The Issaquah Press
A&E
B10 • Wednesday, July 27, 2011
ARTS
CALENDAR JULY
27 28
Music on the Streets: The Rainieros, 6-9 p.m., Hailstone Feed Store, 232 Front St. N. Shakespeare on the Green presents “Comedy of Errors,” 7 p.m., community center, 301 Rainier Blvd. S., free
Anna Vasilevskaya, 7-10 p.m., Vino Bella, 99 Front St. N., 3911424 Concerts in the Park: Dr. Funk, 6:30-8 p.m., Pine Lake Park, Sammamish ArtEAST presents an artist talk with Stephanie Dickie, 6:30-8:30 p.m., artEAST Gallery Up Front, 95 Front St. N.
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Closing night reception for ArtEAST’s Collective Works exhibit “High Jinks,” 6-8 p.m., Art Center and Up Front Gallery, 95 Front St. N. Call 392-3191 or go to www.arteast.org.
The Yesberger Band, 7:45-10 p.m., Bake’s Place, 4135 Providence Point Drive S.E., $15 Groove Messengers, 7:30-11:30 p.m., Vino Bella
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Clairdee, 7:45-10 p.m., Bake’s Place, 4135 Providence Point Drive S.E., $20
Lady “A” & the Baby Blues Funk Band, 7:30-11:30 p.m., Vino Bella Designated Driver, 7 p.m., Spirelli's Deli, 485 Front St D-1, for ages 21 and up, no cover
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NW Corvair & Orphaned Cars Show, 8 a.m., XXX Rootbeer Drive-in, 98 N.E. Gilman Blvd.
AUGUST
1 2 4 5
An Evening of Songs, with Jadd Davis, 7-10 p.m., Vino Bella
National Night Out, noon to 3 p.m., Sammamish Commons
Concerts on the Green: Second Hand Newz, 78:30 p.m., community center Troy Shaw, 6-10 p.m., Vino Bella Concerts in the Park: FreddyPink, 6:30-8 p.m., Pine Lake Park ArtEAST presents First Friday Community Night, 5-8 p.m., at artEAST Gallery Up Front, 95 Front St. N. ArtWalk, 5-8 p.m., downtown and Gilman Village
Brooks Giles Band, 7:30-11:30 p.m., Vino Bella
‘Shakespeare on the Green’ features classic comedy July 28 Comedy comes to the Issaquah Community Center lawn July 28 as the Seattle Shakespeare Co. and Wooden O present “The Comedy of Errors” — a timeless tale about mistaken identity. Catch “The Comedy of Errors” at the community center, 301 Rainier Blvd. S., at 7 p.m. Organizers encourage attendees to bring blankets, chairs and picnic baskets for the show. In the play, two sets of long lost twins unknowingly cross paths — and set the stage for cases of mistaken identity, confusion and mayhem. The piece is full of slapstick, sight gags, puns and pratfalls. The city Arts Commission and King County cultural service agency 4Culture present the “Shakespeare on the Green” performances at no cost to attendees. “Macbeth” opened the summer series July 7.
TO SUBMIT AN ARTS CALENDAR ITEM: Call 392-6434, ext. 237, or newsclerk@isspress.com. Submit A&E story ideas to isspress@isspress.com.
’ Y A R P S R I A H ‘ IS A DRAG
ENDING B R E D N E G RMERS IN O F R E P E L A TRE STARS M A E H T E G A L L AT VIL ’60S MUSICA
ROLES
IF YOU GO ‘Hairspray’ Village Theatre — Francis J. Gaudette Theatre 303 Front St. N. July 30 to Aug. 7 Show times vary $14 to $16 392-2202 or www.villagetheatre.org By Warren Kagarise Issaquah Press reporter “Hairspray” long ago earned a reputation for camp by casting a man in drag as mammoth matriarch Edna Turnblad. The soon-to-open production at Village Theatre offers another gender bender: a male performer cast as a female character, in addition to Edna. KIDSTAGE performers present “Hairspray” as a SummerStock production from July 30 to Aug. 7. Andrew Gryniewicz, 15, a Sammamish Plateau resident and Bishop Blanchet High School student, stars as Edna, and Sheady Manning-Bruce, 17, a Renton resident and Liberty High School student, stars as smooth-as-silk television hostess Motormouth Maybelle. Edna originated as a drag role. The drag queen Divine starred as Edna in director John Waters’ 1988 film and John Travolta donned a dress for the 2007 film musical. The hefty heroine in the musical, Tracy Turnblad, is determined to sashay and shimmy on “The Corny Collins Show” — a segregated dance program in Baltimore — against unfavorable odds and Edna’s disapproval. Kathryn Van Meter, “Hairspray” co-director and choreographer, adjusted the formula and cast a male performer as Motormouth, too. The energy and sass Manning-Bruce unleashed during the audition tempted Van Meter to cast the actor in a less conventional role. “He came in and he did his song and his monologue,” she recalled. “He finished and I just looked at the team and said, ‘I think we should call him back for Motormouth.’” Gryniewicz and Manning-Bruce each stand 6 feet, 1 inch tall. The scale presents challenges as the actors dance across the stage in heels. “I think the biggest challenge with playing a woman, just in general, is knowing that you’re not a man. You can’t just tromp around everywhere,” Manning-Bruce said. “Especially in the ’60s, there was a very specific way that Motormouth walked. She was a large black woman, so she would always have her hand on her hip. She would sway a lot.” Gryniewicz received callbacks for Edna and Wilbur Turnblad, and accepted the role after answering a call from Village Theatre in a driver’s ed class. “In casting both the Edna and the Wilbur, we very much wanted to cast the kids that understood the heart of those characters, as opposed to an actor for Edna who would just get the jokes,” Van Meter said. Gryniewicz adds padding on the stomach, hips and thighs to change from thin teenager to ample Edna. The transformation includes makeup to redefine the jaw line and eyebrows, plus ersatz eyelashes — “That was a new one for me,” Gryniewicz observed — and, atop the ensemble, a housecoat and muumuu. “It’s odd. I’m like, ‘OK, I’m playing a woman. What is this?’” he said. “It’s really exciting to completely transform.” Early in the production process, Van Meter screened a documentary about school integration in the civil rights era and the Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech for the 46-member cast. “‘Hairspray’ is this sort of bubblegum comedy, which I love, but there is this sort of undercurrent of nasty,” she said. “I didn’t want to shy away from that. I wanted to respect the history of the piece and respect of what’s going on for the black characters in the play and the bravery that Tracy has.”
BY JEAN JOHNSON/VILLAGE THEATRE
Andrew Gryniewicz, 15 (left), stars as Edna Turnblad in ‘Hairspray’ in Village Theatre’s KIDSTAGE SummerStock show.
PHOTOS BY GREG FARRAR
Above, Sheady Manning-Bruce, 17, portrays the sassy Motormouth Maybelle. At right, Gryniewicz relaxes out of costume before a recent rehearsal. Below, cast members perform a scene from ‘Hairspray’ at Village Theatre.
BY JEAN JOHNSON/VILLAGE THEATRE
Paragliding prompts Issaquah author’s book to take flight By Tom Corrigan Issaquah Press reporter Issaquah author Clark McCann readily admits that lowering his sights helped him reach his goal of getting his first novel into print. “I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to try to create art,’” said McCann, who added he likes thrillers, is an avid paraglider pilot and has spent time in Mexico. So his novel “Black Air,” published this spring by Black Rose Writing, is a fictional thriller about Tom Shepard, a combat veteran and paraglider pilot who travels to Mexico for an international paragliding event and ends up crossing paths with a local drug dealer. After being framed for murder, Shepard spends the rest of the novel hunting for the man who set him up and, as any good hero would, winning the girl he meets along the way. McCann said that even though he wasn’t out to write the Great American Novel with “Black Air,” he took the time to carefully plot out the book before he started writing. McCann added he had tried to write novels in his youth, but often “wrote himself into a corner” or just gave up. A seemingly young 68, McCann spent the largest part of his professional life writing in one way or another. He served as director of communications
for the University of Washington Business School and while at The Boeing Co., wrote speeches for the firm’s corporate leaders, as well as creating things like annual reports. He also worked as Boeing’s corporate director of advertising. “When I retired, I knew I’d kind of go crazy if I didn’t do something with my time,” McCann said. “So I just decided to write a novel.” After mapping out the plot, McCann spent about a year writing “Black Air.” He found he couldn’t work at home, that he was too used to a commute, going out somewhere every day. So McCann would spend three or four hours every morning at the Bellevue Library using the facility’s computers to bang out his writing. He added he spent many an afternoon pursuing his other passions, namely hiking and paragliding. Before he started his career in corporate communications, McCann said he hoped to be an airline pilot. For a time, he ended up in Australia working as a bush pilot. Following his retirement, he investigated renewing his pilot’s license. That prospect proved too expensive, so he instead hit upon the idea of paragliding. As many know, Issaquah is a local center for paragliding activity, with gliders visible above Tiger Mountain on many a sunny day.
WHAT TO KNOW ‘Black Air’ is available online at Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble website, www.barnesandnoble.com. It also can be found at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Co.
By the way, McCann was 63 when he first took to the skies with his glider. “It just seemed like an adventurous thing to do, but not too costly,” he said. As he worked on “Black Air,” McCann said he assumed he’d end up self-publishing the work. He said that thanks to the Internet and desktop publishing, selfpublished books don’t carry the stigma they did in the past. Still, McCann said he was very happy to find a small press willing to take on his novel. “I can’t say sales have been spectacular,” he said. But he also added that he felt a great sense of accomplishment just by finishing the book and seeing it in print. McCann isn’t sure if he has a second book in him or not. He said he is kind of tired of the thriller genre and admits he wants to adjust his aim again, this time toward something maybe a little more literary. McCann also admitted he’s having trouble getting started.
BY TOM CORRIGAN
Issaquah author Clark McCann holds a copy of ‘Black Air,’ a novel based in part on his paragliding adventures. “I think I’ve got to get it going in the next month or two, or it might not happen,” he said. Tom Corrigan: 392-6434, ext 241, or tcorrigan@isspress.com. Comment at www.issaquahpress.com.