Arts & Entertainment
&About
4111.
The Manhattan Transfer
Boo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo
On the recently released compilation
CD The Jewish Songbook: The Heart and
Humor of a People, vocal ensemble the
Manhattan Transfer — including Jewish
members Alan Paul and Janis Siegel —
perform the Lower East Side-inspired "Utt
Da Zay," its lead singers harmonizing in a
smooth retro chorus, trading boo-be-doo
scales with a horn section.
Since 1975, this jazz-flavored quartet has
released a total of 27 albums — and won
a total of eight Grammy Awards, includ-
ing Best Jazz Vocal Performance (Duo or
Group) and Best Pop Vocal Performance
(Duo or Group) in 1981. The double
Grammy honor made the Manhattan
Transfer the first artists in history to
receive Grammys in both the pop and jazz
categories in the
multi-arts festival in
same year.
North America and runs
The group contin-
August 8-24.
ues to stretch bound-
LoPatin, who graduat-
aries by recording
ed with a B.A. in English
CDs in numerous
from the University
Gail Zimmerman
genres including jazz,
of Michigan, recently
Arts Editor
pop and R&B, as well
completed a successful
as children and holi-
six-week run perform-
day albums.
ing The Sound of One Hanna Clapping at
The Manhattan Transfer will perform at
Chicago's Apollo Studio Theatre, garnering
Meadow Brook Music Festival on Thursday, high praise from the media.
Aug. 7, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $32.50 pavilion
In her biographical sketch show,
and $10 lawn. (248) 645-6666 or
recounting snippets of life culled from
www.ticketmastercom.
ballet rehearsals to adventures in the U-
M theater department, LoPatin will be
Funny Girl
directed by comedienne Ana Gasteyer, best
known for her work on Saturday Night
Actress, singer and
Live.
comedienne Hanna
LoPatin currently lives in Chicago, where
LoPatin, 26, daughter
she is a producer for the advertising indus-
of Mark and Jennifer
try by day and an improvisational actress
LoPatin of Farmington
by night. She says she is looking for a nice
Hills, will bring her
Jewish boy — but not too Jewish.
one-woman show, The
For more information, go to
Sound of One Hanna
www.HannaLo.com or www.fringenyc.org .
Hanna LoPatin
Clapping to the New
For tickets, at $15, call (888) 374-6436.
York International
Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) with perfor-
Author! Author!
mances at the Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson
St., at 7:45 p.m. Monday, Aug. 18; 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Aug. 19; 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug.
New York writer Susan Shapiro, who grew
20; 8:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 22; and 1:30 p.m.
up in Southfield and West Bloomfield, will
Saturday, Aug. 23. FringeNYC is the largest
read from her latest book, Only As Good As
Your Word, 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, at Borders,
34200 Woodward, in Birmingham.
In the book, Shapiro writes about her
writing mentors, including the late Jack
Zucker, her 12th-grade English teacher at
the Roeper School in Birmingham. Shapiro
plans to read an excerpt
from the book that ran
in the Jewish News last
Thanksgiving (Nov. 22,
page C10) that focused
on Zucker and another
important man in
her life: her father, Dr.
Susan Shapiro Jack Shapiro of West
Bloomfield.
It's "the only thing I've ever written
that my father likes," says the critically
acclaimed memoirist of five books. "All of
[my parents'] friends saw it and told him it
was a tribute to him:'
Shapiro will be joined by writer Liza
Monroy, Jewish author of a debut novel
called Mexican High. "We're calling [our
appearance in Birmingham] a mentor-pro-
tege reading:' says Shapiro, "since Liza now
teaches at Mediabistro.com, where I do,
and they have a Michigan branch we are
inviting." Following the reading, there will
be a discussion on "Secrets of Selling Your
First Book."
For more information, call
(248) 203-0005. ❑
FYI: For Arts 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, 29200 Northwestern Highway, Suite 110, Southfield, MI 48034; fax us at (248) 304-8885; 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.
■;11. WS
I Nate Bloom
sr
-
Special to the Jewish News
Premieres
Ben Stiller, 43, stars in, directs and
co-wrote Tropic Thunder, a comedy
van opening Wednesday, Aug.13, about
f a group of movie actors who go off
to Southeast Asia
to film a war story
only to be caught up
in real combat with
narco-terrorists.
Stiller's character
is a fading action-
movie star; Jack
Black, 37, plays a
Jay Baruchel
coked-out actor
whose career is based on gross-out
comedies; Robert Downey Jr. plays
a former multiple Oscar nominee
reduced to playing much lesser parts;
and Jay Baruchel, 25, appears as a
young actor making his first film.
Opening Friday, Aug. 8, at the
ci
C2
August 7 2008
Birmingham 8 is American Teen, a
documentary about a small-town
Indiana high school that was a hit at
the Sundance Film Festival. It follows
the lives of five students through
their senior year.
The filmmaker is Nanette Burstein,
38, who previously made two well
reviewed documentaries with Brett
Morgen: On the Ropes, about young
boxers, and The Kid Stays in the
Picture, about former movie studio
head Robert Evans.
Burstein told the New York Times
she could relate to these students'
anxieties, even though she was
almost a member of the "cool crowd"
at her private high school:
"But I never felt part of [the
cool crowd]; I was Jewish, I wasn't
wealthy, so I never really felt they
were my friends. You're so vulnerable
at that age. But I was lucky. I won a
scholarship to spend my junior year
in Barcelona ... There was no clique
system, so I was able to learn how to
be myself. I came home with a pink
Mohawk, knowing I wanted to be a
filmmaker. The Mohawk didn't last
very long."
Beijing Bound
I recently spoke to Ben Wildman-
Tobriner, 23, a member of the 2008
Olympic swim team. He will compete
in the 50-meter indi-
vidual freestyle race.
Ben is also a mem-
ber of the 4x100M
freestyle relay team
(with Jewish swim-
mers Jason Lezak
and Garrett Weber-
Ben Wildman-
Gale.)
Ben is a soft-spo-
ken gentleman who
wanted to make sure that I knew
about his sister, Becky, a former col-
lege swimmer who started and runs
a San Francisco swim program for
Tobriner
poor children. The rest of the family
is equally impressive: his paternal
grandfather, Matthew Tobriner, was
a distinguished California Supreme
Court justice, and Ben's Jewish par-
ents both are attorneys.
Ben, a bar mitzvah who plans to
be a doctor, earned a biomechanical
engineering degree from Stanford in
2006 and this fall begins at UC-San
Francisco's medical school. He will
have a Beijing cheering squad that
includes his parents, his girlfriend, his
sister and her boyfriend.
Another first-time Jewish Olympian
is cyclist Mike Friedman, 25, who
will compete in the Madison, a two-
man event. Tiffany Cohen, who runs
OYVelo.com , a Web site for and about
Jewish cyclists, says Friedman's
paternal grandparents are refugees
from Nazi Germany. His mother is not
Jewish; while raised without religion,
Mike says is very proud of his Jewish
background.