Mobile
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Arts LOL: Comedy in the Q.C.
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 11:40 AM
Listed below is a roundup of CL's top picks for comedy shows in Charlotte this week. Hopefully, they keep you entertained and, more importantly, laughing out loud.
Charlie Murphy isn't completely in his brother Eddie's shadow - in fact, he's wallowed his way to fame with his True Hollywood Stories sketches on Chappelle's Show. His reflections as a hot-headed security guard, mad reactor and party-goer for actor/comedian and younger bro Eddie Murphy have seriously made an impression - what kind of impression, well, we'll leave that up to you to decide. But his past exaggerated adventures with Prince and Rick James are pretty funny. For a glimpse at his latest material, check him out when he stops in at The Comedy Zone Charlotte. $20-$25. May 24, 8 p.m.; May 25, 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m.; May 26, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; May 27, 7 p.m. The Comedy Zone Charlotte at N.C. Music Factory, 900 N.C. Music Factory Blvd., Suite B3. 980-321-4702. www.cltcomedyzone.com.
The Omegas of Charlotte's Coming to the Stage comedy show is set to feature headliner Spike Davis with Kenny Mack. $15-$20. May 25, 9 p.m. Omegas of Charlotte, 3301 Statesville Ave., Charlotte. 704-957-5707. www.piphiomegas.org.
Local improve troupe, Charlotte Comedy Theater doesn't ignore its audience, but rather uses them to their own advantage. Off-stage participation is a must in this R-rated performance. $10. May 26, 8 p.m. Wet Willies, 900 Seaboard St., Charlotte. 704-716-5650. www.wetwillies.com.
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Tuesday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Tue, May 22, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, May 22, 2012 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* The Great Masters of Lithography exhibit at New Gallery of Modern Art
* Good Eats and Meets' Dinner at A Piece of Havanna
* Modern Primitives and The Fooligans at Snug Harbor
* Coffey Talk with Chip Coffee at McGlohon Theatre
* Open Mic Poetry at Wine Up
Monday, May 21, 2012
News / Opinion Dunce of the Week: Pastor Charles L. Worley
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Mon, May 21, 2012 at 2:43 PM
I found the Dunce of the Week, and it's barely Monday.
- towerload.com
Pastor Charles L. Worley, of Providence Baptist Church in Maiden, wants to enclose "homosexuals, queers and lesbians" in an electric fence and leave them there to starve. Well, maybe "drop some food" for the lesbians. According to towerload.com:
"I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers," he says in his sermon, delivered on May 13. "Build a great, big, large fence - 150 or 100 mile long - put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out... And you know what, in a few years, they'll die."
I don't know about y'all, but I'm scared of the varmint Tuesday's going to drag in.
Read more (and watch the video of his sermon) here.
Arts / Today's Top Five Today's Top 5: Monday
Posted By Anita Overcash on Mon, May 21, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Here are the five best events going down in Charlotte and the surrounding area today, May 21, 2012 as selected by the folks at Creative Loafing.
* Cult Movie Monday, screening Jaws at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte
* Mac & Cheese Eating Contest at Whiskey Warehouse
* Comedy School Graduation Night at The Comedy Zone
* Author Wiley-Cash Harper at Park Road Books
* Gogol Bordello at The Fillmore
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Arts Variety in Pretty Things Peepshow
Posted By Anita Overcash on Sat, May 19, 2012 at 10:00 AM
For those who don't get enough skin at The Light Factory's Crazy Horse screenings, The Pretty Things Peepshow is like a little carnival for adults. The traveling burlesque/vaudeville-style act is filled with dazzling ladies and twisted (or, as stunt skeptics would say, trickery) tidbits.
This includes aerialist swinging, sword-swallowing, knife-throwing/juggling, execution blade box demos and more. The only thing that seems to be missing is clowns (but, really, we'll survive). $10. May 19, 9 p.m. Neighborhood Theatre, 511 E. 36th St. 704-358-9298. www.neighborhoodtheatre.com.
Arts Touchdowns for a cure
Posted By Anita Overcash on Sat, May 19, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Red heads may be slightly offended by the upcoming Blondes vs. Brunettes football showdown. The event's flyers don't exactly specify what team gingers fall into or if they can participate at all.
In any case, hair bias complaints are of little real concern. The female-only game raises money for the Alzeheimer's Association. May 19, 5 p.m. Revolution Park, 2425 Barringer Drive. For more information, visit www.bvbcharlotte.org.
Arts Go green
Posted By Anita Overcash on Sat, May 19, 2012 at 7:00 AM
The Charlotte Clean and Green Festival doesn't deny its potential to turn ordinary citizens into environmentally friendly fighting machines. You'll hear fascinating lectures and participate in hands-on workshops and exhibits, offering up knowledge on everything from solar panels to organic farming.
There's no way you'll get out without having learned something new or found a new eco-purpose. Need more incentive? A number of food vendors, including local farm-to-table eatery Harvest Moon Grille, will be there. Free admission. May 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Little Sugar Creek Greenway, Kings Drive and 4th Street. For more information, visit www.charlottecleanandgreen.com.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Arts Spelling Precocity, Part Deux: Eleemosynary
Posted By Perry Tannenbaum on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 4:15 PM
If the hardships, neuroses, oddities, hormones, and fractured usage examples of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee have you hankering for more hot orthography action, there is balm in Ballantyne. At the crossroads of Ballantyne Commons Parkway and North Community House Road, in an outdoor business/shopping mall that looks a lot like a motel, the new Ballantyne Theatre is serving up Lee Blessing's Eleemosynary. Up you go on the sluggish little elevator to the second floor, where the theater faces the veranda like a beauty shop or a doctor's office.
No, Eleemosynary isn't a musical in the compact studio space seating around 50, and only one of the three Westbrook women we meet is a speller: nerdy Echo (nee Barbara) has been shaped by her stay-away mother and her space cadet grandma, but she's amazingly unwarped. As a speller, a finalist in the National Spelling Bee, Echo has game; and as a narrator, she has vocabulary.
The family's troubles stem from grandma Dorothea's willful eccentricities, a device she has used for her personal liberation. Her daughter Artemis, nicknamed Artie, is the pawn in these eccentricities, prevailed to don angel wings and goggles to prove Dorothea's contention than man — and woman — can fly. Eventually, Dorothea's overbearing weirdness drives Artie away. But as the younger Westbrooks gather around a failing, incapacitated Dorothea, it becomes clear that Echo has a taste for all the quirkiness that scarred her mother. Including those moldering angel wings.
Directed by Chip Caldwell, this Eleemosynary avoids the coldness of Charlotte Rep's 1990 production and the New Age vibe of the 2003 version by BareBones Theatre Group. The secrets to these changes are in the relatively straightforward design elements and in the portrayal of Artemis by Martina Logan. Previous interpretations of this pivotal role had the traumatized Artie cold and seemingly incapable of love — or, in her career of biochemical research, barricading herself from love behind a wall of rationality.
Logan gives us an emotional Artie, one who is afraid of loving her Echo because of what her own mother's love has done to her. Not only does this shift work well, it seems altogether justified — for we learn late in the drama that Artemis has sibling brothers, all of whom shun their mother more completely than she does.
Grandma and granddaughter are done more as I expected. As Echo, the director's daughter Kat Caldwell doesn't address us with the smooth self-assurance of a stand-up comedian or a gameshow host, but that's all to the good when we're taking in a maladjusted kid. Linda Healy Vespa can summon up the requisite sternness that is sometimes required of the domineering Dorothea, but she also understands that the secret of this crackpot's appeal isn't to be conjured up by bumbling or flapping around. Her secret is a slightly manic serenity, so winsome that you may wish to try on those angel wings yourself.
News / Opinion Dunce of the Week: James O'Keefe
Posted By Ana McKenzie on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 3:19 PM
I'm in the business of facts. Numbers, names, quotes - if I get 'em wrong, I'm at the mercy of my editors, sources and audience (particularly all you lovely online commenters).
Sadly James O'Keefe's lies probably just inspired his followers.
The conservative filmmaker's latest endeavor "exposed" voter fraud in North Carolina when he claimed two non-citizens, Zbigniew Gorzkowski and William Romero, had voted in recent elections, according to ThinkProgress.org. Trouble is, Gorzkowski and Romero are citizens.
Film / Film Reviews Weekend Film Reviews: Battleship; The Dictator; What to Expect When You're Expecting
Posted By Matt Brunson on Fri, May 18, 2012 at 1:26 PM
- Universal
- Battleship
Click on the title to be taken directly to the review.
