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It’s time for the Tony Awards
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta made a big splash the morning the Tony Award nominations were announced last year. The Alliance Theatre won the Regional Tony for sustained excellence, and August Wilson’s “Radio Golf” (directed by Atlantan Kenny Leon) received four Tony nominations.
When the Tony contenders are announced tomorrow morning, we’ll be watching to see how Georgia’s Broadway contingent fares. Here’s a look at the homegrown talent, all of whom have a chance at nominations but are by no means shoo-ins.
Tituss Burgess. The Athens native is making a delightful turn as Sebastian, the fussy crab in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”
Sutton Foster. Already a Tony winner for “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” the star who grew up in Augusta was also nominated for “The Drowsy Chaperone” and “Little Women.” Foster plays Inga, Dr. Frankenstein’s love interest in the Mel Brooks musical, “Young Frankenstein.” The big news from Foster is that she’ll play Fiona in “Shrek: The Musical,” opening Nov. 8.
Jennifer Ferrin: This lovely actress is a native of Lawrenceville and graduate of Brookwood High School. She’s the lone female in “The 39 Steps,” the frenetic physical comedy send-up of the Alfred Hitchcock film, which happens to be airing at 8 tonight on TMC. Ferrin is known for playing Jennifer Louise Munson on the daytime soap “As the World Turns.”
Shuler Hensley: The Marietta native gets to make whoopy with “Will and Grace” star Megan Mullally, whose character ditches Dr. Frankenstein for his Monster in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” Hensley has already won a Tony for his portrayal of the lonely, downtrodden Jud Fry in Trevor Nunn’s “Oklahoma!”
Atlanta’s Boris Kodjoe recently stepped in for Terrence Howard to play Brick in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” but Kodjoe won’t be eligible for a Tony nom.
If there were a category for biggest disappointments, “Young Frankenstein” and “Little Mermaid” would be in the game. As it is, “Passing Strange,” “In the Heights,” “Catered Affair” and “Xanadu” have all been better received. By all accounts, the best musicals on Broadway right now are the revivals: “Gypsy,” “South Pacific” and “Sunday in the Park with George.” Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage Count,” which won the Pulitzer Prize, is the best American play in decades. It will win a Tony.
The Tony Awards will be handed out live on CBS on June 15. Whoopi Goldberg will host.
Now, What Broadway shows have you seen this year? And who do you think should win a Tony?
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Carl Hiaasen and I have something in common
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We both have a passionate love-hate relationship with golf. But while I just flail away, week after week, trying to either get better or get calmer, Hiaasen does the same, and then wrote a very funny book about it: “The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport.”
Hiaasen is known for his Florida-based comic thrillers like “Nature Girl” and “Strip Tease,” so the lacerating first-person account in “Downhill” will be new to his fans. But not the humor, as he sets out on “the cart path to perdition” to improve his game and/or be at peace with it. What he finds, instead, is that “golf is as calming as a digital prostate exam.”
Hiaasen will talk and sign “Downhill” at 7 tonight at Georgia Perimeter College in Clarkston. In a phone interview last week, he was in a venting mood.
Q: Are you still playing?
A: I played yesterday and it was a bloodbath. It was like I never played the game before.
Q: Have you made any progress in how you view the game?
A: No. Yesterday was such a massacre I have nothing good to say about it. It was one of those days you want to throw your clubs off a bridge. I set out at the beginning of this experience to be able to say OK, I’m having a rotten day, but I’m still outside walking around in Florida. Theres only 3 billion people who would trade places with me in a heartbeat. If nothing else maybe I can teach myself to enjoy the game in a therapeutic way. And I’m not there yet, obviously. I have nothing to offer but bile and bitterness.
Q: Books like this are supposed to end with enlightenment.
A: This isn’t a self-help book. This is a self-abasement book. I don’t think writers are cut out to be golfers. We train ourselves to be our own toughest editors. Then you take that way of thinking on the golf course and you’re just brutally hard on yourself on every hole.
Q: What’s harder, golf or writing?
A: Both are very difficult and painful, and they’re supposed to be. If you’re gonna be good and excel at them, it’s not gonna be easy. Anything that’s easy, the outcome shows it. Day to day, the writing comes more naturally to me.
Q: I loved your writing about the ads on the Golf Channel.
A: That’s the most depressing commercials in the world, on the Golf Channel. Prostate problems, erectile dysfunction, joint pain, high cholesterol. They know their demographic. And their demographic is me.
Q: Near the end of the book you realize that the worse you play, the funnier the book is going to be, and that your editor is actually hoping your game goes as far south as possible.
A: I thought it would still be a good story if I got to a level where I was breaking 80, so there’s sort of a heroic ending. Of course it didn’t work out that way. The worse I played, the funnier it got, not just for my editor but for all my friends. I would trade the whole book for an 8 handicap any day.
Since today’s book is about golf, do we have any golfers out there who would like to try to one-up either Hiaasen or me on how insane golf makes you?
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Opening Night at Encore Park
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Symphony is in the business of presenting concerts — its own orchestral shows and, increasingly, rock acts that generate the kind of money classical performances can’t match.
To that end, the ASO’s $35 million Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park, an outdoor pavilion in the northern suburb of Alpharetta, opened for business Saturday night. [For background articles, click here and here.]
Nostalgia rock bands dominate the summer calendar, but the ASO claimed the inaugural concert for itself, adding its world-supreme chorus, and then over-loading the evening with extras from a jazz trio to local high school marching bands to fireworks.
Somehow it worked, mostly. Low humidity and good spirits settled over the early-summer evening, and the 12,000-seat pavilion, it turns out, has good feng shui. Designed primarily by Minnesota’s KKE Architects, Encore Park’s vibe is pleasant and bright, the seats comfortable, the sightlines clear, the aisles wide, the crowd flow manageable, and parking a breeze. Cameras on stage and big screens above let us peer into the ensemble to see a flutist pucker up for a prominent solo or a triangle adding sparkle.
Opening night attendance was just a little over 7,300, however. Next week, a more revealing stress-test of the facility comes when veteran rockers the Eagles’ play four sold-out shows.
Encore Park was designed to meet several goals. It’s a new entertainment destination for a booming region. It’s available for community rentals, like high school graduations. It’s also, as ASO chief financial officer Don Fox has put it, part of the ASO’s “financial solution” against a $4.5 million debt and mostly flat ticket sales in Symphony Hall.
Concessions are a major part of any venue’s income. At Encore Park the food services are located to each side of the stage, in full view of the audience. Light smoke and the smell of grilled meat wafted across the crowd. Like Pavlov’s dog, I got very hungry. (My Angus beef burger was dry and the bun ice cold; the fries were flavorful and crispy.)
The amphitheater is also billed as the new home of the ASO’s summertime classical concerts, relocated from Symphony Hall. To gauge the acoustics, I sat on the main floor for the first half, switched to the upper seats for the second. The stage is so high, the amphitheater so expansive, that the musicians appear far away no matter where you sit.
But while spirits were high opening night, a essential ingredient — the sound — was boomy, out of balance, strident and unacceptable as a sonic norm. And ambient white noise, from multiple generators and the chatter of crowds on the lawn, drowned out the orchestra when the playing was quiet.
Almost everything can get a pass on a hectic opening night. Undoubtedly the sound engineers will learn to better cope with the demands of acoustic instruments. But the chance to attract new listeners to classical concerts will be lost if the music is distant and distorted and the best part of the evening is the ambiance.
Is this a surprise? The need to maximize revenue for heavily amplified rock shows comes at a cost to the sonic refinements required by an orchestra.
The first musical notes heard at the new venue — a ritornello by Monteverdi — came from the Milton High School Marching Band, followed by Robert Spano conducting the ASO in the National Anthem and then, mercifully, just nine minutes of speeches. Said Alpharetta Mayor Arthur Letchas: “This is a great night for the city of Alpharetta.”
American music by Bernstein, Copland and Gershwin (his “Rhapsody in Blue,” with the Marcus Roberts Trio improvising the solo piano part) filled the rest of the opening half.
Spano’s manic energy enlivened the “Ode to Joy” Finale from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and the orchestra played with commendable zest. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” capped the evening. With the ASO joined by the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra and Milton and Alpharetta high schools marching bands, it made a tremendous and joyful noise.
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ASO Thursday: Gorecki, Brahms
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, composed in 1976, languished in obscurity until the late 1980s, when orchestras began programming it. Then a miracle happened.
In 1992, a Nonesuch recording, conducted by David Zinman with soprano Dawn Upshaw, became one of the biggest-selling classical recordings of all time. It topped the Billboard classical chart for 37 weeks, and even got to sixth place on the pop chart in Britain. Since then, it’s become a staple of the repertoire, and was used in Peter Wier’s movie “Fearless.”
So it’s something of a mystery that the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has waited until this week to program it, particularly given their affinity for “safe” modern pieces. As if to make up for lost time, they’re also recording it for Telarc, though you do have to wonder whether the classical world needs yet another recording, with over two dozen already in the catalogue.
Patrons entering Symphony Hall on Thursday might have paused to make sure this was the right place. Instead of the usual unforgiving bright glare, the entire room was dimmed a bit, the sides of the orchestra shell were bathed in colors, highlighting the wall texture, and there were three giant screens behind the orchestra.
In contrast to his earlier, dissonant works, Gorecki’s Third, subtitled “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs,” is thoroughly tonal and melodic. It is also quite slow, with distinct rhythmic patterns. But change is constantly afoot, and the piece seems shorter than its actual length (about an hour). The work is a setting of three Polish texts: a 15th Century Lamentation in which Mary speaks to Jesus as he is dying, a prayer written by a teenage girl that was found on the wall of a 1944 Gestapo prison, and a folk-song in which a mother grieves over a son killed in battle.
The soloist was Christine Brewer, and her large, bright, richly colored voice was a stark contrast to the duskier sound of Ms. Upshaw. She is thrilling to hear, but her focus seemed to be altogether on producing a beautiful sound, rather than giving us a sense of the passion in her texts. Even her facial expression seemed to lack any sense of emotion. She sang with her eyes half closed, as if in a dream. I would question whether her gleaming soprano is right for such a dark piece, but there is no denying the beauty of the sound that filled Symphony Hall as the three chants soared over the strings.
No one could accuse Donald Runnicles, who is conducting, of neglecting the drama in this symphony. Like a giant, pulsing organ, his orchestra took us inside a church of sorts. You could almost smell the incense, as this is a work with a strong Eastern Orthodox feel, although the composer is Polish and Catholic. The first movement, a canon for the strings, starts almost inaudibly in the double-basses and builds up. The singing comes in the middle, then the canon slowly descends. The remaining two movements contain contrasting melodic material, but retain the New Age mystical feel and the slow tempi.
A year ago, the Brooklyn Philharmonic came up with the idea of “staging” this symphony, and brought in visual artists to put together some projections (a movie, essentially), and choreographed movements for the soprano.
Following suit, the ASO in recent seasons has done what it calls “theater of a concert” productions. Hence its own projections and the big screens, but here they scratched the choreography: Brewer is not a dancer. The images, by Anne Patterson and Adam Larsen, were quite subtle and consisted of abstracts, nature scenes, and women’s faces, slowly changing, like the score.
This business borders on pandering, but - like the projected titles - it keeps the audience involved, and there was noticeably less coughing. At times, the images were quite engrossing, and I thought they added to the impact of the piece. For me, the more important effect was the lighting of the room and the musicians, who looked so much better on the darkened stage, gently lit by the glow from their music stands.
Perhaps wanting to give the audience some relief from all this angst, after the intermission they gave us Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, his most exuberant. And here, perhaps still under the spell of the Gorecki, Runnicles’ tempi seemed quite slow at times. This was an intensely dramatic reading. Perhaps too much so. There is an energy ceiling inherent in the work, I think, and a more restrained reading actually has more impact. Still, this was a glorious performance, and it seemed fair to give the woodwinds a chance to show off after the strings had dominated in the Gorecki. Laura Ardan played the andante’s clarinet solo with warmth and great feeling. And we got a second feature from the movie-makers as well. This one consisted mostly of water and trees, and again added to the overall effect.
This concert won’t be repeated tonight, as the orchestra is heading over to Encore Park for its inaugural concert. And on Sunday, the ASO Chorus heads to Germany, where Runnicles will conduct them with the Berlin Philharmonic.
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“The Last Lecture”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Randy Pausch was told last August that he had 3-6 months to live. It has been nine months, and he is still alive.
That’s good news for Pausch and his family. The good news for the rest of us is that Pausch’s book, “The Last Lecture,” has been tearing up the best-seller lists lately. Which means a lot of people are benefitting from Pausch’s wondrous world-view and approach to life, and that, ultimately, his family is benefitting from every book sold. I have rarely felt so good plunking down my $22 for a book.
Here’s the story. Pausch was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He was an award-winning teacher who truly inspired his students, and a man who had married late in life and started a family, with three children under age six. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which has one of the worst fatality rates of any disease, and battled it for a while. But eventually it metastisized, and he and his family had to come to terms with his impending death.
So on Sept. 18, 2007, Pausch stepped in front of a packed hall at his school and delivered his last lecture, on the topic “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. (You can watch it, at over an hour long, on the Youtube link above.) It was funny, upbeat, wise. Although the video is free on Youtube, he expanded the lecture into the book.
Pausch’s advice is not startlingly new to anyone who’s paying attention to what matters in life. Show gratitude. Tell the truth. Don’t obsess over what other people think. Decide whether you want to be Tigger or Eeyore. But the way he delivers all this, both in the video and the book, while facing a death sentence, is just flat-out overwhelming. I’m not ashamed to admit I choked up a dozen times reading this slim book.
Pausch continues to post updates on his life and health on a blog here.
I’d love to hear people’s reaction to Pausch’s last lecture. Or we can go this way: If you were dying, and could pass along some wisdom to those who live on, what would it be?
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‘The Last Schwartz’ @ Jewish Theatre
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW. Grade: B
Don’t cry for Jewish Theatre of the South.
The 13-year-old ensemble may be shutting down at the end of the month. But it’s goodbye gift to the city ends with a howl, not a sniffle.
Deborah Zoe Laufer’s “The Last Schwartz” is a terrifically performed, raucously comic ensemble piece that plays like a softer version of Tracy Letts’ riveting portrait of family dysfunction, “August: Osage County.” With its dead patriarch, juicy female characters, dining-table roulette and ghostly metaphysics, the funny-stinging play conceals dark inner secrets under a playful blanket of sexual parlor games, sibling barbs and hissy fits.
The Schwartzes have gathered at their parents’ upstate New York home to commemorate the first anniversary of their father’s death. But as the decorum dissolves into anger and confrontation, we witness an unexpected primal grief that’s deep, all-devouring and unacknowledged: It’s the living mourning the unborn.
Sound like heavy stuff? It is. But it’s heavier on the laughs.
While brother Simon (Jeffrey C. Zwartjes), a nearly blind astronomer, gazes off into the cosmos, sister Norma (Tess Malis Kincaid) bristles at brother Herb (Jared Simon) for propping his feet on their hallowed mother’s coffee table. Herb listens to his barren wife, Bonnie (Kathleen Wattis), describe an “Oprah” segment on Siamese twins. And when little brother Gene (Chris Moses) drops in with his clueless date, Kia — aka “The Fat No More Girl” (Bethany Ann Lind) — the table is set for a twisted late-night pajama game, and an adoption scheme of such perverse proportions that it would make Jerry Springer smile.
Simon’s Herb has the Borscht Belt timing of Jackie Gleason. Moses gives a dependably good performance, though he’s perhaps a little too boyish to capture the hip slickness of a Manhattan filmmaker. Zwartjes’ Simon — a zoned-out, stargazing savant with apocalyptic visions — is, as the script requires, almost invisible.
But these men are just window dressing for the hormonally overwrought Norma and Bonnie — and the Lolita-like Kia. It’s hard to say who chews the scenery harder. But the delightfully zany Lind is a knockout.
Travis George’s scenic design is authentic to the milieu. Mimi Epstein’s elegant soundscape provides just the right mood. And Linda Patterson’s props and costumes are appropriate to characters who are by turns starched and flirtatious — and a story that uses coffee tables and sideboards to stir emotion.
Even if the playwright’s more serious meditations are never fully realized, the show rarely disappoints. Director Freddie Ashley delivers the goods with comic brio. And artistic director Mira Hirsch says goodbye to her 13-year-old ensemble with a stiff upper lip and a heroic mixture of laughter and tears. Mazel tov.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 3 p.m. Sundays. Through May 25. $18-$30. Jewish Theatre of the South, Marcus Jewish Community Center, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 770-395-2654, jplay.org.
Bottom line: Jewish Theatre of the South ends 13-year run with a juicy comedy — and a dash of existentialism. Finis.
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‘Some Men’ @ Actor’s Express
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: Grade: C
Actor’s Express’ fondness for male nudity is no secret, but its production of Terrence McNally’s new play, “Some Men,” must rank at an all-time high for flashes of flesh.
Nearly every actor in the nine-man cast drops trou at least once, and some seem to spend more time naked than clothed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to wonder if it isn’t meant to distract from the disjointed tedium that sometimes plagues the production.
Spanning the decades from 1922 to the present, “Some Men” is a series of vignettes that illustrates the progress gay people have made toward social acceptance. A rich young banker (Louis Gregory) makes love with his Irish chauffeur (Tim Batten) on a dark South Hampton beach before acknowledging they can never share a life together in 1922.
A closeted family man (Doyle Reynolds) flaunts the law to explore his forbidden desires in a hotel tryst in 1968. Middle-aged “show-tune queens” huddle in fear inside a piano bar while the Stonewall riots rage outside in 1969.
The strength of “Some Men” is in the juxtapositions McNally creates between disparate segments of the gay community: young gay activists vs. settled life partners; a man on the verge of coming out vs. an angry closeted colleague; those who are HIV positive vs. those who are not. But there are an awful lot of scenes, and more than a few seem superfluous, making it a challenge to connect the dots. It’s as if McNally set out to include every milepost in gay culture. Gays in the military, check. Gays in the Harlem Renaissance, check. And so on.
The production opens and closes with a same-sex wedding in 2007, but it comes across more like a convenient literary device than the significant cultural milestone it is and the thing that the entire play builds toward. At times director Kent Gash struggles to develop the tension in each vignette, and as a result, the emotional pitch sometimes starts too high, too fast, leaving the actors nowhere to go but louder. By contrast, it is the quieter, less showy scenes that pack the most punch.
Some of the more satisfying scenes underscore the gulf between generations.
In 1975, a pair of slumming “elder queers” (Don Finney and Tom Thon) discover they’re out of their element among the randy young hotties looking for action in a gay bath house. Even more poignant — and universal — is a chat room scene where a middle-age lonely heart (Finney at his best) makes a surprising emotional connection with a cruiser (John Benzinger), only to be dumped with the stroke of a computer key for a young trick just looking for sex.
It just goes to show you: Gay rights have come a long way, baby. But human nature remains pretty much the same.
THE 411: 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. Through May 31. Plus, 5 p.m. May 11 and 25; and 2 p.m. May 18. $16-$27. Note: Contains adult language and nudity. Actor’s Express at King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-875-1606, 404-607-7469,actors-express.com.
Bottom line: An uneven comedy-drama about the coming out of gay culture.
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LLoyd Webber picks Alliance’s Booth to direct gospel ‘Superstar’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production company has tapped Atlanta’s Susan V. Booth to direct the forthcoming gospel version of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” scheduled to run at the Alliance Theatre Jan. 14-Feb. 22.
The Alliance artistic director said she was called to London recently for a sit-down with Webber’s Really Useful Group. “Sir Andrew wasn’t there,” Booth said, “because he was on his way Las Vegas for ‘American Idol.’ ”
Detroit native Louis St. Louis is restaging the classic musical as “Jesus Christ Superstar GOSPEL.” To prepare, Booth said they will be hitting Atlanta’s gospel churches in the coming weeks. She says part of the fun is being able to check out churches “other than Presbyterian,” which is her denomination.
Apparently, the search for a director was quite competitive.
“This is their prime copyright,” Booth said. “This is the first major reconception of the work in a long time and that’s a big deal.”
“It’s very humbling and it’s very challenging, and it’s the greatest thing in the world when you get to do that,” she said of her new assignment.
Booth’s connection to the ’70s rock opera is personal. She says she sang “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” in a sixth-grade talent show. “I thought it was stunning, but I don’t think everyone else did.“ She says she now croons “Everything’s Alright” to her 4-year-old daughter, Moira.
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What Are Your Encore Park Expectations?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The newest major performance venue in metro Atlanta’s northern suburbs won’t open until Saturday, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra inaugurating the $35 million Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park. The rest of the summer calendar is booked with vintage rock acts — Styx, Stevie Nicks, the Steve Miller Band — and a variety of community events.
But the 12,000-seat pavilion, off Ga. 400 across from North Point Mall, has already been a topic of both anticipation and concern among patrons and Northside residents.
Alpharetta High School principal Buck Greene calls Encore Park “a great experiment for us.” On opening night, the school’s marching band will join the Atlanta Symphony (along with numerous other local youth groups) in the bombastic, cannon-blasted finale of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”
Then, on May 24, the high school’s seniors will graduate from the stage.
The concert, says Greene, “is great public time for the school, and with the students working side by side with the ASO, a priceless opportunity.”
For the graduation ceremony, the school will pay about $7,000 in fees, including security and audio-visual equipment — or about $3,000 less than the Gwinnett Center charges for a comparable rental.
Brandon Beach, president of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, was a key figure in the original Encore Park conception, hoping to build an arts and community center on the site.
“Concerts were the one missing component in north Fulton,” he said, “but everyone knows that the arts and performances are a quality of life issue, and we expect [Encore] to bring the business community together. Encore will be our meeting ground.”
Yet even as some Alpharetta residents see an attractive opportunity, others are not convinced Encore Park will meet their summer entertainment needs.
Sydney Sivertsen and her husband, John, an attorney, are in their 50s with children away at college. They were initially thrilled that the ASO would be performing just a couple of miles from their house.
As she checked into her options, however, she compiled a checklist of “disappointments” — mostly in comparison with concerts at the ASO’s other outdoor venue, Chastain Park Amphitheatre in Buckhead.
Where patrons often bring elaborate picnic meals to ASO concerts at Chastain, Sivertsen worries that Encore Park’s no-outside-food rule will steer the event too down-market.
“A hot, Southern evening at the symphony,” she says, “calls for vichyssoise, cool pasta salad and fresh fruit, with a nice wine and candles. If we want burgers and hot dogs and beer, we go to a baseball game. It’s a different aesthetic, and the ASO should know that.”
With frustration in her voice, she adds that if Encore Park’s owner, the Woodruff Arts Center, “is being greedy and is mistaken in its sense of ambience, maybe we should continue to fight traffic down [Ga.] 400 to Chastain for our summer arts.”
Indeed, ASO leaders had anticipated these sorts of concerns. ASO president Allison Vulgamore sees three distinct identities for its three venues — Encore Park, Chastain and Symphony Hall in Midtown. Encore Park includes 184 VIP seats, although all those spaces are already sold-out for the summer.
“We present the orchestra in different settings,” she says. “Chastain is under the stars and you bring your own [food] basket.”
At Encore, “we have a chef on-site [for the VIP tables], and you’re under a cover in case it rains.”
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Twice the Clarks!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We don’t see too many of these: A mother and daughter, both best-selling authors, appearing together.
Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark are being billed as the Queen and Princess of Suspense for their appearance tonight at the Atlanta History Center.
Mary, the mom, is one of those brand names in publishing like Nora Roberts or James Patterson that’s just a force of the marketplace. She has sold more than 85 million books in the United States, according to her publisher. Her latest thriller is “Where Arte You Now?”
Carol, the daughter, has co-written four suspense novels with mom, and then created her own series of mysteries around Regan Reilly and her husband Jack. Her latest is “Zapped,” which takes place during a blackout in New York City.
The lecture and signing is sponsored by the Margaret Mitchell House; admission is $5 for members, $10 for non-members. Reception at 6, lecture at 7.
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Has CB been to a Braves game lately??? Penuts are $6 for the same bag and beer is $7.50. So maybe you don’t get drunk one night and maybe enjoy the music….... read the full comment by justabusdriver | Comment on Opening Night at Encore Park Read Opening Night at Encore Park
Poo, is that your best remark? If it is, the Symphony is not in your league. Maybe you should stick with things you know. great night, looking forward to many more!! GREAT JOB….... read the full comment by justabusdriver | Comment on Opening Night at Encore Park Read Opening Night at Encore Park
August: Osage County as the best American play in decades? Dubious. I saw it last fall in New York, and I liked it. However I had the sense that the terrific cast (from the original Chicago production) was giving the best possible performance... read the full comment by BPJ | Comment on It's time for the Tony Awards Read It's time for the Tony Awards
My family enjoyed a most magnificant May 10 evening at the New Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre — the venue and grounds are absolutely gorgeous, an array of food and beverage items — served fresh and delicious, and the event staff courteous and... read the full comment by Martha | Comment on Opening Night at Encore Park Read Opening Night at Encore Park