At
- Entertainment
A Weekend Of Festivals
In addition to Arts, Beats & Eats,
Labor Day weekend offers a number of
signature events. Take your pick:
Labor Day
Michigan Renaissance Festival: Through
Oct. 3, Holly. (800) 601-4848; www.
michrenfest.com .
With its move to Royal Oak, Arts, Beats & Eats
promises holiday fun for the whole family.
Michigan Peach Festival: Sept. 2 6,
Romeo. www.peachfestromeo.com .
-
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
A
s visitors move through the new
Royal Oak setting of the Arts,
Beats & Eats festival over Labor
Day weekend, a group of metro area non-
rofits will be partnering with the event and
benefiting from proceeds.
The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit and JARC are among the designated
organizations.
"We are excited to partner again with
this wonderful event',' says Michael
Benghiat, community-marketing director
of Federation. `Arts, Beats & Eats provides a
great way to have fun while supporting our
Jewish community
"Since providing about 15 volunteers
and realizing $3,000 last year, we put out
another call for volunteers and have more
than 40 so far. It is our hope that with
greater participation, Federation will garner
a higher contribution."
Jon Witz has been the
producer of Arts, Beats
& Eats since it started
some 13 years ago and
has lined up national and
local music stars, includ-
ing country hit-maker
Clint Black; juried artists
in a range of media; pop-
ABE producer
ular
food vendors; and
Jon Witz
hands-on kids' activities.
._
41.1 I Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
am
LE
Feature Debut
, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long
co-star in the romantic comedy Going
mom the Distance, opening Friday, Sept. 3.
Barrymore plays Erin, a charming
,gal who is spending the summer in
New York City before heading home
to San Francisco. She meets and hits
it off with Garrett (Long), who lives
in the city. Their
six-week romance
turns into something
serious; and when
Erin returns home,
the couple decide to
try to pursue a long-
distance romance via
modern technology
Nanette
like cell phones,
Burstein
ig
-
a
92
September 2 • 2010
Festival visitors can attend any or all
days, Friday through Monday, Sept. 3-6.
"Royal Oak provides an incredibly inter-
active environment with theaters, shops,
restaurants and nightspots," Witz says.
"People can swing between established ven-
ues and street concessions. The Royal Oak
community has been very welcoming."
After checking an activities map and
performance schedules on the Arts, Beats &
Eats website (www.artsbeatseats.com ), visi-
tors driving to the fair can avail themselves
of more than 10,500 parking spaces and
shuttle services from different locations.
Bicycle parking and rides on SMART buses
also will be available.
WWJ radio will have festival traffic
updates every 10 minutes.
"The festival will have a very eclectic
feel;' says Witz, a member of the Jewiswh
community who prepares for the annual
event by meeting with stakeholders, from
business representatives to area residents.
"We planned our musical entertainment
this year with the help of a 14-person com-
mittee representing the Detroit music scene.
"On the Vince & Joe's Stage, which will
have international music styles, there will
be cooking exhibitions four times a day.
We've tripled the family areas with arts and
crafts projects, inflatables and carnival fun?'
Mayer Hawthorne, who grew up in Ann
Arbor as Drew Cohen and built an interna-
tional career with his soul style, will appear
8:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 4, on the Michigan
texting and sexting.
Distance is directed by Nanette
Burstein, 38, who is making her
feature-film debut. Burstein, who grew
up in a Reform home and attended an
Orthodox day school, is best known as
a documentary filmmaker. Her works
include the Oscar-nominated doc The
Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), about
legendary Hollywood executive Robert
Evans.
Bad Timing
The Toronto Film Festival begins
on Sept. 9, the first day of Rosh
Hashanah, and ends the day after Yom
Kippur. Martin Knelman, writing for
the Toronto Star, pointed this out as
very unfortunate because a very large
proportion of the festival's key patrons
are Jewish – as are so are many of the
industry's key players, like buyers and
Detroit International Jazz Festival:
Sept. 3-6, downtown Detroit.
www.detroitjazzfest.com .
Mayer Hawthorne will take the stage
at Arts, Beats & Eats.
Lottery Stage.
"We're planning a dynamite soul revue
with our whole band, the County?' says
Hawthorne, 31, a multi-instrumentalist
with falsetto and breakbeat sounds."We'll
be doing songs from our recording A
Strange Arrangement, and we might have a
few guests from Detroit."
With increasing attention to his CD
— hip-hop hotshot Kanye West recently
tweeted about it, saying, "That Mayer
Hawthorne album brings me back to that
golden time in music" — Hawthorne
has been featured at festivals throughout
America and Europe.
"I love the outdoors',' says Hawthorne,
who moved to California. "It's totally differ-
ent from the club experience. It feels more
spontaneous, and anything can happen.
"I'll be releasing a lot of new songs in
the next few months and an album next
year," says Hawthorne, who had his bar
mitzvah at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann
Arbor and turned his middle name and
Ann Arbor street name into his stage
name. "I wake up every morning thanking
the Lord I get to do this."
Also performing at Arts, Beats & Eats
sellers of films. A festival spokesman
said they had no choice but to stick to
the festival's usual starting and ending
dates but had added additional screen-
ings of the films scheduled to premiere
on the Jewish High Holy Days.
Traditionally, Canadian films open
the festival, but the biggest Canadian
feature film, Barney's Version, from
the Mordechai Richler novel, will not
be shown on Sept. 9. Robert Lantos,
the film's producer, insisted that it not
premiere on the High Holiday as origi-
nally schedule.
Starring Paul
Giamatti as Barney (a
Canadian Jew), with
Dustin Hoffman play-
ing his father, Barney
will come to area the-
aters this December.
4h
Robert Lantos
River Raisin Labor Day BBC): Sept. 4,
downtown Monroe. www.monroeinf.com .
Hamtramck Labor Day Festival: Sept.
4-6, downtown Hamtramck. (313) 974-
2242; www.hamtownferst.com .
Round Up: Sept. 6, downtown Franklin,
(248) 626-9666.
will be local performers known in the
Jewish community: Billy Brandt at 11
a.m. Friday on the Soaring Eagle Casino
& Resort Stage, Kidz Klez of Michigan at
1:30 p.m. Monday on the Vince & Joe's
Stage and Jesse Palter at 3:30 p.m. Monday
on the Pepsi Stage.
"I believe this year's Arts, Beats & Eats
raises the quality of what already was
high quality?' Witz says. "I look at many
other festivals, and I think this is the most
unique and fun-filled. We built this event
for the entire community "
Arts, Beats & Eats runs 11 a.m.-11 p.m.
Friday-Sunday, Sept. 3-5, and 11 a.m.-
9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 6, in downtown
Royal Oak. $3 admission fee. (248)
334-4600; www.artsbeatseats.com .
Cheer For Ashley
Ashley Tisdale, 25,
whose mother is
Jewish, played bad
girl Sharpay Evans in
Disney's hugely suc-
cessful High School
z Musical series. If she
Ashley Tisdale
is very lucky, her new
CW series, Hellcats,
will give Tisdale the follow-up hit her
career really needs. The show pre-
mieres 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept 8.
Hellcats centers on Marti (Alsyon
Michalka), a smart-but-poor college
student who loses her scholarship.
She has no choice but to join the
school's big-time cheerleading squad
because cheerleaders get financial aid.
Her roommate, Savannah (Tisdale), a
peppy but tough girl, is the head of
the squad.