Nervous Breakthrough: Ann Arbor novelist Camille Pagán's "Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties" explores loss & change

Mon, 03/19/2018 - 8:30pm by christopherporter

Ann Arbor-based novelist Camille Pagán (Forever Is the Worst Long Time, Life and Other Near Death Experiences) was in the midst of writing a book that wasn’t going anywhere when she had an unnerving grocery-store experience.

“This guy, a college kid ... bumped into me and didn’t even look at me or say anything,” said Pagán, who also noted that on other occasions while out shopping, she’d observed “when a cashier would talk to and make conversation with a middle-aged man but then not talk to the middle-aged woman who was next in line. This seemed to me to really be saying something about our society and how we view and treat women as they age.”

Encore Theatre's "School of Rock" rolls despite its difficulty

Fri, 03/09/2018 - 3:00pm by christopherporter

Taking a beloved hit movie and transforming it into a stage musical is standard practice these days. One look at current Broadway listings -- Aladdin, Anastasia, Frozen, the soon-to-open Mean Girls, and Waitress, to name a few -- proves how often the stage artists are borrowing from the screen.

Pith Helmets & Pithy Plays: A2 Civic Theatre's “The Explorer's Club"

Tue, 01/09/2018 - 12:00pm by christopherporter

Once you learn that someone has an “adventure tiki room” in his own home -- well, let’s just say it’s not so surprising to learn this same person was inspired to direct an Ann Arbor Civic Theatre production of Nell Benjamin’s comedy The Explorers Club.

It's De-Lovely: "Anything Goes" at Encore Theatre

Tue, 11/28/2017 - 7:00am by christopherporter

“Tap Your Troubles Away” isn’t one of the songs featured in the screwball musical comedy Anything Goes, but it’s nonetheless what popped into my head upon leaving Dexter’s Encore Theatre on Sunday.

Why? Because this silly confection of a Depression Era, vaudeville-infused musical, jam-packed with wordplay and witty Cole Porter tunes, offers a pleasurable, two and a half hour escape from our increasingly stressful world.

Originally staged in 1934, with a new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman (original book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, and Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse), Anything Goes tells the story of Wall Street broker and ladies’ man Billy Crocker (Sebastian Gerstner), who stows away on his boss’ cruise liner upon spotting the woman he truly loves, heiress Hope Harcourt (Emily Hadick), on board with her British fiancee, Lord Evelyn Oakley (David Moan). Hope’s family suffered great losses during the Crash of ’29, so her engagement is more pragmatic than romantic, and her heart secretly belongs to Billy. Meanwhile, brassy nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Olivia Hernandez) only has eyes for Billy, too, but over time, an unlikely friendship grows between her and Oakley.

Oh, and there’s a scheming, wisecracking gangster-in-hiding (Moonface Martin, played by Dan Morrison) and his moll (Erma, played by Elizabeth Jaffe) because isn’t there always? Some featured Porter songs in the show (besides the title number) include “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “It’s De-Lovely,” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.”

The latter number is one of the production’s best and most extensive showcases for Rachel Constantino’s joyous choreography, the other being the first act's energizing closer, “Anything Goes” -- which, amazingly, winks at one of the biggest dance men of the show’s era, Busby Berkeley, in its patterns and formations, despite the Encore’s relatively tight space limitations.

But the big, splashy, “tap-gasm” (my term) numbers weren’t the production’s only highlights. “The Gypsy in Me” comes off as both hilarious and sexy, with Moan and Hernandez turning up the fizzy flirtation factor through Constantino’s cheekily sensual choreography; “Buddie, Beware” has Jaffe literally rolling in men; and in “Friendship,” Hernandez and Morrison break the fourth wall by acknowledging that they can’t keep musical director Tyler Driskill vamping forever while they neurotically commiserate and kvetch about various things.

These moments epitomize the Encore production’s polished, sophisticated breeziness, as established by director Thalia Schramm, who keeps the pace clicking without ever making the scenes feel rushed. Plus, Schramm subtly, wisely downplays the culturally cringey parts of the show -- namely the often-exaggerated depiction of a reformed Chinese gambler -- while still honoring the script. Now, how one man’s outfit comes to disguise two characters, well, that’s the kind of musical theater math you have to just roll with.

Driskill’s seven-person orchestra delivers Porter’s glamorous score with panache, and the ensemble sounds divine. Tyler Chinn’s lighting design helps bring out the romance and heat of certain numbers, while Kristen Gribbin’s versatile sets, paired with Anne Donevan’s props, help to visually transport us to the SS American while also allowing for seamless, quick transitions. Finally, Sharon Larkey Urick’s handsome costumes manage to be bewitchingly sexy without being tacky, with Hernandez sporting the production’s most gorgeous gowns.

But Urick’s dresses are only one reason it’s hard to pull your eyes from Hernandez whenever she’s on stage. The charismatic actress commands the stage with a winning charm, and her knockout vocals have an effortlessness that’s only achieved through hard work and discipline. Gerstner is a delightful, graceful, and appealing leading man, and Morrisson and Jaffe have a ball with their deliciously cartoonish supporting roles. One of the most impressive leaps, though, is achieved by Moan, who takes the stuffy straight man role and renders it hysterical by seizing upon every opportunity -- like Oakley’s fascination with American colloquialisms, for instance, or his penchant for dancing around in a short robe and sock garters (courtesy of Urick) -- to wring humor from the character, and thus make Oakley more interesting.

Of course, there’s no mistaking that Anything Goes is a show built around the music, not the other way around; and with its absurd plot, cornball humor, and broad characters, the musical is more about making audiences feel good for a couple of hours than it is about making them feel much of anything else.

But these days, I’ll happily take that.

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.

"Anything Goes" runs through Dec. 23 at The Encore Theatre, 3126 Broad St., Dexter. Showtimes: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm. Visit theencoretheatre.org for tickets and more info.

Down by Law: David Wells' "Resisting" world premieres at Theatre Nova

Fri, 10/27/2017 - 6:00am by christopherporter

“Resist” is not only a rallying cry of our political times; it was the seed of Ann Arbor-based playwright David Wells (“Irrational,” “Brill”) latest world premiere play at Theatre Nova.

Resisting, which runs Oct. 27-Nov. 19, grew out of a news story Wells read about what’s called “broken windows policing.” Born in New York City in the ‘90s, “It’s essentially a zero-tolerance approach, that was combined with ‘stop and frisk,’” said Wells. “(Broken Windows) started with a scholarly paper that suggested that ... if one window in a building is broken, and it’s not fixed immediately, all of them will be broken. ... So the police were compelled to start ticketing or arresting people for every little infraction, no matter how small -- whether it’s jumping a turnstile, or jaywalking, or spitting in public. This led to a more antagonistic relationship between the police and the citizens they were supposed to serve. And these policies also only seemed to be applied in low-income neighborhoods.”

The article Wells read tracked the legacy of these policies, including a 2012 Baltimore incident involving Makia Smith who got stuck in traffic while coming home from a doctor’s appointment. When she saw police beating a young black man, she started filming the incident with her phone (which is legal). One of the officers involved grabbed it from her and smashed it, and she was charged with various offenses (resisting arrest, obstructing an officer, etc.).

“I used that story as the play’s jumping off point,” said Wells. “So much of what I was learning about was how much systemic racism there is in our justice system. And I thought, if I don’t know much about this, than most other people don’t, either.”

Resisting begins with this police incident “and then we take off from there,” said Wells. “Then it’s this woman’s journey from, just minutes before, living her life and minding her own business to going down the rabbit hole of the American justice system.”

Of course, as a storyteller, Wells built some of Resisting around facts he could research, but he also added fictional characters and situations in order to explore issues in a more personal way. For instance, one fictional character in Wells’ play -- a white, young, idealistic public defender -- develops a friendship with Tamika.

“I talked to a woman who does this kind of work in Baltimore, and she told me she may have 500 cases in six months’ time,” said Wells. “It’s triage. She told me she never has time to do research for a case, so even though she went into the job with the best intentions, it’s ground her down. But she could leave that job if she really wanted to. She has choices. ... (Tamika) doesn’t. And that’s part of the story I’m telling, too.”

Indeed, the choice Tamika does face is of the Hobson’s variety: she can take a plea, admitting to something she didn’t do in order to return to her life; or she can stand up for her innocence and take a risk by fighting the charges.

But how does a self-proclaimed “middle-aged white guy” like Wells end up being the person to write a play on this topic?

“That was absolutely a concern,” said Wells. “Writing a play takes a huge investment of time and emotion, and I didn’t even want to start the project if it was going to be derailed for those reasons. So I was very cognizant of that issue from the start.”

But Wells reached out to Emilio Rodriguez, co-founder of Detroit’s Black and Brown Theater, and Wayne State University’s Black Theater Program director Billicia Hines (who's also directing Theatre Nova’s production of Resisting) for feedback.

“I said, ‘Tell me everything I got wrong,’” said Wells. “But the feedback I got was, one, you didn’t get anything wrong except, two, you need to take it further.’ ... So I was totally aware of walking into a legitimate hornet’s nest, and possibly inviting all kinds of criticism that would be warranted.”

Yet Wells persisted -- thereby Resisting in his own way.

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.

"Resisting" is at Theatre Nova, 410 W. Huron St., Ann Arbor, Oct. 27-Nov. 19. Visit theatrenova.org for tickets and more info.

Scary Rituals: U-M's Halloween concert has haunted for 4 decades

Thu, 10/26/2017 - 6:00am by christopherporter

Sunday’s 40th annual Halloween concert at Hill Auditorium -- which combines the Campus Symphony Orchestra with the Campus Philharmonia Orchestra -- will mark conductor Kenneth Kiesler’s 23rd time on the podium while in costume. (What he’ll be dressed in this year is under wraps.)

But what you might not know is that he and the student musicians get one chance each year to raid the theater department’s costumes.

“They have a huge warehouse,” said Kiesler. “You could get just about anything you want.”

One legendary U-M Halloween concert costume, apparently, involved conductor Richard Rosenberg who, in the late '80s, dressed as a bat and directed a selection from Strauss’ Die Fledermaus while -- you guessed it -- suspended upside down.

Believe it or not, some in Sunday’s audience may be able to provide a first-hand account.

“We always ask by a show of hands how many years people have been coming to the concert every year,” said Kiesler. “We go up to 20 years, 30 years -- some people have been coming since the beginning.”

The hour-long, family-friendly, holiday-appropriate program offers up fun, familiar classics played well by orchestra members performing in costume, such as a ghost-busting cellist or a tricorn-toting pirate, as Kiesler did in 2012. The audience is encouraged to wear costumes, too.

“It’s a kind of greatest hits of classical music,” said Kiesler, who noted that while the concert’s first and last song are always the same each year, the rest of program changes. This year’s roster includes Shostakovish’s “Festive Overture,” Debussy’s “La mer,” Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain,” Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty Waltz,” and Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

The tune that always opens the concert each year, though, is Adam Glaser’s “March of the Little Goblins,” which Glaser wrote as a conducting student at U-M. The tune premiered in 1997, “when the piece we used to play got to be too expensive, in terms of the rental,” said Kiesling. “('Goblins') is terrific. It’s zany, funny -- just a perfect start for a concert like this.”

And even though the concert’s traditional (but more poppy) encore isn’t listed in the program, “the audience knows,” said Kiesler. “I can say, 'What are we playing?' and they’ll yell it out.”

But that’s what happens when a concert has more than 40 years of campus and community tradition behind it.

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.

U-M's 40th annual Halloween concert happens Sunday, Oct. 29 at 4:30 pm; tickets cost $8-$12.

Cognitive Overload: NY Times' Charles Blow talked truth & Trump at Rackham

Sun, 10/22/2017 - 7:30am by christopherporter

Reading a long list of sponsors doesn’t usually prompt a standing ovation; but because celebrated New York Times op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow couldn’t hear, while backstage at Rackham Auditorium on Friday evening, what was being said while waiting to make his entrance, he gamely emerged before his official introduction had even gotten underway.

Not that the adoring, full-capacity crowd minded the miscue in the least. Presenting the keynote speech of a Humility in the Age of Self-Promotion Colloquium at U-M, Blow spoke for 40 minutes on the topic of Trump, arrogance, and democracy, and answered audience questions for an additional half hour.

Mythological Duty: "Welcome to Night Vale" creators visit Ann Arbor

Fri, 10/20/2017 - 6:00am by christopherporter

One article about the popular, fiercely beloved Welcome to Night Vale podcast begins with the line, “Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of” the show.

But until I’d received a copy of the novel It Devours! written by the podcast's creators, Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, and researched Night Vale in preparation for a recent phone interview with Cranor, I’d been one such under-the-rock dweller.

Yet because the podcast could be described as the David Lynch version of A Prairie Home Companion -- focusing on a fictional desert town in the American Southwest, where all conspiracy theories are true -- I asked Cranor if any of Night Vale’s residents also live under rocks.

“No, but one of the characters is a rock -- the dean of the Night Vale Community College, Sarah Sultan,” said Cranor without missing a beat, referring to a character who communicates via telepathy.

Well, then. At least I might have some company.

Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor will be with artist and illustrator Jessica Hayworth at U-M's Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre on October 23 at 7 pm, courtesy of Literati Bookstore. The three will be interviewed by Detroit writer, actor, comedienne, and The Moth Storyslam Ann Arbor host Satori Shakoor, followed by an audience Q&A and signing.

Cranor answered questions for Pulp about Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours!.

Q: This is the second Night Vale-based novel you and Joseph have collaborated on. Is it challenging to write for both longtime podcast fans and those who might be “visiting” Night Vale for the first time?
A: It’s always a top consideration for us. When we write the novels, we don’t want you to have to listen to one hundred podcasts first and read the first novel to enjoy it. But we’ve been doing the podcasts for so long that we have a deep understanding of this universe. The town itself is the main character. So with a novel, it’s just a matter of resetting that idea for those brand new to us, and for those already familiar with Night Vale, it’s more like, look, here’s a new story, a new adventure, a new mystery to solve.

Q: How did you guys come up with the town’s name?
A: It was Joseph who came up with the name, piecing together the word “night” with “vale,” the latter being a semi-common word that you’ll see in towns’ names across the country. But we wanted a town name that doesn’t exist in the real world. So the opposite of, say, Springfield in The Simpsons, which, there are Springfields everywhere, we did a bunch of Google searches to make sure there was no Night Vale anywhere.

Q: Have you always been drawn to stories that have elements of magical realism, or otherworldly qualities?
A: Yeah, definitely. The first book I read over and over again was Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I loved the dream logic of it -- spoiler alert! It’s a dream! -- and I was always really taken by that as a kid. It was always a scary adventure to read that book, because what was happening didn’t match up with what should be happening. That’s what makes horror truly horrifying -- when we can’t understand something. ... I’ve always been interested in the strange, and why we’re so afraid of or tickled by it.

Q: You’ve been doing the podcast since 2012, and its popularity exploded in 2013. Between constantly writing new material for the podcast, live shows, and novels, do you get burned out?
A: No. I really love writing, and it’s really fun to do it with somebody like Joseph. But it’s like someone who writes sketch comedy, or writes novels for a living, or like being a journalist. It’s a job, and you have deadlines to make, but it’s really nice to have a job where you get to write full-time. ... That’s not to say I don’t have days where it’s like, “I’m not feeling it right now,” and obviously, there’s always a lot going on. Keeping up is always the thing, so we have to be careful with time management. But it really is fun, and it’s made easier by the fact that I get to work with Joseph, who can help take the load off when I need a break, and I do the same for him.

Q: Co-writing a novel seems like it would be a very different process than co-writing a podcast script. How do you tackle that as a writing team?
A: When we write podcast scripts, which are about 2,500 words each, it’s easy to say, “I’ll do this one, and you can do the next one,” and then edit each other’s work. You can’t do that with a novel -- say, like, “I’ll write the first 40,000 words!” -- because the word count is so much higher. So we’ll have a few meetings to talk through an outline, say, here’s our four or five act structure, do an abstract for each chapter -- where it begins and ends -- and we’ll work from there. One of us will say, “I’ll write chapters three through nine, you do chapters 10 through 14, and I’ll grab the ones after that.” Then when we have a full novel, it’s just a matter of editing for things like continuity.

Q: You guys began the podcast on your own, with total creative freedom, while publishing a novel involves working with editors who may have different priorities and goals for your novel. Was that a challenging shift?
A: Generally, it’s been enormously helpful to have extra people reading it with a critical eye. The only thing, and it’s not a big thing, comes up when copyeditors aren’t familiar with Night Vale’s absurd sense of humor. Like, in our first novel, there’s a moment when we include a fake Eleanor Roosevelt quote that goes, “One day we will destroy the moon with our indifference!” And the copyeditors came back to us saying, “We can’t source this,” and we had to say, “That’s fine.”

Q: How do you carve out time to take on novels when you’re already always under the gun for new podcast scripts?
A: We have to plan it out far in advance. We’ve already started working on a third novel, without having committed to it being printed yet. But we want to stay on top of it, because it takes months and months to edit it, finalize it -- it takes about a year to get from a final edit to seeing it in a store, so we try to start as early as we can.

Q: It Devours! tells the story of Night Vale scientist Nilanjana, who seeks help from The Church of the Smiling God member Darryl to figure out the cause of violent rumblings and sinkholes. Was your starting point for the novel a desire to explore where science and religion intersect and clash?
A: It started the way a lot of our podcasts start, which is, we get a phrase in our head, and with the novel, the phrase was, “The Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God.” ... And (Night Vale scientist Nilanjana Sikdar) was just briefly mentioned in the first novel, so we thought, let’s take a character we haven’t developed before and go on her journey. And that crossover, where religion and science are at odds, is something (Joseph and I) are both really interested in. It’s a pretty major struggle across human history. ... So it seemed a fun thing to play with.

Q: Those familiar with Night Vale’s mythology won’t be surprised to learn that you both make as much fun of the scientists as you do the people in this cultish church.
A: A lot of (our stories) just make fun of humanity in general, and how we’re all so fallible. As a scientist, you may feel empowered by factual righteousness, whereas if you’re religious, you may feel empowered by spiritual righteousness. ... But when you really think of all of the limitations of the human mind and body, it all just seems so rife with struggle and comedy and drama.

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.

Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, along with illustrator Jessica Hayworth, visit U-M's Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, 911 N. University Ave., on October 23 at 7 pm, courtesy of Literati Bookstore, to discuss their podcast, "Welcome to Night Vale," and their new book, "It Devours!" General admission tickets are $25.12, which is the cost of the novel with tax and a service fee; books are to be picked up at the venue the night of the event. Visit literatibookstore.com for more information and tickets.

Camus' leaden "L’Etat de siège" is a slog even for the great Théâtre de la Ville

Mon, 10/16/2017 - 4:00pm by christopherporter

I once spent a summer reading just about everything Albert Camus wrote. Not exactly beach reading, I know -- I jokingly referred to it as “my crazy summer” -- but I’d been hired to write the preface of a book about the French writer’s work, so I dove in.

I hadn’t counted Camus' seldom-produced 1948 play L’Etat de siège (State of Siege) among my favorites of his writings, but I was intrigued that Théâtre de la Ville was staging it. Having seen previous Théâtre de la Ville productions courtesy of University Musical Society (UMS), including Ionesco’s Rhinoceros in 2012 and Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author in 2014, I was hopeful the Parisian company's past lavish renderings of absurdist classics would nonetheless find a way make Siege sing.

And yes, Theatre de la Ville’s take on Siege at the Power Center on Friday and Saturday looked slick and offered some truly inspired moments of stagecraft, but Camus’ heavy-handed political allegory still ended up feeling pretty leaden.

All Wrapped Up: Christo at the Michigan Theater

Fri, 10/06/2017 - 2:00pm by christopherporter

On Thursday evening, world-renowned sculptor Christo, 82, told a huge crowd -- packed into the Michigan Theater to see him -- what might be the best, most succinct courtship story of all time.

Of his longtime partnership with Jeanne-Claude, with whom he collaborated on his massive art installations (and who died in 2009), Christo said, with a shrug, “I was very young, we make love, and we like each other. That’s all.” Moments later, he added, “She was very pretty.”

But Christo -- dressed in dark slacks, a collared white shirt, and a big-pocketed beige jacket that hung off his lean frame -- initially kicked off his Penny Stamps Speaker Series lecture with a few parameters: “I will answer all questions, but I will not talk about politics, religion, and certainly not about other artists. I talk about myself, my work, and anything that I can tell you about my work.”

By way of introduction, Christo shared a series of slides that highlighted some of his most notable, large-scale environmental installations: Wrapped Coast in Sydney, Australia; Wrapped Trees in Riehen, Switzerland; wrapping Berlin’s Reichstag, and Paris’ Pont-Neuf bridge, in fabric; an “iron curtain” in Paris, whereby Christo and Jeanne-Claude built a four meter high road-blocking wall made from oil barrels; Valley Curtain in Rifle, Colorado; the 24-mile-long Running Fence, made from fabric, in California’s Sonoma and Marin counties; the bright-pink Surrounded Islands in Miami; The Umbrellas, in Southern California and Japan; The Gates in New York City’s Central Park; Floating Piers in Italy; and Mastaba, Christo’s planned trapezoidal sculpture, which will be composed of 400,000 oil barrels and appear near Abu Dhabi.

Upon finishing this quick survey of his work, Christo stood on the Michigan Theater’s stage and alternated his attention between two microphones positioned at the head of two aisles, as audience members waited their turn to ask questions like, “How do you pay for your projects?” (by selling more portable and permanent works of art) and “What do you do with the materials after the installation ends?” (he sells what can be recycled).

“I have no stocks, no bonds, no inheritance,” said Christo, noting that he still works in a modest studio with no stool (“I stand 15, 16 hours a day) and no assistant. “I need to sell permanent things to build projects.”

But Christo also noted that one of the most challenging parts of his work has always been getting permission. “Everything in the world is owned by someone,” he said, explaining that although he’s succeeded in executing on 22 projects, he’s failed to get permission on 36 others.

Christo downplayed the importance of the individual elements in his work. “The moment you walk out of your home, you walk on the sidewalk. Someone designed that sidewalk. You cross the street ... someone designed the intersection.” Christo said, citing a parallel between these cross-sections of design and human existence and his installations. “They absorb all the energy of the space, of the people living their daily lives.”

Plus, Christo admitted that surprise was an exciting part of his own experience, in terms of how people interact with his art. “Something happened I never think about "[with the Umbrellas]” said Christo. “People decided to have picnics and stay there for three hours.”

One audience member who got to visit the Floating Piers -- a 16-day installation -- said she spotted Christo in a nearby boat while she was there. “With all our projects, I like to be all the time there,” said Christo. “We’re on the site and we’re responsible for everything. Around the clock. Cleaning, everything. Security. You say installation too short? I say it’s enough.”

Christo admitted to the Michigan Theater crowd that he does not know how to drive and that he’s not good at talking on the phone. “I do not like virtual things. I like real things. I like to walk in the sun, to be wet, to be cold.”

When a graduating U-M Stamps School of Art & Design senior asked for advice on avoiding creative burnout, Christo said, “You’re an artist all the time. ... It’s not like a job. You need to build something in yourself that you cannot live without. But that is something only you can do. It’s impossible to give advice what you should do.”

Near the end of Christo’s talk, the artist proudly rebuffed a question about meaning in his work (“All our projects are totally useless!”), but he also speculated about why millions come from all over the world to experience it in person, when he’s issued no official invitation to anyone in particular.

“I don’t know,” said Christo. “We always say, once in a lifetime, never again. That’s the most important. We’ll never do the same things again. Never, never. ... People like to see something that will never happen again. ... It’s like how every human is unique in the world. ... And (the projects) happen in a particular moment in our lifetime.”

Jenn McKee is a former staff arts reporter for The Ann Arbor News, where she primarily covered theater and film events, and also wrote general features and occasional articles on books and music.