See them the way they were meant to be seen…

done

Everything Old is New Again

In 1915 the Majestic Theatre opened on Congress Avenue.   Fifteen years later it would be renamed the Paramount Theatre.   This Friday night we are celebrating Austin Pride Weekend by turning Austin’s oldest performing arts center into Austin’s hottest nightclub for one night.   After an 8PM screening of The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, guests will enjoy a  DJ, dance  floor, state of the art sound and light system., dancers, costume contest… it should be off the hook.  For more information on the Majestic Party go to www.austintheatre.org.

Nice Way to End the Week

We got a  wonderful surprise in the mail today.

The link below takes you to the blog written by our Director of Education and Outreach, Nathaniel Miller (we call him Nat but the kids call him Mr. Miller).

Recently a special group of girls from the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders were given free tickets to come and see Maya Angelou at the Paramount.  The tickets valued at over $1,000 were donated thanks to your support.  What happened next was magical… please click on the link below… and thank you.

 http://paramountoutreach.wordpress.com/

Generosity Gone Wild

  

We are putting the finishing touches on the Gala and I am shocked at the generosity of the community for this special theatre.  The auction has over 375 items valued at more than $475,000.   Items include a week on a yacht, a beach front home in the Galapagos Islands, a resort in France, a week in Spain, tickets to the Presidents Cup with travel and lodging in San Francisco…

We will literally shut down Congress Ave for 24 hours to put on this event.  Boz Scaggs.  Kat Edmonson.  Radio Star.  Dinner.  Dance.  Auction.   Open bar.  My head is spinning.  Thank God for that open bar…

Give and Take

 

One of the nice things about my job is that I get to have a different perspective on the shows at the Paramount – literally not figuratively.  Standing backstage I get to see and hear things that the audience misses.  But whether I am in the audience or back stage, the Paramount remains a magical place.

After the dance show, Diavolo – Foreign Bodies, I got a few minutes alone with artistic director, Jacques Heim, who asked me if the Paramount audience was always so generous.  “My dancers are feeding off the energy from your audience.  It is like a fantastic feast!”  And he was right.  The dancers were energized by the audience.  It’s not the first time an artist has told me that there is a special connection between the audience and stage at the Paramount.

A week later the exact opposite thing happened when Maya Angelou took the stage.   I watched the entire talk from backstage and at the end of the show Dr. Angelou nearly collapsed from exhaustion.  The audience had captured her so completely that she gave herself over that night.  When she signalled to allow for an encore her staff was speechless – Evidently that is very rare.  She left the Paramount drained but at the same time enthralled.

Before she left,  Dr. Angelou asked that I share these poems with you:

The Health-Food Diner by Maya Angelou

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots
And Brussels in a cake,
Carrot straw and spinach raw,
(Today, I need a steak).

Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw
Or mushrooms creamed on toast,
Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed,
(I’m dreaming of a roast).

Health-food folks around the world
Are thinned by anxious zeal,
They look for help in seafood kelp
(I count on breaded veal).

No smoking signs, raw mustard greens,
Zucchini by the ton,
Uncooked kale and bodies frail
Are sure to make me run to
Loins of pork and chicken thighs
And standing rib, so prime,
Pork chops brown and fresh ground round
(I crave them all the time).

Irish stews and boiled corned beef
and hot dogs by the scores,
or any place that saves a space
For smoking carnivores.

 

A Brave and Startling Truth by Maya Angelou

 We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

This poem was written and delivered in honor of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

Unfinished Business

Tonight I met Dr. Maya Angelou.  I felt like I was in the presence of royalty… and in a way, I was.  She is extraordinary.

During her presentation at the Paramount she said, “I wrote a song for Roberta Flack and I want Mr. Stein to post it to the theatre’s website.”  So I did…  not after the show, but immediately after she said that.  When Maya Angelou asks you to do something, you don’t hesitate. I got up from my seat, walked to the box office, sat at a computer and posted lyrics to the song here on my blog which links to the theatre’s website and my Facebook page.  Then I went back to my seat. 

After the show, I discovered that while I was gone, she had asked me to post two additional poems.   Were you at the show?  If so, can you tell me which poems she asked me to post?  I don’t want to dissappoint her…

Willie

Maya Angelou asked me if I would post this on the theatre’s website.   It is a song she wrote for Roberta Flack called “Willie”.  When Maya Angelou asks you to do something, you do it… happily.

Willie
by Maya Angelou

Willie was a man without fame,
Hardly anybody knew his name.
Crippled and limping, always walking lame,
He said, “I keep on movin’
Movin’ just the same.”

Solitude was the climate in his head,
Emptiness was the partner in his bed,
Pain echoed in the steeps of his tread,
He said, “I keep on followin’
Where the leaders led.

“I may cry and I will die,
But my spirit is the soul of every spring,
Watch for me and you will see
That I’m present in the songs that children sing.”

People called him “Uncle,” “boy” and “Hey,”
Said, “You can’t live through this another day.”
The, they waited to hear what he would say.
He said, “I’m living
In the games that children play.

“You may enter my sleep, people my dreams,
Threaten my early morning’s ease,
But I keep comin’ followin’ laughin’ cryin’,
Sure as a summer breeze.

“Wait for me, watch for me.
My spirit is the surge of open seas.
Look for me, ask for me,
I’m the rustle in the autumn leaves.

“When the sun rises
I am the time.
When the children sing
I am the Rhyme.”

Polar Opposites

  

Lisa Lampanelli wasn’t in rare form Friday night at the Paramount… she was in regular form: rude, crude and fabulously hilarious.  With both the early and late show filled with hysterical fans, Lisa seemed to be enjoying her Austin tour stop.

I have always celebrated the Paramount’s eclectic and diverse offerings.  We bring in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and eventually everyone finds something they like.  But what is about to happen in the next 24 hours is taking that concept to the extreme… and maybe not in a good way.

Lisa will leave the stage around midnight.   Approximately 18 hours later, Dr. Maya Angelou will take the stage. In what parallel universe did we come up with that programming schedule?

WARNING

DO NOT READ THIS POST if you don’t like or otherwise have issues with filthy words…

David Sedaris survived the hotel fire in Dallas and made it to Austin safe and sound.  To my knowledge his hotel stay in Austin was uneventful.   His show, on the other hand, was not.

David’s popularity in Austin has grown over the years to the extent that hosting him at the Paramount is no longer an option.  We just don’t have enough seats.   The PAC and Long Center were not available on the date he wanted to be in Austin so we rented Riverbend Church with its 2,300+ seats and crossed our fingers  (if not ourselves) and hoped that the idea of presenting David in a church wouldn’t be too odd for his fans.  Turns out, not an issue.   The show was sold out.

Now introducing celebrities like Carol Burnett, Shirley Maclaine, Hal Holbrook and Lyle Lovett at the Paramount has been a surreal experience for me as I do not have an arts background and never aspired to be in the entertainment business.  That said, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would be standing in Riverbend Church introducing David Sedaris. And even though my Programming Director, Lietza Brass, assured me that the church was well aware of who would be “preaching from the pulpit”, I remained skeptical about whether or not the microphone would be cut off and the house lights brought up to end the show prematurely.

David, as usual, wowed the crowd, but he didn’t seem phased by being in a church.   Fuck, shitter, asshole and other David Sedaris favorites words were in good supply.  After the lecture, David did tell me that he had changed his presentation a bit out of respect and instead gave his “clean” version.    Really David?   Really?  Because you used the word  “cockmaster” so I am curious what your filthy version sounds like?

David, ever generous with his fans, stayed until midnight signing books. On the car ride back to his hotel he asked if I could take him to a fast food place so we went to the only one I knew was still open – Taco Cabana at Lamar and Riverside.  Something tells me a fire of anther type happened in his hotel room here in Austin because I convinced him to order the Super Mexican Dinner with a Banana Chiller. 

While waiting in the drive-through lane I asked him if he was surprised by his popularity.    “Shocked,” he said.  “I just don’t understand it at all.”

David heads on to Detroit next as part of his 30 cities in 30 days tour where sold out venues await him in almost every city.

FIRE!

The Adolphus hotel in downtown Dallas evacuated its guests this morning after a fire broke out in the basement.

Why blog about this?

Because that is the hotel where David Sedaris is staying in Dallas and he is due in Austin tonight for a show.   I hear he is OK but we may have to buy him a change of clothes when he gets here. Stay tuned….