Let's Hear It

Season passes are now available to Farmers Alley Theatre's slate of six new productions. Artistic director Jeremy Koch and deputy director Rob Weiner joined Cara Lieurance to share the details.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime, Annette has been called "the weirdest movie of the year": an experimental rock opera with music and story by Sparks, a California pop/rock duo of brothers Ron and Russell Mael. Starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, it is directed by French helmer Leos Carax. Could it be the next Rocky Horror Picture Show?

The Kalamazoo Valley Blues Association is closing in on 30 years of "keeping the blues alive" in the Kalamazoo region, through collaboration, education, and most prominently, an annual festival. After taking a year off during the pandemic, the KVBA is back with a scaled-down day of blues featuring 5 bands in the outdoor garden of Old Dog Tavern in downtown Kalamazoo on Saturday, Aug 21 from 3 - 11 pm. Cara Lieurance talked to board member (and harmonica player) Jeff Bright about the event.

Eric Morris stars as Robbie Heart and Patrick Hunter plays his best friend and bandmate Sammy for The Barn Theatre's production of The Wedding Singer, which runs Aug 17 - 29. Cara Lieurance spoke to Morris and Hunter, good friends in real life, about the musical adaptation of the beloved 1998 movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.

Leo Sowerby was born in 1895 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and died in 1968, the composer of over 500 classical works and the organist-choirmaster at Chicago's St James' Episcopal Church for 35 years.  Today, the Avalon String Quartet released an album on the Chicago-based label Cedille Records that brings attention to little-known works Sowerby wrote in the early 1920s when the Jazz Age was in full swing. Cara Lieurance previewed the new album with Anthony Devroye, violist of the Avalon Quartet.