What's new in Nickland...

JC Conway of Theatre Verv in Charleston is looking for a Polonius to be in his production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, opening May 4th. He can be reached at jc@theatreverv.com

Chucktown's gearing up for Spoleto, the annual arts fest and I'll be covering it in depth in late May/early June. Lots of cool stuff going on, as well as the Folly Felder Film Fest, part of the Spoleto fringe ("Piccolo Spoleto").

The Film Fest coordinators (that's me and the Actors' Theatre guys) are usually panicking by now, wondering if we'll get enough entries - everybody waits till the last minute to submit stuff! But this year, we already have several films worth screening. The judges will be viewing them soon...

I'll be in another Murder Mystery tonight, this time playing poet, publisher and arrogant asshole Byron Donne. The arrogant bit ain't too much of a stretch...

This week I'm prepping our Acting Conservatory, which takes place on Sunday. This is where agents, filmmakers and actors come and see the students of the Actors' Theatre classes strut their stuff. The showcase is at Folly Beach Community Center, 55 Center St at 7 p.m.

Another mean review (by my standards, at least), this time covering George De Stefano's book, An Offer We Can't Refuse. It looks at America's obsession with everything gansgterish, from The Godfather to The Sopranos. But the book ain't all that great.

Ross King's The Judgement of Paris is much better - light years ahead, in fact, with a fascinating cast of characters in a non-fiction overview of the early Impressionists. It's a great read and I recommend it highly.

Seems my critical review of an annual Student Show at Charleston's Halsey Gallery has hit a nerve.

According to my editor, it's illicited "hate mail" and "angry reponses," complaining that we (i.e. the City Paper) "hate college students, we're evil, we don't want anyone to succeed," and that I'm an art snob.

Funny how 90% of my reviews are positive ('cos I believe that anything can be perceived as a pleasing piece of art if the beholder sees it as such - from a father admiring his toddler son's play-doh sculpture to a bow tie-twiddling critic in the Louvre) and get little feedback... but the more negative stuff gets people writing in.

This week you can read a review of a new City Gallery art show called Cruciform Paintings by Sharon Lacey, a College of Charleston instructor... I found it wanting. Am I turning into the Simon Cowell of visual arts? I could sure do with his paychecks... Nah, I'm way too nice.

Where have all the heroes gone? There just aren't so many great heroes to root for in the movies any more.

I've put some words of Nick Wisdom (my half-baked brand of wisdom) together on the subject for this week's Screenwriting Insider.

Maybe some writer will take heed and create a new proto-hero for our edification... and a really cool bad guy to give 'im hell.

There's a lot of fine art photography around in Charleston at the moment, and I've written about it in this week's City Paper.

One of the galleries I spoke to, called Imaging Arts, deals exlusively with photographs - that's unique for a painting-centric city like Chucktown. It's been open for five months and I heard about it through word of mouth from other gallery owners.

"We're not like anything else in Charleston," says Imaging VP marketeer Dianna Rose. "On our opening day, we had over 600 people flowing out into street. It's a gathering place for people with a strong atmosphere, we offer some real Southern hospitality. We get a lot of tourists, and they like our botanical images and our portraits - our stuff is so diverse."

The photos, printed on canvas and/or on watercolor paper, are pretty fancy, and it's good to see something a little different being offered to downtown shoppers. That's a the spice of life, dontcha know.

I was feeling sorry for Felix the Cat after reading Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World’s Most Famous Cat by John Canemaker. The poor puss was a reflection of the fickle, flapping age he was born in – the 1920s.

The phenomenal rise of this silent cartoon cat was as brief as it was successful – the public loved him, with movies, merchandise, songs, comic strips, overseas fame and a place in the history books as the first image to be transmitted by NBC (they tested the first RCA camera on a Felix doll in ’28).

While Felix enjoyed his fame, crafty producer Pat Sullivan took all the glory, leaving meek creator Otto Messmer to slave away on the animation and ideas. Messmer was incredibly inventive, taking animated storytelling in clever directions and reflecting ‘20s society in tales about unions, war, and speedy travels abroad (after Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic – the pilot later posed in an F-3 with a picture of Felix on its side).

Then the talkies came out and the public dropped Felix like a damp hankie. Big one minute, forgotten the next. The cat made a couple of small comebacks (in color in the ‘30s and on TV in the ‘50s), but nothing to match the giddy early heights of his renown.

After a visit to his official site, I don’t feel so bad for Felix any more. He’s a busy guy, with cartoons and comic books and new merchandise. The web has boosted a second coming for the cat. But for me, nothing beats the primitive but fascinating silents he starred in, back when he ruled the world.

Submissions for the Folly Felder Film Fest continue to trickle through my door. Noteable entries so far include The Carnival and the Boy by Michael Winske (Charleston), The Offering by Paul Lee (Toronto) and Somersault by Colin Magill Somers (Chicago).

Not content with that shebang, I'm also supporting ChasDOC, a documentary film festival slated for September 22-24. This, first year of the fest will focus on environmental documentaries, and the first deadline for entries is June 1st. You can visit the sexy ChasDOC site for more information.

Yesterday I tried to take part of the day off to earn some Brownie points with my wonderful wife, Ros (you can see a pic of her from our venerable Fierce Films site, left). Big mistake. Ros saw this as a great opportunity to set me to work on some chores.

Usually, chores are something I do when I’m supposed to be working – an (almost) guilt-free form of procrastination. But those are only little things, like vacuuming or laundry. Ros found me some tougher stuff to do.

Usually I’ll try the old trick of doing the chore poorly (burning meals, botching paint jobs) until Ros gets fed up, says “here, you’re not doing it properly, let me finish it!” and I can go read the paper. This time I did things too well, and once I’d waxed the car I was set to work on cleaning the house sidings.

Let this be a lesson to all husbands/boyfriends/male life partners – never take a day off, and if you do find a fishing dock far, far out of cell phone signal range. Otherwise you’ll be more exhausted by nightfall than you ever are on a weekday.

This is what's new in Nickland:

A review of this year's student show at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. I guess I'ved been spoiled by the last two years' shows - this one didn't cut the mustard for me. There's still a lot of good stuff in there, though.

The Village Playhouse is a cabaret-style theatre in Mount Pleasant, SC. It's capable of great things, so when the shows there aren't perfect I'm bound to say so. You can read about disappointment #2 in my review of the latest Playhouse production, Lillian Hellman's Toys in the Attic.

Then there's a new writing article on Screenwriting Insider, which includes a mention of the latest Liberty shenanigans. I'm currently working on a new warts-and-all eBook that should be useful for writer types, whether they're into movies or not.

I've survived another book event, this time at the main library in Columbia, Richland County. It's quite a place. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie, riding escalators to each of the four floors in a clean, spaceous building. I also felt well looked after, being introduced to staff members by my host Sarah Linder. Thanks to my positive experience, I'm looking forward to my next visit up north.

After talking about my books, I also found the time to mention Liberty and its slow-but-sure progress. We've covered a few more ambitious scenes, including an ambush set at Holman's Bridge (with over twenty actors and extras, all kitted out in full Revolutionary regalia) and the defense of the heroes' homestead (lots of shooting and reloading rifles and muskets).

On this very blog you'll see pix from a Liberty location scout at Colonial Dorchester, Summerville SC, with actress Chris Weatherhead as Katherine Felder.

Book Review: About Writing

Today you can read my new review of Samuel R. Delany's About Writing on the Charleston Post and Courier website.

Delany can be an opinionated pain in the ass sometimes, but I recommend this book to anyone interested in writing.