Oscar Nomination Surprises!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had some surprises up its golden sleeves this morning, with no Oscar love for the guy in the iron lung in The Sessions and a whole lot of topsy turvy in the Best Director race.

There are nine nominees for Best Picture, with only Moonrise Kingdom left out from prognosticators' lists of likely nominees if it went that deep. Big favorite Lincoln is there, along with Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty. Along with Moonrise Kingdom, dark horses Skyfall and The Master didn't make the cut.

Best Director was supposed to be a horse race between Steven Spielberg and actor-turned-director Ben Affleck, but Affleck, whose Argo got a Best Picture nod, is out in the cold, as are expected nominees Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and Tom Hooper for Les Miz. Only Ang Lee (Life of Pi) and Spielberg repeat from the Directors Guild nominations announced on Tuesday.

It's not that uncommon for the DGA to pick a different winner than the one who takes the prize on Oscar night, but the two groups sharing only two nominees out of five is a bit surprising. Michael Haneke, who directed Amour, Benh Zeitlin, from Beasts of the Southern Wild, and David O. Russell, who has appeared on a lot of Best of the Year lists for Silver Linings Playbook, benefited from the absence of Affleck, Bigelo and Hooper on the final slate.

The Best Actor competition comes down to Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Lincoln in Lincoln, Bradley Cooper as a bipolar man who moves back in with Mom and Dad in Silver Linings Playbook, Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Denzel Washington as a heroic but flawed pilot in Flight, and Joaquin Phoenix as an unstable man who falls in with a cult in The Master. Because Phoenix took a swipe at awards season and the campaigning involved, many thought the Academy voters would snub him, but there he is. And John Hawkes, widely expected to be a contender for his role as a man in an iron lung who hires a sex therapist in The Sessions, is nowhere to be found.

Frontrunners Jessica Chastain (a CIA operative going after Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty) and Jennifer Lawrence (the quirky love interest who dances with Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook) are front and center in the Best Actress category, where they are joined by 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, who played a girl named Hushpuppy taking a journey to the end of the world in Beasts of the Southern Wild and 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva, who played a retired music teacher whose health is failing in the French film Amour. Wallis and Riva represent the youngest and oldest nominees ever in the Best Actress category. Naomi Watts, a mother trying to find her son during a tsunami in The Impossible, rounds out the list of nominees. A likely contender left out was Marion Cotillard, whose performance as a whale trainer in Rust and Bone was overlooked. Let's give credit to IndieWire's Peter Knegt, who called this category perfectly.

The real Thaddeus Stevens (L) and Tommy Lee Jones in the role.

Supporting Actors nominated include veteran Alan Arkin for his work as a wily movie producer in Argo, Robert DeNiro as Bradley Cooper's OCD dad in Silver Linings Playbook, Philip Seymour Hoffman as the charismatic cult leader in The Master, Tommy Lee Jones as a fiery abolitionist in Lincoln, and Christoph Waltz as a bounty hunter* in Django Unchained.

Nominee Jacki Weaver

And the Supporting Actresses who got the call this morning are Amy Adams and Sally Field, playing wives to the title characters in The Master and Lincoln, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, arguably the most miserable character in Les Misérables, Helen Hunt as the helpful sex therapist in The Sessions, and  Australian actress Jacki Weaver, the mom in Silver Linings Playbook. There were a whole lot of names bandied about for that fifth spot, with actresses like Judi Dench, Maggie Smith and Nicole Kidman considered more likely than Weaver. But her presence as the most stable member of the Silver Linings family won the day, giving Weaver an out-of-nowhere nomination.

If you'd like to see the complete list of Oscar nominations, head here to read 'em and weep. Or cheer. Lincoln leads in nominations overall with 12, with Life of Pi right behind with 11 and Silver Linings Playbook with 8. That's a bit better than experts predicted for Pi, so congrats to director Ang Lee, whose University of Illinois connection (he got a BFA there in 1980) makes him rootable in my book.

*I've corrected what I called the character in response to a comment, in case anyone wonders why he is suddenly a bounty hunter.

Hey, Hermano! Netflix Announces ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT for May

It's been awhile since Netflix announced they would air new episodes of Arrested Development, the quirky and generally amazing sitcom that never belonged on Fox in the first place. At first we were told there would be ten new episodes starting in early 2013, but that got pushed back and expanded. So then the news was 14 episodes sometime in the Spring.

And now it's official! Or at least sort of official. TVLine and Entertainment Weekly are both reporting, based on intel from the Television Critics Association winter press tour, that Arrested Development and its 14 episodes will start on Netflix in May. So no exact date in May, but hey, May in general is better than June, July, or parts thereafter.

Word is that the new episodes will act as a kind of catch-up to where and what the Bluths have been doing since we saw them last, as a way of creating a platform for a movie later. An Arrested Development feature film was supposedly in the works before the Netflix deal was announced in November 2011, and that may still be happening. If Michael Cera, who plays Bluth son George Michael, hasn't outgrown the rest of the family.

Not only will regulars Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, Cera, David Cross, Portia de Rossi, Tony Hale, Alia Shawcat, Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter all be back for the Netflix episodes, but they will be joined by guests like Liza Minnelli, Conan O'Brien and John Slattery. Will Ron Howard show up, too? Will Maeby Fünke (Shawcat) sing "Call Me Maybe" or has that moment of pop culture relevance passed? Will we see terrible lawyers Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) or Bob Loblaw (Scott Baio), Lupe the maid (B. W. Gonzalez), boring girlfriend Ann Veal (Mae Whitman), wayward secretary Kitty (Judy Greer), Carl Weathers (Carl Weathers) or blind-but-not-really Maggie Lizer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)? And what about STEVE HOLT!? (He was played by Justin Wade Grant, but they could totally replace him and I wouldn't notice. It's the concept of STEVE HOLT! that counts.)

I also have a fondness for the stair car. But maybe that's too much to hope for.

Oscar Nominations Will Be Announced Thursday January 10th

Everybody knows the Oscar nominations will be announced Thursday, right? And everybody seems pretty clear on who will get those nominations this year.

The website Gold Derby is in the prognostication biz, combining opinions from experts and regular old folks to come up with odds and predictions for the Golden Globes and the Emmys and the Screen Actors Guild and... Of course, the Big Kahuna, the Oscars. Gold Derby updates their odds as movies get released over the year, and today's predictions are that Lincoln will lead nominations with 12, Les Miz will be right behind with 11, and Life of Pi will pick up 9 nods. The Gold Derby crystal ball also sees 7 nominations for Zero Dark Thirty and 5 for Argo and Silver Linings Playbook.

We'll see on Thursday whether they hit the target with those predictions. I always hope for some upsets, mostly because the Academy Awards have become so obvious, so predictable, and we need some interlopers to knock the likes of Lincoln and Les Misérables off their perches. Or maybe that's just me. In any event, this is how the individual races break down:

For Best Picture, predictions are a little tricky since no one knows exactly how many nominations there will be. The Academy opened it up a few years ago, allowing more than five for pictures with a certain percentage of the total votes. Gold Derby has ten: Lincoln, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Misérables, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Django Unchained, Beasts of the Southern Wild,  Moonrise Kingdom and Amour, in that order, with The Master as a dark horse coming up on the outside.

Over at Huffington Post, Michael Hogan and Christopher Rosen are looking at eight, with Rosen thinking Skyfall will sneak in as a nominee instead of Beasts, Moonrise, or Amour. And IndieWire's Peter Knegt is hedging his bets with choices for five nominees (Lincoln, Argo, Zero, Les Miz and Silver) with extras Django, Pi, Beasts, Moonrise and Amour if the nominee list is expanded.

Everybody expects Best Actor nods to go to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln, Hugh Jackman for Les Misérables, Denzel Washington for Flight and John Hawkes for The Sessions. Who will get the last slot? Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings Playbook? Or Joaquin Phoenix for The Master? Cooper seems to be the name on most lists. Sorry, Bill Murray (Hyde Park on the Hudson) and Anthony Hopkins (Hitchcock). According to the those in the know, your name will not be called on Thursday.

How about Best Actress? To be perfectly honest, the Best Actress race is seldom as interesting as the one for Best Actor, mostly because Hollywood banks on movies with men front and center. (See the poster images accompanying this article. Boys, boys, boys. Oh well.) Youngsters Jennifer Lawrence (who gets half a face on the poster of Silver Linings Playbook) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) are expected to duke it out for the win, with Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone), Naomi Watts (The Impossible) and Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) as also-rans, according to Gold Derby. At HuffPo, Rosen is picking Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) instead of Riva for the last slot, while IndieWire is on board with Riva, but picks Wallis instead of Cotillard. It would be fun to hear last year's Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin say Quvenzhané, wouldn't it?

The Best Supporting Actor field should include Lincoln's Tommy Lee Jones, Philip Seymour Hoffman from The Master, Robert DeNiro in Silver Linings Playbook, Alan Arkin for Argo and either Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson or Christoph Waltz from Django Unchained, if the experts are correct. It's kind of a wild race, given all those Django choices plus Eddie Redmayne from Les Miz and Javier Bardem from Skyfall and maybe... Matthew McConaughey as a veteran stripper in Magic Mike? You gotta be kidding, right?

Supporting Actress isn't any more settled, although Anne Hathaway and her Les Misérables haircut are expected to lead the pack. (Hathaway is shown at right on a different Les Miz poster, pre-haircut.) Sally Field is probably a shoe-in as Mrs. Lincoln in Lincoln, and Helen Hunt (The Sessions) and Amy Adams (The Master) are front-runners for spots 3 and 4. Maggie Smith, as a cranky oldster in Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, was expected to roll right into this category, although Nicole Kidman's surprise Golden Globe nomination for The Paperboy has some thinking she may be able to push Dame Maggie to the side. And how about Samantha Barks as Eponine in Les Misérables? Or a different Dame, Judi Dench in Skyfall? I actually liked Dench better than Smith in Best Exotic Marigold, but Smith does have the Downton Abbey fans on her side. I guess we'll see on Thursday.

And last, the Best Director race centers on Steven Spielberg, whose Lincoln is the prestige pic of the year, followed by Ben Affleck for Argo (the Academy does tend to get behind actors-turned-director), Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and Ang Lee for Life of Pi. It's always that last spot that gets tricky. Gold Derby gives it to Tom Hooper for Les Miz, but the HuffPo guys think it'll be David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and IndieWire is going out on a limb with Quentin Tarantino for Django. I think I'm with Gold Derby on this one. Hooper got a Directors Guild nomination, announced just this morning, giving him the inside track on an Oscar nom, as well.

Who will win? Let's save that for after the nominations are announced. That will be Thursday, January 10, at 5:30 in the morning in Hollywood. That's 7:30 am for us. You can get the scoop on the Oscar website just as soon as Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone announce them.

Keeping Up with Casting: MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at ISU

To catch up... We've already talked about the casts for four of Illinois State University's upcoming shows, from Archibald MacLeish's J.B, opening February 21 in Westhoff Theatre, to Rodgers' and Hammerstein's Oklahoma, in the Center for the Performing Arts from February 22, Tales of the Lost Formicans, a play by Constance Congdon, starting March 28 in Centennial West 207, and The Adding Machine, a classic from Elmer Rice, with performances beginning April 5 in the CPA. If you want to see which actors are playing which roles in those plays, click on the link under the show titles just above.

So what does that leave? Shakespeare, of course! A Midsummer Night's Dream is the last show of ISU's theatre season, taking the stage in Westhoff Theatre from April 11 to 20. Vanessa Stalling, the MFA directing candidate who worked on Jean Genet's The Maids last season, will direct this Midsummer for ISU.

Stallings has cast Devon Nimerfroh, memorable as Howard the salesman in Picnic and one of the onstage musicians in Mother Courage, as Theseus and Oberon, with Abby Vombrack, Mother Courage herself, opposite him as both Hippolyta and Titania.

Duke Theseus and his tempestuous Amazon bride-to-be, Hippolyta, form the framing device for the play. Their wedding offers an opportunity for aristocrats like the young Athenian lovers to gather as guests. It also gets the troupe of "mechanicals," regular working folk, together to attempt to put on a play in honor of the nuptials. The third plot thread in Midsummer involves a band of fairies and their king and queen, Oberon and Titania, who are up to some mischievous magical tricks in the same forest as the lovers and the mechanicals.

Nimerfroh and Vombrack will have more to do as Oberon and Titania, since their romantic battles create all sorts of havoc, what with misguided love potions mixing up the four lovers and Titania falling in love with Bottom, one of the actors in the amateur troupe, after he's been turned into a donkey by Puck, Oberon's right-hand fairy minion.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline as Titania and Bottom

For ISU, Cydney Moody will step in as Puck, while Thomas Howie (who happens to be the son of Mike Howie, my very first editor at the Champaign New-Gazette when I started as a theater critic) will play Bottom, the amateur actor who falls afoul of Oberon, with Garrett Douglas, Andrew Piechota and Brandon Miller as his fellow mechnicals.

Elizabeth Dillard and Fiona Stephens, who were together in Stallings' production of The Maids, will play Hermia and Helena, the Athenian girls who play mix-and-match with their romantic partners. The objects of their affections, Athenian youths Demetrius and Lysander, will be played by Dan Machalinski and Austin Peed.

Omar Shammaa, who was so good as Pascal in Anon(ymous) last fall, takes on Hermia's dad, Egeus, the one whose refusal to allow his daughter to chose her own boyfriend sends everybody on the lam, as well as other roles, which I hope include Robin Starveling, since otherwise we're missing a mechanical. Others in the cast include Kate Klemchuck and Mary DeWitt as fairies Peaseblossom and Mustardseed, along with Angela Geiss, Caitlin Graham and David Link in the ensemble.

Note that both images accompanying this post are from the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Michael Hoffman and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Everett as Titania and Oberon, Kevin Kline as Bottom, Anna Friel, Calista Flockhart, Christian Bale and Dominic West as the four lovers, and Stanley Tucci as Puck.

There were a lot of things to like about that movie version, including my favorite group of mechanicals ever, with Kline as the leading man and Roger Rees, Bill Irwin, Gregory Jbara, Sam Rockwell and Max Wright rounding out the group. They came across as a band of brothers with sincere loyalty and affection for each other, giving Midsummer a different feel and making Bottom feel achingly real and his dream achingly lovely. (I never will like Rockwell's over-the-top Thisbe in the play-within-the-play, but I can always avert my eyes during that part.)

In any event, a good Midsummer is something to look forward to in any season. Bring it on, ISU!

DOWNTON ABBEY, ONCE UPON A TIME and Lots More TV Back This Week

It's the time of the season for TV.  Mostly returning TV, but a few premieres are sneaking in here, too. So if you're sick of all the reruns or can't wait one minute longer to see what's happening on your favorite show after a cliffhanger in November or December... You just may be in luck. If, like me, you're waiting for Mad Men, Arrested Development and Parks and Recreation, you'll have to wait a little longer.

Downton Abbey, back January 6 with Season 3

In the meantime, this weekend we get Downton Abbey, giving us Season 3 of adventures for the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants, as well as the entrance of Shirley MacLaine as the big bad American mother-in-law. And Once Upon a Time, with Captain Hook and the evil Queen of Hearts storming into town on a pirate ship.

And two new shows begin early next week, with Deception, which looks like NBC's version of Revenge, on Monday, and The Abolitionists, a mini-series on PBS about the people working to end slavery in America, on Tuesday. NBC's 1600 Penn is new, too, but already sneaked its premiere episode in December. One small note about Deception: The murder victim at the center of the story is played by One Life to Live's former Jessica Buchanan, Bree Williamson. Let's hope playing a dead girl works out as well for her as it did for Amanda Seyfried, who was the late Lilly Kane on Veronica Mars before breaking big.

Note that ABC's Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B are opening their seasons in odd Sunday time slots, but will return to their regular Tuesday locations this week as well. NBC's The Biggest Loser also has two shows this week, with a Sunday special premiere and a regular Monday show.

Oh, and Chicago Fire, Elementary, Law & Order: SVU, Parenthood, Person of Interest and The Big Bang Theory are already back, so if those are your shows, you'd better already be tuned in.

Here's what coming up (and coming back) this week:

Friday, January 4: Last Man Standing (ABC, 7 pm), Malibu Country (ABC, 7:30 pm), CSI:New York (CBS, 8 pm), Blue Bloods (CBS, 9 pm), Merlin (Syfy, 9 pm)

Saturday, January 5: Austin City Limits (PBS, check local listings for time)

Sunday, January 6: Once Upon a Time (ABC, 7 pm), Bob's Burgers (Fox, 7:30 pm), The Biggest Loser (NBC, 8 pm), Downton Abbey (PBS, 8 pm), Family Guy (Fox, 8 pm), The Good Wife (CBS, 8 pm), Revenge (ABC, 8 pm), American Dad (Fox, 8:30 pm), Happy Endings (ABC, 9 pm), Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 (ABC, 9:30 pm),

Monday, January 7: Antiques Roadshow (PBS, 7 pm), The Bachelor (ABC, 7 pm), Switched at Birth (ABC Family, 7 pm), Bunheads (ABC Family, 8 pm), Castle (ABC, 9 pm), Deception (NBC, 9 pm)

Tuesday, January 8: NCIS (CBS, 7 pm), Pretty Little Liars (ABC Family, 7 pm),  Raising Hope (Fox, 7 pm), Ben and Kate (Fox, 7:30 pm), The Abolitionists (PBS, 8 pm), Go On (NBC, 8 pm), Justified (FX, 8 pm), The Lying Game (ABC Family, 8 pm), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS, 8 pm),  New Girl (Fox, 8 pm),  The Mindy Project (Fox, 8:30 pm), The New Normal (NBC, 8:30 pm),  Cougar Town (TBS, 9 pm), Private Practice (ABC, 9 pm), Vegas (CBS, 9 pm)

Wednesday, Jan 9: The Middle (ABC, 7 pm), The Neighbors (ABC, 7:30 pm), Modern Family (ABC, 8 pm), Suburgatory (ABC, 8:30 pm), Nashville (ABC, 9 pm)

Thursday, Jan 10: 30 Rock (NBC, 7 pm), Grey's Anatomy (ABC, 8 pm), The Office (NBC, 8 pm), 1600 Penn (NBC, 8:30 pm), Scandal (ABC, 9 pm)

For more information about any of these shows, click the link under the show's name.

New Route Climbs to THE MOUNTAINTOP

As New Route Theatre gears up for the last production of their 2012-13 season, they are also celebrating their accomplishments from 2012.

It was a very good year for New Route, moving into a new space in the YWCA on Hershey Road in Bloomington, producing shows with longer runs, adding the Word Weavers writing program for seniors and still keeping the One Shot Deal series alive at the Eaton Gallery. That's a lot of production for one small, fairly new company! But, after all, New Route has a mission. What is the mission? To do professional quality theatre using a broad spectrum of artists who represent the community in all of its diversity.

As Artistic Director Don Shandrow notes, "If you look at our 2012-2013 season that reaches its summit with The Mountaintop you will see ten productions, across all of our programs, that reflect the diversity of this community."

He explains: "Of these ten productions, three were compilation scripts. Of the seven remaining scripts, six were by women playwrights. Of those six, one was by a Palestinian-American woman and the remaining three by African-American women.

"As we move forward into 2013 and beyond, it is our intent to build on this foundation as we work toward an even more diverse and inclusive theatre company."

And about that Mountaintop... Katori Hall's play about the last night in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. premiered in London in 2009 in a much-acclaimed production directed by James Dacre with British actor David Harewood as Dr. King, then hit Broadway in 2011 with Samuel L. Jackson in the lead role. Jackson's costar was Oscar nominee Angela Bassett.

Katori Hall, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett and Kenny Leon, who directed the Broadway Mountaintop, each did a brief video piece about the play if you'd like to learn more.

Don Shandrow will direct The Mountaintop for New Route, with Gregory D. Hicks as his Dr. King. Hicks has been involved with New Route Theatre with productions like Fabulation, which he directed and acted in last year, and with area theaters like Heartland Theatre Company, where he played young poet Franco Hicks in Superior Donuts last spring. He's also worked with the Black Actors Guild at Illinois State University, directing The Mystical Willie Lynch in February, 2011.

Fania Bourne will star opposite Hicks as Camae, a mysterious maid who brings coffee to King's hotel room on that last day and begins a conversation with him about life, death, what it is to come up short, and what it means to dream big. The name Camae is a nickname for Carrie Mae. Or perhaps "Carry Me."

Bourne has also appeared before with New Route, most recently in Fat Jack's, a One Shot Deal show in 2011.

The Mountaintop will begin performances at 7:30 pm on February 8th, continuing with 7:30 shows on the 9th, 15th, 16th, 22nd and 23rd, and 2:30 pm matinees on February 10th, 17th and 24th. New Route's performances of The Mountaintop will take place at the YWCA of McLean County, which is located at 1201 North Hershey Road in Bloomington. Tickets can be reserved by e-mailing new.route.theatre@gmail.com.

For more information about New Route Theatre and their entire schedule, you can visit their Facebook page here.

Say Hello to 2013!

It's January 2. I took a whole day off! That's a reflection of my new 2013 unhurried, unscheduled blogging technique.

But, of course, there are things to do and see, even in January, which is traditionally a slow month for theaters and hotels, if not for restaurants or shopping malls.

So what's to do in January, now that your holiday sugar rush is wearing off, It's a Wonderful Life is put away and everybody's Nutcrackers have danced over the fiscal cliff?

Champaign's Art Theater is showing a film called The Other Dream Team, about the intersection of basketball, politics and pop culture (including the Grateful Dead) in 1992, when the Lithuanian national basketball team made their first-ever appearance in Olympic competition. Yes, that's the same year the real Dream Team, with Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan on board, was formed. They cruised to a gold medal. But the Lithuania team was there, recording triumph of its own and making a stand for freedom from Soviet oppression. The Other Dream Team tells that story, and the Art is showing it tonight and tomorrow.

Hyde Park on Hudson, a portrait of FDR and one of his lady loves during a weekend in the country when the King of England came to visit, follows The Other Dream Team at The Art. The other president (Lincoln) in this year's film crop is expected to steal all the Oscar glory, but you never know. Bill Murray's Franklin Roosevelt may just sneak in there for a nomination of his own.

Illinois State University doesn't open its first production of the winter till February, but in the meantime, they're taking last semester's Mother Courage and her Children to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival regional event in Saginaw, Michigan, from January 8 to 12. Break a leg, MoCo & Co!

The American-history-as-outrageous-rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson hits the black box running at Urbana's Station Theatre on January 17. Mikel L. Matthews, Jr. directs this provocative cowboys-and-Indians show that features music and lyrics by Michael Friedman and a book by Alex Timbers. It's all about America's 7th president, imagined as a sulky, sexy rock star (usually portrayed in leather pants) who works to put himself in power and annihilate Native Americans as a form of populism by way of greed and ignorance. Matthews' take on Andrew Jackson plays from January 17 to February 2, with all shows at 8 pm.

Booker T. Jones, the same Booker T. of Booker T. and the MGs, is coming to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on January 19. Booker T. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He's made the charts as a solo artist as well as a producer, and he still plays with the MGs and his own Booker T. Jones Band, winning a Grammy for his 2011 album "The Road to Memphis."

The Russian National Ballet Theatre brings Don Quixote, Chopiniana, Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake to the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana on January 22 (Quixote), 23 (Chopin and R & J), and 24 (Swan Lake). Elena Radchenko and her company will perform in Krannert's Tryon Festival Theatre at 7 pm each night. You are invited to "Get swept away by Cervantes’ imperfect hero, Siegfried’s misplaced affections, the neighborly struggles of the Montagues and Capulets, or the simple poetry of Chopin-inspired dance with the Russian ballet tradition."

The Pavilion, by Craig Wright, plays at Eureka College from January 24 to 26, in a production directed by Eureka student Erin Cochran. The Pavilion involves Peter and Kari, once sweethearts, as they see each other again at a 20th high school reunion. She's married to someone else now, she has resentments about how they parted in the past, and nothing is the same as it was. "Wright's perceptive, gently witty writing...makes this familiar situation fresh and thoroughly involving," said the Philadelphia Inquirer. You can call the box office at 309-467-6363 or email boxoffice@eureka.edu for more information.

Community Players opens Lend Me a Tenor, the Ken Ludwig farce about too many tenors on the loose at the Cleveland Opera, on January 25, with performances continuing through February 3. Players' Tenor stars Tom Smith and Brian Artman as the two tenors in the piece, with Joe Strupek, Hannah Kerns, Opal Virtue, Thom Rakestraw, Wendi Fleming and Reena Artman adding to the general hilarity. For ticket information, click here.

And don't forget that Heartland Theatre will accept entries in their Package, Parcel & Present 10-Minute play contest through February 1. Get your entry in now if you want to have a chance at seeing your words on stage next summer. But remember: It needs to be ten minutes long, and it needs to have a package or parcel of some sort involved in the play. We're talking an actual, physical box, bundle, carton, container, crate... Not a metaphorical one. But a real, live package, parcel or present. The kind of thing that was arriving at your door for Christmas a few weeks ago. If you've got a play about one of those in your back pocket, take it out and send it in. Details here.