[ThisWeek] Wordplay at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[This Week at the Kenworthy]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

Wordplay (Not Rated)
Friday & Saturday, September 15 & 16
7:00 PM
Sunday, September 17
4:45 & 7:00 PM
$5/adult, $3/child 12 or younger
KFS pass accepted for Sunday movies
(See movie review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre...

Sirius Idaho Theatre presents the
World Première of
Cow-Tipping and Other Signs of Stress
by Gregory Fletcher

Directed by Stan Brown

Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 21, 22 & 23
7:30 PM

Also showing-
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 28, 29 & 30
7:30 PM

$15/adult, $10/senior, $6/student
Tickets and season passes available at:
BookPeople, Farmers¹ Market and KPAC box office

After years of perseverance and rejection letters, undiscovered playwright
Christopher Post asks for a sign from the universe confirming that he¹s on
the right path.  The signs flood in, each contradicting the next.  When
Christopher runs into an old college buddy who works for role model and star
playwright Ward Edington, Christopher begins sneaking, stealing, hiding,
conniving, teasing, fighting, and his life continues to snowball from there.
Saving his marriage and career will be the hardest rewrite of his life.  A
romantic dramedy laced with farce and cows.  (Adult themes/ brief nudity)

Cow-Tipping and Other Signs of Stress won the 2005 American College Theatre
Festival Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting.

Volunteer to usher and see the show for free!
Contact House Manager Cindylou Ament at 883-1012 or
<cindylouament at moscow.com>

Sirius Idaho Theatre 2006-2007 season passes

Sirius Idaho Theatre (SIT) announces their third season of plays, with three
productions scheduled at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow.
Cow-Tipping and Other Signs of Stress, the world premiere of a new comedy by
Gregory Fletcher, opens September 21. Touch, by Toni-Press Coffman, opens
January 25, 2007, and Breaking the Code, by Hugh Whitemore, opens April 12,
2007. In addition, SIT presents a staged reading of The Oldest Profession,
by Paula Vogel, as a special fundraising event on November 10 & 11.

Sirius Idaho Theatre is offering a significant savings to patrons who
purchase a 2006 ­ 2007 season pass. Passes are now available at the Moscow
Farmers¹ Market, BookPeople of Moscow, the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
box office, or by contacting a SIT board member (John Dickinson, Pam Palmer,
Andriette Pieron) www.SiriusIdahoTheatre.com

Adults - $15 per show or $40 pass
Seniors - $10 per show or $25 pass
Students - $6 per show or $15 pass

For more information, visit www.SiriusIdahoTheatre.com
<http://www.siriusidahotheatre.com/>  or call Pam Palmer, Managing Artistic
Director at 208-596-2270.
* * *

Also next week at the Kenworthy-

Sopie Scholl: The Final Days (not rated)
Sunday, September 24
4:15 & 7:00 PM
$5/adult, $3/child 12 or younger
KFS pass accepted for Sunday movies
* * *

October at the Kenworthy-

Back by popular demand:
An Inconvenient Truth (PG)
October 1
2:30, 4:45 & 7:00 PM

Coming in October: Who Killed the Electric Car?; Little Miss Sunshine

Regular movie prices:  $5/adult, $3/child 12 or younger
KFS series pass prices:  $30/10 films, $75/30 films.  KFS pass good only for
Sunday movies.

For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a
schedule, visit our website at www.kenworthy.org
* * *

This week¹s movie review-

Wordplay

Documentary Film
Directed by Patrick Creadon
Rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for some language and mild thematic
elements.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

As reviewed by Phillip Lopate writing for the New York Times

The idea of a documentary about crossword puzzle fanciers may not
immediately cause everyone's pulse to race. Those of us addicted to doing
the crossword puzzles should find the spectacle of similar fetishists
compulsively watchable. Nonaddicts may need more convincing.

In "Wordplay" the director, Patrick Creadon, a veteran cameraman, employs
playful strategies to keep both sets of viewers engrossed. With rapid
editing style, he shuffles between crossword composers and solvers, feeding
in a steady stream of entertaining cameos by notables like the comedian Jon
Stewart, the New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina, and the ever-charismatic
Bill Clinton, all confessing to an inner nerd.

In one enlightening episode the crossword composer Merl Reagle shares his
thought processes while putting together a new puzzle, affording an insight
into the deep linguistic structures that inform this seemingly trivial
hobby. Mathematicians and musicians, we are told, are best at solving
crosswords quickly, being able to glimpse the underlying orthographic
patterns and puns like a system of numbers or notes.

"Wordplay" is built around the 28th annual American Crossword Puzzle
Tournament, which attracts the top competitors. The movie presents them with
affection as a proudly geeky tribe of isolates, coming together each year to
revel in family feeling and competitiveness. Many of the players emerge as
colorfully rabid characters; others seem robotic and washed-out, obsession
having the curious property of heightening some personalities, flattening
others.

Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times and a National Public
Radio host, who has organized the tournament from its inception, comes off
as a genial ringmaster. The failure to bring us closer to this ostensible
anchoring figure. leaves a gray hole at the film's center. Whatever the
documentary's flaws, the filmmakers should be saluted for giving us a rare
glimpse of life in these trenches.


As reviewed by Ruthe Stein writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

If "Wordplay" were a crossword puzzle instead of a revealing documentary
about an addictive hobby, its theme would be everything related to the
American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the Super Bowl for game fanatics.
Almost 500 competitors from around the world are shown gathering in a
ballroom at the Marriott in Stamford, Conn., in 2005 to do battle with their
pens and wits. Players cross words as if they were swords.

Although rather obviously patterned after "Spellbound," "Wordplay" isn't as
immediately endearing, but it does eventually win you over. Opponents are
too old and smug to capture hearts the way wannabe national spelling bee
champions did. Still there's something appealing about puzzle players who
fess up to being nerds. In onscreen interviews, they admit to spending
enormous chunks of time coming up with answers based on arcane clues and
then furiously scribbling the right word in white boxes. Like runners, they
time themselves and attempt to beat their fastest speed in preparation for
the annual meet.

"Wordplay's" most imaginative scene is of Clinton and Stewart along with
tournament champions each working the same puzzle at different locations.
Sooner or later, they all arrive at ICBM as the answer to a clue. Clinton,
who's had to make decisions related to intercontinental ballistic missiles,
is slow to get it.

The documentary shifts back and forth between celebrity players -- New York
Yankees starting pitcher Mike Mussina, filmmaker Ken Burns, former Sen. Bob
Dole and the singing duo the Indigo Girls also are interviewed -- and
preparations for the tournament. The drama heightens as the crossword meet
gets down to three finalists.

Creadon provides enough background on these men to make you root for a
favorite. (Although men most often take the top prizes, there appear to be
almost as many female as male competitors.) The trio is on a stage writing
answers on a huge board in front of everyone. Their concentration is
impressive. Meanwhile Shortz and fellow crossword constructor Merl Reagle
give a play-by-play account as if announcing a ballgame. A winner emerges.
Make that two, counting this engaging documentary that opens up a world of
words.


As reviewed by Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

There are certain things in life you instinctively hold at arm's length, or
they will move in with you and put their feet on the furniture. I've spent
enough time working crossword puzzles to know I could become addicted. In
the documentary "Wordplay," we observe that to be a crossword champion, you
have to be incredibly intelligent; be capable of intuitive, lateral
thinking; know everything, and focus your knowledge into a narrow and
ultimately meaningless pursuit. Yes, that makes you an obsessive eccentric,
but they're really the only interesting people left, don't you sometimes
think?

The film is made with a lot of style and visual ingenuity. Patrick Creadon,
the director, uses graphics to show us crossword grids with the problem
areas highlighted, and then we see the letters being written in. In one
especially ingenious montage, he has all of his celebrities working on the
same puzzle in interlocking shots. During the final championship round, with
three contenders working on giant crosswords on a stage, he makes their
progress easy to follow; I can imagine another film in which it would have
been incomprehensible.

Will Shortz has been the god of this world since he founded the tournament,
shortly after taking over as editor of the Times puzzles. How do you prepare
for such a career? He went to Indiana University, which permits students to
design their own majors, and got a degree in "enigmatology." He created the
rules for the annual tournament.

The final championship round is incredibly intense. Not only do the
finalists stand onstage in front of big boards that everyone can see, but
they wear headphones that pump music at them, so they can't hear clues or
comments from the audience. There is a finalist this time who rips off his
headphones, throws them to the ground and uses a banished word involving a
bodily function, and believe me, he has his reasons.


Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
208-882-4127
Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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