Don't Miss the Delaware premiere of Jeremy O'Keefe's acclaimed film Somewhere Slow, Benefiting the WDL

Climb out of your snow-and-ice-filled funk this weekend and celebrate the Wilmington Drama League's Delaware premiere of Jeremy O'Keefe's award-winning film Somewhere Slow, starring Jessalyn Gilsig ("Glee," "Nip/Tuck") and Graham Patrick Martin ("Major Crimes," "Two and a Half Men") with Lindsay Crouse and Robert Forster.

More than a screening, the premiere is your chance to meet the writer and director, Delaware native Jeremy O'Keefe and star Graham Patrick Martin, while raising funds for the Wilmington Drama League.

Somewhere Slow is O'Keefe's second feature film, and the second to take place at least partially in Delaware (his first feature, Wrestling, was shot on location in Wilmington).

There is no better place than Wilmington Drama League for the Delaware premiere of the film the Los Angeles Times called "frequently affecting and mordantly funny" and the New York Times declared "wonderful."

"The WDL gave me my first opportunity to write and direct back when I was 12, and then each year after that before I went to college," says O'Keefe, who grew up in the Highlands/Trolley Square neighborhood and attended Cab when it was still only a middle school and graduated from A.I. du Pont in 1998. "I directed a young Keith Powell ("30 Rock") in the one-act play festival and a young Aubrey Plaza in my mainstage production of Here's Love -- and it was the belief of the members of the WDL and the community that supports this wonderful and magical theatre that gave me the strength and confidence to pursue the arts at a professional level. I owe any career that I might have to the WDL."

While his debut feature film, Wrestling, was a triumph, Somewhere Slow shows his progression in the industry, as respect for his work continues to grow. The film's stars, who went all-in as producers, make their confidence clear.

"The script grabbed me immediately," says Gilsig. "Sometimes you read something and think, 'I want to go there, I want to explore that story, that world.' Jeremy and I agreed to partner on the project in hopes of pooling our resources and seeing if we could get the film made while retaining the original vision he had. It’s been a long and varied road but entirely rewarding, especially now that it is reaching and audience and they are connecting the story the way I did originally."

Martin, who will be on hand for Q&As after the screenings, was similarly drawn to the script. "It's rare to find a script like this one that felt so raw and real -- there were no gimmicks at all," he says. "It was my first time working as the lead role in a film, which added a certain amount of pressure. Jeremy made me feel completely comfortable and confident in my work. I also loved how he worked more as a collaborator than a director. It was always a group effort and everyone's input mattered to him. That's pretty special."

"I think of the film as a beautiful short story," Gilsig says. "It explores the fantasy of: what if you could just stop the world and step off for a moment? Anna and Travis' love story is unsustainable but it’s a moment in time, and a moment they will be able to refer back to for the rest of their lives. It feels relatable to me. And I hope is an unexpected and effective escape for the audience."

Somewhere Slow premieres in Delaware this Saturday at 8:00 pm and Sunday at 2:00 pm at the Wilmington Drama League. Regular admission is $15; VIP tickets for Saturday evening, including a meet and greet with O'Keefe and Martin, preferred seating, a pre-screening coctkail reception and admission to the after-party, are $50. Proceeds benefit Wilmington Drama League. Purchase tickets via wilmingtondramaleague.org/somewhere-slow/.

A Romantic Russian Afternoon with WCO

The Wilmington Community Orchestra performed the Russian Easter Overture, Opus 36 by Nickolai Rimsky-Korsakov and in doing so showed off some of the talented players. Larry Hamermesh, concertmaster, played his solos with panache and the clarinet work of Anthony Pantelopulos and Michelle Webb was a delight. Melinda Bowman’s soaring and delicate flute lines created a spider web of texture for the orchestra. Barry Morris, Pete Witherell and Jim Yurasek took on the demanding trombone parts with ease and it sounded great. I was also delighted to hear the double basses shine in their rhythmic underpinning to the very striking overture.

Charles Abramovic, piano

But when Charles Abramovic began to play the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major by Franz Liszt, I could not listen to anything but the amazing piano sounds. Mr. Abramovic is an excellent pianist, but I had heard him play mainly modern piano music before this concert, so I was overwhelmed by his ability to make the piano notes ring and reverberate with the sort of perfect declamatory sound that is so characteristic of romantic music. The concerto is an unbelievable tour de force technically, but Mr. Abramovic seemed unconcerned by notes and dedicated to following the conductor and the orchestra. His dynamic control was superb and he had passages where he had to put a theme forward and have all twenty other fingers play rather quietly in the background. In the finale of the concerto, he played a resounding fortissimo which went deep into the keyboard to produce a ringing and resonant echo for the orchestra. It was quite a feat and he richly deserved the booming applause.

Dr. Schwartz spoke of the excitement of a premier on March 23, when the WCO will host the unveiling of a violin concerto composed specifically for the Wilmington Community Orchestra by English composer David Osbon, who came to hear them last year when they were rehearsing for another concert. The composer will conduct while the conductor plays the concerto.


See www.musicschoolofdelaware.org.

Igor & Elvis...A Pair Not to be Missed!

By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, music for film, and music for educational purposes. www.chuckholdeman.com

Tuesday evening's Delaware Symphony concert — the second in its elegant chamber music series in the Hotel DuPont's Gold Ballroom — was perhaps the quirkiest ever presented there. It featured bassoonist Jon Gaarder impersonating Elvis, in full regalia, performing composer Michael Daugherty's Dead Elvis, written in 1993 and incorporating the well-known chant for wrath of judgment day, the Dies Irae. As a former DSO bassoonist myself who performed this work in 2008, I took great pleasure in witnessing the whole wacky spectacle from the outside.

Daugherty chose the same instrumentation as Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale, a septet mixture of woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion, the work which comprised the second half of Tuesday's concert. And speaking as primarily a composer now, I can continue to wonder — how did Stravinsky do it? There is a certain thinness in the texture with so few colors from each family of instruments, but this results in a wonderful clarity, a bracing zap to the ear of each instrument's declamation.

Perhaps the most poignant and plaintive movement was the duet for Gaarder's bassoon and Jonathan Troy's clarinet — so few notes and so much expression. The chorales near the end were gorgeous, but how 'bout the romping rhythms of the marches, the ragtime, and other dances? DSO concertmaster David Southorn was brilliant in the athletically demanding violin part; in time his Tango may become even more sly. All this is in the service of a Russian folk tale, a version by Swiss author C. F. Ramuz, originally in French. Conductor David Amado explained how the standard English translation can sound stilted and even boring, and so Amado undertook his own edited revision, very successful to this listener.

I particularly enjoyed the use of lots of rhyming, and also references to our time and place- the soldier marches "between Lums Pond and Bear," and at another point is treated to chicken wings. Three readers told the story: OperaDelaware's Brendan Cooke as the soldier, joined by two Delaware Theater Company executives, Bud Martin as a wittily sarcastic Devil, and Charles Conway as the Narrator. The large audience was uninhibited in both laughter and applause.

For Dead Elvis, Gaarder chose a sparkly white jumpsuit, white shoes, a thick (not really greasy) wig, and giant shades. He sauntered on stage with characteristic Elvis gestures and wiggles, and also smoothed his locks during the music's sudden pregnant pauses. The music is a study in zany extremes, the bassoon screaming to its ultimate high E or plummeting to its grotesque low B-flat. The tiny E-flat clarinet screeches, the trombone wails its glissandi, the drummer, the DSO's veteran master Bill Kerrigan, flails his collection of bells and other high-pitched gadgets.

I highly recommend this most entertaining and musically rewarding show which will be repeated Friday night, January 31 at 7:30 PM at the Queen Theater, World Cafe Live. The next two DSO concerts at the Hotel DuPont are on February 25 and April 1.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.