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12410 Johnston Road at Ballantyne, 704-926-3441
– Childress
THE ARTS
Michelle Busiek: After lurking in the wings at Queens University -- and backstage among the power tools as a Theatre Charlotte intern -- Michelle Busiek had her mainstage coming out back in January ... spectacularly miscast in Brighton Beach Memoirs.
No doubt about it, Busiek's vivacity lit up the Queens Road stage. But was she really the ideal choice for inspiring a Jewish cousin's lewd thoughts and nocturnal emissions?
Only if you associate Spam and mayonnaise with Brooklyn. For this reviewer, Busiek's wholesome ebullience conjured up "a cheerleader shiksa goddess." Turns out I may have been guilty of understatement.
"My dad is a Baptist minister in West Virginia," she freely admits. "To me, Charlotte was the city that I could get to the fastest without my parents freaking out!"
A couple of people from her church had attended Queens, and the Theater Department -- particularly Jane and Charles Hadley -- welcomed her warmly. Aside from an excursion into a 24-Hour Play Project with BareBones Theatre Group, all her theater activity was confined to campus while she attended QU.
That wasn't as long as you might think.
"I fly through everything, so I graduated college in three years," Busiek explains. "I did like 28, 30 hours at Queens a semester, and then I would do my plays at night, and then on the weekends, I would waitress at Brixx."
What little buzz I've heard about Busiek from theater insiders confirms that she is as hard-working as she is talented. Yet she isn't driven by the fame game. Not anymore. Acting is her passion, and teaching drama is how she'd like to give something back.
The Baptist minister's daughter brought a whole new dimension to Puritanism as she portrayed Mercy in Theatre Charlotte's recent production of The Crucible. Bit part, but you tend to get noticed when you're licking the villain's face. Especially when she's the same gender.
"I can't even believe that you picked up on that!" she exclaims.
Busiek has already landed another small role in Collaborative Arts' second annual Shakespeare on The Green production, As You Lick It. Sorry, I meant As You LIKE It. Lost my concentration -- a hazard where Busiek is concerned.
– Perry Tannenbaum
Gallery with no name: The newest gallery in town is at Charlotte ground zero: Trade and Tryon, at the Bank of America Corporate Center. The 12-foot-by-16-foot gallery used to be the niche housing lobby security in BoA's grandest lobby. Now it's a divot in the wall housing a gallery with no name.
The "Formerly Known As Security Niche Gallery" is currently showing seven paintings by Norman Rockwell, America's most beloved painter. These seven paintings are vintage Rockwell, painted somewhere around 1930, each piece an original for the cover of Saturday Evening Post or an advertisement for tires or Christmas, or a way of life cherished by memories way longer than mine.
In the best painting here -- the sentinel cop calls this painting "Going Fishing" -- a boy stares dolefully out a window at his dog. The dog scratches the window pane and sits on a wooden crate next to a can of worms and a willow pole with fish line and bobber. The boy's eyes droop pine, his dog's ears perk hopefully. The boy slouches in front of a book in white shirt and suspenders. The extraordinary realness of the picture -- the brick, window pane, the shadows and gloom across the boy's shirt and face -- is palpable.
Other paintings show people in poses of communicable emotion -- a boy peering up the chimney on Christmas Eve, a gleeful elderly golfer on hole 18 writing down his score, a boy on his bike heading to the fishing hole.
Speaking of 2.00000
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Letters To The Editor
Nov 28, 2007 -
Zoom-Zoom
Nov 14, 2007 -
Ready to Ramblas
Oct 3, 2007 - More »
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Calendar
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Juneteenth: Queen City Comedy Jam @ Blush CLT
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Juneteenth: Queen City Adult Prom @ Blush CLT
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Queen Charlotte Fair @ Route 29 Pavilion
- Mondays-Sundays. Continues through July 5
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Coveted Luxury Watches
- Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Continues through Dec. 30
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AllMachines
- Through Dec. 30, 12-9 p.m.
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Fall Books
NC Lit Talent On ParadeCL Carolina Writers Night brings McCorkle, Gurganus and more
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Fall Arts Listings
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Family Values
Gay Charlotte parents and their children speak OUT
