NEWS/ARTS LEILA R AM ELLA- R ADER
ARTS/VISUAL B OIS E C ONTEM POR ARY THEATER
Heather Bauer’s Munny.
GIVE ME ALL YOUR MUNNY; NOTHING TRIVIAL ABOUT GOOD BUSINESS Organizations such as Idaho Commission on the Arts, the Boise City Department of Arts and Histor y and VSA of Idaho (an organization that helps artists with disabilities) not only provide resources for artists so that they can create, but also tr y to help them find ways to use their creations to eat, pay the mortgage and put gas in the car. Point in case: an upcoming workshop Nov. 3-4 led by Bruce Baker, entitled No Trivial Pursuit: The Business Side of Being an Artist. While in Boise, Baker will help local artists become better business people. The workshop is free, so the whole “I’m a starving artist and can’t afford it” excuse won’t work. The deadline to register for the workshop is Friday, Oct. 29, and space is limited, so don’t paint yourself into a corner by waiting too long. Send an e-mail to info@arts.idaho. gov or call 208-334-2119, Ext. 102. The session on Wednesday, Nov. 3, is from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the Boise Public Library and the Thursday, Nov. 4, session is from 9 a.m.-noon at Boise City Hall. On Oct. 7, the Record Exchange kicked off its Fifth Annual Munny Silent Auction Fundraiser. This highly successful fundraiser taps into the talents of local creative types, who are given a blank Munny (a big-headed vinyl toy made by KidRobot) and given carte blanche to reconstruct, deconstruct, design, color and other wise adorn the little ugsters however they see fit. In years past, the artists have included Grant Olsen, the Bunnell boys, Sean Wyett, Mike Flinn, E.J. Pettinger, Toby Robin, the Youtz/Martsch family, Karen Bubb, Ben Wilson, Michael Cordell, Bill Carman, Erin Cunningham, Julia Green, Jerms Lanningham and many more. The auction was moved to October this year to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness month, so through Friday, Oct. 29, the newly designed Munnys will be on display and bids will be accepted. At the end of the auction, a lucky few will walk away with a very cool Munny and the Women and Children’s Alliance will walk away with a big check made up of the auction proceeds. To close the auction with a bang at 5:30 p.m., the talented kids from Boise Rock School will tear up the joint with a rockin’ performance. The Record Exchange is at 1105 W. Idaho St. Visit therecordexchange.com for more information. —Amy Atkins
22 | OCTOBER 13–19, 2010 | BOISEweekly
Boise Contemporary Theater promises poignancy, pointedness, peculiarity and premieres in its 2010-2011 season.
BCT 2010-2011 PREVIEW It’s Tru, Norway is Krumblin down with Increasing Velocity TARA MORGAN prisingly, it still resonates with a humor that Drop the names “Simplot” or “Morrison” is distinctly Boise. around Joe Golden and Tom Willmorth “Like all good satire, it’s smartly drawthese days, and you’ll be met with cartooning on the ideas that are in our community ish, mock-shocked faces. The long-time consciousness,” said BCT artistic director Idaho Shakespeare Festival Greenshow Matthew Cameron Clark. “[Willmorth and goofs recently premiered their first original full-length satire, The Krumblin Foundation, Golden] do that really well and it’s always been a big part of their work being able to at Boise Contemporary Theater. The plot, unsurprisingly, draws some obvious parallels make people laugh, making references to the world that we’re living in, the community within the Boise arts community. that we’re living in. In a way, we all end “We hope that the audience enjoys up laughing at ourselves at some point. No watching sacred cows get tipped, but that one’s off the list.” it’s also a celebration of the community and But The Krumblin Foundation, which its relationship to the arts,” said Golden. runs through Saturday, Oct. 30, isn’t the The two-man play centers on the story only premiere up BCT’s sleeves this season. of Bess Krumblin, a widow who wants to “Three out of four shows are premieres, spend the family fortune on an arts foundawhich is cool,” said Clark. “And all of the tion with plans to transform her community playwrights will be participating to some into a “cultural Mecca.” degree with these original productions.” “It’s more about the soul of this comThe season’s second production and only munity and how it responds to this new non-premiere, Tru, runs Tuesday, Nov. 23, challenge that Bess Krumblin has set out,” through Saturday, Dec. 18. Written by Jay said Golden. “Rather than using an industry Presson Allen, the play is set during the to bring life back to the town [the idea is] waning years in celebrity novelist Truman that the arts will save this town.” Capote’s life, a time when the notorious This original production was commissocialite had fallen from grace among the sioned by BCT and funded with help from acquaintances he so acerbidonors on the crowd-sourced cally portrayed. online funding platform “This is later in his life, Kickstarter. Willmorth and BOISE CONTEMPORARY a little further into the time Golden’s previous two-man THEATER where [Capote] is known for performances—ISF’s Greater 854 Fulton St. 208-331-9224 being famous as much as he is Tuna and A Tuna Christmas bctheater.org for being a writer,” explained and BCT’s Stones in His Clark. “He’s spending more Pockets—helped prepare the time alone, and he’s starting Fool Squad duo for this masto alienate some of his closest friends with sive undertaking. the candor in his writing.” “Joe and I have done a number of two Tru originally premiered in 1989 at the man shows over the years at the ShakeBooth Theatre in New York but hasn’t respeare festival and [BCT], the Greenshows,” ceived many subsequent productions. Actor said Willmorth. “It just felt like the next Tom Ford, who starred in BCT’s I Am My artistic step was to do something a little bigOwn Wife and will portray Capote in BCT’s ger and something original.” forthcoming production, brought the script Dramaturge Leslie Durham helped Willto Clark’s attention. morth and Golden fine-tune The Krumblin “It’s one of those matches that’s just Foundation script so that it can be produced too good to be true. Tom Ford as Truman in other communities down the line. Unsur-
Capote is going to be brilliant,” said Clark. Third on BCT’s roster this season is Samuel D. Hunter’s Norway, which runs Wednesday, Jan. 26, through Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011, and is a co-world premiere with the Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis. Set in Lewiston the play explores a 10-year friendship—and possibly more—between drifters Brent and Andy. “Norway jumps around in time a little bit,” explained Clark. “At least one of these characters is gay. We don’t know if they both are. There’s certainly a relationship between them. It’s a friendship that’s an important relationship. And there’s some discussion and deconstruction of the idea of coming out.” Wrapping up BCT’s 2010-2011 season is Eric Coble’s The Velocity of Autumn, which runs Wednesday, April 6, through Saturday, April 30, 2011. The play is a stylistic departure from Norway, featuring a real-time, no-interruptions conversation between an aging painter who refuses to move out of her Brooklyn brownstone and her son, who has sneaked in through her boarded-up window. “The Velocity of Autumn, in contrast to [Norway], is two people in a room talking and revealing truths about themselves and each other,” said Clark. “It’s full of some of the most beautiful descriptions of images that I’ve ever come across.” Though Clark acknowledged that he had to keep most of BCT’s productions small this season to stay within budget, those constraints allowed him to push the artistic envelope and embrace newer, more cuttingedge, plays. Willmorth and Golden couldn’t be more pleased with that approach. “I think it’s great that BCT is really focusing on new works like this, that they really took a chance on us,” said Golden. “We certainly do have an established relationship here in Boise, but it’s one thing to do that and it’s another to put a lot of resources behind a couple of goofballs like us.” WWW. B O I S E WE E KLY. C O M