Overture's debt Will taxpayers be on the hook for art center? Tom Laskin on Friday 10/03/2008, (1) Comment, (3) Recommendations The recent liquidation of the trust fund that was designed to pay off the Overture Center's construction debt is a big deal. But it's unclear if the city of Madison will take a hit because of it. >More
DANCE
A mostly successful concert by Li Chiao-Ping and company Susan Kepecs on Friday 10/03/2008, (2) Recommendations Points of Departure: A Concert of Early Works and Premieres, a Li Chiao-Ping Dance presentation at the Margaret H'Doubler Performance Space on campus last weekend, proves yet again that Li, a UW dance prof, is one of the country's most interesting second-wave postmodern choreographers. >More
TELEVISION
Dead and dumb Even the spirits seem confused in The Ghost Whisperer Dean Robbins on Thursday 10/02/2008, (2) Recommendations In The Ghost Whisperer's season premiere (Friday, 7 p.m., CBS), Jennifer Love Hewitt returns as a woman who solves supernatural mysteries by talking to spooks. Why this is best accomplished in skimpy negligees I've never known. This week, Hewitt's Melinda helps a psychologist who died in a fire along with a sexy patient. Then the psychologist comes back to life. The patient doesn't, but he can hear her ghost talking to him. Melinda can both hear and see the ghost, and she hopes to ask it who started the fire. But that won't be easy, not the way the damn thing keeps disappearing at dramatically convenient moments. >More
GAMES
A future gaming icon? Doug Elfman on Friday 10/03/2008, (2) Recommendations At a game convention in Las Vegas, where I played unreleased games, I came into contact with big, small and weird "coming soon" holiday titles. Some other week I will give you a head's up on the sequels. But this week let's look at LittleBigPlanet (Sony), the most buzzed-about non-sequel of the holiday season. You play as "Sackboy" or "Sackgirl," tiny burlap-looking doll-type creatures that are small enough to stand on a golf ball. >MoreStar Wars: The Force Unleashed Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 & 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii, DS (Rated Teen) Doug Elfman on Friday 09/26/2008, (3) Recommendations Menacing from the first scenes onward, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is set in the period between Star Wars episodes III and IV. You play as an apprentice to mean old Darth Vader named Galen, a.k.a. "Starkiller." The old bat tells you it's your destiny to execute Storm Troopers and rebels, because they get in the way of murdering the good Jedis in the universe. So you kill masses of them with your light saber. >More
Wisconsin Book Festival 2008: Dave Zirin speaks David Medaris on Friday 10/03/2008 3:00 pm, (3) Recommendations Perhaps best known for his Edge of Sports column and radio show, Dave Zirin is the award-winning antithesis of the mainstream sportswriter. His new volume, A People's History of Sports in the United States, was published last month as part of historian Howard Zinn's People's History series for New Press. In 320 pages, Zirin places sports in the socio-political and cultural contexts where they belong, tracing the most courageous and ignominious sports episodes in U.S. history. >MoreMadison Fall Gallery Night 2008 ignites weekend of up-close art Kristian Knutsen on Thursday 10/02/2008 10:23 pm, (7) Recommendations Twice every year, galleries, gift shops, studios, museums and more from Monroe Street to Atwood Avenue open their doors for Gallery Night, the combined showcase and soirée for visual arts put on by Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Scores of participants have made for an overwhelming array of options at the semiannual celebration, and this autumn is no different. >MoreRock Band 2 retains title as the Golden God of music games Zac Shipley on Thursday 10/02/2008 3:30 pm, (113) Recommendations Music and video games have been naturally complimentary since the latter became complex enough to emit more than a single beep. Rhythm games have allowed players to experience music by tapping out beats on controllers, using dance pads, or even shaking maracas. But there has been no game as successful at simulating the truly American art form of rock 'n' roll as Rock Band. >MoreWisconsin Book Festival 2008: John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist speak David Medaris on Wednesday 10/01/2008 4:00 pm, (4) Recommendations John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist are the proprietors of Inn Serendipity, an award-winning carbon-negative bed and breakfast on a parcel of farmland in rural Green County, Wisconsin, where they harvest their own organic food, generate power from renewable sources and strive to redefine the good life as one that values purpose, creativity and a slower pace more than money. >MoreMadison Area Open Art Studios 2008: Meet Virginia Huber and Drazen Dupor Amelia Cook on Wednesday 10/01/2008 12:42 pm, (15) Recommendations Virginia Huber and Drazen Dupor are among the 140 artists opening their studios to the public this weekend as part of Madison Area Open Art Studios 2008. Now in its sixth year, this free festival showcases the diversity and vibrancy of the Madison visual art scene in a laid-back, come-as-you-are way. While you may snag a free glass of wine somewhere along the way, this event shatters the notion that art must be a black tie affair. >More
Henry IV: The Making of a King: Here comes the son A prince's coming-of-age Andrea Harris on Friday 07/04/2008, (10) Recommendations American Players Theatre's Henry IV: The Making of a King compiles William Shakespeare's two plays about King Henry IV's struggle to wield authority over the rebellious factions of his kingdom and his own rogue son, Hal. Much to Henry's woe, the young heir to the throne prefers carousing to matters of state, hanging out at the local tavern with Sir John Falstaff, the surrogate father figure to the pack of ruffians with whom Hal consorts. >MoreWidowers' House is thin and gimmicky, but still Shaw Kenneth Burns on Friday 08/22/2008, (10) Recommendations Roger Ebert once wrote that in comedy funny names aren't funny unless they're used by W.C. Fields or Groucho Marx. I am reminded of that dictum by American Players Theatre's production of Widowers' Houses, George Bernard Shaw's first play to be staged for an audience. >More
THEATER
Ah, Wilderness!: O'Neill in love The playwright is unusually sweet in Ah, Wilderness! Katie Reiser on Friday 06/27/2008, (6) Recommendations I hope that by describing the opening-night performance of American Players Theatre's Ah, Wilderness! as pleasant I don't sound too much like Kevin Costner telling Madonna that her concert was "neat." >MoreIntricate machinations in The Belle's Stratagem at American Players Theatre Katie Reiser on Friday 08/29/2008, (9) Recommendations I took a break from my obsessive Olympics viewing to see American Players Theatre's production of The Belle's Stratagem. First performed in 1780, the play is the best-known work of Hannah Cowley, the successful female playwright. There is probably a performance studies graduate student at NYU who is working on a dissertation about the impact of Cowley and other female dramatists, so I won't go into that. >More
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