Arts & Entertainment

BEST BETS

Gail Zimmerman

Arts Editor

Looking At
Detroit

author of The Poetics of Space: The Classic
Look at How We Experience Intimate
Places, and Michael Corbett's A Better
Place to Live: New Designs for Tomorrow's
Communities.
The exhibit runs through Nov. 18 at the
gallery, located inside the Huntington
Woods Library, 26415 Scotia. Gallery
hours are 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-
Thursdays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and
noon-5 p.m. Sundays. (248) 336-1961.

At the Woods Gallery in Huntington
Woods, Stephanie Zack's installation
detroitus speaks to a sense of place and
space; a sense of identity, shelter and
security; and memories that we carry with
us for a lifetime.
"The (vision/version' of my life in
Detroit — what I witnessed and continue
to witness now, after five years as an ele-
mentary tutor in the city — combined
with photo-
graphic images
I've captured
over the past 10
years comes
together in
detroitus," says
Zack. The exhib-
it was influ-
enced by the
writings of
French philoso-
pher Gaston
From Stephanie Zack's
Bachelard
installation detroitus, at the
(1884-1962),

Woods Gallery

NateBloom

Special to the Jewish News

Mazel Toy ...
To Mayim Bialik, 29, who just had her
first child, a son, with husband Michael
Stone. Bialik is
best known as the
child star of the
hit TV sitcom
Blossom, which
ran from 1991-
1995.
After the series
ended, Bialik
graduated from
UCLA and did
Mayim Bialik
graduate work in
neuroscience at
the same school. While at UCLA, she was
active in the campus Jewish community

52

Totally Tony

From George Gershwin's 1930 musical
Girl Crazy to the blockbuster 2002
mega-hit Hairspray, music from a
wide array of Tony Award-winning
shows will make up the program for
the next Pops Series concerts featur-
ing the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
"The Best of the Tonys" takes place
in Orchestra Hall in the Max M. Fisher
Music Center 8 p.m. Thursday, 8:30
p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 3-6. DSO Pops Music
Director Erich Kunzel will lead the
orchestra, joined by a trio of singers

and worked hard to get a kosher meal
option for dorm students.
Bialik has kept her hand in acting —
doing voiceover work and a few guest
shots, including an appearance early this
season on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Jewish Poker

I cannot help liking the semi-stupid
Celebrity Poker TV show on Bravo. The
mostly "B-list" celebs are fun to watch as
they kibbitz with each other and play for
charity. Each installment of the series is
five games long.
The most recent tourney began earlier
this month, but Bravo rebroadcasts
episodes so frequently you can easily
catch any shows you missed (see
Bravotv.com for a schedule).
Game 2 of this round had Jewish hottie

who happen to be siblings — Lindsay,
Geoff and Justin Packard — as well as the
Livingston
County Women's
Chorus and
Measure 4
Measure, the
Ypsilanti-based
men's chorus.
More than 20
songs from win-
ners of the Best
Musical category
of the annual
Tony Awards fea-
Claude-Michel
turing outstand-
Schonberg: Composer
ing achievement
of Les Miserables.
on Broadway will
be performed.
Musicals represented include West Side
Story, Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, Evita,
Titanic, The Lion King, The Producers and
Rent.
Jewish composers represented include
Leonard Bernstein, Cy Coleman, Stephen
Sondheim, John Kander, Marvin
Hamlisch, Jonathan Larson, Jay Rifkin and
Mel Brooks, Maury Yeston, Claude-Michel

Gina
Gershon.

Game 4, pre-
miering
Tuesday, Nov. 3,
features Jewish
celebs Richard
Belzer (Law
and Order:
SVU) and 1994
Oksana Baiul
Olympic gold
medal figure
skating champ Oksana Baiul (formerly
of Ukraine).
Baiul, who has lived in the States since
1995, was left orphaned at age 13 when
her mother died (her father faded out of
her life when she was a toddler). Baiul
once identified as Russian Orthodox, but
when she became engaged to a Jewish
man two years ago, she decided to explore

Schonberg, Harry Warren and Marc
Shaiman.
Tickets are $15-$66 (limited number of
box seats available from $61-$99). (313)
576-5111 or www.detroitsymphony.com .

Jazzy Jane

Twenty-seven-year-old Jane Monheit is
one of the hottest young jazz singers today.
Her latest recording, Taking a Chance on
Love, catapulted to the No.1 spot on
Billboard's Traditional Jazz chart as well as
the top 100 on Billboard's pop chart in its
first week of release. She's already con-
quered stages from Carnegie Hall and the
Hollywood Bowl to the Kennedy Center
and London's Royal Festival Hall. She's also
graced prestigious jazz clubs like the
Village Vanguard, the Blue Note and the
Oak Room at the Algonquin.
Monheit grew up on Long island and
enjoyed classical recordings of the jazz
greats. She studied voice at the Manhattan
School of Music with Peter Eldridge, one of
the founding members of the New York
Voices. For Taking a Chance on Love, she
chose classical songs — like Honeysuckle

a "story" that she had "Jewish roots."
She tracked down her father, and he
confirmed that Baiul's maternal grand-
mother was Jewish.
Earlier this year, the skater told the
New Jersey Jewish News that she is explor-
ing Judaism "slowly," and that "I am get-
ting closer to Jewish culture, starting to
learn what Judaism is all about."
It's nice to note that Baiul has become a
trustee of Tikva Children's Home in
Odessa, an educational institution for
Jewish orphans in Ukraine, and has done
fund-raising work on behalf of the home.

Dual Brains

"The world is changing, by people
doing whatever the hell it is you're doing:"
So said comedy legend Carl Reiner at
a recent news conference at the head-

October 27 2005