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CLASSICAL NOTES

Michigan Opera Theatre's Department of
Community Programs offers its annual
summer educational programs for all ages,
Learning at the Opera House, encom-
passing both the visual and performing
arts, June 27-Aug. 7 at the Detroit Opera
House. For more information on any of the
LATOH programs, go to michiganopera.org
or call (313) 237-3270.

POP/ROCK/JAZZ

Movement Electronic Music Festival
returns Saturday-Monday, May 28-30 with
a nonstop 36-hour techno and electronic
dance music marathon from more than
100 artists across five stages in Hart Plaza
on the Detroit River. Nearly 100,000 people
from across the globe attended the festival
in 2010. Three-day passes are $60, $150
VIP. To learn more or purchase tickets, go to
movement.us.

ON THE STAGE

A Midsummer Night's Dream,
Shakespeare's romantic comedy about two
pairs of star-crossed lovers who find refuge
in the forest and a mischievous fairy who
unleashes comical chaos with a love potion,
gets a contemporary retelling in a produc-
tion mounted by the Warren Civic Theatre
6:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 28-29,
in City Square Park at the Warren Civic
Center, 12 1/2 Mile and Van Dyke, in Warren.
Seats are provided (though blankets or
lawn chairs are welcome if preferred).
The show is directed by Jewish Ensemble
Theatre Managing Director and Warren
resident Christopher Bremer.
"I've been looking forward to doing

About
via

this show for the last
Festival and was Israel's
25 years:' says Bremer,
Foreign Language Oscar
"and Warren Civic has
submission in 2011, as well
finally given me the
as winner of five Israeli
chance. A Midsummer
Academy Awards.
Night's Dream has always
The cost of an annual
Gail Zimmerman
been one of my fondest
subscription is $108 (with
Arts Editor
Shakespearean shows. It
free shipping), six months
has something for every-
is $68 (plus $3.25 S&H per
one."
DVD) and monthly subscriptions are $28
Tickets are $5 and on sale at the Warren
bi-monthly (plus $3.25 S&H per DVD). For
Community Center: (586) 268-8400 for
more information, go to jewishfilmclub.
ticket reservations; warrencivic.org for
com.
updated information (in case of rain, the
Director Alfred Hitchcock's first
show will be held in the Atrium of Warren
American film project, Rebecca, based
City Hall).
on the Daphne du Maurier novel about
a young bride who cannot escape the
memory of her husband's late first
THE BIG SCREEN
wife, stars Laurence Olivier and Joan
This month, Film Movement, a
Fontaine and screens at the Redford
North American distributor of
Theatre, 17360 Lahser, in Detroit,
independent and foreign films, is
May 27-28. Redfordtheatre.com.
launching the Jewish Film Club,
a subscription-based service that
THE ART SCENE
provides members (in the U.S. and
Canada) access to an award-win-
Feast, a group exhibition of art-
ning Jewish-themed feature film
work all related to — what else!
and bonus short film every other
— food, continues through June
month, before they are released to
18 at the Lemberg Gallery, 23241
the general public. Contemporary
Woodward Ave., in Ferndale. Jewish
and global Jewish-themed
artist Jonathan Seliger features
films will be selected for their Jonathan Seliger:
a work called Short Stack, a
appeal to both affiliated and
hyperrealist sculpture of fast
Short Stack, 2008,
unaffiliated Jews, as well as
food containers. Special events,
automotive enamel
people of other faiths and
including a Saturday, June 18,
on aluminum.
cultures.
ice cream social with flavors
The films will be made
inspired by the exhibit, will ben-
available to club members to own on
efit Forgotten Harvest. Information: (248)
DVD and to view via online streaming.
591-6623; lemberggallery.com .
The Jewish Film Club's first selection, The
Human Resources Manager, was part of
this year's JCC Lenore Marwil Jewish Film

FAMILY FUN

Recording artist Sam
Glaser, an award-win-
ning Los Angeles-based
composer and per-
former of contemporary
Jewish music, will per-
Sam Glaser
form 3 p.m. Sunday, June
5, at Congregation Beth
Shalom, 14601 W. Lincoln, in Oak Park.
Glaser kicked off his current world tour
in September 2010 with the release of The
Songs We Sing Volume 2, which celebrates
28 of the greatest hits of the Jewish people.
"Music is so important to Jewish identity':
he says. "We may not see eye to eye on
observance, Israel and politics, but we all
can sing on the same note:'
Tickets in advance: adults, $10; children,
$5; family max, $25; preferred seating,
$18. (248) 547-7970; congbethshalom.org.
Kick off the summer season with
family and friends at the 48th annual
Birmingham Village Fair. The four day
event, which includes entertainment, car-
nival rides, games and food, will be held
on the surrounding streets of Shain Park
in downtown Birmingham noon-10 p.m.
Thursday, noon-11 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-11
p.m. Saturday and noon-9 p.m. Sunday,
June 2-5. The Bloomfield Chamber and
Birmingham Bloomfield Credit Union are
selling ride wristbands for $15 each until
June 1; wristbands can be purchased at
the fair for $20. A portion of fair proceeds
will be distributed to 18 local nonprofit
organizations. (248) 644-1700, ext. 24;
bbcc.com.

-

Email items for Out & About to gzimmerman@
thejewishnews.com. Notice is requested three

weeks before the scheduled event.

e, ws

4110 I Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

iva Role Reversal

(111)

42

CBS recently announced that Ashton
Kutcher is set to replace Charlie
Sheen on the hit series Two and a
Half Men. There is
a bizarre "sort of
Jewish" connection
to this cast change
that has no parallel
that I can think of.
As I've noted
before, Sheen was
fired for his wacko
Chuck Lorre
behavior, which
included chiding series creator
Chuck Lorre, 58, with remarks that
many took as anti-Semitic. When
confronted about this, Sheen falsely
claimed that his mother is Jewish.
Kutcher doesn't claim a Jewish

May 26 • 2011

mother – but he is almost as close a
"fellow traveler" of Judaism as one
can get. For about seven years, he
and his wife, actress Demi Moore,
have been devout followers of the
Kabbalah Centre, headquartered in
Los Angeles. In the past year, he
and Moore have visited Israel twice
– once in August to attend the birth-
day party in Jerusalem of the head
of the Kabbalah Centre and again in
October, when the couple renewed
their wedding vows in a ceremony in
Tel Aviv.
Last January, actress Natalie
Portman, 29, who speaks fluent
Hebrew, told Us Weekly: "Ashton has
taught me more about Judaism than
I think I have ever learned from any-
one else.... Ashton's a very serious
student of Kabbalah and Judaism.
He knows a lot. When we had the
funeral scene (in their movie No

Strings Attached), it was a Jewish
funeral. He was able to read all the
Hebrew. It's very impressive."
No doubt, the replacement of the
"ersatz Jew" Sheen by the Hebrew-
reading, non-Jew Kutcher is a coinci-
dence. It's certainly one for the books.

New Show Notes

NBC has picked-up

Debra Messing

for fall broadcast
the TV series Smash
– a sort of Glee for
adults. Based on an
idea by executive
producer Steven
Spielberg, the series

tells the trials and
tribulations of producing a Broadway

musical based on the life of Marilyn
Monroe. Angelica Huston plays the
show's producer; Debra Messing
(Will and Grace), 42, plays the lyri-

Maya Rudolph

cist of the show's
musical tunes. The
series will feature
original songs by the
(real-life) Tony and
Grammy-winning
songwriting team of
Marc Shaiman, 51,

and Scott Wittman.

Maya Rudolph, 39, currently star-
ring in the Judd Apatow-produced
film Bridesmaids, will co-star with
Christina Applegate and Will Arnett
in the upcoming NBC series Up All

Night.
Applegate plays an acerbic career
woman, while Arnett plays her stay-
at-home husband. Rudolph plays
Applegate's friend. Applegate and
her mother, who are not Jewish,
contributed a heartfelt essay to
Alan Dershowitz's book What Israel
Means to Me (2007). LI