Category: Entertainment

I was surprised when the Paramount Theatre announced that Cats was in this Broadway season; Cats was part of the first Paramount season we subscribed to (2014-15?), and we’ve been season ticket holders since then. In fact, it was the first show of the season and the smoke effects set off the fire alarm that fall afternoon. The decision made more sense once they announced that it was a different interpretation – the classic music from Cats combined with a Cirque du Soleil style presentation created “Le Cirque du Chat.”

Your typical Cats performers are already more flexible than the average person, with assorted flips and balancing acts across the stage stretching the imagination as to the trouble cats can get into. Le Cirque du Chat adds gravity-defying acrobatics to the mix, with various characters twisting precariously above the stage, sometimes cavorting in pairs in displays of both trust and skill.

This is, of course, in addition to the singing and dancing on the stage; it is, after all, a Broadway show. As always, the Paramount shines in their selection of talented cast members; this would have been a fabulous show even without the circus re-imagining. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend seeing this distinctive rendition of Cats at the Paramount.

I mean, I’m biased, so you don’t have to take my word for it. So here are few words from less biased sources… some of our Guests of Honor (GoHs):

• Dr. Micaiah Johnson (which includes a comment from…)
• Zeta Jane
• and John Kovalic.

Alas, our fourth GoH, Dr. Tom Barclay, isn’t particularly active on social media. Rest assured, he appears in photos and definitely had a blast. In fact, here’s how it started, with the traditional Meet the GoHs panel Thursday afternoon:

These four guests met at their first panel, an opportunity for them to talk about anything they want before Opening Ceremonies. And here’s how it looked near the end, on Saturday night:

This was an exciting moment for me, as co-chair, when I realized that three of our GoHs were circulating through the parties together. Not pictured is a slightly different combination of GoHs on DJ Scalzi‘s dance floor about an hour later for the traditional midnight rendition of the Time Warp.

I know, you’re probably thinking that sounds like a fabulous photo opportunity. It was! I’ve seen several photos that include the three GoHs… and myself… doing the Time Warp. Obviously, I was too busy… doing the Time Warp… to take photos.

As I mentioned before, this year’s theme for Capricon is Let Your Geek Flag Fly!

Depending on your interests, you probably have one of two questions:
1) What’s a geek flag? or
2) Why only one?

I’ll work through them in order. A geek flag is a flag that represents geek pride or a love of geeky things. Really, there’s no limitation on what you can geek out about. According to Dictionary.com, one definition for geek is “a person who has excessive enthusiasm for and some expertise about a specialized subject or activity”. My father, for example, was a Jerome K. Jerome geek, which can also be presented as Jerome K. Jerome was one of his geek flags.

You may have noticed “one of” in the previous sentence. Most geeks I know fly multiple geek flags. The earliest one I identify with is Star Trek, having been introduced to the original show before elementary school, closely followed by Doctor Who. By college, I was also flying a gamer flag – video, board, and role-playing games – and had realized that reading is its own flag as well. It will surprise nobody that Dork Tower is another geek flags I fly proudly.

Obviously, I fly multiple geek flags, which brings us back to the second question… why is our theme singular? Another one of my geek flags is musicals, and it’s a reference to Shrek: the Musical, specifically the song “Freak Flag.” The theme is singular in order to fly that particular geek flag.

What are your geek flags? Better yet, come find me at Capricon this weekend and tell me in person.

By the time I wrote last year’s post about Capricon 44, I knew was putting in a bid to co-chair Capricon 45 with a friend. It’s less than two weeks away now and I’m super excited about the guests, the events… everything! We are going to have a rockin’ good time, as evidenced by the fabulous items listed in the flyers I’m including below.

But… oh my goodness, there’s so much to choose from and I’ll be chairing and won’t have time for most of it. We have an actual astrophysicist talking about how to design a spaceship, an amazing cosplayer leading some hands-on sewing workshops, an award-winning author discussing automatons, and our friendly neighborhood cartoonist (if you consider Madison in the neighborhood of Chicago) comparing graphic novels and comic books. And that’s just a handful of the programming events, ranging from panels to round tables to make-and-take gatherings and even a cosplay parade.

The room block is open until January 31st, you can still join us and get in on the fun. Even if you can only come for a day – we have day badge rates here – it is absolutely worth the experience!

Irreverent. Heretical. Fabulous.

Those are the first words that come to mind after seeing An Act of God at the Copley Theatre in Aurora, the latest show in their Bold series. The basic premise is that God is delivering a message directly to us, rewriting the Ten Commandments to clarify and modernize them, with the assistance of archangels Michael and Gabriel. That’s the entire cast, by the way, just those three people. God does most of the talking.

A three-person play is always going to be challenging, even with a short run time of 90 minutes. I suspect a three-person comedy where half the audience isn’t laughing is doubly so for the actors. Early on in the performance, I noticed that there were loud pockets of laughter in some parts of the small theatre (ourselves included) and other pockets of stone-faced theatregoers. At the end of the show, the artists received half a standing ovation, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. I suspect many of the sitting half would have walked out had there been an intermission.

Live performances in particular are supposed to make you think, so hopefully those people who weren’t laughing were at least given an interesting line of thought to pursue. As to whether you should see it, I suppose that depends on how literally you interpret the Bible and whether you’re comfortable looking at it from a different perspective. Obviously, I quite enjoyed it.

I have mentioned several times that we enjoy attending Bristol Renaissance Faire each year. But in last year’s post, I also mentioned some unpleasant waits… in particular, the hour it took us to get from the highway exit (after driving more than an hour to get to that point) to actually walking through the gates of Faire. That was compounded by arriving after the food lines started getting long – because of the traffic delay – with the perennial problem of finding somewhere to sit, knowing that finding a place with a table is unlikely. So we approached this year a little differently, specifically stopping to eat lunch most of the way there, which allowed us both adequate seating (with a table!) and a minimal delay from the highway into Bristol’s parking.

Since we had already eaten, it was easy to select snacks at less crowded times, and we even found seating at one point in what used to be the Kid’s Kingdom. As an added bonus, arriving later meant we had energy to stay until almost closing, catching different performances from some of our favorite acts, such as Cirque du Sewer’s Fire Show, which includes a cat jumping through a flaming hoop. In a stroke of luck, we had near perfect weather for opening day (as opposed to the next day, which had storms that shut down some shows for safety and eventually the Faire itself).

Assuming the prices don’t continue to rise astronomically – ticket prices increased last year, and the parking jumped from $10 to $15 this year – we’ll probably follow this approach in future years.