Posted By Margaret Grayson on Sun, May 31, 2020 at 7:45 PM

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Courtesy of Anthony Apodaca

The last show at Revelry Theater on March 7

Revelry Theater, a 35-seat black-box venue in Burlington’s South End known for hosting intimate comedy shows, is closing “indefinitely” as a result of the pandemic. Founder and artistic director Anthony Apodaca said the board decided it didn’t make sense to keep the nonprofit theater open when the future of public events remains uncertain. He hopes to preserve funds to hold pop-up shows this summer and someday reopen in a new space.

“We don’t think it’s wise to keep burning cash or going into debt just to have to shut down again in the fall,” Apodaca said, referring to the possible resurgence of coronavirus outbreaks. “We don’t think we’re close to being out of the woods of the pandemic, especially on a national level.”

Tags: Revelry Theater , performing arts , comedy , improv , standup , black box , coronavirus , Anthony Apodaca , Web Only , Image

Posted By Jordan Adams on Fri, May 29, 2020 at 5:09 PM

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Courtesy of KeruBo

Video still from "Hakuna Lolote"

Vermonters continue to make art inspired by the coronavirus pandemic. African folk/jazz artist KeruBo recently unveiled a new song and video, "Hakuna Lolote."  The song is specifically aimed at members of Vermont's African and New American communities, particularly those who claim refugee status.

Sung in both Swahili and English, "Hakuna Lolote" has a simple, relatable message:  "Nothing at all … will tear us apart."

Tags: KeruBo , COVID-19 , music video , Peter Krag , Web Only , Image

Posted By Margot Harrison on Mon, May 25, 2020 at 6:46 PM

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Courtesy of KimStim

María tries to feed her "family" in The Wolf House.

Where do we find entertainment these days? On our laptops and in our living rooms. The streaming options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. So, in this weekly feature, I review a movie or series that might otherwise be easy to overlook.

The movie:
The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo) (2018; released in the U.S. 2020)

Where to see it:
Currently available for rent on the Vermont International Film Foundation’s Virtual Cinema platform.

The deal:
This 73-minute stop-motion animation took Chilean artists Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña five years to create. It’s immediately clear why — every second is mesmerizing.

Tags: The Wolf House , La Casa Lobo , Vermont International Film Foundation , Cristóbal León , Joaquín Cociña , Web Only , Image

Posted By Pamela Polston on Sun, May 24, 2020 at 2:04 PM

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Pamela Polston

John Nagle as Don Armado

Clad in a frilly white shirt and jeans, a sword dangling from his belt, Don Armado tore into his scene. Passion drove his speech, dramatic gestures his actions. Smitten by secret love, the Spaniard conveyed his heart's desire to, um, an audience of two on a patio shielded by a magnolia tree on South Winooski Avenue.

My patio. My magnolia tree. Don Armado, aka actor and Vermont Shakespeare Festival cofounder John Nagle, presented one of the first home deliveries of "Shakespeare to You" on Saturday afternoon — a monologue from Love's Labour's Lost. Somehow the play, written by William Shakespeare in the 1590s, seemed just right for a warm spring day during a pandemic in 2020. All socially distanced and everything.

Tags: Vermont Shakespeare Festival , Shakespeare plays , Love's Labour's Lost , Web Only , Image

Posted By Jordan Adams on Sat, May 23, 2020 at 7:30 PM

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Jordan Adams

Barbacoa

You can't stop the music.

That's what Burlington surf-rock band Barbacoa proved on Saturday as they played a pop-up concert in the parking lot of a vacant building in the Old North End. Despite state-mandated restrictions on public gatherings, the long-running Queen City outfit performed to a crowd of about 40.

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Posted By Dan Bolles on Fri, May 22, 2020 at 5:26 AM

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Courtesy of the Vermont Jazz Center

Attila Zoller

Earlier this month, the Vermont Jazz Center in Brattleboro was granted nearly $41,000 from the Virginia-based Council on Library and Information Resources to preserve a special chapter in jazz — the Attila Zoller Collection of Historical Audio Recordings: 1955-1996.

That cache contains hundreds of hours of largely unheard recordings featuring Zoller, the legendary guitarist and Vermont Jazz Center founder, as well as many of his equally notable pals from the New York City jazz scene. These include hepcats such as drummer Bob Moses, saxophonist Joe Farrell, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, pianist Don Friedman, guitarist Jimmy Raney and saxophonist Lew Tabackin, to namedrop a few.

Those are just some of the celebrated players found on Zoller's 200 reel-to-reel recordings of which the Jazz Center is aware. Even more tantalizing are the performances still to be unearthed. Recently, a recording was discovered of what appears to be an undocumented concert with the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Tags: Attila Zoller , Vermont Jazz Center , jazz , music history , Web Only , Image

Posted By Margaret Grayson on Thu, May 21, 2020 at 7:00 AM

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Courtesy of UVM CampusCraft

The in-progress UVM Minecraft campus from above

The University of Vermont campus is a quiet place these days. With online learning in place, most students have returned home to 47 states and 67 countries. For students like Lauren Posklensky, it was lonely to be suddenly separated from campus and her friends there. Transitioning to online classes, she said, was “pretty rough.”

But Posklensky kept in touch with a group of friends from UVM and often played Minecraft with them. That's a video game in which players can build and manipulate a blocky, 3D world.

Posklensky heard about a school in Japan hosting a virtual graduation ceremony in Minecraft. She half jokingly suggested to her friends that they should try to recreate the UVM campus in the game.

And UVM Campus Craft was born. The students have built the Dudley H. Davis Center, complete with a cozy version of Henderson’s Café, and have made progress on the Old Mill and Waterman buildings. Their main goal is to finish the UVM Green, adjacent to Waterman, so graduating seniors can virtually walk across it like they would during a normal UVM graduation ceremony.

Tags: University of Vermont , Middlebury College , Champlain College , Minecraft , gaming , Web Only , Image

Posted By Margot Harrison on Mon, May 18, 2020 at 5:00 PM

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Hulu Originals

Where do we find entertainment these days? On our laptops and in our living rooms. The streaming options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. So, in this weekly feature, I review a movie or series that might otherwise be easy to overlook.

The series:
“Normal People” (Season 1, 12 episodes, 2020)

Where to see it:
Hulu

The deal:
Based on the best-selling 2018 novel by Sally Rooney, “Normal People” follows the evolving relationship between Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell (Paul Mescal), who grew up in the same town in Ireland’s County Sligo. We meet them as high schoolers: Both are intellectual achievers, but Connell is a beloved athlete and Marianne a pariah. Social class separates them, too: Connell’s mom (Sarah Greene) cleans the mansion where Marianne’s mom (Aislín McGuckin) presides.

Tags: Normal People , Sally Rooney , Hulu , Sarah Clarke , Daisy Edgar-Jones , Paul Mescal , Web Only , Image , Video

Posted By Jordan Adams on Mon, May 18, 2020 at 3:02 PM

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Screenshot of "Home School"

From left: Ty, Sam and Clint Bierman

The pandemic has proven that Vermont musicians' creativity while in quarantine knows no bounds. From tunes about proper sanitation to social distancing, local artists have been dropping COVID-19-related music videos left and right. Now, a Middlebury family has put out a quadrilogy of comedic coronavirus-related music videos.

Middlebury musician Clint Bierman, of funk-rock band the Grift and Lion Tone Studio, got about a week into quarantine before he started working on the first of his family's four vids.

"I write songs all the time," said Bierman in a phone call with Seven Days. "I thought immediately about doing comedy, because everybody needs comedy."

Tags: Clint Bierman , the Grift , music videos , Web Only , Image

Posted By Margot Harrison on Sat, May 16, 2020 at 2:05 PM

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Courtesy of Menemsha Films

Still from 'Crescendo'

Now in its fifth year, the upcoming Stowe Jewish Film Festival is embracing social distancing with an all-virtual experience. And — more importantly, perhaps, for anyone who's running out of thought-provoking streaming options — it's free. For that, founder and cochair Edee Simon-Israel thanks "generous sponsors" and "our marketing and technology partner," Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, which served as the fest's venue in 2019.

The fest will last three weeks, starting May 24, with each of three films available to stream for three days.

Tags: Stowe Jewish Film Festival , Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center , Edee Simon-Israel , Jewish film , Crescendo , My Polish Honeymoon , The Samuel Project , Web Only , Image