In cities across the country big and small, new artistic energies have often found focus in abandoned industrial districts, where fine old buildings with lots of space offer opportunities for lofts, studios and performance venues, plus the people-oriented businesses that come to surround them. Now and again the old Creamery in Arcata, in the largely […]
Arts + Scene
Reviews, interviews and upcoming highlights from the week in visual and performing arts around Humboldt County.
Posted inArts + Scene
Here’s Looking at You
Did you ever get the feeling someone was watching you? These days, most likely someone is. What with security cameras, web cams, airport screening devices and the like, you are probably being watched more often than you realize. With privacy such a beloved right in this country, that’s likely to get a few people hot […]
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Jake’s Women – Lively Production, Problematic Play
There’s a particular interest in a writer seeing a play about a writer who is too much the observer and not enough the participant in his own life, especially when one is among those reviewers who began as a participant in theatre – as a playwright, actor, director and even a song composer, and whose […]
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NPA’s Youthful Dream Concludes, NCRT’s Midlife Fantasy Ahead
You can still catch The Dream Play at the Van Duzer – its run concludes with 8 p.m. performances on Wednesday (Jan. 24) and Thursday (Jan. 25). These Young Actors Guild shows from the Northcoast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy are unique. They bring together young people devoted to an arts-based education with visionary theatrical […]
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Mad? Get creative!
The war in Iraq is out of control, the City of New Orleans gets swept away by a hurricane and our government bungles aid operations to the victims, the polar ice caps are melting and our food is being tampered with at the genetic level. What’s a person to do? Don’t get mad – get […]
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Previewing A Dream and Lettice on Wry
I once had after-theatre supper with Maggie Smith, sort of. Familiar to a new generation as Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter movies, she was then known as the Oscar-nominated star of Travels With My Auntand other films. I was actually supping with Pat Mitchell, then the entertainment reporter for a Boston television station, now […]
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Men On Bikes
The light is fading at the Arcata Community Skate Park as Oliver Wallace begins another lap around the perimeter of the park, heading towards the big concrete bowl. He dips his bike over the edge of the bowl, rolls across the middle, and swoops up the other side, keeping one hand on the handlebars and […]
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Manifest Destiny
I should have seen it immediately. The clues were right there in Chris Durant’s splashy piece in the Times-Standard at the end of December. The headline, "Crooks pull elaborate casino heist" was accompanied by a clever graphic with the three suspects’ mug shots embedded in a slot machine. The photo of Peter Daniel Collins wasn’t […]
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Roger and out
Supervisor Roger Rodoni was creaky and hoarse when he made his last stand at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning – at least that’s the way he appeared on television – but flu or not, the old cowboy did manage to unleash a customarily acerbic defense while his colleagues held his head under the […]
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The Studio School
Amber Marks-Thornton has been attending classes at the Studio School since she was 5 years old (it was called the Art Academy then). She’s now 16. Meadow Cooskey’s parents drive her all the way from Petrolia every Saturday during class sessions to attend the program’s art classes on the HSU campus. Parents of students report […]
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Ema Gyaru
The exhibition filling the Thonson Gallery at the Morris Graves Museum of Art titled "A Bridge to Japan: Orr Marshall Retrospective" is a tribute to the breadth and scope of work by the Eureka-based artist. Marshall says his path to Japan began in the mid-’60s at Oakland’s College of Arts and Crafts where he was […]
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Test
At Jacoby Creek School in Arcata, billows of steam cloud the plastic food guards that protect the tables of hot food, duplicating the winter fog that mists the cafeteria windows. The smells of ketchup, vegetable soup and yesterday’s lasagna mingle with the odors of rubber balls and kid sweat from the game of kickball that […]