I’m still in awe of Aida
Cuevas’s performance of her
album Totalmente Juan Gabriel
last Friday night.
Cuevas is a powerhouse
performer with phenomenal
vocals. She has been in the
music
industry
for
over
40 years, winning both a
Grammy and a Latin Grammy
award. Not only is Cuevas
an
incredible
singer,
but
she also has a strong stage
presence, holding herself with
tremendous confidence and
grace. Totalmente Juan Gabriel
is a tribute to her friend and
mentor Juan Gabriel, who
passed away in 2016.
From
the
second
her
mariachi
band,
Mariachi
Juvenil
Tecalitlán,
entered
the stage, the audience went
wild. I could feel the energy
explode with their opening
song, and their enthusiasm was
infectious. Even though I didn’t
know any of the words and don’t
understand Spanish well, the
upbeat tone of the music spoke
for itself.
Next to me, in front of me and
behind me, people were dancing
in their seats and singing along.
Towards the end of the night,
the audience sang so loudly that
Cuevas — with a huge, shocked
smile on her face — decided to
listen instead of sing. She looked
proud to have an audience so
engaged, and for others like
myself who didn’t know the
lyrics, it was incredible to
witness everyone else’s passion.
Throughout
the
night,
it
became clear that Cuevas meant
a lot to many of the audience
members. I couldn’t catch what
Cuevas was saying in between
songs in Spanish, but every
time she talked the audience
members
around
me
were
silent, as if savoring her every
last word. I began to realize that
for many people, Cuevas was
the connection to their culture
and
home
countries.
Many
parents were there with their
children, sharing an important
part of their identities through
Cuevas’s voice.
The majority of her songs
were in traditional mariachi
style, with energetic beats and a
general sentiment of happiness.
There was one slow song where
the lights dimmed and Cuevas
poured her soul into the singing,
but it wasn’t out of place, instead
reminding us that even when we
celebrate one’s life, we may feel
melancholic on the journey of
accepting their passing.
One of my favorite parts was
when members of Mariachi
Juvenil Tecalitlán band had
solos. They built off of each
other, and each instrument
got its shining moment. The
band members were overjoyed
with
our
reactions,
which
made it all the more exciting
to not just listen, but to watch
them perform with the same
enthusiasm as Cuevas.
The audience was so thrilled
with the show that even after
Cuevas said goodbye and left
the stage, they chanted loudly
for an encore, which caused
her to return for one final
performance. It was a special
moment as Cuevas discussed
how much it meant for her to
tour in North America and
share her music. This show
also fell during Día de Muertos
(Day of the Dead) — a Mexican
holiday celebrating friends and
family who have passed away
— making the tribute to Juan
Gabriel all the more powerful.
Cuevas
is
sometimes
compared to Aretha Franklin,
and I now understand why.
With her impressive vocal range
and ability to project emotion so
clearly in her voice, Cuevas is a
distinctive artist and important
figure in Mexican music. And
beyond that, she’s an icon who
offers Latinx Americans the
chance to reconnect to the
music of their roots.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 7, 2018 — 3A
By Michael Ray Jacobson and Patti Varol
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/07/18
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
11/07/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
Release Date: Wednesday, November 7, 2018
ACROSS
1 Crowds around
5 Geologic time
10 It’s the truth
14 Baseball’s Felipe
or his son Moises
15 Nabisco wafer
brand
16 Serengeti feline
17 Barclays Center
team
18 Strung along
19 Boatloads
20 1968 55-Across
song
23 Axis foes
24 Spot for an
AirPod
25 Tight spot
28 “__ whiz!”
29 Sundance’s
sweetie __ Place
32 1976 55-Across
album
34 Lofty principles
36 “Do __ others ... ”
37 1970 55-Across
song
41 “The Walking
Dead” survivor
Grimes
42 Advertising lure
43 1969 55-Across
album whose last
song is 20-Across
46 Business review
site
47 Influential D.C.
group
50 Place in the
woods
51 Forever and a day
53 “Watch and learn”
55 Singer/songwriter
born 11/7/1943
58 Auburn rival,
familiarly
61 Miguel’s “I love
you”
62 Small Chevy
model
63 Vacationing
64 Harsh-smelling
65 Sharp-edged
66 Tach reading
67 Annoy
68 Car trip game
DOWN
1 Metrosexual tote
2 Repetitive refrain
in the song “Hot
Hot Hot”
3 Perfume holder
4 Fish dish
served with
wasabi
5 Willing recruit
6 Like a noted
piper
7 Quaint retail
adjective
8 In the
neighborhood
9 ESPN anchor __
Storm
10 It may be tragic
11 Not feel well
12 Whisper sweet
nothings
13 Explosive letters
21 Far from swanky
22 Mined-over
matter
25 “We just said the
same thing at the
same time!”
26 Basic drawing
class
27 “Little Red Book”
author
30 Powder puff stuff
31 Bronze or brass
33 San __, Puerto
Rico
34 “House,” in Inuit
35 A few
37 Hayloft bundle
38 Wrinkle remover
39 Prosperous
40 __ sentence:
essay opener
41 Included in an
email, briefly
44 “Gloria in
Excelsis __”
45 “In America”
novelist Susan
47 Pet problems?
48 __ at the wheel
49 Ant-sy
complex?
52 Female relative
54 Uniform cloth
55 Rogers Centre
team, familiarly
56 K follower
57 “Look no further
than me”
58 Trivia night site
59 Bedazzle
60 Big D hoopster
SMTD alum Caleb Foote
on ‘The Kids Are Alright’
ABC’s newest family sitcom
“The Kids Are Alright” is already
making waves as one of fall’s best
new series. Set in suburban Los
Angeles during the early ’70s,
the story follows the Clearys,
a
dysfunctional,
testosterone-
filled
Irish-Catholic
household
navigating a politically divisive era
amid sibling rivalries and working-
class struggles.
Though the show dedicates
most of its time to lonesome
middle child Timmy (Jack Gore,
“Billions”), “The Kids Are Alright”
deftly
fleshes
out
distinctive
personalities within the rest of
the Cleary family, including the
endearingly goofy Eddie, played by
University alum Caleb Foote.
As an acting major at the
University,
Foote
performed
in
several
student
theater
productions, including “Henry IV,
Part 1.” In the summer of 2015, he
participated in the Educational
Theater Company, an on-campus
group
that
incorporates
performance
through
an
interactive, educational lens in
an effort to enlighten incoming
freshmen about the many social,
academic and personal issues they
might encounter during college.
After receiving a Bachelor of
Fine Arts degree in 2016, Foote
continued to perform onstage in
a variety of plays, including “Zoot
Suit” at the Mark Taper Forum
in Los Angeles and “Hansel and
Gretel Blue Grass.” In 2017, he
was given the San Diego Theatre
Critics Circle Craig Noel Award for
Outstanding Male Performance
for his lead role in “Hand to God.”
From there, Foote made his way
onto television, guest starring in
FX’s “American Horror Story:
Cult” and “American Crime Story:
The
Assassination
of
Gianni
Versace.”
In a recent phone interview
with The Daily, Foote discussed his
positive undergraduate experience
at the University, the perks of being
a regular player on a network show
and the differences between acting
onscreen and acting onstage.
The Michigan Daily: How did
your education at Michigan shape
your understanding of acting and
performing for the camera?
Caleb
Foote:
It
greatly
shaped it. I can take back all
my
professional
successes
to
my education and degree at the
University of Michigan. In 2016,
the year I graduated, we had a
senior showcase and it was the
first
school-produced
senior
showcase. You do two scenes,
typically contrasting scenes, and
you do them in New York and Los
Angeles and Chicago for industry
professionals and a bunch of
people we cold-called — agents and
managers and casting directors,
trying to get them to show up with
the hopes that they would sign us. I
was fortunate enough to get some
really cool bites in Los Angeles. I
got my agent and manager from
my showcase, and they’re the
agent and manager I have now.
Every single professional gig from
a non-union play, which led to a
union play, which led to a small
part on a TV show, which led to
an important part on a TV show,
which led to a series regular on the
ABC network... I can directly trace
it from the University of Michigan,
the showcase and the class I took
for the showcase.
To get into the acting school,
there’s a lot of natural talent that
you have to have. You have to be
good enough to be accepted by the
faculty. From the early stages of
the program, you get out of your
old high school acting habits and
the things that got you there. From
there, you expand on what makes
you unique. That’s what being an
upperclassman is like; you take
what you’re really good at, you
mold it and you challenge yourself
with the things you aren’t so good
at. The acting school is just this
great platform for development
and risk-taking. If you go in there
and do something totally stupid, it’s
not like your peer that’s watching
you is a casting director that will
never want to see you again. That
is where you take those risks, as
cheesy as that sounds.
TMD: In addition to TV, you’ve
performed on stage both during
your time at Michigan and after
graduating. What have you found
to be different between acting for
the screen versus acting on stage?
CF: The payday (laughs). The
pay is way different for the camera
because once it’s on camera, it’s
kind of immortalized forever in
the history books of television. For
theater, you spend a month and a
half, two months if you’re super
lucky, but you have this extended
period of time to memorize, to
rehearse, to get everything set in
stone. It’s this really great creative
process and by the end of it, you
have all of this time to prep and be
show-ready, which is brilliant. But
the difference between theater and
film and television is that with film
and television, the turnaround is
SAM ROSENBERG
Senior Arts Editor
ABC
so fast. You’re shooting an episode
a week. You’re doing an episode in
five work days. You have a weekend
to memorize and when you walk
on set, you have to be totally off-
book. You basically read it with
the director and then you kind of
walk it through, map out whatever
idea you have or the director has.
Theater would be like the actor’s
medium, and television is like the
writer’s medium. It’s more of like
what you bring in your impulses,
and then the director makes his or
her adjustments and there’s not so
much of a long process of deciding
on what should I do and mapping
out specific blocking.
With theater, you have so long
to rehearse and to get into your
character and to stay in it for
the two-and-a-half hours you’re
doing the show. For television, it’s
everything that’s in that box of
the camera and you’re just doing
the writers justice and it’s really
just you at home memorizing and
trying to understand the joke,
so that when you walk in on set,
you’re ready to just do it because
you gotta knock that out and then
you have to do two more scenes
after that.
TMD: “The Kids Are Alright”
centers a lot around dysfunctional
family dynamics. What was your
experience like working with such
a large ensemble of actors of all
different ages?
CF: It’s my first time that I’m
not the youngest person on set. It’s
great. We’re working with these
vets Michael Cudlitz and Mary
McCormack, these people that
have been in the game for so long.
You learn that there are so many
different approaches to the game.
Like, their process of learning
the material and then bringing it
forward to the director and crew, it
totally varies. And these kid actors
we’re working with are brilliant.
There’s so many of them. The only
downfall to working with these
kid actors is that they have to go
to school because you just want to
hang out with them all the time.
Being one of the older boys of the
show, myself and my older bro,
we get to tackle the young adult
topics. Meanwhile, the kids get
to tackle all the mischief, ruffian,
getting-into-the-neighbors-yard-
and-stealing-a-dog business, and
the mom and dad can handle
the housekeeping and then later,
bigger family mom-and-dad issues.
TMD: Your character Eddie is
the second-oldest of seven kids.
How do you think he stands out
among his siblings?
CF: That’s funny you say that.
The show was written as a pilot
and it was based on (“The Kids
Are Alright” creator and narrator)
Tim Doyle’s life. A bunch of it is
pretty close to home and realistic
to what happened in his childhood.
The pilot is so fast, and it’s a little
bit overwhelming and it’s kind of
hard to distinguish characters.
But as the show progresses,
because there are 10 characters,
in every single scene there are
10 opportunities to make a joke
and (our writing team) does such
a brilliant job of distinguishing
each character. Eddie specifically
is so fun to play because he’s this
impulsive,
big-hearted...
total
goofball. When (the eldest brother)
Lawrence goes to the seminary,
(Eddie) kind of takes the role of
the oldest brother, so you’ll see
him carrying the baby and stuff.
But he’s just this light-hearted
guy who has a girlfriend, and it’s
the first time anyone in the Cleary
household has brought a girl home.
Growing up in a household of all
boys, they’re kind of unfamiliar
with how to act around a girl and
everyone has their input on how
to be a boyfriend and how to be in
a relationship and that results in
some pretty great comedy.
TMD: Do you have any brothers
or siblings?
CF: Yeah! I grew up in a Roman-
Catholic home, basically Irish-
Catholic. I have three brothers.
TMD: Did your upbringing
inspire your performance at all?
CF: Even though I didn’t grow
up in the ’70s, I can still relate
to the Catholic upbringing with
all the boys and the chaos and
Mom trying to get everyone ready
before Sunday mass and the big
breakfasts and the “you’re on your
own, take care of yourself because
if you don’t do it yourself, someone
else is gonna eat that drumstick.”
I’m the second-youngest, third-
oldest boy in my real family. It kind
of takes me back to being a younger
guy, which is brilliant because who
doesn’t want to be young?
TMD: How do you get into
character and immerse yourself in
your role?
CF: This is my first time
reporting to a job in film and
television like it’s a day job, like
clocking in and out every single
day for an extended period of
time. Something with that is like,
you want to go in every single day
being like, “I’m gonna do my best
work.” But you can’t control what’s
happening to you that day and
especially because this is going
on for a long period of time, every
single scene can’t be an Emmy-
award-winning scene. Such a big
part of doing a series regular job
and shooting four scenes a day and
then the next day shooting five
scenes and the next day shooting
one scene is that you can’t have that
much weight on you. And after you
do a scene, even if it wasn’t your
greatest performance, you kind of
just gotta let it go and look forward
and look ahead to your next one.
You can’t beat yourself up over the
things you can’t control. Some days,
you’re gonna totally knock it out
the park, and the writers are gonna
give you this brilliant joke and you
get to be on this great location with
a trash can. And then on another
day, you’re gonna be a wallflower
and you’re gonna have one line and
you’re gonna feel weird about that
line but you can’t let that bring you
down because that’s the beauty
of being on an ensemble project.
There are so many people to rely
on. It’s like a team sport. I believe
it’s a winning team.
TMD: This wasn’t your first
rodeo on TV. Your other credits
include FX’s “American Horror
Story” and “American Crime
Story: The Assassination of Gianni
Versace,” both of which were
created by Ryan Murphy. How
different was your experience
working on a cable drama from
working on a network comedy?
CF: I can’t get killed off at this
show (laughs). In all the other
ones, I was always at risk. Every
single day is the best day of work.
That’s why we do it. But with that,
you’ll get a new script every Friday
and when you get that new script
working on the cable shows, you
sift through the script to see if you
have any lines, to see where your
character comes up. It’s so much
fun, but there’s always that chance
that your character gets killed off.
That happened to me in “American
Horror Story.” I was three episodes
deep, and I was sifting through (the
script) and I was like, “Heck yes! So
fun, so fun.” And I made all these
friends. And then my character,
boom, my character gets gunned
down, four gunshots to the chest.
All my buds got to keep going on
and I was like, “Why? Why me?!”
This is my first job where they can’t
kill me.
TMD: As the season continues,
what can viewers expect to see
from your character and the rest of
the Cleary household?
CF: A lot of heart from the whole
family. Our writing room is pretty
insane and our creative team has
a really great track record. It’s not
like this is their big break. They’ve
been making TV for a while and
really good TV, so we’re in really
good hands. Right now, we won’t
be relying on principal office
visits because we have such a big
cast that as the episodes progress,
our writing team has been able
to distinguish and expand on the
characters and make them bigger
and more specific. I have just so
much love for our writing team.
You’re gonna see a lot more Eddie,
I’ll tell you that.
You can catch Caleb Foote on
“The Kids Are Alright” every
Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. on ABC.
RUCHITA IYER / DAILY
Aida Cuevas brought down
Hill with her voice on Fri.
NITYA GUPTA
Daily Arts Writer
ARTIST PROFILE
EVENT REVIEW