If you were going to designate any weekend as a theater weekend, this would be the one. One well-received local production will be bowing out after Saturday, while another, brought in from Outside by the Anchorage Concert Association, will be having a two-night run at the performing arts center.
Local news leads: Christian Heppinstall's production of "Little Shop of Horrors" will close out its successful run with shows tonight, Saturday and Sunday.
According to our reviewer, Catherine Stadem, this show offers "art (that) continues to have a lot of fun with our foibles."
"Pure fun is the best description of the perennially outrageous musical about a bloodthirsty plant," Stadem said in her review. "No one knows how to camp it up quite like Heppinstall, and what better venue for him than the decadent atmosphere of a Fifth Avenue bar-turned-theater.
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Performances will be at 7 p.m. today and Saturday, with a costume contest afterward.
Best outfits get passes to the return engagement of "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Tickets are $25 (276-9762, ).
The weekend's other marquee event will be at a slightly tamer venue -- specifically the arts center's Discovery Theater, where the New York-based Flying Machine Theatre Company will be presenting a two-night showing of its production of "Frankenstein.
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According to its Web site, the company will be adapting Mary Shelley's masterpiece using a combination of dance, puppetry, mask-play and music that uses both traditional instruments and those made by company members. Think Buzz Schwall meets Envirobeat, with a bit of ADT and Cyrano's thrown in, and you're starting to get the picture.
Performances will be at 7:30 p.
m. today, 2 and 7:30 p.m.
Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: $20 to $38. Info: 272-1471, .
It's a no-brainer: Artists and costumes go together like jack-o-lanterns and candles.
So get your glam stuff on for the International Gallery of Contemporary Art's annual Halloween party, slated for 8 p.m. Saturday.
The event, which the IGCA bills as a "fundraiser disguised as a great party," offers live music, food, a no-host bar and prizes for costumes.
And if the getups don't provide you with enough eye-candy, the evening will also feature the opening of the gallery's "100 x 100" show, in which 100 works will be offered for $100 each. Food, fun, a bit of early Christmas shopping -- what could be better?
It will cost you $10 at the door to find out. For info, call 279-1116 or visit .
If you know Mike McCormick, the Boston-accented man behind Whistling Swan Productions' annual lineup of singer-songwriter acts, you know New Hampshire troubadour Bill Staines has a special place in the promoter's heart.
Every time Staines heads our way, McCormick expends a little more effort and enthusiasm than usual touting the singer's arrival. That's going some, considering the talent Whistling Swan usually induces to travel to Alaska during our performing arts high season.
Maybe the source of the affable McCormick's enthusiasm is the New England connection or maybe a bit more: According to the Boston Phoenix, Staines was "simply Boston's best performer," back in 1971, before he had much seasoning.
He's gotten better since.
Now, 35 years later, Staines has produced 22 albums and published four books of his songs, which have been covered by the likes of Peter, Paul Mary; Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy; Nanci Griffith; Mason Williams; The Highwaymen; Glen Yarborough; Jerry Jeff Walker; Grandpa Jones; Priscilla Herdman; and others. He has also appeared on "A Prairie Home Companion," "Mountain Stage" and "The Good Evening Show," as well as a gaggle of local programs on PBS and network TV.
He logs more than 65,000 miles on tour every year.
If you want to see him during the relatively brief period he's in one place, you can catch him at 4 p.m.
Sunday at Laurence Theatre. Tickets are $27, available through or by calling 263-ARTS. For more info, go to .
University of Alaska Anchorage art professor Garry Kaulitz has never been shy about using his work to let the world at large know what's on his political mind. His new seven-piece exhibition, "Layers of Hubris and Excess," which will be hanging in the UAA/APU Consortium Library Gallery through Nov. 3, is one more example.
Kaulitz's installation is driven by his outrage over current U.S. foreign policy, in which he sees evidence or the erosion of checks and balances, which traditionally reined in "inequalities, injustices, influence peddling and other wrongdoings" in our society.
Kaulitz uses as leitmotif the Seven Deadly Sins -- lust, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy and pride -- all of which he finds in ample and lamentable evidence in the current administration's dealings with other nations.
"I have come to believe ..
. that the United States is dangerously close to forfeiting the democratic republic it aspired towards in favor of a model of international corporate fascism," Kaulitz says. "Under a glitz of media bombardment, the forces of the military industrial complex, the politics of corporate influence and a amoral capitalistic model run amuck have collectively laid the framework for the fall of representative democracy.
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Strong words. Whether you agree with Kaulitz's premis, it's hard to not be compelled by the use he makes of inkjet printing on raw silk, with transparent overlays of colored organdy that emblazoned with English and Chinese texts.
The gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 7:30 a.
m. to 11 p.m.
, Fridays 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.
m., Saturdays 10 a.m.
to 6 p.m. and Sundays noon to 11 p.
m.
For information, call 786-1034.
Artists from across the state gathered at the Alaska Federation of Natives' first Arts Summit.
Find out what was on the agenda and what the scene was like Sunday in Life Arts. ? Search our theater schedule
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