PURE Theatre are producing "Eurydice" at 10 Storehouse Row this week. I interviewed the heroine's father.

PURE Theatre is producing "Eurydice" at 10 Storehouse Row, N. Charleston, May 23-26 as part of the Piccolo Spoleto festival.

I'm the kind of guy who tries to please all the people all the time, which means I'm the kind of guy who usually ends up pretty miserable - unless I split those people into more than one group and give them each the attention they require. Then everything turns out okay.

This month I'll be running two acting courses: one for film/TV actors, and another for people with a penchant for the stage. Full details below.

ACTING FOR FILM & TV

The ONLY on-camera class offered in Charleston, SC by Nick Smith. This is ideal if you need to learn, polish, and maintain your on-camera skills. You will get a copy of the 'end result' for your audition reel.

Ages 8 and up who are ready to sit through the class. Classes held at the South of Broadway Theatre Company Studios.

Price $100.00 for pkg. of four classes: April 7, 14, 21 & 28, 4-6 p.m.

Visit the South of Broadway website for full details.

ACTING FOR THEATRE

Classes for beginning and intermediat-level actors who need to work on their stage acting skills. The course is held at the North Charleston Cultural and Civic Center Complex. It starts on April 14 and runs every Monday through May 19, 6.30-8 p.m.

Visit the North Charleston Cultural Arts website for more information and registration forms.

Aw, now this is a pity. From the City Paper's A&E Blog:

Venue News: Buxton’s East Bay Theatre shuttered

The former site of ghost storytelling, the Magnolia Singers, and many Piccolo Spoleto concerts, Buxton’s East Bay Theatre, a tiny nook seating about 70 at the most, closed in December.

Owner Julian T. Buxton III told me the reason was financial. He couldn’t meet the cost of a lease held by the Southeastern Management Group. The theater was built in 2005 using 40 seats from the old Garden Theatre on King Street (currently occupied by an Urban Outfitters).

The seats have now been sold to a “guy living on Edisto,” Buxton told me, “for his own private theater.” Chad Yonce, of Southeastern Management Group, told me the space is being turned into — what else? — condos.

“I’m sad to see it go,” Buxton said.

In its inaugural year, I co-directed a play at the theatre called Christmas in Charlestowne, and visited it last year to discuss a multimedia ghost production.

I've also attended Piccolo shows there like Hobo: The Musical and Paul Thomas: Late Bloomer, where the performers made great use of the modest space.

I also filmed Pirates! The Revenge of Colonel Rhett at the East bay Theatre. This inventive show is making a welcome return at the Charleston Convention Center.

Like Buxton, I'm sad to see it closed. It's yet another example of the arts being squuezed out of downtown Charleston by rising rent costs. For shame!

Theatre Preview: Crowns

Ten years ago, photographer Michael Cunningham started taking black and white pictures of church hats, fascinated by the way that they regally rested on women’s heads. He was on to something. An exhibition followed the same year, followed by a book called Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats. The exhibition toured, finally reaching the Gibbes in 2006, and an off-Broadway stage version wasn’t far behind.

Now the Crowns play will be performed by the Footlight Players, directed by Henry Clay Middleton (seen last summer co-starring in Piccolo Spoleto’s Denmark Vesey: Insurrection), and it’s not all about the hats.

Crowns features six women who are amalgamations taken from the 50 subjects in the book. Refreshingly, all but one of them are in their 40s or older, providing some strong acting opportunities for older local actresses. But a focal point is the youngest character, Yolanda, who is sent from Brooklyn to South Carolina to get in touch with her Southern heritage. There she encounters church life, Gospel music, soliloquizing grandmas and an awful lot of hats.

If a live aspect of Crowns sounds familiar, that could be because the CSO Gospel Choir performed selections from its repertoire at the Gibbes during the exhibition in 2006 – deemed a highly successful event by the museum of art. With Cunningham’s work growing in popularity, surely it won’t be long before we see Crowns: The Millinery Musical.

SHOW DATES: Jan. 25-26, 8 p.m., Sun., Jan. 27, 3 p.m., Mon., Jan. 28, 3 p.m., Thu., Jan. 31, 8 p.m., Feb. 1-2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 7-9, 8 p.m.

PRICES: $25/adults, $22/seniors, $15/students

ADDRESS: Footlight Players Theatre, 20 Queen St., Downtown Charleston, SC, (843) 722-4487

WEBSITE: http://www.footlightplayers.net/