PEVEC, BARNES TOP ‘SUPERSTAR’ CAST

Diamond Head Theatre ‘s revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” opening April 1, boasts a cast that should bring vigor and vitality in the lead roles.

Aleks Pevec will portray Jesus of Nazareth and Bailey Barnes will enact Mary Magdalene. The powerful  rock opera includes break-out titles such as “Superstar,” “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” “Gethsemane” and “What’s the Buzz.”

Aleks Pevec

The score by Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice should resonate with a new generation of spectators encountering the rock opera with its biblical template.

Directed and choreographed by John Rampage, “Superstar” will run April 1 through 20; but already, two extension matinees have been added for 3 p.m. April 23 and 4 p.m. April 24. Tickets will be scarce, so order prior to opening.

Bailey Barnes

Pevecs previously co-starred in DHT’s “Something Rotten” and Barnes will be remembered for her breakout role as Dorothy in the I’m a Bright Kid Foundation’s “The Wiz.”

Others in the cast include Taj Guttierez as Judas Iscariot, Aiko Schick as King Herod, Corin Medeiros as Caiaphas, Jay Flores as Annas, Jody Bill as Simon Zealots, Michael Abdo as Peter, and Laurence Paxton as Pontius Pilate.

The origin of the 1970s musical includes island singer-actress Yvonne Elliman, who created the Magdalene role and performed a pair of signature tunes, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and “Everything’s Alright,” in the concept album, stage vehicle and the resulting film. She earned a Golden Globe nomination in 1974 for her movie performance.

For tickets, visit www.diamondheadtheatre.com or call (808) 733-0274…

 Manoa whodunnit

Manoa Valley Theatre’s “The 39 Steps” opens tonight (March 17). It’s a mixture of farce blending Hitchcockian mystery with Monty Python mirth. The playwrights are Patrick Barlow and John Buchan, whose spy novel whodunnit includes a murder and a mysterious group called “The 39 Steps” which tracks a manhunt to a hilarious finale.

Rob Duval directed the cast that includes Garrett Hols as Richard Hannay, Rachel League as Annabella/Pamela, Matthew Miller as Clown 1 and Andrew Baker as Clown 2.

Performances are Thursdays through Sundays, through March 27.

Visit www.manoavalleytheatre.com or call 988-6131. …

A football superstar weds here

Patrick Mahomes

Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chief’s all-star quarterback, and his sweetheart Brittany Matthews, tied the knot at the Four Seasons resort on Maui on March 13.

Both groom and bride are 26 and they’ve been a couple for a decade.

TMZ noted that Mahomes was attired in a gray suit, with Matthews in a traditional white bridal gown.

The couple’s daughter Sterling, 1, was flower girl and the quarterback’s younger brother, Jackson, was best man. Travis Kelce, a teammate, was groomsman and Kayla Nicole, his girlfriend, was one of several bridesmaids. …

And that’s Show Biz. …

THE LOST ART OF PUBLIC RELATIONS…

Public Relations – PR for short –  is a lost art these days.

As a journalist for more than five decades, I’ve had professional relationships with a number of Hawaii PR people who were essential in the hospitality community, because they were the key that could open doors for access to VIPs or notables in a variety of situations. It could have been a visiting actor working on a film, a budding chef in the culinary world, a singer-dancer in a touring or local theatrical production.

PR had a prime role in media communication.

It used to be that a PR wizard could connect the dots with media to arrange print interviews or land a spot on the morning or evening newscasts for the broadcast industry or arrange a live radio gig.

Very often, media folks knew the PR resources better than their big bosses, simply because spokesmen or spokeswomen were the gateway to data or providers of clues for reportorial types. Times have change, and I’m wondering: What’s happened to PR people?

Maybe it’s me, already retired and doing my own thing, that I’ve lost contact with the PR world. I don’t do hotel or theater runs like I did back in the day. Then again, many orgs with PR services operate strictly via emails and an infrequent phone call. It’s the new normal now.

Remember when a Rolodex ruled?

Thus, PR pros are an endangered species, for sure. My contact list these days are scanty, with only a few PR names; back in the day, my Rolodex (Google that!) had a bunch of rPR esources on individual cards on file.

Those I’ve known in the past have retired, have relocated, have been removed, hopefully joyfully after their service. A few have died.

I was reflecting on publicists of the past — the women and the rare few men — who had a hand in the PR brigades of the past. This serves, thus,  as an expression of mahalo to these behind-the-scenes heroes of another era.

Doyenne of publicists

Elissa “Lis” Josephsohn, a PR doyenne

The late Elissa “Lisa” Josephsohn easily was the doyenne of powerhouse publicists, whose clients ranged from restaurants to theater companies, and opera to symphony clients, who knew how to partner her clients  with entertainment ventures  to building up the dining and performance arts in Honolulu. Over three decades, her clients included Sunset Grill, the Black Orchid, Ruth Chris Steak House, Compadres, Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Palomino, Dixie Grill, Victoria Station, Rose City Diner and Auntie Pasto’s, plus the Honolulu Symphony, Ballet Hawaii, the Hawaii Theatre, Diamond Head Theatre. Her signature theater clients included the producers with original Canadian  and domestic roots, staging the likes of “CATS,” “Les Miserables,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” and “Miss Saigon,” at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in an era that there was a drought of bona fide touring companies of stage attractions; her passion help create the foundation and a  template for future producers to make the leap to give Hawaii a chance, which opened doors for future legit theater in the islands.

Name-dropping

To name-drop, other pioneering PR directors included:

  •  Dee Dickson, Jeanne Park Datz, and Woody Chock of the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
  • Jere Bostwick, of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
  • Kay Ahearn, of the Kahala Hilton.
  • Joyce Matsumoto and Erika Kauffman, of the Halekulani Hotel.
  • Nancy Daniels, of the Outrigger Hotels and the Kahala resort.
  • Bobbie Watson, of the Ilikai Hotel.
  • Sheila Donnelly, of the Hawaiian Regent (she was a publicist servicing her client from her own offices, not physically attached to the hotel).
  • David McNeil, of the Ala Moana Hotel (he, too, worked from his own PR firm downtown).
  • Patti Cook, of the Willows restaurant.

Surely, there are many more from the past, who should merit a nod; and hopefully, there are a new breed in a quest to reestablish the importance of PR.

COPING WITH HIGH GAS PRICES?

Just asking…

As gasoline prices continue reach for the clouds at the pump, what are you doing to curb the problem and adjust to the new normal of higher prices?

Limit driving?

Pumping gasoline

Catch the bus or subway?

Carpool?

Walk?

Cab or Uber/Lyft?

Work from home?

Sell car?

The options are there, but one solution leads to another problem of sorts.

ISLE TWOSOME IN FAMOUS DUO GIG

Ben Vegas and Johnny Valentine, singers and guitarists alike, don’t normally work together.

However, they’re assembling a Songs From Famous Duos evening, at 7:30 p.m. March 19, at Medici’s at Manoa Marketplace.

No indication of which duo’s songbag they’ll explore, but I betcha among the teammates they could easily salute include Loggins and Messina, Simon and Garfunkel, Hall and Oates, The Carpenters, Sonny and Cher,  Jan and Dean, Air Supply, The Righteous Brothers and The Everly Brothers,  if you’re considering only performers.

Ben Vegas

But if they’re dipping into famous pairs of composers, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Elton John and /or Bernie Taupin and Tim Rice, and even Henry Kapono and Cecilio Rodrigues  could fill the bill.

John Valentine

Vegas and Valentine are longtime performers in Hawaii; Vegas is an ex-member of The Krush and had been, in recent years, part of a duo with Maila Gibson. Valentine has been frontman for a band on the Waikiki circuit for decades, and he’s a much-in-demand musician in both concert and studio work.

Tickets: $59, includes dinner; doors open at 6 p.m. Information: (808) 351-0901. …

Cazimero, dancers in symphony show

Robert Cazimero

Robert Cazimero will join the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra ai 7:30 p.m. April 22 at the Hawaii Theatre. It will be his biggest stage endeavor since the pandemic, and he provided a preview of what to expect.

Yes, he’s involving a few gents from his Halau Na Kamalei O Likolehua; yes, wahine from his Royal Dance Company will offer hula during his vocals; yes, all dancers will join him together, too.

His repertoire will include many songs from “Mine,” his newest CD; there will be moments when Cazimero will be at the piano, too; and for one song, it’ll be a true solo (only his voice and his keyboard artistry), so the gig is a wide representation of his astonishing artistry.

Tickets: $18 to $99. Visit www.myhso.org/concerts  or call (808) 380-7720. Part of the Hapa Symphony series. …

Who else and where

More musical notes:

  • Raiatea Helm also sashays into the aforementioned HSO series, with a  Hapa Symphony show at 7:30 p.m. May 13 at the Hawaii Theatre. Tickets: same as above. …
  • Jake Shimabukuro returns to the Blue Note Hawaii at 7 p.m. March 23. Tickets: $59. Visit: www.bluenotehawaii.com or call (808) 729-4718.
  • Streetlight Cadence also revisit the Blue Note at  6:30 and 9 p.m. March 20. Tickets: $45 to $59. Visit www.bluenotehawaii.com or call (808) 729-4718.

Opportunities for playwrights

Did you know that Kumu Kahua and Bamboo Ridge Press sponsor a monthly PlayWrite competition, enabling theatrical scriptwriters to get noticed?

Writers can enter the competition to test the waters of their competency and imagination. A 10-page maximum, devised from a monthly theme, might be your ticket to bigger and greater things. Mostly, you’ll get noticed!

Wynn Oshiro’s “Grandma Says” – about a police officer catching a grandparent teaching their grandkids to burn and pop illegal fireworks – won the January contest. The deadline for the February contest is past – the theme was a scene about first meeting of two characters, a local and a visitor,  that develops into a relationship.

Information: www.kumukahua.org or 898-536-4441. …

And that’s Show Biz. …

REMEMBERING NEWSPAPERING, WHEN EARLIER CONTENT MATTERED

The daily paper ain’t what it used to be.

If you haven’t been a subscriber or reader of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in recent years, you’d be stunned with the three-section oddity with former stand-alone sections conjoined and consolidated like Siamese twins.

Happily, sports finally and deservedly has its own a stand-alone section. ;

The coronavirus pandemic, now into its third year, has dramatically affected advertising revenues, triggering downsizing of the paper’s space and staff; survivors earlier experienced “furloughs” reflecting a 20 per cent paycut.  And since last fall, the Star-Advertiser newsroom was virtually shut down, with most reporters working from home, saving office space costs for their employer.

It’s a worrisome challenge about what’s happening at the daily paper.

The Wednesday food tabloid — with earlier take-out restaurant offers– now is back to dine-in options, with the Sunday Dining Out tab (which was Dining In at the height of coronavirus) also resuming to peddle on-site dining.

For more than a year, a Saturday print edition was eliminated, so print signees have to navigate an online edition. It takes an effort to call up stories and the site boasts a recap of the Friday edition of USA Today.

The strangest calamity is Sunday’s Detours/Travel; it’s a features section with marginal focus, with some local articles, plenty of wire stories and puzzles. Since travel is returning as more planes fly, the pics of those travelers who’ve discovered a Hawaii shop or restaurant is the best link to life in the new normal.

As a lifelong print reader and a career journalist, I’m simultaneously concerned and dismayed that perhaps someday, the Star-Advertiser may become exclusively on-line.  It is simpler to manage, easily updatable, and likely an option to reduce further costs.

Longtime subscribers (me included) are largely seniors — old habits are hard to eliminate — and it’s no secret young folks don’t read newspapers. Repeating: Young. Folks. Don’t. Read. Newspapers.

Book buffs can relate; turning pages and enjoying the scent of a new volume is akin to flipping pages of a paper smelling like newsprint ink. Online and tablet-reading may be convenient but is not user-friendly.

Reading habits have dramatically changed over time. Remember when families could easily share sections— main news, sports, features, business  — because they were stand-alones. No more, however.

When the potential staff cuts were announced in the midst of the pandenmic, I was stunned to learn two columnists —Lee Cataluna and Christine Donnelly — were on the endangered list, but Cataluna revealed on her Facebook page that she chose to voluntarily exit the paper, to spend the summer completing writing projects (she’s a somebody, of course, in playwrighting) then joined the staff of Civil Beat in the  fall to resume her reportorial skills. Their win, a loss for the paper.

Donnelly’s retention meant that her Kokua Line column, which resolves and covers a myriad of community and governmental issues particularly important in these coronavirus times, continues. Smart move.

That Cataluna and Donnelly even were on the potential cut list in the first place was astonishing. They are essential in the content of a metropolitan daily. They bring daily sunshine into dark corners, providing the essence what a paper does. Inform, sometimes amuse; educate, sometimes entertain.

Content matters because it reflects who and what the paper is. In that sense, content should reflect the community, too,

From the perspective of someone who’s been part of the paper for nearly 60 years, 45 of which as a full-timer, it hurts personally to see the state’s lone paper is struggling. There used to be two, remember, the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Competition was essential in reportage; today, a monopoly rules.

As a cub reporter, at the smaller Advertiser morning publication, I was humbled to work and compete with the evening Star-Bulletin, which championed the race for a time. But the Advertiser, which for decades was a locally-owned and operating paper thanks to its late publisher Thurston Twigg-Smith, eventually surpassed the SB to become the dominant print voice in the state. The Advertiser also built a new press in Kapolei, shuttering the ancient behemoth on Kapiolani Boulevard and eventual vacating the premises now occupied by a business. Sad day for us oldtimers.

I think the Advertiser became the paper of choice over time because of its content, its diversity, and its esprit de corps.  It was always a fun place to work, with writers and columns that nurtured the publication’s growth.

Ironically, while in high school, I won a Star-Bulletin-supported scholarship to attend the University of Hawaii, and after I graduated, sought a job at the Bulletin. But there were no openings then, but the Advertiser did, and I was hired.

It was thrilling to be in the circle of local talent that filled the pages of the Advertiser. Surely, you remember Bob Krauss, who wrote about his family a lot (in the old days, his column was titled “In One Ear”) but he chronicled trends and notables in the community thereafter.  The paper hired a married couple, Ele and Walt Dulaney, who put a spin on local advice for youths —diversity in action, since she was Japanese and he was haole.

Then there was the dean of the three-dot column, Eddie Sherman, who dropped bold face names of the famous and infamous, an inspiration in my eventually destiny at the paper.

And there was the unlikely but fabled Sammy Amalu, the only ex-con columnist in Hawaii’s history, who shared his love particularly of things and themes Hawaiian.

Harry Lyons was the resident editorial cartoonist (OK, the Bulletin had a dandy, too, in Corky Trinidad) and both artists created powerful cartoons — with politicos eager to purchase their original cartoons that appeared in the editorial pages (or accompanying news or features in both papers). When both died, their slots were not filled.

You remember the queen of household hints, Heloise? She authored the Hints from Heloise column in the Advertiser —a feature so popular, it was syndicated —and certainly the most famous of the Advertiser alumni.

And my buddy, Scoops Casey Kreger, authored the Ms. Fixit column, which competed with the SB’s Kokua Line originated by Harriet Gee. These Q&A columns probably were the most popular in the paper’s content because they tackled everything from governmental red tape to complaints about potholes to wee-hour noisemaking.

Among other notable Advertiser columnists was Cobey Black, whose profiles and interviews of the rich and famous were part of the feature section.

That was the community I knew in my early years at the Advertiser. It was Buck Buchwach, a managing editor who became editor, who tapped me to become the Advertiser’s first and only entertainment editor-columnist. He nurtured and shaped Sherman’s column, thanks to his interest in the Hollywood scene prior to his Hawaii residency, enabled a local boy to carry on the tradition.

Regular entertainment news and features are a rarity these days; while theater and clubs are beginning to bloom and rebuild, movie screens have reopened with mostly scanty titles and the occasional blockbuster like “Spider-Man” and “The Batman.”  What the pandemic has done is to impact movie-going is clear. Most folks stopped going to a theater during the crisis and got accustomed to streaming films on TV instead. Old habits don’t die, but they kill businesses attempting to reestablish old hangouts.

The performing arts have been a stepchild in recent years, battered by the pandemic, but have never had the muscle, or moolah, to become a resonant and relevant voice in the community. Artists and their expression are vital in media; the paper’s role in this process has been erratic and dismal during the pandemic, Remember TGIF, the weekly tabloid over the decades? It was aborted before the pandemic and replaced with a broadsheet, which was halted during the cutbacks and never restored. Sad.

But when you’re the only game in town, you’ve got power and prowess to set your own rules.

Notice? If you call the paper or a reporter these days, there’s a security tier that blocks your access unless you have had previous minimal clearance.

It’s no longer easy to communicate, even if communication is the core and the heart of a thriving publication.