Thomas Singer

Album Cover for Norbert Leo Butz's Memory & Mayhem - Live at 54 BELOW.

2013 saw the beginning of a novel partnership between the new label Broadway Records, dedicated to Broadway and Off Broadway-related recordings, and 54 BELOW, a classically designed state-of-the-art nightclub located just a few blocks from the heart of Times Square below the legendary Studio 54. Norbert Leo Butz made his cabaret debut performing his Memory & Mayhem concerts on August 5, 10, and 11, 2012. These performances were so well received by fans ad critics alike, that he will return to 54 BELOW this summer with Mystery & Mayhem on June 7, 8, 21, and 22.

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Rebel scum.

News broke last week that John Williams, the prolific film score composer who's one of maybe three film score composers you've ever heard of, will almost definitely lend his talents to the all-new, all-Disney Star Wars film set to be directed by J.J. Abrams.

It was Abrams himself who threw out some strong hints as to Williams' involvement, but it would have been a pretty safe assumption even if he hadn't. Williams' "Main Title" theme and "Imperial March" from the original trilogy are among the best-loved music in film history, and Star Wars wouldn't be Star Wars without him.

The soundtrack to George Lucas' space opera is only one of many blockbuster feathers in Williams' cap, of course. He's equally well-known for the memorable scores to epics like Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Superman: The Movie and even the Harry Potter flicks. Chances are, if you can hum the theme music to a billion-dollar film franchise, Williams penned it.

Despite his towering homeruns, however, he ain't exactly batting 1.000. Williams has written the music for dozens and dozens of films in his long career, including more than a few turds you've likely long since flushed from your memory. Just for fun, let's break out the toilet snake and dredge a few back up, shall we?

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Photo by David A. Brown

On Saturday, the University of Houston marching band will bravely go where no other band has gone before.

If you happen to find yourself near Discovery Green this Saturday, April 20, prepare for a musical invasion by the University of Houston Marching Band. From 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. in the park, the band will be performing a world premiere of a new, avant-garde work by Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain called "En Masse Studies and Etudes."

According to band director Troy Bennefield, this performance is sure to challenge your traditional ideas about marching bands.

"We're going to be able to play around with the idea of a band in uniform in a park," Bennefield said, noting that the band had never done anything like this before. "We're used to having everything very scripted, with people on the field moving the same way at the same time."

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In Transit by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's curated version of In Transit by the Compañía Nacional de Danza/National Ballet of Spain is just one of a slew of premieres seen at Dance Salad Festival 2013, which runs Friday and Saturday. The piece was inspired by Ochoa's frequent stops in airports. Ochoa has a second piece on the program, L'Effleure, a solo she created for dancer Rubi Pronk, who performs it here. Pronk also appears in Kurt Weill by Krzysztof Pastor, artistic director of the Polish National Ballet. (The group is back in the United States for the first time since 1980.) Mauro Astolfi's Dangerous Liaisons is performed by Rome-based Spellbound Contemporary Ballet.

Nancy Henderek, the festival's artistic director, travels around the globe in search of new and exciting work to bring to the event every year. One of her most notable finds this year was an evening-length work called PUZ/ZLE by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. After seeing it per-formed in a rock quarry in France, Henderek worked with the choreographer to bring a section of it to Dance Festival. "This is the first time that PUZ/ZLE has been to the United States in any form and we're getting a [version] that hasn't been seen anywhere else in the world. That's very exciting, to be able to work with this world-renowned choreographer on something special just for us," Henderek says. Musicians from Lebanon, Japan and Poland provide live musical accompaniment for PUZ/ZLE. "They're even going to create some new music for Houston."

See Dance Salad Festival 2013 at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For information, visit the Dance Salad Festival website or call 877-772-5425. $20 to $50.

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On Friday the 2013 French Cultures Festival, the sixth annual celebration of all things French across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas kicks off with a free outdoor concert downtown. The French indie group LYS will share the stage with local band The Tontons and the swamp-pop, Cajun band The Revelers. LYS is stopping in Houston before heading to Austin for South by Southwest. Besides the concert, a number of other events are scheduled for the 17-day festival, including film screenings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, lectures, French cooking classes and more.

Enjoy the kick off concert 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday at Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney. Other events continue through March 21 at various locations. For information, visit the festival's website or call 713-985-3273. Free.

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On March 8, the French Cultures Festival, a celebration of all things French, will kick off its sixth annual appearance in Houston with something it has never tried here before, says Program Director Charlotte Esnou.

"We are organizing a big live concert downtown at Discovery Green on March 8. This is going to kick off the whole festival in a more glamorous, young, interactive way."

The live concert is free and takes place from 6 to 10 p.m. It's going to include, direct from France, LYS. This French band will stop in Houston for the concert before heading to Austin to take part in South by Southwest. Houston's own local indie band The Tontons will also be performing, as will swamp-pop Cajun band The Revelers.

"What we want to do specifically is have those two cultures, like the French bands and the local bands from Houston, kind of interacting onstage. We kind of show that it's not only French-centered, but also the exchange of cultures, " says Esnou.

Recently there have been actions taken around the country to cut French as a language offering in public schools. The feeling is that French is not as important a language as Spanish or the sudden rush to the Chinese languages. Esnou said that the festival addresses this.

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Prussian Naval Blue by Justin Garcia

In "Tre Impasto: Hans de Bruijn, Justin Garcia and Tomas Glass," Wade Wilson Gallery's latest exhibition and our pick for Friday, the Montrose area gallery brings together three long-time artists who each have unique painting techniques. "We chose these artists because of the dynamic conversation between them, not necessarily for similarities," Wade Wilson associate curator Mark Hougham tells us. "It'll create something symphonic."

The show features recent works from each artist. De Bruijn, who hails from the Netherlands, is known for his large dramatic paintings that emulate great landscapists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and William Turner. Houston native Garcia has been painting since he was a 'tween, over time developing a signature style that combines oils, acrylics and compound texture on canvas. Another Houston native, Glass likes to go back to basics; painting and drawing are the cornerstones of his compositions.

There's an opening reception for "Tre Impasto" from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, February 8. Regular viewing hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays. Through March 16. 4411 Montrose. For information, visit the gallery's website or call 713-521-2977.

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Photo courtesy of The Music Box Theater

The cast of Broadway at the Box dances, sings and does skits together and alone

The set-up:

The Music Box Theater is a repertory group of three women and two men - they sing, they dance, they act, they reminisce about their childhood, they do solos and they do ensemble numbers, and all this with such a sense of togetherness, of fun, of personal enjoyment that their talent and enthusiasm cascade into the audience and wrap it in a warm embrace.

The execution:

The raised stage is compact but a lot sure happens on it during Broadway at The Box. One of the men, Luke Wrobel, has been handed a large section of the evening, and he more than rises to the occasion. He commands the stage early, as Tevye singing "I Wish I Were a Rich Man" and again toward the evening's end as Don Quixote singing "The Impossible Dream" and in-between logs time in an hilarious impersonation of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and as an amusingly brutal casting director, and shares a duet of "There's Nothing like a Dame" with Brad Scarborough, the other male member.

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Even before Shakespeare's Hamlet, the gloomy Danish prince haunted by the ghost of his murdered father, couldn't make up his mind back at the castle, he was something of a ditherer while at university. At least that's according to the premise of Wittenberg, a comic play by David Davalos that has Dr. Faustus and Martin Luther fighting each other over the heart and soul of the lonely Dane, who characteristically bounces back and forth between them. Wittenberg is our pick for Friday.

"Each one of them wants to take him under their wing to become their prized pupil," says director Josh Morrison, who's in charge of the Stages Repertory Theatre production. Luis Galindo, who plays Dr. Faustus, describes his character as "a libertine, a free thinker not swayed by his surroundings being in a Catholic University." Playwright Davalos told us: "I don't think of any of the characters as villains -- there's no malice propelling any of them. I think of them more as antagonists and of Faustus as perhaps an antihero."

He says he placed the play at Wittenberg because "to an Elizabethan audience, a reference to Wittenberg both identified a person there as Protestant and as someone immersed in an academic environment of intellectual foment and questioning -- as if an American Hamlet in the '60s were identified as coming home from Berkeley or Kent State."

Ryan Schabach plays Hamlet, and Molly Searcy plays the Virgin Mary and several other women as well. Perhaps the most unexpected bit of casting is that Stages Producing Artistic Director Kenn McLaughlin makes his acting debut at Stages, playing Martin Luther. Morrison says they were going through auditions for the part of Luther when McLaughlin suggested he read for it, and it clicked. "Louie is such a powerful actor; in order for the play to work, I needed to have someone who goes head to head with him," says Morrison.

See Wittenberg at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Through February 17. 3201 Allen Parkway. For information, visit the theater website or call 713‑527‑0123. $21 to $45.

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Photo by Steve McNicholas

More than 20 years later, STOMP still finds new things to make music with

Andres "Pooh" Fernandez has been all over the world with STOMP for 16 years and now he's back on the road on his way to Houston (thanks to the Society for the Performing Arts) with his group of performers who'll use just about anything to make noise with.

For those who aren't aware of STOMP, Fernandez says: "It's kind of dancing but you're stomping and you're moving rhythmically." It started in Great Britain and spread worldwide. It performers have played Vegas, been on Sesame Street and won all kinds of awards including an Olivier Award for Best Choreography, a New York Obie Award, a Drama Desk Award and an Emmy Award for their HBO special Stomp Out Loud.

Fernandez, the rehearsal director and also swing performer (sometimes he's the happy guy) for the North American tour says even though STOMP has been through Houston before, most of the cast is new and there's two new numbers. And even when some of the classics are being performed, Fernandez says, with new people in the roles, it comes out differently.

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