50 Years Later, It's Still Easy to Love A HARD DAY'S NIGHT

July 6 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night in the UK. It didn't make it to the United States until August 11, 1964, which happened to be my 8th birthday, but it's still July that it's most associated with. Summer. London. Cheeky youth on the run.

A Hard Day's Night was a hugely influential film, and not just as a promotional tool for the Beatles. It made director Richard Lester a major name, created the blueprint for music videos years before MTV, launched imitators like The Monkees TV show, and established a cinematic style of quick cuts driven by the beat of the music, of off-kilter images and unexpected narrative lines, that echoed in a whole lot of "modern" movies for a very long time. There is an irreverence and joy, a sense of irrepressible energy and irrepressible freedom, in A Hard Day's Night that made it something really special in its time, something we take for granted now. Roger Ebert captured the ethos of the movie perfectly in a 1996 essay when he wrote, "[I]t has not aged and is not dated; it stands outside its time, its genre and even rock. It is one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies."

I've seen A Hard Day's Night quite a few times on my television screen, but now I get the chance to see it on the big screen, as it was intended to be seen. In celebration of its 50th anniversary, Janus Films is releasing a newly restored version of the film to theaters across the UK and the US.

Although the big release is supposed to be July 4, we'll get to see it starting July 3 at the Normal Theater. The Normal Theater is airing A Hard Day's Night on July 3, 4, 5 and 6. It will be shown each night at 7 pm for $7.

If you're interested in the whole list of venues, from Bear Tooth Cinema in Alaska to the Alamo Drafthouse in Kalamazoo and Bing Crosby Cinema in Spokane, click here and scroll down. In Illinois, we have a choice of the Normal Theater, The Art Co-op in Champaign, Landmark Cinemas in Peoria, the Tivoli in Downers Grove and the historic Music Box Theater in Chicago.

A special edition of A Hard Day's Night, including the new 4K digital restoration, two audio choices (a monaural soundtrack or the remixed 5.1 surround soundtrack), and a pile of extras like the earlier Richard Lester short The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film from 1959, interviews, audio commentary, trailers and print pieces, has also been released as of June 24 on Blu-Ray and DVD as part of the Criterion Collection.

On film, on DVD, on your iPad or on the big screen, A Hard Day's Night "has not aged and is not dated; it stands outside its time, its genre and even rock. It is one of the great life-affirming landmarks of the movies." And who doesn't need to affirm life and the movies every once in awhile?

Last Weekend for Heartland's FOWL PLAYS

There's only one weekend left in Heartland Theatre's annual 10-Minute Play Festival. These Fowl Plays have flown by over the first three weekends in June, pulling in crowds and earning rave reviews.

The winning Fowl Plays cover a variety of birds, from two sets of crows -- one noisy, one involved in murder -- to a pair of eagles, a mallard duck decoy, a Great Horny Owl and a foul-mouthed parrot. Some are funny, some are thought-provoking or "aww" provoking, and some are a little bit out there. It's no wonder Marcia Weiss called the eight bird-related plays "a real hoot" in her review in the Bloomington Pantagraph.

The winning playwrights cover a lot of territory, as well, with Joe Strupek (The Decoy) from right here in Bloomington, Blaise Miller (Bird on a Ferry) down in Texas, Brigitte Viellieu-Davis (Fly Girl Fly) and Nancy Halper (The Murder of Crows) from New Jersey, Russell Weeks (Whoooo?) from Seattle, Ron Burch (Polly) and Tim West (Two in the Bush) from southern California, and Claire BonEnfant (The Caw Caw Conspiracy) from Toronto, Canada.

The company of 13 actors include some new to Heartland Theatre, like Connie Blick, J. Michael Grey, Andrea Henderson, Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, Abby Scott, Eliza Sturdivant and Dave Yates, and some familiar faces, like Nathan Bottorff, Gayle Hess, Dave Lemmon, Nancy Nickerson and Kevin Wickart. Rob Goode falls between the two categories -- he was the costume designer on Iron last spring, so he is familiar with Heartland Theatre, but this is his first acting job there.

It's that kind of mix -- comedy and drama, East Coast, West Coast and Midwest sensibilities, fresh faces and old favorites -- that keeps Heartland's 10-Minute Plays fun and different every year.

Even the directors mix old and new. Ron Emmons, who acted as this year's overall director, and IWU Emeritus Professor John Ficca have been at the helm of Heartland plays before, while Cristen Monson, who directs Summer on Stage and the Intercity Shakespeare Troupe, is directing for Heartland for the first time. And I have been associated with this particular 10-Minute Play Festival since 2001, but it's also my first time directing here. If you're coming out to judge how I did, the plays I directed are Ron Burch's Polly and Joe Strupek's The Decoy.

Joe and I visited WGLT to talk about the Fowl Plays and especially The Decoy, and we brought along Dave Lemmon and Gayle Hess to perform a piece of Joe's play on air. That was added to an interview with Deanna Frautschi, who, along with her husband, Alan Bedell, have sponsored Heartland's 10-Minute Play Festival for the past 11 years. Frautschi is a bird-lover and a wonderful wildlife and bird-life photographer, and that love and those talents are what inspired the entire Fowl Plays theme this year. If you missed that radio piece, you can listen to it here at the WGLT site. Note that Dave, Gayle and The Decoy start at about the ten-minute mark, while Deanna begins about 17 minutes in.

If you are smart, you'll make reservations now to catch one of these last four performances, before the Fowl Plays fly away into the sunset. Tonight, Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30 pm, while Sunday's matinee begins at 2. Reservation information is here, with showtimes here.

BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (THE MUSICAL) Opens July 9 in Munster

If you're over 50, you might just have been a Beverly Hillbillies fan when you were a child. Now this sweetly old-fashioned fishes-out-of-water, naifs-in-the-city comedy may seem hokey, but between 1962 and 1971, when it aired on CBS, The Beverly Hillbillies was a major hit, with a hit theme song to boot.

Even if you've never seen an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies and you missed the 1993 movie remake, you can get the whole backstory from the theme song, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," which was performed by the fabulous Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.

Come and listen to my story
'Bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer,
Barely kept his family fed.
And then one day
He was shootin' at some food,
And up through the ground cme a-bubblin' crude.

Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know,
Ol' Jed's a millionaire.
Kinfolk said "Jed move away from there."
Said "California's the place you outta be."
So they loaded up the truck
And they moved to Beverly.

Hills, that is. Swimming pools, movie stars...

And that right there is what you need to know about The Beverly Hillbillies before you go to see the new stage musical, called (appropriately enough) The Beverly Hillbillies -- the Musical, when it makes its world premiere next month at Theater in the Center in Munster, Indiana. Jed Clampett strikes oil and moves his clan -- his mother, Granny; his son, Jethro; and his daughter, Elly May, who loves "critters" -- to California, to a mansion with a cement pond (swimming pool) and lots of luxuries they don't know what to do with.

Beverly Hillbillies -- the Musical opens July 9 and plays till August 9, and it's being billed as a pre-Broadway tryout of sorts. It features music and lyrics by Gregg Opelka, who has composed nine musicals, most performed in Chicago, and book written by David and Amanda Rogers. David Rogers was a composer, lyricist, author and actor who passed away last year. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1981 for a musical version of the novel "Flowers for Algernon" called Charlie and Algernonand he appeared in as an actor in the 1987 revival of the musical Broadway. Amanda Rogers is his daughter. His other daugher, actress Dulcy Rogers, is married to Diedrich Bader, the actor who appeared as Jethro in the 1993 movie. Whether that played a part in David Rogers' creating a musical version of the Hillbillies, I don't know.

What I do know is that casting was announced back in May. According to Johnny Oleksinski in the Chicago Tribune, David Perkovich is directing a cast that includes Jim Harms as Jed, Kelly Anne Clark as Granny, Summer Smart as Elly May, John Stemberg as Jethro, Norm Boucher as Mr. Drysdale and Holly Stauder as Mrs. Drysdale. No mention of Jane Hathaway, the uptight bank aide who has a hankering for Jethro. That role was played by Nancy Kulp on TV and Lily Tomlin in the movie.

And Granny was, of course, played on television by Irene Ryan, who gave her name to the prestigious college acting award and scholarship program.

ISU's Owais Ahmed Opens in THE QUALMS at Steppenwolf Next Week

It hasn't been that long since Owais Ahmed was playing Anon in Illinois State University's production of Naomi Iizuka's Anon(ymous). Ahmed has not only moved to Chicago, he's moved on to Steppenwolf Theatre, where he will be part of the ensemble in a new play by Bruce Norris called The Qualms.

Norris won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Clybourne Park, a sort of reimagining and revisiting of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 classic about racism, real estate and the dream of making a home in Chicago. Clybourne Park also picked up the Tony for Best Play for its Broadway production and the Olivier and Evening Standard awards for Best Play for its London run.

The Qualms takes him into new territory as he focuses on a group of what used to be called "swingers." This bunch gets together regularly to eat, drink and be merry, including getting high and swapping partners. That's all fine and dandy until a new couple tries to enter the festivities, changing everything. Steppenwolf characterizes the show as a "delightfully wild and sexy comedy," asking the theatrical questions, "Does sex ruin everything? And what is the purpose of monogamy?"

Aside from Ahmed, the cast includes Steppenwolf ensemble member Kate Arrington along with Karen Aldridge, Diane Davis, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Keith Kupferer, David Pasquesi, Paul Oakley Stovall and Greg Stuhr.

The Qualms is directed by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon, a member of the Steppenwolf ensemble who also directed Clybourne Park in its Broadway, Playwrights Horizon and Mark Taper Forum productions. MacKinnon won her Tony for directing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway in 2012.

Opening night for The Qualms is Thursday, July 3, with performances continuing through August 31. For more information or to purchase tickets, click here.

SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE Opens This Summer of Shakespeare at ISF

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival doesn't begin its mainstage performances of Much Ado About Nothing, Elizabeth Rex and Antony and Cleopatra until July 8, but in the meantime... The Festival's free Theatre for Young Audiences show has already begun.

This year, the TYA show is Shake, Shake, Shake Your Shakespeare, written by Nancy Steele Brokaw. And here's how the ISF describes what exactly this Shake is all about:

"Shake, Shake, Shake Your Shakespeare is the new, FREE theatre show for all ages that features Young Will as he learns about the art of storytelling. The show includes several familiar story book characters including Old Mother Goose, who becomes a kind of mentor for Young Will on his adventure. Together, with the audience, Old Goose and Young Will travel though several of Shakespeare's plays, learning about how to best tell a story."

The show took its first bow yesterday at the Ewing Cultural Center. In the rest of June, Shake, Shake will tour to the Immanuel Health Center in Bloomington on the 21st, come back to Ewing Manor on the 25th and make a stop at the Farmers Market in Bloomington on the 28. In July, look for this "interactive adventure" at Ewing Manor on Wednesdays and Saturdays except Saturday, July 19, when the troupe takes a trip to Franklin Park as part of Bloomington's Lincoln's Festival. All shows begin at 10 am.

Shake, Shake, Shake Your Shakespeare is a 45-minute show, completely free and intended for all ages. It is especially geared to the youngsters among us who might otherwise be confused or uncertain about their capacity to fully embrace Shakespeare. Shake, Shake shows them exactly how embraceable -- and fun -- Shakespeare and live performance can be. Outside! In the sun!

For more information on all this summer's activities at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, click the link under their name or check out their Facebook page.

Happiness Is CHARLIE BROWN at Conklin's Barn II, Starting Tomorrow

Conklin’s Barn II Dinner Theatre sent out word to its patrons last spring that it had endured a rocky winter season -- the terrible weather socked in the theater, which really is in a barn outside Goodfield -- and it needed their support to spring back.

The Barn has made some progress, but they're hoping for even more with You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the "hilarious and heartwarming" musical based on Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip. You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown opens tomorrow, June 19, for a six-week run, with performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Charlie Brown is scheduled to close July 27. And there's even a July 4th performance if you'd like to celebrate your entertainment independence in Goodfield.

The Barn's materials describe this version of Charlie Brown as "a funny and nostalgic look back to our childhoods with our favorite friends from Peanuts, including Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Sally, and, of course, Snoopy. The delightful skits and songs take us through a typical day in the life of our hapless but hopeful hero, Charlie Brown and his friends. Many classic Peanuts moments are encapsulated in this enchanting musical: Lucy mooning over the Beethoven-obsessed Schroeder and manning her psychiatric booth with the price of five cents; Linus’ devotion to his blanket; Charlie Brown’s lonely lunch time and dismal attempt to fly a kite; and Snoopy’s joyous celebration of "Suppertime.” The day ends with the perennial Peanuts' anthem “Happiness.”"

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was a major hit off-Broadway in 1967, piling up almost 1600 performances and numerous awards. Its cast included actor and director Bob Balaban as well as MASH's Gary Burghoff. The show was revived on Broadway in 1999, with a cast that included Roger Bart, Kristen Chenoweth, Ilana Levine, Stanley Wayne Mathis and B.D. Wong, with Anthony Rapp as Charlie Brown himself.

For the Barn, those roles will be played by Pat Gaik (as Charlie Brown), Mary Simon (Lucy), Dan Challacombe (Linus), Tamra Challacombe (Sally), Chad Kirvan (Schroeder), and Jimmy LaHood (Snoopy).

This Charlie Brown is directed and staged by Mary Simon with musical direction by Chad Kirvan and choreography by Tamra Challacombe. To find out more details or to make reservations, visit the Barn's website at www.barn2.com or call the box office at 309-965-2545.

Note that the Barn II is a dinner theater, which means your ticket price includes a buffet. Tickets range from $35 to $39, but they are offering a special coupon (see above) to give you a free dinner on Thursdays and $5 off per couple on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Just click on the image to see the full-size version of the coupons.

3rd Annual HISTORY MAKERS GALA on Thursday June 19

The McLean County Museum of History will showcase local movers, shakers and influential people Thursday with its third annual History Makers Gala at the Brown Ballroom in the Bone Student Center on the Illinois State University campus. This year's honorees include Carol Reitan, a major influence on the Bloomington-Normal arts scene, who passed away last month at the age of 83.

Carol Reitan

Reitan served as mayor of Normal from 1972 to 1976, making her the only woman to hold that office in the town's history. She ran a consulting firm for energy efficient home design, acted as the director and CEO of Mid Central Community Action, and chaired the Normal 2015 Committee that set goals for Normal's next 25 years, plus she co-founded Collaborative Solutions Institute, Inc., a not-for-profit which provides counseling and mediation for at-risk youth and adults, worked to establish Habitat for Humanity of McLean County, the Community Foundation of McLean County, which has become the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation, and she created the coalition that found a way to open Neville House, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.And she also founded Heartland Theatre, along with Phil Shaw and Rita Kohn, back in 1986.

Her fellow honorees include entrepreneur, community leader and contractor Pat Wannemacher, the first-ever female president of the McLean County Chamber of Commerce, who passed away in 2013; Margot Mendoza, former president of both the Bloomington-Normal Symphony Guild and the McLean County Arts Council who also spearheaded the Latino History Project at the McLean County Historical Society; and John and Joanne Maitland, a power couple that balanced public service and politics with volunteerism and work in health, education and agriculture.

Doors open for the Gala at 5:30 pm on June 19, with the program beginning at 6:15. The program referred to includes a performance from Illinois Voices Theatre actors and singers to celebrate the honorees' lives and give some sense of how they influenced McLean County.

For all the details, including how to contact the Museum of History, click here.