Best Bets

CABARET CONCERT

Actress/singer Kate Willinger recent-
ly returned to Detroit from a cabaret
and theater career in New York, where
she was named Best Newcomer of the
Year by the Manhattan Area Cabaret
Awards. She last appeared in Jewish
Ensemble Theatre's production of The
Caregiver and as parr of the original
cast of I Love You, You're Perfect, iVory
Change at the Gem.
Willinger will perform a benefit
cabaret concert for JET Sunday, June 13,
at Parthenon House in West Bloomfield.
Titled "Living in the '90s," the evening
will feature standards, Broadway and
contemporary tunes by mostly Jewish
composers, says Willinger.
Parthenon House is located at 5586
Drake Road, between Maple and
Walnut Lake roads. Tickets for the
event, which begins at 7:30 p.m., are
$40 per person/$75 for two, and
include a light supper and cash bar.
For tickets and more information, call
JET, (248) 788-2900.

sponsor or ticket informa-
tion, call Beth Shalom,
(248) 547-7970.

BLOOMEN1' ART

Megdall (blown glass)
and Marcy Feldman (jew-
elry). Israeli-born artists
include Ari Gradus and
Smadar Livne.
The Henry Ford
Medical Center is located
at 6777 W. Maple Road
near Halsted.
There is no admission
charge. For more informa-
tion, call (954) 472-3755.

Featuring everything
from $20 earrings to 5500
paintings to $10,000
sculptures, more than 200
GAIL ZIMMERMAN
artists will descend on the
Arts c Entertainment
grounds of the Henry Ford
Editor
Medical Center campus 10
a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and
ROSE & RON
Sunday, June 12-13, as part of the fifth
Half-Dominican, half-Lebanese
annual West Bloomfield Art Festival.
Rose Abdoo, a six-year veteran of
The artists selected for the festival
Chicago's Second City, first met
hail from more than 20 states and
Ronald Zate, a member of a large
must hand create all work shown.
Detroit-area Jewish family, in 1978,
They will be present during both days
on the stage at Southfield High
of the festival to discuss their work
School.
with patrons. An international food
Abdoo, like Zate, went on to attend
fest, continuous live entertainment
Michigan State University. She
and an art project for children round
majored in theater; he studied adver-
out the festivities.
tising. But Zate maintained his inter-
This year's festival lineup includes
est in theater as a member of St.
local Jewish artists Barbara Abel
Dunstan's Guild of Cranbrook and as
(photography), Stan and Debbie

MUSICAL, MONTAGE

Born in Casablanca and raised in
Paris and New York, Gerard Edery is
considered one of the world's leading
interpreters of Sephardic song. Winner
of the Sephardic Music Heritage
Award in 1997, he is a classically
trained baritone who has appeared
with opera companies across the coun-
try The vocalist/guitarist returns to
the Detroit area 7:30 p.m. Sunday,
June 13, with the Gerard Edery
Ensemble, as part of Congregation
Beth Shalom's annual spring concert.
The evening also features the
Jewish Community Center's
Intergenerational Choir. Conducted
by Larisa Matusova and accompa-
nied by pianist Lilliya Ostapenko,
the choir, established in 1994 to
bring together older adults and
youth from the former Soviet
Union, sings in Russian, English,
Yiddish, Hebrew and Italian.
An afterglow follows the program
at the synagogue, located at 14601 W.
Lincoln in Oak Park. The community
is invited free of charge; reserved seats,
are available to concert sponsors. For

BUDDING PICASSO

Born in Romania and raised in
Whittier, Calif., 13-year-old
Alexandra Nechita has garnered
national attention for her vibrantly
colored, abstract, Picasso-inspired
paintings. The Danielle Peleg Gallery
brings the young prodigy to Michigan
for the first time in a show running
June 12-30 at the gallery, 4301
Orchard Lake Road, Suite 145, at
Crosswinds in West Bloomfield.
Nechitas first paintings sold for
$50; now they bring in as much as
$120,000. The young artist will meet
with children 10-11 a.m. and with the
general public 6-9 p.m. Saturday, June
12, at the gallery. For more informa-
tion, call (248) 626-5810.

"Kaleidoscope" by Alexandra Nechita:
"One little turn and the pattern
totally changes."

=11•1•11filliM="

co-founder of Open Spaces, an AIDS
Awareness theater troupe.
Now 20 years later, the two are work-
ing together again. Zate, who moved to
New York in 1998 to head up Zate
Productions, an entertainment produc-
tion company, is producing Abdoo's sec-
ond one-woman show, Get to the Part
About Me, which she'll perform June 17-
20 at Meadow Brook Theatre. The show
had its New York premiere in January.
Like her first one-woman show,
Who Does She Think She Is?, this new
autobiographical contemplation
regales audiences with stories from
Abdoo's life, including her acting and
television adventures, her obsession
with food and exercise, her childhood
penchant for overanalyzing sitcoms
and her eternal search to understand
why things happen.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday-
Saturday and at 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets,
at $25, are available at Meadow Brook
Theatre, (248) 377-3300; or through
Ticketmaster, (248) 645-6666. A por-
tion of the proceeds will benefit AIDS
Walk Detroit.

WORDS OF LOVE

Mixing haunting, lovelorn lyrics
with samples and breakbeats on her
debut album, Trailer Park, British
singer Beth Orton went from opening
for Sheryl Crow to headlining her
own sold-out UK tour and garnering
accolades for "best album of the year"
from critics. Her follow-up album,
Central Reservation, released in March,
finds Orton in a folk frame of mind,
with comparisons to Joni Mitchell
finding their way into rave reviews.
With lyrics that reduce grownups
don't think my songs are as
to tears,
miserable as people make out, Orton
has said. "There's a lot of hope in
there as well. It all depends on if
you're half empty or half full."
Orton "may carry a glittered guitar
and wear glossy-red boots," said one
review, "but there's no hiding her
Birkenstock heart."
She performs Tuesday, June 15, at St.
Andrew's Hall, 431 E. Congress, in
Detroit; (313) 961-8137. Doors at 8.
Tickets are $12.50 and available through
Ticketmaster, (248) 645-6666.

FYI: For Arts and Entertainment related events that you wish to have considered for Out & About, please send the item, with a detailed description of the event, times, dates, place, ticket prices and publishable phone number,
to: Gail Zimmerman, JN Out & About, The Jewish News, 27676 Franklin Road, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 354-6069: or e-mail to gzimmerman@thejewishnews.com Notice must be received at least three weeks before
the scheduled event. Photos are appreciated but cannot be returned. All events and dates listed in the Out & About column are subject to change.

6/11
1999

80 Detroit Jewish News