Spoletoblog

Chip Menotti spotted?

So who in Charleston has seen Francis "Chip" Menotti, the adopted son of the late Gian Carlo Menotti?

The answer is Ali Rahnamoon, the longtime pastry chef at Saffron's restaurant on East Bay Street near the Gaillard Auditorium. Rahnamoon remembers serving food to Gian Carlo Menotti back before the Pulitzer Prize-winning founder of the Spoleto festivals in both Italy and Charleston broke off his relationship with Spoleto Festival USA in 1993.

Said Rahnamoon: "Chip was in here last week, around April 11 or 12, and had a cup of coffee. He told me he was visiting with friends in Charleston and was staying the week at Wild Dunes."

However, no one else seems to know anything about Chip's mysterious visit to this city he once left on such bad terms. Redden was out of his New York office at Lincoln Center and could no be reached for comment. Paula Edwards, head of public relations for Spoleto Festival USA, said she knew nothing of Chip Menotti's alleged visit. Same with Susan Ravenel, a longtime board member who recently rotated off the board. "I'm sure I would have heard," Ravenel said.

Redden was in town on April 11 for a press conference and the public unveiling of the official 2007 Spoleto poster and didn't mention any visit from Chip Menotti to the press.

Since Menotti's death Spoleto-watchers have been on the lookout for signs of a potential reunion between the Italian and American festivals. Chip Menotti is often cited as a likely obstacle to any proposed restoration of those ties.

Several weeks ago, a longtime Spoleto board member reported that Charleston Mayor Joe Riley had received a letter from Chip Menotti saying that he hopes to visit Charleston when the festival is held here May 25-June 10. Despite repeated requests over the past week, Riley has refused to comment about the letter.

Charlestonians seem to favor the idea of reuniting the festivals. In a previous story published in The Post and Courier, Riley had said that he thought the idea of the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and the Spoleto Festival USA reuniting at some point would be beneficial to both. Spoleto artistic director for chamber music Charleston Wadsworth echoed the mayor's sentiments in the same news story.

According to Redden, the speaker for the opening ceremonies will be Brunini Massimo, the mayor of Spoleto Italy, who was invited before the death of Gian Carlo Menotti.

Chip Menotti is remembered in Charleston for his role in his adopted father's break with the American festival. Locals criticized the Menottis for what they considered to be lavish spending habits at a time when the festival was operating in debt.

He is also remembered for pushing his father to fire Nigel Redden, then general manager of the festival, over "disagreements in managing the board" in the fall of 1991. The board rehired Redden in 1995.

Friday the 13th

VERY SUPERSTITIOUS PARTY

Friday night
8-11 p.m.
Visitor's Center Bus Shed
375 Meeting Street
$7 for students, $13 for everybody else
WEB SITE

Why?
Here's the press release:

Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs/C of C
Raise Funds for Students

On Friday, April 13th from 8 to 11 p. m., at the Visitor’s Center Bus Shed
(375 Meeting Street), the City of Charleston’s Office of Cultural Affairs and C of C’s Arts Management Program, School of the Arts will host an event titled Very Superstitious. 
Admission is a lucky $7 for students (with a valid ID) and $13 general admission. Donations are tax-deductible and can be made payable to the College of Charleston Foundation.

Gala celebrities

Amid the swirl of some of the fanciest dresses this side of the Rue de Faubourg, the 30th Spoleto Festival USA gala, which has risen from about $50 a person to $400 since 1977 (when it was a modest affair), got going late Saturday night at Gaillard Auditorium's annex hall following a performance of the Paul Taylor Dancers.

Among guests at the festival's biggest fundraiser was Academy Award winning actress Jane Alexander wearing a shimmering dress of shades of purple overlaid with fuschia stripes. She was in town with her husband Ed Sherin visiting old friends Howard and Mary Phipps.

"Spoleto is so wonderful I would never miss it," said Alexander who, with actress Karen Allen, performed in "Monday After the Mircle" William Gibson's play about Helen Keller at the Dock Street Theatre during a festival in the early 80s. Alexander said she loved everything about performing at the Dock Street.

Alexander finished shooting a movie with Nicole Kidman (Fur) last spring, and says it should be opening in theaters this summer.

Sherin, who has directed more than 30 plays in New York, was the director of the television series Law and Order for 10 years and now directs the dramatic series Medium on NBC.Sherin said he loves to visit Charleston because people are so friendly.

Sherin met Alexander while directing the groundbreaking 1969 play, "The Great White Hope," one of the first Broadway shows to feature interracial lovers. Alexander co-starred with James Earl Jones.

Sherin is very interested in young people who are interested in writing for television and has offered to speak to a group of  theater students from the College of Charleston on their annual trip to New York.

While wine from Veneto flowed, also lending a celebrity sheen to the evening were 50 members of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' Presdient's Advisory Committee on the Arts, who came from all over the nation. Members are appointed by President George Bush and frequently travel to sites to watch first-class performing arts groups they might like to  bring to perform at the Kennedy Center.

Spoleto Festival board member John Dunnan, who is president of the Performing Arts Committee of the Kennedy Center, arranged for the advisory committee to come to Spoleto. Earlier in the weekend,  Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, said he was extremely impressed with the Spoleto line-up and with the way the festival promotes the arts and makes many of the events accessible to everyone in the community.

Speaking of making the arts accessible, Arlene Shuler, who is married to festival general director Nigel Redden, was here for the weekend and said she is working hard to make certain dance is accessible to many in New York by charging $10 a ticket during the City Center's Dance Festival held in September. Last year, it lasted a week and this year it is to last 10 days, said Shuler, whose idea it was to start the festival ,which features as many as five dance performances a day.

By the way,many of the Spoleto signs are wrong. For example, the gala program  proclaims, "Spoleto Festival USA, 30th Anniversary." It's the festival's 29th anniversary. Next year is the big 3-0. 

Are Spoletians a heat source?

Patrick Sharbaugh (The City Paper, Spoleto Buzz) likes to say that it really doesn't feel like festival season in Charleston until the mercury pushes above 90 for a few consecutive days.

Well, doesn't it feel like festival season NOW?

Since we were out of coffee this morning I decided to drive down to Kudu for a cup of the house blend, and the scene really struck me. We're just a few days away from the festival opening, that trademark hot cotton sky has returned to the city, and Upper King Street looks like London during the Blitz. Road construction. Traffic cones. Detours. Dust. Yellow engineers tape.

Plus there's more graffiti on more stuff downtown than I've ever seen in my 12 years here.

Perhaps this is just the big rush to clean up before company arrives. Maybe the plan is an enormous "stash and dash" to make the place presentable to the world. Whatever.

Let's just say that that our company's just called to say they're on the way, and the floor is still covered with junior's Legos. Not to mention the fact that the air conditioner's busted.

Again.

Windows on the world

Come on, admit it. You were dying to know who was cruising around town in the white stretch limo last Friday afternoon.  We saw your heads whipping around like something from "The Exorcist," trying to get a peek inside the tinted windows.  Sorry to disappoint you but it wasn't Brangelina or TomKat, just a bunch of  local media types judging the Spoleto window display contest.

It was a beautiful afternoon, a great day to leave work early. We gathered at the Spoleto offices on George Street then piled into the limo and cracked open the champagne. All was well as we made our way past our first entry, the Charleston County Library with its impressive re-creation of the Spoleto poster, then headed for upper King. Things were moving along quite smoothly, despite fears that all that road construction might impede our progress. As we crossed George Street, we began to feel a bit warm but thought it was just the champagne. Alas, as we reached Society Street, it was obvious that the A/C had conked out. And then the engine died. Despite our driver Angie's best efforts, we were stranded right in the middle of King Street. Luckily, we broke down right next to Charleston Police Officer Smith who directed traffic and kindly agreed to have his photo taken with us. We gave him one of our sandwiches and some chips in thanks, but he passed on the champagne.

We climbed out of the car for some fresh air - and that's when we saw y'all scratching your heads wondering just who this ragtag group of "celebrities" was. When you didn't see Oprah or Paris Hilton, we could sense your disappointment. But we had work to do. To make the best of a bad situation,   we checked out nearby windows on foot. One of our crew - who shall remain nameless - gamely soldiered on, despite wearing what looked like 5-inch high lucite plaforms, or what she called her "stripper shoes."

Finally another limo came to our rescue and the rest of the judging passed without incident.

And the winners are...

Sorry, we're sworn to secrecy. You'll just have to wait until the official announcement. But we will say there are a lot of creative shops around town, and it would be worth your while to take a stroll downtown and check them out. And we'll be back to check out some of the really cute clothes we saw.

Saturday night: a retrospective

The thing EVERYBODY connected to the Piccolo Finale was worried about was rain: Namely, when would it come, and how much would we get?

But the rain gods proved exceptionally benevolent Saturday. The evening was overcast, sultry and humid, but the threatened thunderstorm stayed away. The night's fireworks (a more modest display than the average Riverdogs Friday night, by my estimation) went off as planned, and everyone folded up their blankets and chairs and headed for their cars.

On their way out, as if on cue, a light rain began to fall. Not a torrent, mind you, and just a step above a drizzle. Just enough to cool the evening down and send everyone on their way.

The Soiree seems to have been a success, too. Spoletoblog's party insider, Mindy Spar, stopped by our own little front-porch soiree late last night after attending the big to-do at the Gaillard and had nice things to say about it. This is remarkable, in that Mindy has worked every day since the start of the festival and has probably attended more parties in the past 16 nights than we'll be invited to all year. If Madonna, Yo Yo Ma, Jenna Bush, Michael Moore and Nigel Redden strutted into a downtown party holding hands and singing Guerilla Radio by Rage Against the Machine, Mindy could be forgiven for asking the hostess "Where are the canapes?" Ms. Spar, if you're out there, hang on: One more night, and you get a break.

Quote, unquote

New York of the South?

"The Spoleto party scene tells a larger story about a new group of social movers and shakers who are transforming Charleston into the New York of the South, as it was known before the Civil War. The New Guard is made up of couples in their 30s and 40s with young children with young children who attend the city's most prestigious private schools together -- about half the first-grade class at Charleston Day School was born outside Charleston."

-- Society columnist A.L. Gordon of The New York Sun, writing about the Spoleto festival in her June 1st "Out and About" column

Vince's Pecans

I knew Saturday night's cast party for Colla Marionettes was going to be a good one from the minute I received the invite and saw it was being hosted by a couple named Chris and Christine. Gotta love that.

And I wasn't disappointed. First there was a fabulous jazz trio playing next to the patio (and next to the bar where bartender Vince's famous pecans could be found and consumed by the handful.) I asked their name but they told me they didn't have one. They were just guys that played together so I dubbed them the Three Guys That Play Together Trio. Here they are:
And here is a photo of Obie winning actress Maude Mitchell (left) and Mabou Mines Director Lee Breuer at the Friday night cast party that I didn't have a chance to get on that post. They were comparing the shininess of their heads.

OK, enough with the rain...

As an editor from a previous newspaper stop once told me, "Everybody always complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it." I'm quite sure he didn't make that up.

But I think we've reached a point where you just have to break down and say that the single most memorable feature of this year's festival (so far, anyway) has been the rain. That's not an insult aimed at the festivals, simply an observation. In the 10 days of the festival so far, we've had rain on seven of them. That's roughly 3.4 inches of rain since opening day (when it didn't rain a lick), which by my reckoning is about three times the normal rainfall for this time of year.

Last Wednesday the forecast called for a wet week leading up to a dry Friday. That didn't quite pan out (we got almost an inch of rain on June 3), but Saturday was nice, if a bit steamy. Today the rain is back, with more-of-same in the long-range forecast .

Rain doesn't make or break a festival, but it definitely affects its tone and colors our memories. Rain does affect the financial bottom line though, particularly for Spoleto's Finale, a for-profit event that is so weather-dependent that it's practically like farming. The first forecast for next weekend is up today, and it isn't promising: Partly cloudy. A chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 80s. Lows in the lower 70s. Chance of rain 30 percent.

Today was intermittently wet, with the fogged windows on every venue telling the story without a word: It's a jungle out there. Or a rainforest.

Found art

That new image in the upper lefthand corner is a bit of "found art" at the Simons Center. Seems someone painted a cabinet (I think it's part of the box office, selling T-shirts or some such) with the festival logo and then decided to add the words "since 1977."

Take away a couple of key letters and you get "sin 1977," which pretty much describes the way the rest of the state feels about Charleton in general and Spoleto in particular.

(June 5 editor's note: Replaced the top lefthand standing image with a new one, so I've moved this one here so that it makes sense. I hope. dc)