Author: SpencerMurray

THEATER IN A NUTSHELL: THE TRAGIC AND HORRIBLE LIFE OF THE SINGING NUN THE BASICS: This is Brian Fell’s spoofy semi-biography of Jeanine Deckers, the Belgian Sister who rocketed to fame with the song “Dominique,” then plunged into sad obscurity, ending her life as a suicide. The Buffalo United Artists’ production, directed by Chris Kelly, plays Friday and Saturday nights at the BUA’s new home, at 119 Chippewa Street, through August 29th. The show runs about an hour and three quarters, with one ten minute intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: SINGING NUN is yet another offering in the BUA’s continuing Summer Camp…

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THE BASICS: This incisive character study by French Canadian author Michel Tremblay plays in repetory at the Shaw’s Court House Theatre through October 10th. The production, directed by Micheline Chevrier, uses a brand new translation by Linda Gaboriau. The play runs a lean 90 minutes; there is no intermission. THUMBNAIL SKETCH: French Canada, 1982. Albertine, a rather sad and lonely woman of 70, spends her first day in a retirement home, in the company of ghostly incarnations of herself at ages 30, 40, 50, and 60, and also with the spirit of her deceased sister Madeleine, as she was about…

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It has been said that gays have a past but not a history. This weekend the LGBT community will be trying to change that interpretation. On Sunday July 26th, at 7PM, the premiere of the historical film “Swimming With Lesbians,” will be shown at the BUA Theatre, 119 Chippewa St. The cost is $25, and all proceeds will go to grants and educational scholarships for the LGBT community, according to Embrace Western New York board member Judy Dimitru. Embrace Western New York is a local, non-profit group helping the LGBT community and the promotion of the film. “Through education all things are possible,” she says. The…

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If you like coffee, awesome food, and great music that 2nd Cup Cafe is the place for you. It is located at 36 Broadway, right on the corner. It is a fairly new place, but already has a very homey feel to it. It is a wonderful place to relax, meet friends and enjoy some delicious food. They serve breakfast of all kinds, sandwiches/wraps, soup, salad, deserts, smoothies and of course excellent coffee. They also offer live music on certain evenings. I’m positive you will not regret your experience. On Thursday, July 9th, the local band GRUVOLOGY will be performing from 6 to 9PM.…

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This year’s 48-Hour film competition will take place from Friday, August 14th at 7PM to Sunday, August 16th at 6:30. This is the competition in which novice filmmakers get the chance to devise and shoot a movie based on a set of criteria handed out by the 48-Hour team. After that, it’s 2 days (or 47 1/2 hours) of sleepless fun in scripting, shooting and handing in a finished video for a chance to be seen by a wider audience, win prizes and go on to a bigger competition.On Thursday, July 16th, Full Circle Studios is hosting a meet and…

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Susan G. Komen for the Cure was founded in Texas in 1982 by Nancy Brinker in memory of her sister, Susan Goodman Komen, who died in 1980 at the age of 36 after a three-year struggle with breast cancer. The first race in the US was in 1983, and this is the ninth year of the Buffalo race. It is a 5K, around 3.1 miles, and not as much a race as it is a walk. For my take on how my day started at 7:30 in the morning with a cancer cure initiative, please see Spit for the Cure. …

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It’s a beautiful sunny summer morning at the corner of Genesee and Moselle. It is time again for the Juneteenth Parade. What does Juneteenth mean? After the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves, it took a couple of years to get the word out, from the East Coast to the West Coast. The latter heard about it in June, and for those it was in the middle days of June, so Juneteenth. In Buffalo this is the 34th Annual Juneteenth Festival. It is the third largest Juneteenth in the country. It starts out with a parade. And you know how…

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Another beautiful Buffalo Saturday morning – it is 7:30am on a glorious sunny summer day right here next to the Delaware Park Rose Garden, just across the street from the Albright Knox Art Gallery. The 2009 Susan G Komen race and activities are still hours away, but a new Roswell Park Cancer Institute event runs here simultaneously – the Spit for the Cure (cure for cancer that is). At the special booth set up for this event, the process involves collecting saliva samples, from which DNA is extracted, from many hundreds of participants. You have to be 18 years old, and able to answer a…

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It’s called Boulevard of Broken Dreams. The Art, not the Green Day song. It is one of my all time top images featuring many of my favorites from the last millennium: Elvis Presley, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. It was “copied” from Hopper’s Nighthawks (students’ version above), with the players of an anonymous variety. And not just once, but twice! This past Saturday area high school students exhibited themselves on the Gallery Lawn of the Albright Know Art Gallery. The students took artistic masterpieces and tried to copy them, the way a cover band would try…

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It was indeed a wonderful sunny day at Delaware Park as the 29th Annual Chase Corporate Challenge got underway at 6:45PM sharp on Amherst Street just west of Colvin Ave. Some 10,000 entries (and who knows how many posers) from nearly 400 Buffalo and Western New York companies navigated the 3 1/2 mile course through North Buffalo (race ends on Ring Road in Delaware Park not far from Nichols School, and where the bison reside at the Buffalo Zoo). It’s about healthy competition, camaraderie, teambuilding and community. 99 new companies participated this year, with almost 400 companies overall. The largest…

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