Flap over Palin line in MCT’s ‘Mikado’ reflects the hazards of bias

Years ago, as a teenager, I attended a meeting of my church youth-group led by a guest minister. I still remember how he arrayed our group in a circle, and without any explanation, whispered something in the ear of one of our group members.

She laughed, turned, and whispered in the ear of the person next to her, who then passed the message along around the circuit.

The secret eventually got around to me. Now, 20-plus years later, I don’t remember much of it, but it had something to do with a bicycle, a list of items from the store, and some places and names. “Pass it on,” I was told.

Eventually, the circle was completed. The minister asked the last person in line to say what he had heard out loud. Then, the minister read from a piece of paper the original message he had whispered in the first girl’s ear.

Neither a single fact nor even the basic gist of the story had made it all the way around the circle. [Read More...]

Curt Olds responds to controversy over Palin lyrics in “The Mikado”

Curt Olds, director of MCT Community Theatre’s recent production of “The Mikado” and the man responsible for writing a controversial lyric about Sarah Palin, has responded to critics with a letter clarifying the background of his decision to employ the lyric.

Here’s the letter, in full. [Read More...]

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Mikado-gate: MCT Community Theatre deals with backlash over Palin quote

On Sunday night, MCT Community Theatre wrapped up its two-week run of Gilbert & Sullivan’s satirical operetta, “The Mikado,” with a frolicking performance at its home theatre on East Broadway in Missoula.

On Monday morning, MCT executive director Michael McGill set about the hard business of mending all that had gone awry over the weekend, when word spread across the Internet that MCT’s production advocated the beheading of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

What began with a single letter to the editor, published in last Friday’s Missoulian, quickly erupted into a nationwide controversy after dozens of political bloggers picked up the thread and ran with it – some adding their own colorful amendments to the story. [Read More...]

Shredding guitars, shredding slopes

The Après-ski is where to be this weekend, with a pair of concerts in Missoula aimed at celebrating all that is gnarly and sick (that’s ‘extreme’ and ‘good’ to the rest of us). [Read More...]

No news is good news in Missoula’s arts scene

Last week, conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin took the podium at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia to lead that city’s venerable orchestra in a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Requiem.” Critics lauded the performance and the work of the French-Canadian conductor, who last summer was named the orchestra’s new music director, after a troubling period without a permanent leader.

But the program itself perhaps signaled something else about the times. [Read More...]

Call for artists: Off the Rack

The Blue Mountain Clinic has issued a call for submissions for its upcoming Off the Rack fashion show. Here’s the release direct from them. [Read More...]

Parade of Lights float applications due this week

Happy Monday! As you try to figure out what to do with all your free time as the relaxed holiday season approaches (cough, cough), perhaps building a parade float is in the cards this year. Applications are due this week for floats for the Missoula Downtown Association’s annual Parade of Lights; here’s the [...]

Arlee’s Garden of 1,000 Buddhas featured in New York Times

This is pretty cool. Now I’m just pissed off that I didn’t think of stringing this story to the Times! Ha!

Help MCT win $250k

I received an email that I thought I would post up here about a contest that Missoula Children’s Theatre is involved in. The winner gets $250,000, which would surely be a nice shot in the arm for the company. Here’s the email I received, with instructions on how to help out: [Read More...]

Maria Jooste’s long-awaited encore

About five years ago, a woman named Maria Laubach arrived in Western Montana and took a job at the DirecTV call center in Missoula. Apart from the slight accent that betrayed her childhood upbringing in South Africa, Laubach probably didn’t stand out too much at her new workplace. That was by design. Hers was a story like so many: Pulled to this region by the allure of natural beauty and a slower pace, she and her new husband, Richard, settled south of Stevensville, where they could quietly raise horses and ride motorcycles and live out their shared dream of the Western lifestyle.

“On our very first date we discussed moving out west and having land,” she recalls today. “It’s something we both really wanted to do. So when my husband had the opportunity to transfer out here, we took it as a sign and just did it.”

It was a dramatic shift for Laubach, who left behind more than her maiden name, Jooste, when she married Richard. In the years before the couple moved here from Maryland, Maria Jooste had become something of a young celebrity in the east-coast operatic world. [Read More...]