Monthly Archives: April 2010

Play It Again, Staples

Posted on April 30, 2010 | 2 comments

After years of use, Staples’ grand piano is kaput.  There are big cracks in the soundboard, and experts say it’s not worth fixing.

So — with Board of Ed funding about as plausible as Billy Joel donating one of his extras — the Staples Music Parents Association is trying to raise $30,000 to replace it.

Alice Lipson (front), with Fran Southworth and Dave DeVoll of the Staples Music Parents Association, says a fond farewell to her long-serving piano.

The new piano is a Yamaha C3 grand — identical to the present one.  The SMPA hopes to complete fundraising this month, so they can present the gift at the Orphenians’ 50th anniversary concert June 6.

That date marks another milestone:  the final concert for choral director Alice Lipson.  She’s retiring after 35 years in the Westport schools.

Alice is very familiar with the current piano.  It’s used for every Staples concert — including Candelights — and many Players productions too.  It’s an integral part of the Westport arts scene, and all music education.

The Staples Music Parents Association usually focuses on smaller projects:  providing food for musicians in between Candlelight performances; buying a sign to announce upcoming concerts; collecting used instruments for Bridgeport schools.

This is a grander scale.  But it’s time for a new grand piano at Staples, and time for any Westporter who ever enjoyed a concert or play there to pay it forward.

(Tax-deductible checks can be made out to “Staples Music Parents Association,” with “New Piano” on the memo line, and sent to:  Staples MPA, Box 223, Westport, CT 06881-0223.  For more information click here; call 203-226-9750, or email shsmpa@aol.com.)

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Posted in Arts, Organizations, Staples HS

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Coppy Holzman’s Charity Buzz

Posted on April 29, 2010 | 2 comments

You missed your chance at golf with Bill Clinton.

But there’s still time to bid on lunch with Candice Bergen.  A tennis lesson with John McEnroe.  A day on the set of “Reel Steel” with Hugh Jackman.

Those items — and scores more — are all part of “A Bid to Save the Earth.”  The online auction — running now through Thursday (May 6) — benefits 4 environmental-based NGOs.

Coppy Holzman (right) and Biggie.

It’s all the brainchild of Charitybuzz, a Westport company that raises funds for non-profits around the globe by running similar web-based auctions.

Longtime Westporter Coppy Holzman founded the firm 5 years ago.  His reason was simple:  He wanted to make a difference.

Charitybuzz was a natural extension of his conventional retailing, consumer-focused career.  In just half a decade, Holzman has built a community based on people who want to do well, and live good.

“We focus on customer service,” he says.  “We’re devoted to offering once-in-a-lifetime experiences, incredible merchandise and luxury vacations that raise funds for non-profits.”

His clients focus on diverse areas — human rights, the environment, medical research, arts, education and more — but all share a passion for making the world a better place.  “I love that we help so many great organizations in such a fun, creative way,” Holzman says.

How “once-in-a-lifetime” is the “Bid to Save the Earth” (get the pun?) auction?

Among the 200 items:

  • Lunch with Vera Wang, followed by a trip to her boutique — with a $10,000 gift certificate
  • An evening of dinner and theater with Sigourney Weaver
  • Courtside seats to a New Jersey Nets game, plus a shooting session with a player (maybe you can teach him something)
  • Dinner with Eli Manning and his wife
  • A day with the editors of O, The Oprah Magazine
  • 2 guitars signed by Emmy Lou Harris, Kid Rock and other music celebrities
  • Meet the cast and visit the set of “Friday Night Lights”
  • A Gucci fashion package, including exclusive merchandise — and tickets to a show in Milan

Been there, done that?  How about a trip to explore the Panama Canal — with Miss Universe 2002.

That should create some “charity buzz” the next time the guys at the diner ask what you’ve been up to lately.

(Details on the online auction are at www.abidtosavetheearth.org.  Bidders must complete a simple registration process with a valid credit card; click here to get started.  Christie’s is partnering with Charitybuzz for the event, which benefits Oceana, Natural Resources Defense Council, Central Park Conservancy and Conservation International.)

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Posted in Environment, Organizations, People

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Remembering Burton Knopp

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Comments Off on Remembering Burton Knopp

Burton Knopp died recently, at 93.  Though he spent the last 30 years in Vermont — mostly in a log house in Shoreham he built with his family — he’s still remembered fondly here.  He lived in Westport from 1955 through 1979, and — typical of that time — made an impact in many ways.

Burt and his wife, Honey, helped launch the World Affairs Center — a downtown educational center and home-away-from-home for students, housewives, and anyone else thirsting to learn of a life beyond Westport.

Burt and Honey were active in the civil rights movement.  They also were actively involved in the Coleytown Capers, an annual Broadway-quality revue that raised tons of money for Coleytown Elementary School.

To honor their civic contributions, the Town of Westport gave the Knopps a Brotherhood Award in 1964.

Burt taught hundreds of Westporters to play the folk guitar, holding group classes in his home.

Country Gal is the blue building, second from the right.

But he was perhaps best known as the founder and owner of Country Gal, a women’s clothing store that had just the right styles, at just the right time.  Country Gal was not the only such shop on Main Street — but for generations of Westporters, it defined downtown.

In 1979 Burt sold the business, and he and Honey moved north.  (Their son Alex stayed — and was later elected mayor of Norwalk.)

Burt was as active in Vermont as he had been here.  He volunteered more than 1,500 hours as a hospital X-ray developer; he worked with the Vermont Natural Food Coop; he was an avid member of the Shoreham Historical Society, and attended weekly Quaker meetings.

He was also an amateur beekeeper, a fixture at farmers markets who had an active mail order honey business.  He often visited school classrooms to talk about his hobby.

The name of his prize-winning honey?  Country Gal.

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Posted in Downtown, Looking back, People

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Staples Sticks it To Dodig

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Comments Off on Staples Sticks it To Dodig

Staples golf team captain Dylan Murray tapes principal John Dodig to the cafeteria wall.

A high school principal does many things each day:  Evaluates teachers.  Plans budgets.  Gets taped to a wall.

Staples principal John Dodig spent today’s lunch period letting students and staff immobolize him.

Each strip of tape cost $1.  The money raised will purchase insecticide-treated bed nets, used to prevent malaria in Africa.  It costs just $10 to buy a net, distribute it to a family, and explain its use.

Today’s fundraiser was sponsored by Staples’ Junior State organization.  For more information on the international “Nothing But Nets” campaign, click here.

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Posted in Organizations, People, Staples HS

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Mid-Strut

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Comments Off on Mid-Strut

Some playwrights struggle for years to get 1 play read.

Eric Burns is 2 for 2.

And — struggling writers, don’t be jealous — he’s come late in life to his craft.

Eric Burns

Eric spent the bulk of his career as an Emmy-winning media critic, and a non-fiction writer on subjects like the social history of alcohol, the 1st years of American journalism and — coming in September — “Invasion of the Mind Snatchers: Television’s Conquest of America in the Fifties.”

Now Eric’s turned his attention to plays.  His 2nd effort — “Places to Sit” — will be read in New York next month.  Cynthia Harris — Helen Hunt’s mother in “Mad About You” — has the lead.

Even bigger news involves his 1st play.  “Mid-Strut” was read in New York last fall.  Richard Thomas — John-Boy in “The Waltons” — was the lead.

“Mid-Strut” is also 1 of three works chosen — from hundreds of submissions — to be read at the prestigious Eudora Welty New Play Series.  The producers are flying Eric down to Jackson, Mississippi this weekend, to see it.

The plot involves a charming, prosperous man in his mid-50s who is given less than a year to live.  He wants to reconnect with a majorette he lusted after more than 3 decades earlier — though he’s not sure “lust” is still the operative word.

We won’t tell you any more, because “Mid-Strut” is in the hands of producers who are considering it for New York.  If it reaches on- or off-Broadway, you’ll for yourself how the play ends.

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Posted in Arts, People

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Hail To The Chef

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Comments Off on Hail To The Chef

Michel Nischan’s connection to the Westport Country Playhouse is important, but culinary and casual:  He feeds theater-goers before and after shows.

Yet on Friday, May 14 the owner/founder of The Dressing Room takes a few steps east, to make his theatrical debut.  He’s got a walk-on appearance in “She Loves Me,” the musical comedy that’s been extended through May 15.

His role?  A chef, naturally (pun intended).

Michel Nischan

Michel won his spot last November.  He — okay, his wife Lori — bid $2,000 in a silent auction, at the 2009 Playhouse Gala.  She outlasted 3 others — all Playhouse patrons (and, presumably, Dressing Room regulars).

Michel wanted the role for 2 reasons:  He loves the Playhouse, and figured it would be fun.

He won’t tell “06880” what the role entails — “I’m sworn to secrecy” — but says he must prepare for it.

Good luck, Michel.  Break a leg.

And then go back to your real roles rolls next door.

(For ticket information on Michel’s cameo appearance — or any other “She Loves Me” performance — click here, or call 203-227-4177.)

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Posted in Arts, People, Restaurants, Westport Country Playhouse

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Steamboat Soaps

Posted on April 27, 2010 | 3 comments

What do you get when you cross “The Office” with “All My Children“?

“Steamboat:  The Series.”  It’s one of the most popular comedy offerings on YouTube — and a smash hit for Westporter Scott Bryce.

Scott Bryce

“Steamboat” is a soap satire.  Scott — a veteran actor who directed all 5 episodes — calls it “a behind-the-scenes look at the last desperate, dying days of a daytime soap opera.”

He shot “Steamboat” in just 1 day, at Norwalk’s Palace Digital Studios and the SoNo Academy.

Scott’s soap bones are strong.  He played Craig Montgomery on 113 episodes of “As The World Turns“; he’s been on other soaps, and his father — Ed Bryce — starred (off and on) as Bill Bauer on “Guiding Light,” from 1959 to 1983.

It was Ed’s TV “grandson” — Dr. Rick Bauer, played by actor Michael O’Leary — who called Scott last year, when “Guiding Light” was canceled after a 57-year (!) run.

Scott put together a cast of soap actors — many from “Guiding Light,” some from “As the World Turns” and other shows — and put them in roles that were the antithesis of what they were known for.

The response to the 5 webisodes has been great.  Sound and Fury, for example, called it “a loving look at the unseemly backside (and darkside) of producing a daytime soap.”

Scott is pitching the “Steamboat” series to anyone he can think of:  Comedy Central, the Soap Network, ABC, Ben Silverman.

Scott is hopeful it will get picked up by a distributor even bigger than YouTube.

“‘Steamboat’ is a metaphor for our entire world,” he says.  “It’s about the downsizing of all of us.  As budgets get sliced, egos get sliced too.”

But there’s hope.  “Even non-soap fans get it,” he adds.  “And they laugh.”

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Posted in Entertainment, People

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Photozip Goes Zap

Posted on April 26, 2010 | 2 comments

After 28 years, Photozip is printing its last photo.

The 1-hour film developing service in Westfair Center (across from Stop & Shop) closes this Friday — one more victim of the bad economy.

“There’s no light at the end of the tunnel,” says manager Chuck Manderville. “And the cost of doing business in this town is atrocious.

“Everyone in this complex is hurting.”

“People who have money aren’t buying what we’re selling,” Chuck adds.  “And the people who don’t have money — well, what are you going to do?  Buy a picture, or feed your family?”

How about the recent trend to digital photography?

“That really wasn’t it,” Chuck insists.  “We were doing okay until the economy went under.”

Photozip’s customers are sorry to see them go, Chuck says.

“But that doesn’t help.  Sorry doesn’t pay the bills.”

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Posted in Economy, Local business

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Hot Property

Posted on April 26, 2010 | 2 comments

Okay, so real estate in Westport is moving slower than New York traffic when the president’s in town.

Maybe you just need the right realtor.

Someone like Westport native Bram Shook.

There’s only 1 problem:  He’s in Costa Rica.

But that didn’t stop HGTV from featuring him — and his Century 21 firm down in the surfing resort town of Nosara– on their House Hunters International show.

Here’s the premise:

Ken and Donna Richardson live in Conway, South Carolina with their Maltese dog.  Ken recently retired and wants to buy a 2nd home in his favorite fishing spot: Nosara.  Donna has never been there — but she feels adventurous, and joins Ken in the search.

They want a 3-bed, 3-bath home with an open floor plan, a pool and an ocean view.  They also want to be near the beach. They have a budget of $700,000 — and have given themselves just 3 days to complete their search.

The assignment seems impossible — particularly because in Nosara a wildlife refuge separates all the homes from the beach.

But Bram is a realtor, which — in Costa Rica as in Westport — means anything is possible!

He shows them 3 places.  Each has killer attractions (ocean views!  a pool!  bright tropical colors!) — and potential deal-killers (the views are too far from the actual ocean!  the pool might be unsafe!  the rooms with the tropical colors are small!).

The TV show answered the question:  “With one day left to make their decision, will Ken and Donna decide to buy or fly home empty-handed?”

What did they decide?

Beats me.  I just learned about the show — and it aired earlier this month.  The web site offers no clue.

But it’s nice to know that Westport’s not the only place in the world with real estate stories.

Bram Shook and his family enjoy life in Costa Rica.

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Posted in People, Real estate

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A Modest Proposal

Posted on April 25, 2010 | 5 comments

It’s good that the road linking Compo Shopping Center and East Main Street — where the Humane Society is located — is 1-way.

Unfortunately, the 1-way is the wrong way.

That little hill should be an entrance — not an exit.

Drivers can already reach East Main via the back lot — just cut through between CVS and Olympia Sports.  No human being has ever been seen leaving the shopping center via the hill (unless making an illegal right turn onto the Post Road).

Creating a 1-way entrance, rather than an exit, would alleviate the gruesome backup in front of what is now the shopping center’s only entry.  Drivers not turning into the shopping center get stuck at the light behind those who are; meanwhile, the entire intersection is a mess for many reasons.  (Three of the biggest:  the entrance/exit is too narrow; it’s not directly aligned with the one across the street at Trader Joe’s, and Westport drivers think traffic rules apply to everyone except themselves.)

Adding another entrance to Compo Shopping Center via East Main Street won’t alleviate every problem.  Cars will still bunch up in the Gold’s section, behind those waiting at every conceivable angle to exit.

But — as they say about taking Gold’s chicken soup for a cold — “it can’t hoit.”

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Posted in Places, Totally random

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