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Cover Story

Wanna Sing a Show Tune?

by Anthony Chase

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will perform a program of theater music at Kleinhans Music Hall, conducted by Maestro Paul Ferington, to benefit the Give for Greatness on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 7pm. The suggested admission price? Five bucks!

Getting a Grip

Nuclear Fallout: El Diablo, Godzilla, and the Greens

by Michael I. Niman

In 1984 I served as a media spokesperson for the Abalone Alliance—a statewide anti-nuclear group in California which coalesced to oppose licensing the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant. Every day I’d repeat essentially the same argument, contextualized by whatever creative protest activities were going on at the moment.

News Analysis

The Disconnect

by Bruce Fisher

If the New York State legislature doesn’t re-authorize the 1.75 percent “extra” sales tax, then Erie County government, the three cities, the 25 towns, and the 29 school districts in this county will be short a couple of hundred million dollars.

Week in Review

Casino Lawsuit Takes Small Step Forward

Common Council Report

The Lofty Goals of Reapportionment

Protest of the Week

Foiled Again

Scorecard: The Week's Winners and Losers

Puck Stop

A Race to the Finish

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Ever since February 23, Pegula Day, and the subsequent week’s trading deadline, when the Sabres acquired Brad Boyes, the team has been locked in a death struggle with the pack in the middle of the conference to snag one of those last precious playoff berths.

Theater Week

Little Shop of Horrors

by Anthony Chase

Director, musical director, and costume designer Bret Runyon has a whole lot of experience with the 1982 Howard Ashman/Alan Menken musical Little Shop of Horrors. His past incarnations of Audrey II, the carnivorous plant puppet that feeds on human blood, have toured to perform in many a production of the camp parody of science fiction, horror, and B movies.

Art Scene

Scott Bye's Sculptures at the Castellani

by Jack Foran

Erin Finley's Drawings at Hallwalls

by J. Tim Raymond

Literary Buffalo

Wesley Stace, Considered as a Novelist

by Buck Quigley

Wesley Stace (a.k.a. John Wesley Harding) emerged on the music scene in 1990, with the release of Here Comes the Groom. The record—which featured a backing band that included Pete Thomas and Bruce Thomas of Elvis Costello’s group the Attractions, and California songwriter/guitarist Dave Alvin, among others—generated considerable excitement on both sides of the Atlantic.

Film Feature

Not Your Typical Teenage Female Assassin

by M. Faust

It would not be incorrect to describe Hanna as a kickass chick flick. But it would be misleading, to the extent that it made you anticipate something along the lines of Sucker Punch or Red Riding Hood. Think instead of something in the arena of Run Lola Run, the Jason Bourne movies and, if you remember it, Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves: an action movie with distinct arthouse influences.

Film Reviews

Jane Eyre

by George Sax

Win Win

by M. Faust

Kill The Irishman

by George Sax

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, April 8 - Thursday, April 14)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's picks for the week: Artvoice's Battle of Original Music (B.O.O.M!) Live Show IV featuring four bands chosen by Artvoice readers, at Nietzsches on Saturday April 9th.

Dance Feature

Something So Right

An authentically inventive performance of storytelling, dancing, and singing told through the music of Paul Simon is being brought to the University at Buffalo’s Center for the Arts. The talented and athletic dancers of LehrerDance have joined forces with the equally skillful MusicalFare Theatre to create this one-of-a-kind project, which tells the story of a man’s undying love for his wife and the complexity of human relationships.

Classical Music Notes

A Musical Feast Meets Morton Feldman

by Jan Jezioro

The Burchfield Penney Art Center begins its latest RendezBlue festival, on Thursday, April 7, with “The New York School: Morton Feldman and His Time,” featuring musical performances, as well as readings, lectures, exhibitions, and screenings.

5 Questions With...

Seamus Gallivan: Music Promoter, Good Neighbor

If you like local music and believe in good causes, you’ve probably given Seamus Gallivan $5 at the door some time in the last couple years. Gallivan is a (nearly) tireless promoter of this community and its musicians, and his website, the Good Neighborhood (www.thegoodneighborhood.com), is a meeting ground for those two passions.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

A 200-exhibit installation on the history of dirt and filth and their importance in our lives opened in a London gallery in March, featuring the ordinary (dust), the educational (a video tribute to New York’s Fresh Kills landfill, at one time the world’s largest), the medical (vials of historic, nasty-looking secretions from cholera victims), and the artistic (bricks fashioned from feces gathered by India’s Dalits, who hand-clean latrines).

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When he was three years old, actor Charlie Sheen got a hernia from yelling too much and too loud. I definitely don’t encourage you to be like that.

Advice

Ask Anyone

I need a sports car. Or maybe not a sports car but one with a few more gears than my present sedan. One that doesn’t insist on always using the same route to go around the block. One that doesn’t balk and stall at every strange uncertain curve or unfamiliar fog clouded horizon.