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Thursday Morning Roundup


by Stephen Becker 6 Jun 2013 8:07 AM

A former SMU teacher and DSO player gets a big honor. Plus, critics check in on Fort Worth’s new drive in and WaterTower’s wedding play.

CTA TBD

HONORING A LEGEND: Next week, the first annual Lev Aronson Legacy Festival Week takes place at SMU. Aronson was once the principle cellist for the DSO, and he also taught at SMU. The festival is founded by a former student, Brian Thornton, who’s currently part of the Cleveland Orchestra. The purpose of the event is to not only honor his teacher’s musical contribution, but also to shed light on his amazing story of surviving the Holocaust. Thornton talked to NPR member station WKSU in Cleveland about his beloved teacher, whose survival story would make a good movie.

A DRIVE-IN CONVERT: Fort Worth is now home to Coyote Drive-In – a definite throwback in a time when more people are content to just watch movies at home. And Christopher Kelly, the former Fort Worth Star-Telegram movie critic, is one moviegoer who figured the drive-in no longer has a place in this world. But a funny thing happened when he actually went to the Coyote. “Don’t get me wrong, I still love the multiplex, with its cushy stadium seats and bone-rattling sound systems. And with video-on-demand services, there’s certainly much to be said for being able to sit on your couch, push a button and instantly conjure up a well-reviewed indie flick that’s otherwise only playing theatrically in New York or Los Angeles,” he writes on dfw.com. “But Coyote Drive-In made me realize that not all throwbacks are an exercise in empty and sentimental nostalgia. Sometimes they are also a line drawn in the sand, a valiant last stand in what’s most likely a losing battle.” By total coincidence, Kelly will join Chris Vognar and yours truly this afternoon at 1 on Think, when we’ll be talking summer movies. Maybe we’ll squeeze in a little drive-in talk, too.

PLAYING DRESS-UP: WaterTower Theatre is embracing wedding season with its current show, Black Tie. In it, cultures clash and old conventions are threatened by modern thinking – all at a wedding. So what do the critics think? Lawson Taitte found it lacking. “When a play is all about the differences between social classes, it’s essential to get the nuances just right. Although it has other felicities, WaterTower Theatre’s production of Black Tie doesn’t quite do it,” he writes on dallasnews.com. Ditto for Lindsey Wilson. While she notes on Front Row that, “WaterTower Theatre and director René Moreno have assembled a mostly dynamite cast and an even better creative team,” she goes on to write that playwright A.R. Gurney wraps things up before any real drama can unfold. Judge for yourself through June 23.

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