kimbirdlee

Well folks, it's been amazing. My trip to Wisconsin this year was overflowing with experiences to remain in my memories forever... A wedding, a newborn baby, family and friends, art shows galore, performing and recording music, and the beautiful lake. I couldn't possible have asked for more. The season has changed, and while I've vowed to spend my summers in Wisconsin, I'm so grateful to witness the onset of Fall with it's gorgeous colors and cozy hoody temperatures.

First glimpse of Fall colors at Mirror Lake, Wisconsin Dells
9/25/12

Devils Lake
9/26/12

We spent last week in Wisconsin Dells, hiking in the trees and playing at the water park.

Art Shows

The art shows kicked off with Madison Off-the-Square back on July 13th. Jack was only 4 weeks old and it was scorching hot. But he had little to complain about, since I got him a room at the Madison Hilton, which is steps away from our booth.

Hanging out with Cousins Jill and Elana in the room at the Hilton.

Jack was soooo tiny compared to now!

Jack tried to call Daddy, who was back in California. He hasn't quite got the concept of phones yet...

my sweetie

We then headed to Ann Arbor, MI for the largest art show in the country. It's about our 10th year there and so many friends and loyal customers come by to check out the latest pieces. I made sure to have a few new dragons to honor the Year of the Dragon.

The 4 day show, which runs from 9am-9pm every day except the last day, was a bit daunting with Baby Jack, but we are fortunate to our cousins and their families living in Ann Arbor. We had a fabulous time with all the little ones running around!

Bohnsacks gathering (this is only half of the brood)! Aren't they just glowing!

There were several shows that followed, amidst the excitement of Jonathan and my wedding.
Racine Starving Artist Fair 2012 - Racine Art GuildAppleton Art in thePark
Oconomowoc Festival of Fine Arts
Powderhorn Art Festival - Minneapolis

Milwaukee Orchid Society - I won 1st Prize for my Orchid painting!!!

Orchid and Dragonflies

Mount Mary Starving Artist Art Show
Milwaukee, WI

Charlotte, Matt, Jack and I accepted an award for our art exhibit at the Itasca Art and Wine Festival last weekend. Woo hoo!!!

Jack loved the Yellow Ribbon, and thought it was his friend with a big yellow head.

As you can see, this Summer and Early Fall has been jam-packed. We've done more than I ever thought humanly possible. The art shows are always a mixture of extremely hard work and long hours, balanced out with the joy of sharing our art with people who really really love it. That's the part I love the most!

This weekend, I will be concluding my Midwest Art Tour in Galena, IL at the Galena Country Fair: Oct 6-7th. You should come. It's the world's best place to view the colors of Fall!

Next time you hear from me, I'll be back in California, reunited with my hubby, and ready for more adventures and more art shows...
My West Coast schedule is on my website:
www.art-kimberlysmiller.com

Lotsa love, kimbirdlee

That's my guy, kickin it in the RV

It's been a while and I don't even know where to begin. I mean, I really really don't even know where to begin. The one reason why it has been so long is because of all the everything that's been going on with me, my life, the everything that surrounds me and makes up this universe that I perceive as my own.

I do want to share the latest reviews that have accompanied my last 2 shows: "Seussical The Musical" and "The Tempest".

-------- "Seussical the Musical" --------

The Berkeley Playhouse succeeded in keeping this production ever-new, without deviating from the script, by adding the talents of aerialist Kimberly Miller to the circus scenes. Miller’s sinuous inversions and deft aerial skin-the-cats mesmerized the audience and worked well with the other visual elements of the set. It’s hard to imagine Julia Morgan thinking her signature wood beams of this lovely venue, (originally St. John’s Presbyterian Church and Sunday School) would be used to secure aerialist sashes.

Strong vocal numbers by Nicole C. Julien, as Sour Kangaroo, and Sarah Mitchell as Mazie added much to the production. Julien packed the Sour Kangaroo role with energy and style, bringing it from a lesser role to a more dominant one.

Seussical the Musical will continue to make audiences pine for the the far-away Solla Selew through August 14th.

Seussical the Musical

Berkeley Playhouse Julia Morgan Center for Performing Arts

4 out of 5 stars

William Hodgson is The Cat in the Hat

Credits:

When approaching the Julia Morgan Theatre Center at the premature hour of 7 pm on Friday night last, I was confronted by many miniature homunculi which caused me to gasp and grasp tight the hand of my companion. She reassured me that they were only children. I was not anticipating them. I don’t get out much, except to go to theatre, and thankfully they are seldom there since they make noise and fidget.

It was the Berkeley Playhouse—which I had hitherto eschewed for the above reasons, and out of a preference for tragedy and irony. And to make matters more dire, this was SEUSSICAL, THE MUSICAL, god help us all. But I had been invited by a creative colleague, so I held my breath, if not my nose, and deigned to attend.

For all my Grinch-like persona and curmudgeonly mien, I must unequivocally and highly RECOMMEND this production to everyone, regardless of age. The Broadway-worthy performances of the cast are the first reason. Indeed, the performances are so engaging that the rug-rats—probably a third of the audience—are for the most part quiet and rapt for the entire two hours plus.

The second reason is that Theodor Seuss Geisel’s doggerel is embedded in most every contemporary American’s consciousness: since 1950 his books have been read by Greatest Generation parents to their Boomer children, and I must assume the tradition has been passed down the generations. Behind the seemingly saccharine and simplistic plot lines and rhymes are a reflection of adult conundrums, models of compassion, and some curious world-within-world cosmic perspectives.

The casting and direction of Kimberly Dooley is inspiring. She may be the luckiest director around to have assembled this cast of perfection—almost as if drawn from the books themselves or from some Seussical central casting. Or she may be an incredibly inspiring director who helped mold them to this peak. Ms. Dooley’s choreography on an individual basis ranges appropriately from the flashy to the athletic to the comically emotional.

The lead who played Jojo the night I attended iswunderkind Nandi Drayton. There is always something special about a child actor who is a seasoned pro at ten. The kind of talent, that, when she auditions, you can imagine the accompanist turning around from the piano, mouth agape. And I didn’t recognize she was a girl playing a boy which is the perfection of any breeches role.

Aerialist Kimberly Miller wraps herself “Cirque du”-style in two scarlet sash curtains, inverts, dangles, swoops and splits to our wide-eyed inhalations and oooo’s. There are no weak links in the cast, and everyone more than shines.

The musical direction of Tal Ariel, who is new to musical theatre, has enabled these marvelous performances. A jazz, rock and blues pianist and teacher and commercial producer and composer, he has an outsider’s touch that infuses a realism to the music and a strong beat that moves the young actors. He treated us gray hairs to some pre-show surprises, featuring “White Room” by Cream as one of the warm up instrumentals; it was a breath of fresh air, and much better than some prissy and pretentious show-tune. He put a great band together, and they rock the house while supporting the singers. The first act, the night I attended, had a bit too much bass which obscured the lyrics—incredibly important to Seuss; but much to the credit of the sound tech and the band, they fixed it for act two.

Not all is aesthetic perfection. The ground plan of a laterally bisecting scaffold foreshortens the deep Julia Morgan stage and truncates much of the action by eliminating interesting diagonal movement. Too often a horde of an ensemble is lined up laterally on the stage. The stage pictures are most effective when five or fewer actors are in the scene. The set dressing of immediately recognizable flowers and fronds emblematic of the world of Seuss take us to that childhood place even in the preset. While many of the costumes are straight from the books, the clashing colors and stripes and patterns when crunched together in the cramped playing-space make the eyes recoil.

Used to be that the way children learned theatre was to act with adults, model their performance pon those pros, then do it their own way only better. The Berkeley Playhouse has revived this part of performance pedagogy, and the teen and child actors more than hold their own in accompanying their betters. It’s amazing, all the incredible art, talent, and schooling that exists here in this little city of less than 110K. And the Playhouse is quickly working its way to being counted as another Berkeley treasure as directed by the artistic sensibilities of Elizabeth McKoy and the executive and education expertise of Jerry Foust.

If you’ve got kids, don’t miss it. Like all good (and smart) children’s entertainment, there is as much there for Dad and Mom as for Sis and Bud. If you don’t have kids, but you were raised on Seuss, take a chance on this critic’s word and have a good time. I never knew what I was missing, and you’ll feel the same way, too.

SEUSSICAL THE MUSICAL

Music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics and book by Lynn Ahrens

Directed by Kimberly Dooley

Presented by BERKELEY PLAYHOUSE

Playing through August 14th

JULIA MORGAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS

2640 College Ave., Berkeley CA

Tickets/info: www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

John McMullen

, Oakland Theater Examiner

July 23, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.

Theater review: A Marin Shakes 'Tempest' blinded with science

William Shakespeare's fantastical tale of sorcery and spirits, without the magic. Not only is the mastermind Prospero a scientist, not a magician, but so is his slave Caliban, who's more often depicted as a dim-witted subhuman or simple exploited native. The air spirit Ariel is eliminated entirely, replaced by a machine. An inventive writer/director who's done thrilling adaptations of Homer and Orwell in the East Bay, Tracy has reimagined the play with the "steampunk" aesthetic of sci-fi set in the Victorian era.

In Shakespeare's play the exiled Duke of Milan, Prospero, lives on a remote island where he's raised his daughter Miranda to adulthood and become a powerful wizard. He conjures a storm to bring a ship to the island containing the King of Naples and the brother who usurped Prospero's title. With the aid of his servant Ariel, a powerful spirit, Prospero plays tricks on the nobles while a romance blooms between Miranda and the king's shipwrecked son, Ferdinand. Meanwhile Caliban tries to gain his freedom by declaring Stephano, the king's boozy butler, his new master and trying to get the drunkard to kill Prospero and take over the island.

There are walls that turn around to reveal compartments filled with control panels, steamer trunks and pale figures standing motionless within them. They're dressed immaculately by costumer Abra Berman in brown and gray suits, long coats, hats and goggles. These are the Qualities that replace the magical spirit Ariel. In Tracy's version the Ariel Coil is a towering machine that dominates the rear of the stage. The Qualities are human-looking robots controlled by the Ariel Coil at Prospero's command. They're also easily the best thing about this "Tempest."

Played by deft physical performers Silvia Girardi, Maro Guevara, Kimberly Miller, Nesbyth Rieman, Erika Salazar and Jeremy Vik, the Qualities are enthralling. They walk and turn in stiff, mechanical movements, but they slip in and out of trapdoors with fluid grace and speed.

Most unnervingly, they speak by opening their mouths wide agape while loudspeaker voices emanate from all around them. They poke their heads out of trapdoors and record conversations all over the island and then play them back in the speakers' own voice. They do this so often, in fact, that when the Ariel Coil speaks for itself through them it's not always immediately clear that it's not just regurgitating overheard dialogue.

Brendan Aanes' sound design is indispensable in bringing the concept to life, from the eerie voices to the omnipresent hum and crackle of the machinery and haunting music. Ellen Brooks' lighting nicely accentuates the creepy atmosphere.

kimbirdlee

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Wisconsin season coming to an end

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Art Shows in the Year of the Dragon

Saturday, September 10, 2011

"Seussical the Musical"& "The Tempest" : been awhile...

Seussical the Musical

Eye from the Aisle: SEUSSICAL at Berkeley Playhouse—enough to make a Grinch grin

John McMullen

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