Celebrating Remarkable Women: SEVEN from Coalescence Theatre Project

This weekend, Coalescence Theatre Project will present the Central Illinois premiere of the play Seven, a collection of pieces by award-winning women playwrights focusing on "true stories of seven women who bravely fought for the well-being of women, families, and children around the globe."

Called "a riveting piece of documentary theatre," Seven was created from personal interviews with women from around the world who have "triumphed over huge obstacles to create major changes in human rights in their home countries." From Afghanistan to Cambodia, from Guatemala, Ireland, Nigeria and Pakistan to Russia, these women take on domestic violence, human trafficking, poverty, education, peace and equality as they tackle the most human of human rights.

As the play's logo puts it, "Seven celebrates remarkable women changing the world."

Seven's playwrights are Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deavere Smith and Susan Yankowitz, and the actresses performing their words for Coalescence include Jennifer Cirillo, Anastasia Ferguson, Gayle Hess, Elaine Hill, Nancy Nickerson, Claron Sharrieff and Irene Taylor.

This production, directed by Marcia Weiss and produced by Don Shandrow, will be presented at the Normal Theater on April 21 at 3 and 7:30 pm and April 22 at 7:30 pm. It is a joint presentation by the Normal Theater and Prairie Pride Coalition.

For more information, visit the Coalescence event page or this page devoted to Seven the play, with bios of the women and their playwrights, a gallery of images, and other details on where Seven has been and where it's headed. Anna Deveare Smith, who is probably the best-known among the playwrights for exactly this kind of theater, contributed the piece on Nigeria's Hafsat Abiola, who founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy to promote education and leadership opportunities for young women across Nigeria. Abiola became a human rights activist after the murder of both her parents, activists themselves. It's her kind of story that lights up the fire in Seven.

Tickets for Seven range from $5 to $7 and can be purchased in advance at the Normal Theater or at the door the day of the show.

Normal Theater Six-Week Film School Focuses on "Wonder Women Directors"

Professor William McBride will be starting a new six-week film school at the Normal Theater tomorrow night. You may recall previous offerings centered on film noir, Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese. This time, McBride will be looking at films directed by women, starting with Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong (1933), starring Katharine Hepburn as an independent-minded aviator, January 24 at 7 pm, and in subsequent weeks moving on to Ida Lupino’s thriller The Hitch-Hiker (1953); A League of Their Own (1992), Penny Marshall’s love letter to professional women’s baseball during World War II; Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), a highly cinematic look at two lost souls navigating the modern world; Selma (2014), Ava DuVernay’s take on Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle for voting rights; and the superhero phenomenon Wonder Woman (2017), directed by Patty Jenkins.

That's quite a range of styles and themes, but Professor McBride is clear on why he chose them:

"On my way out of the Normal Theater following the post-screen discussion of one of Scorsese’s films, a female patron approached me and asked why not do a series of female directors? I have been working on our new series ever since—and given the current cultural moment regarding harassment and gender inequality in Hollywood, Washington, and everywhere else, the timing of Wonder Women Directors seems perfect. Joining me for individual screenings will be Shari Zeck, Interim Dean, Milner Library, Illinois State University; Li Zeng, Head of Theatre and Film Studies and Film Minor, Illinois State University; Chamere Poole, Dept. of English Ph.D. candidate, Illinois State University; and Ann Johnson, Dept. of Sociology Masters student, Illinois State University, who will discuss the overarching cultural concepts of sex, power, history, and film style in these six films directed by women."

Although it's called a film school, there are no tests and no assignments. McBride will be there to introduce each movie and lead the post-show discussion, and he also offers hand-outs and extra material to supplement your viewing, but anyone is free to attend the films for free at the Normal Theater, Tuesday nights at 7 pm from January 24 to March 7, with a week off for Valentine's Day.

This time out, McBride and the Normal Theater are asking you to RSVP or reserve a seat, with a link to do just that on the program's page at the Normal Theater website. You'll find details on each film there, and that's also where the extra materials will go once they're up.

Christopher Strong alone has generated pages and pages of commentary on what it says about gender, feminism, professional women, culture, romance, and what a girl had to do to get by in the 1930s, as well as its sensational costume design, so I know you'll enjoy hearing what McBride and his experts have to say on that one!

Normal Theater Ends 2017 and Begins 2018 with BOMBSHELL and Hedy Lamarr

The Normal Theater has chosen to close out 2017 and open 2018 with three movies that trace the career of one of the most beautiful women ever to grace a Hollywood screen. Hedy Lamarr's luminous beauty jumps off the screen in both Ziegfeld Girl, a potboiler from 1941 with Judy Garland and Lana Turner alongside Lamarr as women chasing rainbows and putting their virtue on the line to make it in show biz, and The Conspirators, a 1944 spy thriller starring Paul Henreid and Lamarr against a backdrop of Nazis and the Resistance in Lisbon during World War II.  

Ziegfeld Girl played Thursday night at the Normal Theater and it's repeated this afternoon at 1 pm, while The Conspirators is up January 4th and 6th at 7pm.

If you need proof that Lamarr was gorgeous, you'll find it in either of those films as well as any number of images scattered across the internet. But there was a lot more to Hedy Lamarr than her stunning looks, and that's what a documentary called Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is all about.

It's hard to be taken seriously as an inventor when you look like Hedy Lamarr, Vienna-born actress and Hollywood star. In fact, the story goes that when Lamarr tried to join the National Inventors Council to help the American effort in World War II, she was basically patted on the head and told she should stick to being pretty and selling war bonds and leave important war stuff to the big boys.

But that didn't stop her. And she and a "bad boy" pianist named George Antheil came up with something called "frequency hopping spread spectrum" broadcasting that scholars have deemed the forerunner to current GPS, Bluetooth and Wifi technology. Hedy called it "tinkering." We call it "genius." Whatever you call it, it meant that Hedy Lamarr was a pioneer -- an unsung, unwanted pioneer -- on the electronic frontier.

Lamarr's off-screen brilliance -- as well as the intriguing fact that nobody really paid any attention to it -- is the premise of Bombshell, with director /writer Alexandra Dean striving to paint a more complete picture of this enigmatic, complex "icon, immigrant, inventor." And all-around amazing woman.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is on screen at the Normal Theater tonight at 7 pm, with repeat showings on January 5 and 7 at 7 pm.

Lots of HOLIDAY INN Choices Coming Up

The Fred Astaire/Bing Crosby film musical Holiday Inn is generally considered a Christmas movie, probably because it's the place where Irving Berlin introduced (and won an Oscar for) the song "White Christmas." As a result, the 1942 Holiday Inn invariably shows up on television and in art-house and vintage movie theaters as part of their end-of-the-year schedules, even though in reality the movie covers all the holidays. You can see the 4th of July spirit in the poster at left.

In the film, Bing plays a singer ("I'll Capture Your Heart Singing") who wants out of his competitive show biz partnership with Fred Astaire (he's the one who captures your heart dancing, naturally). Bing decides to retreat to the country and live on a farm. Then he has the idea to turn the farm into an inn (Holiday Inn, naturally) where he can perform only on holidays. He'll loaf the rest of the time, but put on a show for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Lincoln's Birthday, Valentine's Day, Washington's Birthday, Easter... Basically whichever holidays Irving Berlin was inspired to write songs for. The plot hangs on those holidays, as Bing gets a romance in the form of Marjorie Reynolds, ex-partner Fred pops up at the Inn at an inconvenient time, their rivalry rekindles, and each gets the chance to shine in multiple numbers.

The movie came out in 1942, but didn't get translated into a Broadway show until 2016. The Broadway version imported Irving Berlin hits like "Blue Skies" and "Cheek to Cheek" from other Astaire and Crosby vehicles and thankfully took out "Abraham," which was performed with blackface in the movie, but the basic plot idea with its singer/dancer rivalry over romance and the inn in the country is still there. On Broadway, Bryce Pinkham took the Crosby role, while Corbin Bleu tapped into Astaire's shoes. Yes, that sounds a lot less starry, but they compensated with big production numbers and a whole lot of splashy costumes and sets in eye-popping colors. If you'd like to see for yourself, a performance of that Broadway version has been filmed to show on movie screens as well as through PBS Great Performances and its Friday-night Broadway's Best series.

Tonight is the night for the Broadway Holiday Inn on big screens as a Fathom Event. Around here, you have the option of 7:30 pm screenings at Willow Knolls 14 in Peoria, Savoy 16 outside Urbana, or Springfield 12. If that doesn't work in your schedule, never fear. PBS has your back. They'll be showing the same Holiday Inn on the small screen, which you can watch in the privacy of your own home, on Friday, November 24, at 8 pm Central time. After that, you can expect it to stream at pbs.org on this Episodes page.

And if you are more into Bing and Fred and the original Holiday Inn, the Normal Theater will show the 1942 film on that same Friday, November 24, at 10 pm, as well as Sunday, November 26, at 1 pm. Or, if you want to see Bing and Fred on your own telly, Turner Classic Movies has a January 1, 2018 option at 7:30 am Central time.

That means you can see the boffo technicolor Broadway show and the classic black-and-white movie, both on the big screen or the small screen, and compare/contrast to your heart's content.

To recap, for a screening of the Broadway Holiday Inn, you can get to a movie theater tonight (November 16) or watch on TV a week from tomorrow (November 24) or stream it online after that, or see the classic movie later that night (November 24) or the following Sunday (November 26) or set your DVR for the first morning of the new year (January 1). So much Holiday Inn!

Six-Week Film School Goes HUGO on November 1

Back in 2012, I called Hugo, director Martin Scorsese's movie adaptation of a children's book, the best movie of the year. I said then that I didn't consider myself a big Scorsese fan, but Hugo was a departure for him. If Scorsese is known for anything, it has to be gangsters, fisticuffs, and manly men grappling with their inner manliness.

But not Hugo. Instead, it's about the fantasy and sorcery of the movies, with a little mechanical magic thrown in for good measure. It's a beautiful film, one I called "a sweet, nostalgic look at film pioneer Georges Méliès" as it centers on a topic that's important to Scorsese -- film preservation -- "inside a narrative that feels wistful, involving and personally affecting all at once."

Professor William McBride has included Hugo as part of this fall's six-week film school done in conjunction with the Normal Theater. Previous topics have included film noir and the movies of Alfred Hitchcock, but this time he's gone for a sextet of Martin Scorsese movies, starting with Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and moving through Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ and Gangs of New York before getting to Hugo tomorrow night. The last film in the series, Silence, will be screened next week on November 8.

Much as I stereotyped him in my opening paragraph, you can see from that list just how expansive Scorsese's oeuvre is. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, from 1974, centered on a widow, played by Ellen Burstyn in an Oscar-winning performance, trying to create a new life for herself, including a romance with Kris Kristofferson and his beard. And, yes, it spawned the Alice TV show. That look at the ordinary life of an ordinary woman couldn't be more different from the scary, big-city violence escalating in Taxi Driver, from 1976, or the The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese's controversial 1988 religious epic, or Gangs of New York, a 2002 look at the bloodshed that ran in the streets of Manhattan's Five Points district in the mid-19th century. In contrast to each of the above, Hugo is set in Paris in the 1930s, with an orphan who lives in a railway station as its protagonist. And Silence, released just last year, goes back to the 1600s, once again focusing on religion and morality, but sending its Jesuit priests from Portugal to Japan in a clash of cultures.

I've picked Hugo week to spotlight, even though the six-week film school is well underway, because its beauty and magic speak to me and my movie-loving heart, but one thing that should be most interesting about McBride's talk is just how this sweet little Parisian trifle fits into Scorsese's career. Does it fit? Cinematically, thematically, any way whatsoever? I'm sure McBride will lots to say on that subject.

All of the movies and the post-show discussions are free in McBride's six-week film school, with a short introduction at 7 pm, just before the show starts.

Juggling Your Dates in October

There's a lot on the calendar in October and I thought a handy reference list might be in order, for me as well as anybody else scrambling to juggle all these dates. Let's get this October party started...

Tuesday, October 3:

• An all-female All the King's Men from Illinois Theatre continues at Krannert Center at the University of Illinois in the Studio Theatre at 7:30 pm. Through October 8.
• Illinois Wesleyan University's production of Dancing at Lughnasa opens with an 8 pm performance. Through October 8.

Wednesday, October 4:

• Professor Bill McBride brings Taxi Driver to the Normal Theater as part of a new Six Week Film School centered on the films of Martin Scorsese.

Thursday, October 5:

• Prairie Fire Theatre offers a sneak peek at its upcoming production of Starting Here, Starting Now from 5 to 8 pm during a special event at Satio Wine Bar in downtown Bloomington.
• Waiting for Godot begins at 7 pm from the TwinCitySquared company at Champaign's SoDo Theatre.
• Parkland Theatre's production of The Crucible continues with a 7:30 pm performance. Through October 8. 
• The Station Theatre opens its fall season with Title and Deed, starting at 8 pm. Through October 21.

Friday, October 6:

• Arts@ICC continues its production of Steve Martin's play The Underpants at 7:30 pm. Through October 8.
• Sticky in the Sticks and their pop-up bar plays return to Firehouse Pizza & Pub in Normal with an 8 pm performance.
• The new film Victoria and Abdul comes to the Art Theater in Champaign, with screenings at 5 and 7:30 pm. Through October 12.

Saturday, October 7:

• Illinois Voices Theatre's history walk continues at Evergreen Cemetery. Through October 8.

Friday, October 13:

• ISU School of Theatre and Dance offers Oedipus and All's Well That Ends Well in rotating rep in Westhoff Theatre through October 28.
• The Art Theater hosts an All-Nite Horror Movie Marathon in honor of Friday the 13th, starting at 10 pm.

Thursday, October 19:

• Little Women the Musical opens Bradley University's 2017-18 theatre season. Through October 29.
• University of Illinois Theatre brings Travesties to the Colwell Playhouse at 7:30 pm. Through October 29.

Friday, October 20:

• Prairie Fire Theatre offers Starting Here, Starting Now in the Young Lounge in IWU's Memorial Center, starting at 7:30 pm. Through October 21.

Wednesday, October 25:

• Young at Heartland's Fall Showcase begins at 7:30 pm at Heartland Theatre. Second showcase is at 2 pm on October 27 at the Normal Public Library.

Thursday, October 26:

• In the Next Room, or the vibrator play opens at 7:30 pm in the Studio Theatre at U of I's Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Through November 5.

Friday, October 27:

• The ISU School of Theatre and Dance production of She Kills Monsters begins its run at the ISU Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 pm. Through November 4.
• Fault Lines opens at 8 pm in IWU's Lab Theatre. Through October 29.

Saturday, October 28:

• The newly redefined Illinois Voices Theatre holds an open house from 3 to 5 pm at the First Christian Church of Bloomington.

And that's what I have so far. Check back for additions as we proceed through October.

It's Way Past Time for October News

It's a busy month on local stages and screens and I'm already a few steps behind. I took a trip to the Stratford Festival in Canada, and it was wonderful, but it means I wasn't here to put together all these bits and bobs on October 1. I hope you can all handle not finding out till October 5. Let's get this October party started, shall we?

I'm a little late getting the news out about the Illinois Wesleyan production of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, which opened earlier tonight in the Jerome Mirza Theatre in McPherson Hall. Dead Man's Cell Phone begins when a woman in a coffee shop hears a ringing phone that just won't stop, sending her off in search of answers about the person who owned the phone. She finds a lot more questions, which turns out to be a good thing for all of us in this inventive, unsettling play about love, life and technology. Dead Man's Cell Phone plays October 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 at 8 pm and October 9 at 2 pm. 

The documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, the Touring Years, called "Ron Howard's vibrant, joyous musical journey with The Beatles," is on screen at Champaign's Art Theater Co-op tomorrow and Thursday. This film takes a look behind the scenes at the phenomenon that was The Beatles as they played in venues from Liverpool's Cavern Club in their earliest years to San Francisco's Candlestick Park in 1966. The Art Theater is offering The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, the Touring Years at 7 pm on October 5 and 4 pm on October 6. For more information or to get a look at the film's trailer, click here.

Eureka College Theatre looks to Jordan Harrison's 2014 play The Grown-Up, a piece I saw at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, for its October entry, with performances October 6 through 15 at Pritchard Theatre. The Grown-Up is an adventurous romp somewhere between Alice and her Lookingglass and Peter Pan and his pirates. In this instance, the child in search of adventure is a boy named Kai who runs off to see where a magic crystal doorknob takes him. As Kai bends time and imagination, he runs into a salty old seafarer, his sister and maybe even his own future as a grown-up. For Eureka College, Cody Wirth plays Kai, with Garrison Green, Vic Griffith, Haley Joseph and Kendall Katz along on his journey.

The Normal Theater picks up weeks 3 and 4 of its Six Week Film School, focusing on Murder My Sweet on October 12 and The Postman Always Rings Twice on October 26. They're both deadly, delicious mystery movies, with the first following PI Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) on a search for the double-crossing girlfriend of a mug named Moose Malloy and the second looking into the seamy private lives of an unhappy wife (Lana Turner) and the drifter (John Garfield) she gets to do her dirty work. Both films begin at 7 pm on their respective Wednesdays and they will be followed by a discussion led by ISU professor William McBride. For all the details, click here.

You get a second chance to see Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, the Anne Washburn play that riffs on The Simpsons as a cultural icon and possibly a religious text in our dystopic future, when it begins at the University of Illinois October 13. Lisa Gaye Dixon directs this Illinois Theatre production in performance through October 23. Mr. Burns and friends will play in the Colwell Playhouse, but you can also see Nathan Alan Davis's Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea, which began last week, through October 14, and Anna Ziegler's take on The Minotaur beginning October 27, both in the Studio Theatre.

Waiora continues at Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts through October 9, while the second and third shows of the ISU season -- two short plays performed together in one evening of theater -- open October 21 in Westhoff Theatre. Those short plays are The Coffee Bar and The Walls, with The Coffee Bar hailing from Egypt and The Walls from Argentina. They are both provocative and political, with plenty to say on issues of privilege, freedom, repression and art. Janet Wilson directs The Coffee Bar with a cast that includes Gina Cleveland, Daija Nealy and Simran Sachdev. Bruce Burningham directs The Walls; his cast includes Daniel Balsamo, Daniel Esquivel and Ryan Groves.

Entering the Halloween entertainment sweeptstakes, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is offering the silent film version of The Phantom of the Opera, played with live organ accompaniment just like it would've been back in 1925, at 7 pm on October 25. Lon Chaney (the original, not Lon Chaney, Jr.) may've been silent, but he set the bar high for all the Phantoms who followed with his portrait of a sad, swirling Gothic monster. As Roger Ebert put it, "[T]he Phantom is invested by the intense and inventive Lon Chaney with a horror and poignancy that is almost entirely created with body language." All it takes is one hand gesture to convey "great weary sadness." And it's that "great weary sadness" that makes his a Phantom to remember.

October 27 to 29 finds the return of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival's annual ShakesFEAR event, combining some of Shakespeare's scary characters with the haunted house concept, except in this case it's the grounds around Ewing Manor getting haunted. Tours leave every ten minutes between 7 and 9:30 pm and last approximately 25 minutes. If you want to get tickets ahead, check out this page for all the information.

As always, I will add individual pieces on other shows and events I find out about in the meantime.

TIME BANDITS On Screen Tomorrow to Mark Art House Theater Day

Art House Theater Day is a day set up to celebrate and "recognize the year-round contributions of film and filmmakers, patrons, projectionists, and staff, and the brick and mortar theaters that are passionately dedicated to providing access to the best cinematic experience." It's tomorrow, it's happening at 184 movie theaters across the country, and the two "art houses" closest to us will offer the movie Time Bandits as their celebratory film.

Time Bandits will be screened at the Normal Theater at 1 pm and at the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign at 7:30 pm.

I love Time Bandits, a clever and amusing gem from 1981 directed by Terry Gilliam from a script by Gilliam and Michael Palin. Gilliam was the lone member of the Monty Python troupe from the United States. You didn't see him on telly as an actor as much as the others, but his surreal, off-kilter bits of animation (like the big foot that squashes people in the credits) were there to represent him even when he wasn't showing up as Knight with Chicken or Man Banging on Wall. After Python, he directed seriously strange films like Time Bandits as well as Brazil, Twelve Monkeys and The Fisher King. Intelligence, creativity and an unusual, singular vision mark the Gilliam oeuvre.

Given the title, you might expect Time Bandits to be about people stealing time. Au contraire. Instead, it's about a cadre of six dwarves trying to use portals in time to steal treasure. The thieves have a mysterious map that shows the location of these openings in time; they're intent on using the map to gallivant through history and scoop up loot from the likes of Agamemnon (Sean Connery) and Robin Hood (John Cleese) while staying ahead of the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) from whom they pinched the map. One of the holes is inside the bedroom of a young boy, who is pulled along on their mad dash through history, and... Mad dashing ensues.

The art direction is wonderful, the adventures are fun, the cast is excellent across the board, and Time Bandits is a one-of-a-kind movie. It is, in fact, a dandy film to use for Art House Theater Day.

Film Noir Goes to School: THE MALTESE FALCON Tonight at the Normal Theater

In addition to Tuesday Night Classics and Friday Night Late Shows, the Normal Theater is hosting a Film Noir series on six selected Wednesday nights, airing classic film noir goodies accompanied by post-show discussions led by William McBride, Associate Professor at Illinois State University.

This new series opens tonight with a quintessential piece of film noir. That would be The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart at his most sardonic and iconic in the role of private investigator Sam Spade. When a mysterious damsel in distress shows up in Spade's office to hire an investigator, he finds himself in murky waters, full of guns, goons, felons and femmes fatales.

Mary Astor is the bad girl in this one, weaving a web of desperation and deceit around everyone she touches. That's her looking languid in the orange dress on the poster above. Who is she? Is she looking for someone to track down the man who kidnapped her little sister? Does she even have a sister? What's her connection to creepy Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), "fat man" Casper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) or Spade's unlucky partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan)? And what does any of that have to do with a piece of art, a rare, jewel-encrusted bird that supposedly dates from the 16th century and the Knights of Malta?

The Maltese Falcon was written and directed by John Huston, who himself starred in a classic piece of film noir when he played the corrupt patriarch in Chinatown in 1973. Huston was a mere 35 when The Maltese Falcon came out in 1941. He'd been acting on Broadway and in films since the 20s and writing for the screen since 1930, but The Maltese Falcon was his first directing job. Over the course of his lengthy career, he was nominated ten times for Oscars, winning two in 1949 for writing and directing The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and he directed both his father, Walter Huston, and his daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins.

His script for The Maltese Falcon adapts a hard-boiled detective yarn by Dashiell Hammett, leaving intact most of its twisty story of crosses and doublecrosses, but losing some of the more salacious bits that couldn't clear the Production Code in 1941. There's still plenty of the cynicism and moody ambiguity that characterize film noir, however.

If you haven't seen The Maltese Falcon, you really need to get to the Normal Theater tonight before 7 pm. These Wednesday night special showings are free, with the added bonus of McBride's film noir discussion afterwards.

Normal Theater Starts Bill McBride's "Six Week Film School" with Film Noir

The Normal Theater will be launching a new kind of film series this fall, with a more academic component added to a slate of classic movies. There's no homework or tests or tuition, but you can definitely learn some things about the movies if you're so inclined. In what they're calling "The Six Week Film School," the Normal Theater will screen a group of films that exemplify a particular film genre, topic or filmmaker. In this case, the dark and deadly detectives of Film Noir get the spotlight in the fall, while the oeuvre of director Alfred Hitchcock will be the topic in the spring.

William McBride, Associate Professor of Film and Drama at Illinois State University, will be the guide for this series, offering insight and information on both themes and the six films chosen to fit those themes. As part of that undertaking, McBride will provide background information so that movie-goers can read ahead on the movies and the issues they spark and then lead discussions after the films.

Everything in this series -- the movies, the readings and the discussions -- is free of charge. It's all scheduled for a series of Wednesday nights (not consecutive weeks this fall, as you can see from the list below, but consecutive Wednesdays next spring), with the movies to start at 7 pm. I don't know how you find out about the readings for The Maltese Falcon, which is up first, but maybe info will appear on the event's Facebook page before September 21. Or maybe everyone knows The Maltese Falcon well enough that its salient points need no introduction.

"Film Noir: Visual Style and Fortune" is scheduled for select Wednesdays from September 21 to November 16, while "Alfred Hitchcock: Master of Style" will run on six Wednesdays in a row between February 1 and March 8.

As you can see, "Film Noir: Visual Style and Fortune" consists of six of the absolute best examples of Noir:

The Maltese Falcon (September 21)
In this 1941 classic directed by John Huston, Humphrey Bogart stars as hard-boiled private eye Sam Spade, hired by a duplicitous dame (Mary Astor) whose story changes more often than her handbags. In the end, Sam finds himself on the trail of a bejeweled bird statue that everybody seems to want, but he has to get past a parade of bad guys, played by the likes of Elisha Cook Jr., Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. It's based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett and it's worth noting that most of these movies do derive from crime literature as classic as the film genre it spawned.

Double Indemnity (September 28)
The insurance biz has never seemed more diabolical than in this 1944 thriller, with Barbara Stanwyck as a femme fatale who'd like to off her husband and Fred MacMurray as her cat's paw. Edward G. Robinson plays his boss at the insurance agency, the one who smells something rotten. Written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler and based on a novel by James M. Cain, Double Indemnity was also directed by Wilder.

Murder, My Sweet  (October 12)
Dick Powell made the leap from a boyish tenor in Warner Brothers musicals to tough, sardonic PI Philip Marlowe in this twisty crime drama from 1944, based on Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely. It's got two murders, missing jewels, a meathead of an ex-con, an evil stepmother, and Marlowe getting repeatedly knocked around, beat up and shot at as he doggedly follows the clues.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (October 26)
Nobody ever looked as good in a turban as Lana Turner playing another married woman who wants her much-older husband dead in this 1946 take on a James M. Cain novel. John Garfield is the drifter who happens into her life and turns her on as they conspire to commit murder. Turner and Garfield create all kinds of sparks, making it about as sexy as you can get for a movie made during the Code era, and her array of white costumes make this black-and-white gem look really nifty.

Out of the Past (November 9)
Out of the Past may be the darkest, most cynical entry yet, fitting the postwar paranoia of 1947. The story surrounds a laconic tough guy played by Robert Mitchum, trying to forget his smoky past but choked by it just the same. Back then, he was hired by a crooked businessman (Kirk Douglas) to find his girlfriend (Jane Greer), who supposedly shot him and absconded with a big pile of cash. He found her, but that's when things got really sticky. By the time it's all done, you'll understand why it was originally called Hang My Gallows High.

Chinatown (November 16)
The first five movies on the schedule were made between 1941 and 1947, but Chinatown vaults all the way to 1974, making it what some consider the very best example of Neo-Noir. It's set in Los Angeles in 1937, with private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) way over his head when an investigation runs afoul of a wealthy woman (Faye Dunaway), her evil father (John Huston), and a whole lot of water. Directed by Roman Polanski from a script by Robert Towne, Chinatown brings the Film Noir discussion into the jaded post-Vietnam era.

If you're keeping track, that's four hard-boiled private eyes, two drifters and one insurance agent as protagonists, two married women and one girlfriend trying to rub out their partners, five lying ladies, and a pair of messed-up daughters as the love interests, California and more California, and a metric ton of cigarette smoke.

Enjoy!

Loading Up Your April Basket

April always seems to be a big month for entertainment -- it's when people peek outside looking for shows after a winter spent inside, when theatre companies announce their new seasons and start hawking subscriptions, when TV shows gear up for spring sweeps, and new work starts cropping up at festivals around the country.

First, let's just get Mad Men out of the way right off the top. AMC's amazing piece of television history begins its final season this Sunday night, with ad man Don Draper and his colleagues, wives, lovers and kids taking a trip to the 70s. Watch out for polyester, plaid and a major infusion of facial hair. Where will Don and Peggy and Roger and Joan end up? Given what we've seen so far, happily ever after doesn't seem likely. Neither does Don ending up as D. B. Cooper, but that doesn't stop people from continuing to guess it.

Speaking of new work... I will be making my annual trip to Louisville for Actors Theatre of Louisville's Humana Festival of New American plays next weekend. No better spot to wallow in theatre for an entire weekend. There will be six full-length shows, a program of three new 10-minute plays, parties, panels and impromptu discussions. I'll let you know what I thought about all of that as soon as I get back. But in the meantime...

I don't think there is any particular Tennessee Williams anniversary or event that we're celebrating this month, but it's not like the work of this quintessentially American playwright ever goes out of style. Thomas Lanier Williams, AKA Tennessee, was born March 26, 1911, and here he is, 104 years later, with his plays still a hot item on the stage. In fact, from Normal to Urbana, there is a Tennessee Williams Trifecta available this month. You can easily do all three if you have a hankering to compare/contrast, from the film version of A Streetcar Named Desire to perennial favorite The Glass Menagerie and upstart Not About Nightingales, all within a 50-mile radius.

Elia Kazan's 1951 movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire was nominated for a dozen Oscars, winning four, including Best Actress for Vivien Leigh as Blanche, Best Supporting Actress for Kim Hunter as Stella and Best Supporting Actor for Karl Malden as Mitch. Kazan had also directed the Broadway version of Williams' steamy drama, with Marlon Brando, Hunter and Malden in the same roles. There is much to admire and much to chew on in the movie, too, with Leigh almost translucent as poor, fading Blanche, and Brando giving a Method acting clinic as crude, sexual, red-meat-eating Stanley Kowalski. When Blanche and Stanley are thrown into conflict in a tiny, stifling, much-too-crowded New Orleans apartment, something's got to give, and we all know it won't be pretty. This Streetcar plays four times on the screen at the Normal Theater, 7 pm each night between April 2 and 5.

Streetcar on film is a perfect appetizer for The Glass Menagerie, which will be live on stage at Heartland beginning April 9. ISU professor Connie de Veer portrays Amanda Wingfield, another faded Southern belle fallen on hard times. Unlike Blanche DuBois, Amanda has children. But her relationship with theme is just as constricted and unsuccessful as anything Blanche attempts. Son Tom wants nothing more than to get out of the apartment to live a life of his own, but if he goes, he will have to leave his fragile sister Laura behind. Don LaCasse director Glass Menagerie for Heartland, with Joe Faifer as Tom, Elsa Torner as Laura and Patrick Riley as the Gentleman Caller. Performances continue through April 26, with a talkback with the cast scheduled after the Sunday matinee on April 19. For all the details, click here.

The Urbana part of the Tennessee Williams equation is a lesser-known work called Not About Nightingales, directed by Tom Mitchell at the Studio Theatre inside the University of Illinois' Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Nightingales opens April 9, as well, with performances through the 19th. Williams wrote this play in 1938, supposedly inspired by a real-life Pennsylvania case of abuse and death inside a prison. In the fictional prison, inmates go on a hunger strike and eventually riot as conditions become unlivable.

Illinois State University moves far away from Tennessee Williams, into a land of fantasy and folklore with Selkie: Between Land and Sea a lyrical drama by Laurie Brooks, directed by Jessika Malone for ISU's Westhoff Theatre from April 9 to 18. Olivia Candocia plays the mystical girl/seal creature called a Selkie, while Dave Lemmon and Eddie Curley portray the men in her story. For more information, try this link.

David Ives' All in the Timing is pretty much a perfect program of 10-minute plays, combining humor, commentary on modern relationships, and even a few barbs pointed in the direction of 20th century Russian politics. I'm looking at you, Leon Trotsky! Illinois Central College in East Peoria takes on All in the Timing April 10 to 19, with the Ives' collection directed by Rob Fulton, Julie Peters and Doug Rosson for the Studio Theatre in ICC's Performing Arts Center.

Eureka College's Pritchard Theatre is a fairly intimate setting, making it an interesting choice for Tracy Letts' sprawling, messy, dark family comedy August Osage County. There is a very large house at the center of August as well as several generations of the Weston family. Will that fit at Pritchard? Time and Eureka's production will tell the tale from April 14 to 18. Joel Shoemaker directs the Westons and their swirl of family troubles.

The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts is big on improv, which means Broadway's Next Hit Musical, an improvised piece of musical comedy, is right up their alley. You can offer your own suggestions and see if the improvisers spin a new show out of your idea on April 16 at the BCPA.

If you like being involved in the show, you may be able to take it a step farther than just pitching ideas out of the audience. You can act, too! Or at least audition. Heartland often uses its annual 10-minute play festival to widen its pool of actors. And why not? There are more than 20 roles up for grabs in nine short plays, with characters ranging from a pair of 18-year-old high school students to a 90-year-old nun. Auditions for Heartland's 10-minute play festival will be held from 7 to 9:30 pm on April 20 and 21 at Heartland Theatre.

Appropriate, a firecracker of a play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, brings its creepy post-Colonial sins of the father to Urbana's Station Theatre from April 23 to May 9. Is its title referring to the verb "appropriate," meaning to steal, to seize, to convert to one's own possession? Or the adjective "appropriate,"meaning suitable or fitting? I think it's the former, given the plantation setting and thhe echoes of its racist past that continue to plague it. Like August: Osage County, Appropriate centers on a large family home. And the Station Theatre is even smaller than Pritchard over in Eureka. How will the overgrown plantation fit? It's a mystery! Appropriate is directed by Mike Prosise for the Celebration Company at the Station Theatre.

Back home in Bloomington-Normal, New Route Theatre offers Black N Blue Boys/Broken Men by Dael Orlandersmith. Look for Black N Blue April 24 to 26 and May 1 to 3 at New Route's new space at 814 Jersey Avenue in Normal. Don Shandrow directs Claron Sharrieff in this one-woman show, an examination of "the captivating life stories of six unforgettable male characters of diverse backgrounds whose inescapable connections tie them together through traumatic pasts."

Ring in December with Cary Grant, Holiday Movies and Spectacularity

You don't have to wait till Christmas to open these gifts. Yes, it's true -- the good stuff in December starts tonight.

It's Cary Grant Month on Turner Classic Movies all during December, and because December 1 is a Monday and Mr. Grant has a monopoly on Monday nights, the celebration begins tonight. TCM begins its Carypalooza with a pile of the early ones -- his feature film debut in This Is the Night (1932), two Mae West vehicles with She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I'm No Angel (1933), a war film called The Eagle and the Hawk (1933) where Grant serves as a rival for flying ace Fredric March, Hot Saturday (1932), a piece about the danger of small-town gossip, Suzy (1936), with Jean Harlow, and by the time it turns into December 2, The Toast of New York (1937), a historical piece about a robber baron in the 19th century, and Night and Day (1946), where he plays a very unrealistic version of songwriter Cole Porter. Things get even better later in the month, when the Cary Grant persona we all expect is on full display, with highlights like The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Gunga Din, Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and North By Northwest. Check out the complete listing here.

As if it wasn't enough for TCM to give us all that Cary Grant, they're matching it with Ingmar Bergman movies wall to wall on Wednesday December 3. Bergman movies are in a different universe from the Hollywood fare featuring Mr. Debonair, but serious film buffs need to see Smiles of a Summer Night, the charming film that inspired A Little Night Music, the beautiful and pensive Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal and its exploration of life, death and a medieval game of chess, and the intense psychological dramas Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.

You can also get traditional holiday fare like The Nutcracker ballet, playing from December 4 to 7 in the Tryon Festival theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana. This one is performed by the Champaign-Urbana Ballet with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra with conductor Stephen Alltop.

Also opening December 4 is an "operatic farce" by Charles Mee called Wintertime. This slightly crazy piece about pairs of lovers all descending on the same cabin features a cast of ten, with David Barkley, Wen Bu, Aaron Clark, Nancy Keener, Lincoln Machula, Jeff McGill, Diane Pritchard, Kate Prosise, Deb Richardson and Evan Smith under the direction of Timothy O'Neal at at Urbana's Station Theatre. Wintertime runs through December 20 at the Station.

And on December 5, you can see Live Window Vignettes from members of Playwrights Anonymous as part of First Friday celebrations in downtown Bloomington. These window plays will happen at 5:30 pm on Friday at the Herb Eaton Gallery. Click here to see Playwrights Anonymous's Facebook page.

That Friday is also the day the Holiday Spectacular returns to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. It really is spectacular, with a cast of thousands (okay, at least a hundred) including tappers, angels, wooden soldiers, father/daughter numbers and some fantastic voices, like Bob Mangialardi and Joe Penrod. The BCPA promises "all the blockbuster features that long-time attendees have come to love, such as the precision-dancing wooden soldiers, the mass choir nativity and an all-male a capella group" plus a whole bunch of surprises.

If you enjoyed seeing the Battling Gridleys as portrayed by Kathleen Kirk and Jeremy Stiller in October's Discovery Walk at Evergreen Cemetery, you can see Kirk and Stiller back in those roles when the newly restored Gridley Mansion is opened to the public for a holiday tour. You can read about the historic home renovation here. Owners Keith and Diane Thompson have partnered with Easter Seals to offer this mansion tour from 5 to 7 pm on December 11. The cost is $10 per person, with all proceeds going to Easter Seals. The tour of the premises at 301 East Grove Street will include work from local artists, info from Lincoln experts and light refreshments.

And that's just some of the entertainment available to keep you in the holiday spirit.

June Heats Up with Entertainment

As temperatures heat up, so do your entertainment options. Several of the theatrical options listed are included in the Summer Arts Sampler offered by the Area Arts Roundtable, so if you're in a sampling mood, you may want to start with that.

The 5th Annual REEL IT UP Film Festival comes to the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign for four Tuesdays in June. That's the 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th, with films ranging from Puzzles, about a hate crime in a gay bar called Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford, MA that "explores the correlation between American economic desperation and homophobia, intolerance, and, ultimately, violence," set for June 3 at 7:30 pm, to Such Good People, a screwball romantic comedy about a gay couple that finds an unexpected cache of cash while house-sitting. Such Good People is the 7:30 pm selection on June 24. To see all of the titles and descriptions of the films, click here.

Beginning this Thursday with a Pay What You Can Preview performance, Heartland Theatre presents its 13th annual 10-Minute Play Festival, this time called FOWL PLAYS. All eight winning plays fit the "bird" theme in honor of longtime sponsor Deanna Frautschi, who is a fabulous bird photographer. These FOWL PLAYS will be performed on June 5, 6 and 7; 12, 13, 14 and 15; 19, 20, 21 and 22; and 26, 27, 28 and 29. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees start at 2 pm. There will be a special talkback including Heartland's 10-Minute Plays judges (including me, since I chair that committee for Heartland) after the matinee on the 22nd. For showtimes and ticket information, click here. For a rundown of all eight shows, including playwrights, cast and directors, come back tomorrow for my preview piece.

The Penguin Project of McLean County has chosen The Little Mermaid Jr. for its 2014 summer show. Performances will take place at Normal University High School on June 6, 7 and 8. This Little Mermaid is a junior version of the Broadway musical based on the Disney animated film, which itself was based on a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale. Eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken wrote the msic, which includes songs like "Under the Sea" and "Part of Your World." Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for anybody high school age or under -- they are available in person at the Bloomington Parks, Recreation & Cultural Arts office at 115 E. Washington Street in Bloomington. For more information on the Penguin Project in general, click here.

The Normal Theater offers a mini-Coen Brothers festival with Fargo June 12 and 13 and The Big Lebowski June 14 and 15. Now that Fargo has been translated to the small screen, you may want to refresh your recollection of this darkly comic murder thriller and compare/contrast to how it plays out on FX.

Prairie Fire Theater and director Rhys Lovell will be holding auditions for their production of My Fair Lady from 6 to 8 pm on June 12 and 13 at Illinois Wesleyan University's Presser Hall, Room 16. Lovell will be looking for ten women and twelve men of various ages, and he's asking that each auditioner come in prepared to sing from a musical of his or her choice. An accompanist will be provided. Performances are scheduled for July 31 to August 3 at Illinois Wesleyan University's Westbrook Auditiorium. For more information, you can check out the My Fair Lady auditions page on Facebook, but please note that the correct audition information is included a May 26 post from Rhys that appears farther down the page. Also note that the role of Henry Higgins has been already been cast, but you'll still get to audition for Eliza Doolittle, her dad, new beau Freddy, Higgins' mom, Colonel Pickering and the rest of the toffs and hoi polloi.

And if you'd like to plan further ahead, the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts has announced its new schedule, with a whole lot of events coming up in 2014-15. That includes the Ides of March, the rock group that played at my prom in 1974 (their big hit was "Vehicle," which you may recall) with an appearance in November, Dickens' A Christmas Carol in December, and a screening of the silent film The General, starring Buster Keaton, accompanied by organist Dennis Scott, in April. 

What May May Have to Offer

May is a funny month for entertainment options in Bloomington-Normal, as students move out and theaters finish up their spring seasons. That means you'll have to act quickly to catch the last performances of the gripping drama Iron at Heartland Theatre in Normal, starring Lori Adams and Alyssa Ratkovich as a mother and daughter attempting to reconnect after years of separation due to the mother's incarceration, and Parkland College's production of Monty Python's Spamalot, the fizzy and silly musical about knights of the round table looking for a grail, holy or otherwise. They are certainly different sorts of theater, but both shows finish up this weekend, and both have received very good notices, so if you can get your hands on a ticket, they're both well worth your time.

Also in Champaign, the Station Theatre continues its run of Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities, directed by Kay Bohannon Holley and starring Steven M. Keen, Carolyn Kodes-Atkinson, Joi Hoffsommer, Joel Higgins and Kate Riley as the wealthy but dysfunctional Wyeth family of Palm Springs. Baitz's newest play was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

If you are a fan of British films or of the amazing Jim Broadbent or Lindsay Duncan, you'll want to check out Le Week-End at the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign, on screen till May 8. The premise of the film -- that long-married couple Nick and Meg travel to Paris for a second honeymoon to try to find the spark their relationship has lost -- is set up nicely in the film's trailer. Le Week-End was directed by Roger Michell, known for rom-com Notting Hill and the recent soft-focus FDR pic Hyde Park on Hudson, and is described as a "magically buoyant and bittersweet film." Le Week-End will also move into the Normal Theater for a short stay from May 29 to June 1.

Before that, the Normal Theater is focusing on Audrey Hepburn as directed by Stanley Donen for four nights, starting with Charade, the delightful 1963 romantic caper/spy film that paired Hepburn with Cary Grant, on May 8 and 9. The Hepburn/Grant romance is given even more sparkle by the terrific Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer song also called "Charade" that pops up in the movie. Then it's time for Funny Face, the 1957 musical where Audrey is a beatnik turned into a fashion model by photographer Fred Astaire, on the 10th and 11th. As it happens, May 10 is Fred's birthday. You can celebrate by catching Funny Face at the Normal Theater, taking a look at Holiday Inn on the RETRO channel on May 16, or staying up till the wee hours for The Belle of New York on Turner Classic Movies on May 22.

Community Players takes a break from musicals to offer the Neil Simon classic The Odd Couple, opening May 15. Brian Artman and Tom Smith play mismatched roommates Oscar and Felix for director Jeremy Stiller, with a supporting cast that includes Stacy Baker, Andy Cary, Drew German, Allen Popowski, Thom Rakestraw and Bridgette Richard. Performances of The Odd Couple continue through May 25. Tickets for this show and for the 2014-15 Community Players season are available now.

Players will also hold auditions for their upcoming production of Shrek: The Musical from 6 to 7 pm (for kids from 3rd to 8th grade) and 7 to 9 pm (for everybody older than 8th grade) on May 18, 19 and 20. For all the details, check out the Shrek Auditions Facebook page.

As part of its Summer Arts Festival, Eureka College Theatre will hold a stage combat workshop in Eureka in collaboration with Western Illinois University beginning May 19. The workshop will include 30 hours of instruction in stage fighting with single sword and quarterstaff, with additional "Dueling Arts Certification" in unarmed and small sword categories. At the end of the workshop, students will be tested for Society of American Fight Directors certification. Please note that enrollment is limited to 18 and that college credit may be available for participants. Click here to see costs and other important information.

Instead of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? -- the TV improv show that started in Britain and then spawned two American versions --  the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts will host Whose Live Anyway? at 7:30 pm on May 31. I feel the need to point out that it should probably be "Who's" to indicate "Who is live?" as opposed to "Whose," which really makes no sense in this context. But I guess these are improv performers, not people who necessarily know their "whose" from their "who's." Anyway, a quartet of performers who frequently visited Whose Line , including Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis and Charles "Chip" Esten, who has since broken out as an actor on ABC's Nashville, will take on some of the games they did on the television show as well as some new ones. This is not the first time Whose Line personnel have visited Bloomington, but it may be the first time since Esten became a major TV heartthrob. For more information, click here.