The Arts

I ordinarily steer clear of true-crime books, but I made an exception in the case of Jeff Guinn‘s “Manson,” the new biography of Charles Manson, the cult leader who manipulated his followers into committing the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, a terrible bookend to the freewheeling 1960s.

This meticulously documented book by Guinn, a former book editor for a Texas newspaper who turned to writing nonfiction books, reveals many things, including Manson’s dismal upbringing and his many convictions and the jail time he served (including a stint at Washington’s McNeil Island prison when it was a federal penitentiary). Guinn brings home just how easy it was to shed your past in those days – Manson read voraciously in prison (including books by Dale Carnegie) and once he was freed he submerged his ex-con identity, becoming  a cult leader who preyed on young women and preached philosophy to his adherents while goading them to increasingly terrible crimes.

Guinn discusses his book tonight on “Well Read,” the books and authors television show on state public affairs network TVW (comcast channel 23 in Seattle). The program airs at 7 and 10 p.m. tonight. Or you can watch it here:

For more information, here’s a review.

Detail of “Drawing for a Cave,” by Leo Berk (2007)

Seattle artist Leo Berk is the winner of the annual Betty Bowen Award, which comes with a $15,000 unrestricted cash prize and an exhibition (Nov. 7) at Seattle Art Museum, the host of the award. His sculpture “Spider Hole”  was seen recently at the Frye’s innovative “Mw [Moment Magnitude]” show, and his cool-blue installation “Low Ceiling” sheds light on the 20-foot conference table at 4Culture. With “Work Song,” he turned a space in the Henry Art Gallery into a studio — built around a drum set belonging to Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse — where images, video and recordings were made. He’s also shown work at Lawrimore Project in Seattle, Edward Cella Gallery in Los Angeles and Galleri Erik Steen in Oslo. His new show, “Uncertainty of Enclosure,”  (sculpture, photography and video) opens June 7, 2014, at INOVA in Milwaukee, Wis.

Special Recognition Award, $2,500, went to Jack Daws, and the Kayla Skinner Special Recognition Award, $2,500, went to Sol Hashemi. More than 600 artists applied for this year’s Bowen Award.

If you attended the University of Washington, you may know about its splendid crew team, but did you know about the 1936 version, which took Olympic Gold at the Munich Olympics?

Redmond author Daniel James Brown tells this unforgettable story in his recent book “The Boys in the Boat.” He explains how he found this inspiring story on “Well Read,” the books and authors television show on state public affairs network TVW. “Well Read” airs at 7 and 10 p.m. tonight on TVW, or follow this link to watch it here:

For more information, read The Seattle Times review, or check out this interview with author Brown.

From Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson:

The producers of “Aladdin,” the new musical from Disney, have announced the cast for the show’s Broadway premiere.  And there are some familiar names on the list for those who frequent Seattle theater, and who caught the show’s  2011  try-out here at the 5^th Avenue Theatre.

With Casey Nicholaw repeating as director and choreographer, the show (which received middling reviews in Seattle)  will feature longtime Seattle musical theater favorites Brandon O’Neill reprising his role as Kassim and Don Darryl Rivera as Iago.

Adam Jacobs and Courtney Reed, who co-starred as romantic leads Aladdin and Jasmine at the 5^th Avenue, will also encore their parts, and James Monroe Igelhart will again play the genie.

“Aladdin” opens a Toronto engagement in November, and begins performances at  Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway in late February 2014.

Zoë Alexis Scott has been hired to lead Seattle Public Theater. She comes to SPT from  The Grand, an historic theater and nonprofit in Maine, where she was executive director from 2008-13. She’s a co-founder of  the West Marin Music Festival and the West Marin Children’s Chorus, and was executive director for the Baroque Arts Ensemble of San Francisco.

“Culture runs through our lives from birth to death,” Scott said in a news release, “and those singular experiences of watching a provocative live performance, discovering the well of humor or sorrow that connects us to each other and to the world … this is what makes theater one of the best things on earth.”

Up next at SPT: the Seattle premiere of “Broke-ology,” by Nathan Louis Jackson, in association with the Hansberry Project. The show opens Sept. 27.

From Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson:

West Seattle’s playhouse and gallery ArtsWest has named  Laura Lee, who has been serving as interim managing director, as the organization’s managing director.

ArtsWest also announced the directors for  the theater’s 2013-14 plays:  Mathew Wright will direct “Little Women, the Broadway Musical,” Annie Lareau will stage the comedy “The Little Dog Laughed” by Douglas Carter Beane, and David Gassner will direct the musical “Hair.”

More details at www.artswest.org.

The telly is uniting Anglophiles like never before — so many good shows, so little time, so thankful for the DVR. You’ve got your drawing-room/costume drama with “Downton Abbey.” You’ve got your suspense (and accents a-plenty) in “Broadchurch.” And you have the total package in the mystery series “Foyle’s War,” which returns for a new season Sunday night.

Here, Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic, waxes for a bit:

Just when mystery lovers thought that the beloved, taciturn British detective had faded into the sunset, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle is back — after several, glad for us, fruitless attempts to retire. When the

Honeysuckle Weeks and Michael Kitchen/Acorn

military wouldn’t take him, the middle-aged Foyle  spent World War II  at his post in the coastal town of Hastings,  brilliantly sniffing out and rounding up bad guys.  Then the war ended, and the series was canceled — until Foyle fans raised such a ruckus, he was called back into service.

Now, in a new seventh season of “Foyle’s War,” which airs on the PBS television series “Masterpiece Mystery” on Sunday, the rigorously analytical, incorruptible and often slyly bemused sleuth  (played to perfection, as usual, by Michael Kitchen) returns from an American sojourn to  wade into the murky depths of Cold War espionage — when he’d really much rather be  fly fishing back in Hastings. In the first of the season’s three episodes, Foyle is pressed into service by the new British intelligence network, MI5, and assigned to untangle Communist Russian spy plots.

Yet  it isn’t just the Russians whom Foyle can’t trust. His British spymasters are a pretty sneaky bunch too,  including his main  MI5 handler, a stern-faced woman with a striking resemblance to the late author Lillian Hellman. (She is possibly the only person who could beat Foyle in a staring contest.) The show is unthinkable without  Honeysuckle Weeks, who returns as Foyle’s eager-beaver young driver Samantha. (If Nancy Drew were English, broke, wore sensible shoes and sometimes got carried away  to the point of almost blowing a case of international importance, she’d be Sam’s twin.)

The first episode of the new season, “The Eternity Ring,” follows Foyle’s  introduction to Stalin-era sleuthing as he investigates a case that connects to the development of the atom bomb and (thanks to a very big coincidence) re-unites him with Sam. Even better are the second and third episodes.  In “The Cage,” Foyle is assigned to get to the bottom of the suspicious deaths and disappearances of several Russian defectors. And in the haunting “Sunflower,” he is dispatched to protect a former Nazi officer, an arrogant war criminal both the Americans and the Brits want kept alive, for different reasons.

Is the last we’ll see of Foyle?  The series ends on an ambiguous note with Foyle contemplating his future but not deciding it. After all these years of service, the weary detective certainly deserves a break and a spot of trout fishing. But his persistent fans may call him back yet again.

Good news for art/artists: The Raynier Institute & Foundation has awarded $1.1 million to the Artist Trust / Frye Art Museum Consortium for two awards and an exhibition, with the aim of supporting Washington state artists. The announcement of the first awards is expected to be made in early 2014.

–The James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award  will recognize artists in all disciplines. One grant of $50,000 will be awarded annually from 2014-18 “with the intention of freeing artists to advance their creative work.”

–The James W. Ray Venture Project Award will give two grants of $15,000 each annually from 2014-18 to support artists in all disciplines whose “work demonstrates exceptional originality.”

–The Raynier Foundation Exhibitions will be of works by Washington state artists, exhibited and curated by the Frye Art Museum from 2014-18, and will be documented in three Raynier Foundation publications.

The Raynier Institute & Foundation was founded in 1994 by Seattle resident James Widener Ray, a colorful Capitol Hill denizen and artist who opened Eagle Eye Gallery & Emporium Ltd. — and inherited $38 million — in the early 1990s. He died in 2005. His foundation supports nonprofits serving animal welfare, arts and culture, education, the environment and health care and human services.