Unwrap Your Candies Now

In this episode of Unwrap Your Candies Now, Ernie Manouse introduces us to two of the performers taking to the Miller Outdoor Theatre stage as part of the 2019 Houston Shakespeare Festival. Shannon Uphold (Audrey/Ensemble) is a 2nd-year graduate student in the UH Professional Actor Training Program enjoying her second year with the festival; and Laura Frye is making her HSF debut after graduating from the University of Houston 12 years ago. Debuting in 1975, the University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance produced Houston Shakespeare Festival has presented free performances of Shakespeare's timeless classics to thousands of Houstonians. 

Also in this episode, Catherine Lu shares with us her sound portrait of poet Amir Safi. Safi grew up in College Station, Texas and is currently based in Houston. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University and the founder of Write About Now. His poems have been featured by A plus, Upworthy, HuffPost, Texas Monthly and others. Last year, he received the 2018 Poetry International Prize.

Saffron by Amir Safi

My mother picks up the pestle and mortar and does to saffron what the clerics have done to her country/ pours in steaming water till the liquid in the bowl becomes the Caspian swallowing the sun/ it smells like a home I have not returned to in 10 years/ saffron/ pound for pound/ the most expensive spice in the world/ worth more in its weight than gold/ if customs found it, they would surely throw it away/ but my grandmother is a high stakes smuggler/ her currency is my mother’s joy/ every time she visits, she brings some in her luggage/ and my grandmother always comes through/ and my mother always becomes a festival of lights/ looks at my father/ reminds him that it is her saffron/ approaches me with the same enthusiasm I had as a boy catching a fish/ holds the small packet between her thumb and her index finger and says/ you cannot find saffron this good in America, Amir/ you cannot find saffron like this anywhere, but Iran/ and this is where I learn the limitations of the American dream/ that you cannot find here what you already have/ and I laugh because if customs found it they would surely throw it away/ and I laugh at how borders can make the most valued feel worthless/ but, thankfully, they were not victorious this time/ nor are they ever/ because my grandmother is a high stakes smuggler/ her currency is my mother’s joy/ and my grandmother always comes through/ and my mother loves to feed her boys/ so my mother does what Iranian mothers do best/ and we eat until the diaspora dissolves/ until it’s time for my brother and I to fight over who does the dishes/ my mother exclaiming to my grandmother/ these boys are American/ they never learned taarof/ I tried to teach them, but they learned all of their manners from their father.

This poem first appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review and is reprinted with permission of the author.

Music used: Seven Steps (excerpt) by Brooklyn Rider from Seven Steps, Follow the Scout (excerpt) by Mark O’Connor from Midnight on the Water and Escape Artist (excerpt) by Zoë Keating from Into the Trees

To learn more about this series, go here.

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Catherine Lu finds out what it took for ROCO to bring together their new CD Visions Take Flight.  Alecia Lawyer, ROCO Founder and Artistic Director, explains how Harvey complicated the making of this album. 

And, Ernie Manouse chats with Chelsea Ryan McCurdy, one of the stars of Stages Repertory Theatre's The Doyle and Debbie Show. Chelsea shares tales of a life on the stage and beyond. 

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In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Ernie Manouse chats with Viswa Subbaraman, Music Director, and Steven McCary, Board President, about A Topsy Turvy Mikado, this summer’s production by The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston. Created by Artistic Director Alistair Donkin, this new version of The Mikado was inspired by Mike Leigh’s Academy Award-winning film and updates the original comic opera’s approach to the depiction of Japanese culture.

And, recently it was announced that Rice University would become the new home of the archives of the Houston Blues Museum. Catherine Lu chats with Sandy Hickey and Jomonica Phoenix, museum co-founders, and Norie Guthrie, special collections librarian and archivist, about the Houston blues scene and the artifacts that will be preserved, digitized and shared with the public.

Share your comments, questions and ideas at [email protected].

Music used:
The Mikado Overture by Arthur Sullivan
Guitar Lightnin’ by Lightnin’ Hopkins
Leavin’ Blues by Lightnin’ Hopkins
Shirley Jean by Big Walter “The Thunderbird” Price
Pack Fair and Square by Big Walter “The Thunderbird” Price

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Catherine Lu finds out about Theatre Under The Stars’ new community engagement program, Public Works Houston, and its first collaboration with the company’s annual summer production at Miller Outdoor Theatre.

TUTS’ Seussical will feature a mega cast of community members and professional actors of all ages and is the culmination of a nine-month program that seeks to serve, learn from and empower Houston's diverse communities.

Catherine chats with Sara Brunow, Director of Community Engagement, and Megan Larche Dominick, Associate Artistic Director / Director of New Works.

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Music used: Excerpt from Seussical The Musical (Original Broadway Cast recording)

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Ernie Manouse chats with two stars from Disney’s Aladdin The Musical: Major Attaway (Genie) and Jonathan Weir (Jafar). The actors share stories and insights about the production, which features favorite songs from the film, as well as new music by Tony and Academy Award winner Alan Menken, with lyrics by Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and book writer Chad Beguelin.

And, Catherine Lu finds out what local high school composers are creating through a collaboration between the AFA Summer Music Festival and a new artist collective called Chapel in the Sky, created by Houston composer, pianist and vocalist Meghan Hendley Lopez. She chats with Lopez, Amanda Heathco (AFA Director of Artistic Programming) and George Heathco (AFA faculty-composer) about how they’re teaching students to write pieces that blend classical and electronic music, inspired by the artwork of Felipe Lopez, to culminate in a concert on July 10.

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In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Catherine Lu chats with the Apollo Chamber Players' Artistic Director, founder and violinist Matthew Detrick and composer Erberk Eryilmaz about their July 6th concert at NASA in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. The centerpiece of the program will be a movement from Erylimaz’s Was Her Face the Moon or Sunlight? – a piece that will be sent to the moon in 2021 as part of The MoonArk project.

Then, Ernie Manouse interviews Houston-born Broadway, film and TV performer, DeQuina Moore. They chat about her career and latest role as Josephine Baker in The Ensemble Theatre's season-finale production Josephine Tonight. The musical biography draws on the early life of the iconic singer, actress and nightclub sensation who wowed audiences in America and Europe in the first quarter of the 20th century.

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In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Ernie Manouse talks with Jason Nodler and Tamarie Cooper, Co-Artistic Directors of Catastrophic Theatre, about Speeding Motocycle. First produced in 2006 to rave reviews, this original rock opera is based on the songs of legendary outsider artist-musician Daniel Johnston.

Catherine Lu chats with violist Brian Bires, First Place Winner of the 30th Annual Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition at the Immanuel & Helan Olshan Texas Music Festival. A homegrown talent, Bires was raised in Friendswood, attended Clear Lake High School and earned his Master’s degree from the University of Houston Moores School of Music.

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Music used in Brian Bires’ segment: Viola Concerto in g minor by Cecil Forsyth (excerpts) performed by violist Brian Bires and pianist Shannon Hesse. Recorded at University of Houston by Texas Music Festival and Afshin Farzadfar.

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Catherine Lu chats with Mollie Haven Miller, executive director of Dance Source Houston, about the 5th Annual Barnstorm Dance Fest. The festival is curated by members of the local dance community (this year’s panel: Elijah Alhadji Gibson, Sue Schroeder and Janie Yao), who selected works that reflect the diverse identities and dance forms in Houston and beyond.

Ernie Manouse talks to Seth Andrew Bridges, one of the musketeers in the Alley Theatre’s production of Ken Ludwig’s The Three Musketeers. The New York-based actor and stunt performer is making his Alley Theatre debut while starring as “Porthos” in the company’s 2018-19 season finale production.

Share your comments, questions and ideas at [email protected].

Music used in the dance segment: Excerpt from score to Kalpana Subbarao's “Kathak - Flamenco / A celebration of cultures” by Kalpana Subbarao, Edith Niño, Shyama Mishra, Abhishek Balakrishnan, Jason Zinn, Jeremías García and Irma La Paloma.

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Ernie Manouse chats with Cissy Segall Davis, managing director of Miller Outdoor Theatre, about the historic Houston venue. Opened in 1923 and named after Jesse Wright Miller, the Miller Outdoor Theatre offers the largest “always free” program of its kind in the country, with eight months of professional entertainment free of charge to the public, making it an especially popular summer destination.

Catherine Lu talks to artist Felipe Lopez about his exhibition, The Want In My Nature, on view at Deborah Colton Gallery through June 15. The father, husband and conceptual artist chats about nature, water and parenting – all of which inspire his works, in particular his video piece Ab Aqua Libertas (based on the water birth of his daughter) and his Faucet Series. Lopez is also the author of the paper Neo-Traditionalism, which presents his ideas and theories of a new art movement.

Share your comments, questions and ideas at [email protected].

In this episode of “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Catherine Lu chats with Leslie Contreras Schwartz as she kicks off her two-year term as Houston Poet Laureate. The native Houstonian describes her plan to tackle mental health through poetry, and she reads “Roots” – a poem inspired by gardening and the urge to grow even under the harshest circumstances.

Ernie Manouse talks with Dan Knechtges, artistic director of Theatre Under The Stars, about the rarely-staged 1989 Tony Award-winning musical Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. A love letter to Broadway’s golden age, this musical anthology wraps up TUTS’ 50th Anniversary Season and includes scenes from On the Town, Peter Pan, The King and I, Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story.

Share your comments, questions and ideas at [email protected].