Arts Life

CLASSICAL

Norms

The Chamber Music Society of Detroit continues
its season with a performance by pianist Andras
Schiff, violinist Yuuko Shiokawa and cellist Miklos
Perenyi 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16, at Seligman
Performing Arts Center in Beverly Hills. The pro-
gram includes works by Dvorak, Janacek and
Smetana. The Hungarian-born Schiff, who is mar-
ried to Shiokawa, now lives in Florence and London
but previously was a Jewish citizen of Austria, where
he protested the far-right policies of its government.
$23-$70. (248) 855-6070.
More than 200 musicians and singers take the
stage with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra 8 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16, at Detroit's Fox Theatre in a per-
formance of Academy Award-winning composer
Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings Symphony:
A Symphony in Six Movements, which features
music from all three films in the motion picture tril-
ogy. $35-$75. (248) 433-1515.
The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, under the
baton of Maestro Arie Lipsky, performs 8 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16, at the Michigan Theater in Ann
Arbor in a concert featuring Beethoven's Egmont
Overture; Korngold's Concerto for Violin in D Major,
with special guest violinist Pip Clarke; and
Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 in G minor. $10-
$38. (734) 994 4801.
Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings opens its
23rd season with a performance utilizing 13 players
in different combinations, featuring works of
German, French and Hungarian composers, 7 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 17, at Grosse Pointe United Methodist
Church and 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, at
Birmingham Unitarian Church. Tickets: $10-
$25/available at the door. (248) 559-2095.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra performs
Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 ("Immortal Beloved"),
two short pieces by Ives and Copland's Clarinet
Concerto, with guest clarinetist David Schifrin, 8

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celebrity Jews

Not Bad For 89

ARTHUR MILLER's new play, Finishing the Picture,
recently premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre,
and the reviews have been very good to mixed. The
subject, as in Miller's 1964 play After the Fall, is the
price of stardom, and at the center of the play is a
thinly disguised MARILYN MONROE character.
(Miller was married to Monroe from 1956-1961. She
convened to Judaism just before marrying him).
Finishing , however, is more comedic in tone than
Miller's earlier work. Instead of dissecting the Miller-
Monroe marriage, it takes on the various pressures on
a mega-star. While not explicitly Jewish, many of the
characters are based on real-life Jewish people — most
notably Miller himself, as the star's playwright-hus-
band (Matthew Modine).
Much of Miller's vitriol is directed at the
Fassbinders," a husband-wife team of acting coaches

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JPi

10/15
2004

70

Best Bets

p.m. Thursday and Friday and 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 21-23. In a "Classical
Conversations" concert 3 p.m. Sunday,
Oct. 24, which features the Beethoven
and Copland works, host Thomas
Wilkins explains how Benny Goodman
commissioned works from some of the
20th century's greatest composers, includ-
ing Copland. Ticket information: (313)
576-5111 or vvvvw.detroitsymphony.org

ON THE STAGE

Musical parody group A (Habeas)
Chorus Line, a group of lawyers and legal
associates, stages a public show, Weapons
of Mass Construction, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16, at the Adray
Auditorium of the Mackenzie Fine Arts
Center on the campus of Henry Ford
Community College in Dearborn. $15
c; ii. ZIN1NIERNIAN
Arts Milor
advance or at the door. wwvv.habeascho-
rus.com
This year's "Broadway at the Fox" series
POP/ROCK/JAZZ/FOLK
presents
Fosse,
highlighting the work of the leg-
The sixth annual Motor City Boogie Woogie &
endary
dancer,
choreographer
and dancer, 8 p.m.
Blues Festival, with headliners blues and jazz diva
Tuesday-Friday,
2
and
8
p.m.
Saturday
and 1 and
Maria Muldaur and Memphis pianist/vocalist Jason
6:30
p.m.
Sunday,
Oct.
19-24,
at
Detroit's
Fox
D. Williams, takes place 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct.
Theatre.
$28-$70.50.
(248)
433-1515.
16, at the Redford Theatre in Detroit. Doors at
The Elephant Vanishes, a multimedia theater
6:30. $25-$35. (800) 585-3737 or www.ticket-
piece from the London-based theater company
splus.net
Complicite and adapted from three short stories by
The Ark hosts the Dick Siegel Trio, in a fall-
Haruki
Murakami, will be staged 8 p.m.
inspired concert, 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct, 16, at the
Wednesday-Saturday,
Oct. 20-23, at the Power
Ark, $15; bluegrass/folk ensemble Yonder
Center
in
Ann
Arbor.
$20-$56.
(734) 764-2538.
Mountain String Band, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17,
Macomb
Center
for
the
Performing
Arts presents
at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, $20; English
the
Gershwin-tuned
musical
comedy
Crazy
for You
singer songwriter Richard Thompson and his cur-
8
p.m.
Friday
and
2
and
8
p.m.
Saturday,
Oct.
22-
rent show, 1,000 Years of Popular Music, 8 p.m.
(586)
286-2222.
23.
$40-$45.
Monday, Oct, 18, at the Michigan Theater, $35;
WSU's Hilberry Theatre opens Shakespeare's The
and guitarist/songwriter Patty Larkin, 8 p.m. Friday,
Merry
Wives of Windsor, running in repertory
Oct. 22, at the Ark, $17.50. (734) 761-1451.
with
Noel
Coward's Blithe Spirit, 8 p.m. Friday,
Dearborn's Ford Community & Performing Arts
Oct.
22.
$13-$22.
Schedule and tickets: (313) 577-
Center presents a Rat Pack Gala, featuring the
2972
or
vvvvw.theatre.wayne.edu
music of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy
Davis Jr., 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 16. $29-$39. (313)
943 2354.
THE BIG SCREEN
Singer songwriter Steve Earle, out with his new
The Israeli Film Series of the MSU Jewish Studies
politically charged CD, The Revolution Starts ...
Program screens Desperado Square, a story about
Now, performs 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 19, at the
Greek Jews living in a village outside of Tel Aviv,
Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. $25. (248) 645-
7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, at 147
6666.

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clearly modeled after Actors' Studio bigwigs I FE and
PAULA STRASBERG.
Miller always thought they damaged and confused
Monroe, and he makes them out to be self-important
buffoons. Jewish actress LINDA LAVIN (Alice) plays
"Paula," while Jewish actor SIEPHEN LANG
(Gettysburg) plays her husband.
Veteran Jewish stage actor HARRIS YULIN (St.
Elsewhere) plays a character modeled after real-life
director John Huston (who directed Monroe in the
Miller-written film The MiOts).
A late addition to the cast was SCOTT GLENN, as
an acid tongued cameraman. Glenn, perhaps best
known for Silence of the Lambs, converted to Judaism
in the 1970s, and he and his wife are active members
of the Idaho Jewish community
In a funny side note, Glenn told USA Today that he
agreed to fly into New York at his own expense to
audition for the play when he found out it was writ-
ten by Miller. ("You don't say no to America's greatest
living playwright")
Also in the cast are such notables as Stacey Keadi

and Frances Fisher.
Even at 89, University of Michigan grad Arthur
Miller is able to turn out a fairly riveting play. For
example, when the characters were discussing the
Nixon-Kennedy debate, this line brought down the
opening-night house: The presidency is a prize given
to the actor who gives the best impression of a presi-
dent."
Finishing runs through Nov 17th in Chicago and
may move to Broadway.

'

Sci-Fi Jews Return!

BRENT SPINER, known as the android "Data" on
Star Trek• Next Generation, will appear in UPN's Star
Trek: Entoprise -- which began its fourth season on
UPN on Oct 8 --- in three weekly shows, starting
Friday, Oct 29. Spiner will play the great-grandfather
of Data'.s human creator — a bad guy who happens to
be needed by the Enterprise's captain. (Spiner was the
only Jewish actor who was a regular on Next
Generation.)

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