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Tags: Film Festival Travel / Houston Travel / Culture Travel / Movie Travel / Film Festivals / → All Tags

Come Artists And All To Cinema Arts Festival Houston

Austin gets all the credit for being the arty city in Texas, and Houston residents probably like it that way: When no one's depending on you to bolster your state's reputation, you get a lot more work done! But the city where "Reality Bites" and "Rushmore" were filmed is stepping into the limelight with next month's Cinema Arts Festival Houston.

Held November 11 to 15, the fest says it focuses on "films by and about artists," offering events like a conversation with screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga ("Babel") Nov. 13 and a screening of the new documentary "Yes Men Fix The World" with one of the Yes Men, who have been wreaking havoc in Washington D.C. this week with fake press conferences and silly costumes—that's on November 14 and 15.

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Tags: Theatre Travel / Culture Travel / Free / Cheap NYC / Events / → All Tags

All Of The Nation's A Stage For A Free Night Of Theater On Oct. 15

Gleeks and other theater nerds will be thrilled to know that they can catch complimentary shows in more than 120 cities across the country on October 15, the designated Free Night of Theater. But theater newbies benefit, too. They get a chance to dip their feet in the theater pool instead of having to dive right in and become full-fledged patrons of the arts.

The fifth annual Free Night aims to expose theater to the masses, especially those demographics that are typically underrepresented in theater audiences. It's the perfect time to try out a new company that you've been meaning to see or one that you've never even heard of. Offerings include everything from experimental companies to musical-theater troupes, and ballet companies to classical music concerts.

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Tags: Broooaaadwaaaaaaay / Broadway Shows / Culture Travel / Hugh Jackman / Daniel Craig / Celeb Travel / Theatre Travel / → All Tags

Proof That Hugh Jackman And Daniel Craig Are Really On Broadway Together

Having trouble distinguishing between movies and plays? In a movie, the characters don't berate you if your cell phone goes off, as one Broadway audience member found out this week while watching Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig tread the boards together.

Jackman and Craig are currently starring in "A Steady Rain," a Chicago-imported drama about two cops who get into some off-duty trouble. Last Wednesday, they didn't even break accent (Jackman's is better, for the record) to call out an etiquette-challenged patron who didn't turn off a ringing cell phone (which proceeded to go off again). Thanks to TMZ, you can watch the video here, and we beg you, do not be that guy. Or, for that matter, the guy videotaping an entire show from his seat—this isn't U2 at Giants Stadium!

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Tags: Theater Travel / Culture Travel / William Shakespeare / Festivals / San Diego Travel / Events / → All Tags

Our Top Three Play Picks For San Diego's Shakespeare Festival

In the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival production of Cyrano de Bergerac, Patrick Page plays the nasally-well-endowed titular character and Dana Green stars as Roxane.

If you are looking to wind down the season with one more alfresco outing, head to San Diego's Old Globe Theatre for the Summer Shakespeare Festival. The 74th annual fest offers Bard classics Twelfth Night and Coriolanus and in a break with tradition, Cyrano de Bergerac, the first non-Shakespeare play the theater has featured since it revived the festival five years ago.

The three productions rotate nightly in the Globe’s outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre through September 27. This way, if you're in town for a couple of days, you can catch all three. But if you can only make a day or two, here's a rundown of the shows to help you decide which play to see:

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Hugh Jackman And Daniel Craig On Broadway Makes For A Theatre-Crazy August

The glitz and the glamour of the Great White Way has dazzled many a visitor to New York CIty, but you want something... more. You don't mind seeing a little of the magic dissipated if it means you get a glimpse into what goes on when the show must go on. Prove you're not the average Playbill-collecting fan with these New York theater excursions:

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The Show Can't Go On: '9 To 5' Joins Musical Closures On Broadway

Now they can stay in their pajamas all day: The cast and crew of Broadway's movie-to-musical version of "9 to 5," cowritten by Dolly Parton, will be out of work by Labor Day as the poorly attended musical is scheduled to close. Based on the 1980 female-empowerment comedy costarring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, "9 to 5" opened April 30 but never found its audience, failing to break 70 percent capacity in the house this past week.

Our recessionary theory: A depressed job market has no place for fantasies about getting revenge on your sexist boss. After all, he could read your mind (or your tweets) and fire you, and then where would you be? More likely, the show's producers wildly overestimated the popularity of the movie (and Parton's drawing power when she's not onstage) when they sunk $14 million into the show; without marquee names either for Broadway or the movies—Allison Janney, we still love you—tourists steered clear.

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Recession Hits Disney as Broadway's 'Little Mermaid' To Close

The Mouse just couldn't mint that money fast enough: The Broadway production of "The Little Mermaid," one of three Disney shows currently running on the Great White Way, will close August 30 and seek its fortunes on a national tour.

"The Little Mermaid" opened in November 2007 after a very mixed out-of-town try-out in Denver and never gained the hearts and minds of critics, while its siblings were either mostly ignored ("Mary Poppins") or unduly celebrated ("The Lion King"). Stung by the stagehands' strike and widespread mockery of the production's use of rollerskates to make its actors "swim" about the stage, the show nonetheless outlasted box office predictions and as of last week was still at 85 percent capacity, while the critically acclaimed play "Mary Stuart" languished at 55.3 percent. (The second-last show in grosses, "Blithe Spirit," is closing this week.)

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Darwin Festival Brings 'Guitar Orchestra' and More to North Australia

Australia's Northern Territory capital of Darwin is apparently not just a city of crocodiles and beer—they actually have culture there too, and to prove it the Darwin Festival turns 16 this year.

From August 13 to 30, Darwin will be getting all arty with a stack of dance, film, theatre, comedy and music performances to see, including the Indigenous Music Awards on August 21 with Australian Idol runner-up Jessica Mauboy headlining. There's also a new venue called the Lighthouse, which is basically an open-air concert area constructed with festoon lighting.

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Tags: Middle East / UAE / Art Museums / Guggenheim / Culture Travel / → All Tags

Abu Dhabi Sneaking Out Of Dubai’s (Big) Shadow

Playing little brother to international city of the moment Dubai would definitely suck, but tourism officials are keen to make the UAE’s second city Abu Dhabi famous for something other than bizarre morphing skyscrapers. Abu Dhabi is proudly striving to become the cultural capital of the Middle East instead.

And while we scoffed a bit at first, on closer investigation it seems like Abu Dhabi does know something about culture. There’s going to be a Guggenheim Abu Dhabi by 2012, and in keeping with the UAE's penchant for world records, it'll be the world's biggest Guggenheim museum.

They've also got a bunch of national cultural buildings in Abu Dhabi like the National Theater and the main national library. Perhaps we’ll soon be able to skip the skyscrapers of Dubai and spend our layover soaking up the museum culture of Abu Dhabi. Pity the shopping will probably never be as good.

Related Stories:
· Oil’s Well in Abu Dhabi [The Age]
· The Incredible Morphing Skyscraper [Jaunted]

[Photo: Ioan Barbulescu]

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Two Reasons to Get to Berlin Fast

We love the German capital Berlin so much that we don’t really need a reason to go there. But here are two anyway.

First up, from October 31 through November 3, Art Forum Berlin 2008 will be the place to see what’s new in the contemporary art scene. It’s the lucky thirteenth time the Art Forum will be held, and if you’re wondering just what kind of work you’ll see, know that organizers say it’ll be art "with freshness, actuality and a certain cool roughness." Sounds like they're describing the crowd.

In the following week, the JazzFest Berlin starts on November 5 and will finish up late in the evening of November 9. Jazz musicians from the world over will set up in a bunch of Berlin venues, including the jazz clubs A-Trane and Quasimodo.

--AmandaK

Related Stories:
· Art Forum Berlin 2008 [Official Site]
· JazzFest Berlin 08 [Official Site]
· Berlin Travel coverage [Jaunted]

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Dust Off Your Top Hats and Capes: The Opera is Coming to Brooklyn

Everybody likes to make fun of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with its insufferably ironic scenesters and their asymmetrical haircuts, but it's still one of the best neighborhoods in New York to find bold new ideas in music and art. Case in point: the 'burg will host the borough's first opera in years this November when OperaOggiNY stages a performance of Franco Leoni's one-act verisimo opera L'Oracolo. The company is renovating the 600-seat McCaddin Memorial Hall Theater on Berry Street between South 2nd and South 3rd Streets, and will welcome city opera buffs to its grand opening performances on November 6, 7, and 8. Admission is only $20, which seems like a bargain for a "real" opera, and there are dozens of great bars and restaurants nearby - Dressler comes to mind - where patrons can discuss the tenor's register over drinks and snacks. It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd is drawn to these classical performances in the midst of hipsterville.

[Photo: nag-brooklyn.org]

Related Stories:
· OperaOggiNY [Official Site]
· OperaOggiNy to re-open McCaddin Memorial Hall Theater on Berry Street [nag-brooklyn.org]
· Opera Comes to the Burg [Gothamist]
· Opera Travel Coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Culture Travel / Theater / → All Tags

Iceland Cultural Travel: New York Edition

If you're considering taking advantage of Iceland's cash-starved economy with a jaunt there this fall, you can get a head start on the country's beyond-Bjork culture scene at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Through Saturday, BAM is staging Woyzeck, an otherworldly interpretation of the classic German drama, as conceived by hotshot Icelandic director Gísli Örn Gardarsson and his team of acrobatic actors and aerial ballerinas. The show comes complete with underwater scenes staged in a giant Plexiglass tank and an original score from cult rocker Nick Cave.

Tickets start at $20, which, as New York theater goes, is definitely recession-era pricing.

Related Stories:
· Woyzeck [Official Site]
· Iceland Invites You to Take Advantage of Its Economic Misfortune [Jaunted]
· Kaboom! Manhattan Project Opera Hits New York [Jaunted]

[Photo: BAM]