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Friday Morning Roundup


by Stephen Becker 15 Apr 2011 7:40 AM

Today in the roundup: Fats Waller’s alive in Arlington, the Dallas Contemporary’s high profile and Pete Yorn on how to write a song.

CTA TBD

LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOYS: Theatre Arlington’s take on Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a fairly straight-ahead, cabaret-style reading of Fats Waller’s music. Five singers perform all the songs, and to read the reviews, the two men in the cast – Calvin Roberts and Akron Watson – more than hold their own. “The two are quite different in appearance and approach, but their levels of talent are highly comparable,” Punch Shaw writes in his dfw.com review. “It is just about impossible to say who is the more accomplished and entertaining performer. And both seem to top themselves as they move from one tune to the next.” Kris Noteboom concurs. “Roberts controls the stage as if he’d been born on it. His performance is so effortless and he disappears so fully into his characters that one is left to wonder if he actually lived during Waller’s time,” he writes on theaterjones.com. “And Watson is all personality wrapped in a dynamic yet velvety smooth voice. Both have powerful presence and that unique ability to really draw an audience into a performance.” Catch the show through May 1.

AT THE FOREFRONT: A few weeks back, Dallas Contemporary director Peter Doroshenko was kind enough to stop by KERA for an episode of Think TV. The Contemporary was one of the beneficiaries of the Dallas Art Fair, and it had three shows opening. He talks about all the buzz around the Contemporary these days with the Art This Week crew.

QUOTABLE: “It’s kind of mysterious. I usually write when I am home alone. I’ve experimented with different styles. Sometimes, I just write down all the thoughts in my head in a journal. I like that unconscious writing — stuff that just comes out of nowhere. I see colors and all of a sudden a song appears.”

Pete Yorn, talking about his songwriting process, in an interview with DC 9 at Night. Catch him tonight at the Granada with Ben Kweller.

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