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Hot tickets
By Times staff
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2000
Dance takes center stage
One dance company makes its bay area premiere, the other has a return engagement.
The first-timer is the Dallas Black Dance Theater, which has been holding a residency in St. Petersburg this week that culminates in a performance Friday night. The company performs a mixed program that features And Now Marvin, a tribute to Marvin Gaye choreographed by Darryl Sneed. Also on the agenda are a Chuck Davis piece, Homage to the Source: AFRICA, Armando Silva's Come Decirete Que Te Extrano? and Snakes, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails by Kirby Reed.
Dallas Black Dance Theatre is at Mahaffey Theater Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets: $24-$30. (727) 892-5767.
The returnee is Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, which performed the Romeo and Juliet of artistic director Jean-Christophe Maillot in the area two years ago. This time around, the company will be performing another Maillot-choreographed story ballet with a Prokofiev score, Cinderella, at Sarasota's Van Wezel Hall at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets: $37-$47. (800) 826-9303.
The Monaco-based company, on a seven-city North American tour, also performs at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The mixed program includes Balanchine's ballet to Stravinsky's Violin Concerto and two Maillot pieces to music of Meredith Monk and John Adams. Tickets: $18.50-$48.50. (813) 229-7827.
- JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
'Theatre Hell!' peeks backstage
Theater types love the Christopher Guest cult film Waiting for Guffman, in which a foppish director named Corky St. Clair takes a job to direct a musical at a community theater in the heartland.
Craig Alpaugh's Theatre Hell! has a similar premise. "It's kind of like Waiting for Guffman meets Noises Off," says Alpaugh, managing director of Gorilla Theatre, where his play opens tonight. "It's a backstage farce about an English director on Broadway who is conned into directing a play at a community theater in Kansas."
David McElroy, left, stars as Dickie Fennsworth in Theatre Hell!, which was directed by David O'Hara. The cast also includes Steven Clark Pachosa and Carolyn Zaput.
Alpaugh's play opens tonight and continues through Nov. 5. Tickets: $14 and $17. (813) 879-2914.
- JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
Artist flying high
In Violent Violet Series: Witch, on display Friday at Covivant Gallery, Kathie Olivas suggests whimsy, sexuality and combatting vulnerability. The work is an oil on wood with the addition of an actual child's dress pattern. Olivas, 24, is a Tampa artist whose work has been flying above the crowd. She has had several one-person shows, has curated more than 30 others and exhibited in the Tampa Museum of Art's "underCURRENT/overVIEW" show this summer. Also on view is "Who Do You Love," a group show curated by Diane Elmeer, a professor at the University of South Florida. Covivant, owned and run by artists and located in an old warehouse, is an alternative space for artists working in experimental, cutting-edge directions. It is at 4906 N Florida Ave., Tampa; (813) 232-1267. After Friday's opening from 7 to 11 p.m., hours are noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Nov. 12 or by appointment. Free.
Hot Licks charm
Fans of eccentric folkie Dan Hicks and his band the Hot Licks love to see Mr. Hicks live. Where else can you get such wacky lyrics and fun call-and-response vocals? Not to mention stage shenanigans so campy they've made Hicks a cult figure for more than 30 years.
A master of sarcasm, Hicks has recorded "hits" that include How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away? and the love song I Scare Myself. His quirky mix of country, folk and Western swing sounds as weird now as it did in the late 1960s. In short, this guy just doesn't fit in. And that's his charm.
Hicks this year released Beatin' the Heat, his first album with the Hot Licks since 1973. With guest pals Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, Elvis Costello, Brian Setzer and Tom Waits, it's as much finger snappin' fun and as charming and uncompromising as any Hicks record.
Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks perform with Carol Plunk at 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Club More, 703 Franklin St., Clearwater. Tickets are $15. (727) 466-6673.
- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic
Counting Crows' attraction
Ah, the thinking man's alt-rock double bill:
Sure, it's been a long time since Mr. Jones rocked the house, but Counting Crows still attracts folks with its rootsy, literate pop. The band's jangly guitars meshed with Mr.-Sensitive-dreadlocked-man Adam Duritz's angsty vocals remind some of Van Morrison.
Personally, I'd like to see Duritz get his head out of his own navel, get some therapy and stop being so gosh-darned sad. So self-absorbed! But, chicks dig him. Duritz dated two-thirds of the female cast of Friends.
Opening act Live does that whole vintage U2 thing: anthemic songs focusing on spirituality and redemption. Super earnest frontman Edward Kowalczyk keeps things interesting, writing pensive, lyrics and catchy melodies like those found in the hit I Alone that keep Live both arty and accessible.
Counting Crows perform with Live at 7:30 p.m, tonight at the Ice Palace in Tampa. Tickets are $28-$38. (813) 223-1000.
- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic
Compelling bluegrass
Recent converts to bluegrass won't want to miss Claire Lynch and her superb Front Porch String Band. Lynch's style can remind one of Alison Krauss, but longtime fans already know her as one of the genre's most compelling singers. And as her recent album Love Light proves, she has developed into a fine songwriter. Lynch performs at 8 p.m. Saturday, Tarpon Springs Performing Arts Center. $13 general, $11 center members. 324 Pine St., Tarpon Springs. (727) 942-5605.
- PETE COUTURE, Times staff writer
Choices for children
Two of the area's largest performing arts centers are catering to kids Sunday afternoon.
In St. Petersburg, performance artist Paul Zaloom, above, brings his zany character from PBS' Beakman's World to the Mahaffey Theater. Wacky scientist Beakman reigns over a lab filled with gizmos and slime, aided by his assistant, a 6-foot lab rat. The show is at 3 p.m. Tickets are $8-$12. The theater is at 400 First St. S, St. Petersburg. (727) 892-5767.In Tampa, Theaterworks/USA brings the classic children's book series The Boxcar Children to life with a new musical about the adventurous orphans of Gertrude Chandler Warner's books. The show is at 2 p.m. at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, downtown near Ashley Drive and Tyler Street. Tickets are $5.50-$10.50. (813) 229-7827.
- WILMA NORTON, Times staff writer
Ole, ole!
MegaFest 2000 brings Victor Manuelle, one of the biggest stars of salsa, and more than a dozen other bands together Sunday for the Tampa Bay area's largest Hispanic music festival. The festival, which last year drew about 20,000 people, also features lots of food and other activities for the family. It runs 11 a.m.-11 p.m. at the Tampa Port Authority, Channelside Drive and George Street. Admission is $8. Children younger than 10 are free. Tickets are on sale at area Hispanic-owned businesses. Call (813) 871-1819 for a list. Tickets also will be sold at the gate Sunday.
- WILMA NORTON, Times staff writer
Yo-Yo Ma performs tonight
J.S. Bach's six suites for unaccompanied cello constitute one of the mountaintops of classical music. As novelist and cellist Mark Salzman says in a performance piece he does, "These pieces have become to cellists what Shakespeare's plays are to actors, or Rembrandt's painting to painters: the foundation of the repertoire, the music we can forever return to and never exhaust."
Yo-Yo Ma is an unparalleled interpreter of the Bach suites. "I grew up with them," he says. "They were my first musical food. My very first piece of music was the prelude of the first suite when I was 4. So I've been playing them for 40 years."
The superstar cellist performs the first, fifth and sixth suites at 8 tonight at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Tickets are $40 and $50. Call (727) 791-7400.
-- JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
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