and video games– was just gearing up for a new project:  “Avatar.”

“It was pure Irish luck,” Connor recalls.  “To be honest, at that point I would have taken any job.”

Giant Studios is actually rather small — 30 people — allowing Connor to learn quickly and move up.  He served as director James Cameron’s camera assistant on stage, and ran the motion capture system.

With his animation training, Connor worked as a motion editor on 3 simultaneous projects:  “Mummy 3,” The Incredible Hulk” and “Prince Caspian.”  He applied the captured human motion to the movie characters, then changed, blended or enhanced that motion as needed.

When the motion-editing phase of “Avatar” began, he moved easily into that.  He had, he says, “the unique and very advantageous position of working on both the on-set capture and post-production effects portions” of the mega-blockbuster.

Six-day weeks were typical — and on those days Connor would work from 7:30 a.m. to midnight.  “We all got a little crazy, and a little fatter,” he notes.

“‘Avatar’ was my first credit.  Having touched nearly every scene in the movie in 1 way or another, I’m just proud that we finished and that people like it,” he says.

At Staples Connor was involved in tech for Players.  He took several advanced drawing courses, and spent his free time drawing in the art rooms.  He credits teacher Camille Eskell and the rest of the art department with helping him take art seriously — and get into RISD — but realizes now that “the rest of my Staples education was invaluable to successfully merging art with the real world.

“Being able to speak to the physics and the ‘reasons why’ behind the animation is just as valuable as being able to do it in the 1st place.”

This week, Connor began his next project:  “Real Steel.”  Directed by Shawn Levy, it’s “a ‘Rocky’-style story about robot boxing in the future.”

Connor looks forward to working on fight scenes — and “more extreme characters.”

Categories: Education · Entertainment · People · Staples HS · technology
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Great Cake!

January 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment

The Staples culinary program of 1987 was nothing like today.  Nonetheless, Catherine Ruehle has become one the high school’s most famous gustatory graduates.

At Miche Mache restaurant, the self-taught baker’s artistic eye and flair for innovative flavor combinations won a rave review from the New York Times (“breathtaking in both artistry and taste”).  Since then she’s catered, managed a restaurant, published cookbooks, and developed and tested recipes.

Catherine Ruehle, and something she just whipped up.

Two years ago Catherine launched Sublime, a retail bakery and cake studio in Fort Worth.  Its custom cakes, eat-in and takeout desserts, breakfast pastries, catering trays and private cake decorating lessons and online store — including vegan, gluten-free and sugar-free items — have earned Texas-size praise.

Soon the entire country will see if Catherine will rule the reality TV world.  This week she finished taping her 1st Food Network Challenge.

Details and air date not yet available.  Of course, Catherine’s friends and fans in Fairfield County can’t see anything on the Food Network at all right now.  Cablevision and Scripps Network have effectively told their viewers:  Let them eat cake.

Categories: Entertainment · People · Staples HS
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The Next Picture Show

January 19, 2010 · 17 Comments

The Post Office is looking to unload its downtown building.  The Town of Westport is interested in buying it.  No one knows what would go there, but First Selectman Gordon Joseloff is open to suggestions.

“06880″ suggests a movie theater.

Westport nightlife died a while ago, of multiple causes.  But if it were a corpse, the death certificate would read:  “Complications from loss of movie theaters.”

The lines of the old Fine Arts Theater -- including the recessed entryway -- are still visible at Restoration Hardware.

Fine Arts I and II (now Restoration Hardware), III (now Matsu Sushi) and IV (now whatever is behind the Baskin-Robbins building) brought people downtown.

They had dinner before movies, and ice cream after.  They went to nearby bars.  They strolled and window-shopped, and if they saw something they liked, they returned when the stores were open to buy it.

The Post Office is not big enough for an Imax.  We don’t need a multiplex, like the comically named Bow-Tie Cinemas.

But wouldn’t a place that showed indie and art films be great?

Fairfield's Community Theater, where Westporters go for entertainment.

Westporters go to the Garden Cinemas in Norwalk all the time.  We’re big fans of Fairfield’s Community Theater.  There’s no reason those towns can have independent movie theaters, and we can’t.

A movie theater would re-invigorate downtown.  It would provide jobs, and stimulate the economy.  It would give teenagers a place to go, and something to do.

Come on, Mr. First Selectman.  Put your weight and prestige behind turning the Post Office into a movie theater.

It’s not like you don’t know the business.  Your grandfather opened the Fine Arts Theater, back in 1916.

Knowing the way Westport works, if we get started today we’d have opening night at the Post Office Theater just in time for that centennial.

Westport is not like Anarene, Texas after that town lost its movie theater. Right?

Categories: Downtown · Entertainment · Looking back · Westport life
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Staples’ Challenge

January 15, 2010 · 2 Comments

Victor Hollenberg is a language, geography, history and politics whiz.  Naveen Murali is a math expert.  Petey Menz takes care of culture and literature.  Gabe Block and Rachel Myers nail the sciences.

Individually, they’re 5 of Staples’ brightest students.  Collectively, they make up the school’s Challenge team.

Inspirationally, you’ll love watching them compete on Cablevision’s “The Challenge.”  They’ll take on Connecticut teams 1st, then attempt to move on to the tri-state championship in the spring.

The winners earn $10,000 for their school.  Victorious team members get $500 each.

The opening round airs Tuesday, Jan. 19, at 6:30 p.m. on MSG Varsity (Cablevision Channel 14).  The Challenge repeats on News 12 Connecticut Saturday and Sunday evenings, at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.  The 1st foe is Greenwich.  Confidentiality prohibits us from reporting how badly Staples kicks Greenwich’s butt who wins.

Staples' Challenge team: Rear (from left): Petey Menz, Naveen Murali, Victor Hollenberg, Gabe Block. Front: Rachel Myers.

“Like any good team — in sports or academics – they collaborate well in the few seconds they have,” says Jim Goodrich.  He and Julia McNamee co-advise the Challenge team.

“These kids have such knowledge,” he marvels.  “This is a way for them to showcase what they know, for an objective other than grades.”

Goodrich adds:  “They’re not just bright kids who have acquired an incredible number of facts.  They’re also wired to hear a question, and instantaneously have the answer.”

The co-advisor enjoys his role.  “I get to spend time with smart kids.  They’re very normal, and a lot of fun — but they can talk about an enormous range of things.  It’s stimulating for them to be with each other, and for me to hear them talk.”

“The Challenge” is like “Jeopardy” and “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” meets “GE College Bowl.”  Questions include math factoring, physics and authors; categories can be as whimsical as “California” and “People in Uniform.”

“I love trivia,” Petey — the culture/language guy — says.  “This feels just like a sports team.  It’s more competitive than my other school activities (Inklings newspaper and Junior State).  We practice a lot, and we really want to win.”

Training sessions include answering questions provided by Goodrich and McNamee; watching tapes of past episodes; even honing skills like conferring and buzzing in.

“Last year we got locked out a lot, because we buzzed in too early,” Petey explains.

Petey enjoyed the recent competition, taped at Cablevision’s New York studio.  He was not fazed that Greenwich had more fans.  ”Mr. Dodig (Staples’ principal) doesn’t want to take kids out of class to watch other kids answer questions,” Petey notes.  “So we didn’t have the Superfans, like at sports events.”

Petey’s grandparents were there, however, cheering him on.

“It’s a lot of fun,” the junior says.  “It can be stressful, but you don’t feel bad if you get an answer wrong.  There’s always another one coming at you.”

Categories: Entertainment · Staples HS · Teenagers
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