WBFO Arts & Culture Desk

While the gala dinner for Curtain Up! Friday night, September 20 is sold out, many restaurants can accomodate or you can just come for the street party on Main between Tupper and Chippewa with live music, food trucks, and fun until 1 a.m. (See the lyrics to Irving Berlin's "Top Hat, White Tie And Tails" below.)

Borderland is returning for its second year at Knox Farm State Park in East Aurora the weekend of September 21 and 22. In this week's Press Pass with WBFO's Mark Scott, Buffalo Spree Editor Elizabeth Licata says the music and art festival has quickly become popular.

At some point in time, "operettas" became the uniquely American phenomenon known as "Broadway Musicals" and they excel at exposing the realities of life in the U.S. including racism. From the days of SHOWBOAT to BABES IN ARMS to the period pieces WEST SIDE STORY (which opened this week at Muscialfare) and HAIRSPRAY (opening tonight at the Kavinoky) there's intense drama when the characters on stage cross race lines.

An art installation nearly three decades in the making is making its way to Silo City in Buffalo starting Friday. ‘Rio Negro II’ is a collaborative project that mixes rain sticks, sculptures, electronic music and robotics. Its focus is on humans examining their relationship with their living environment. WBFO’s Nick Lippa spoke with the artists involved as they spent this past week setting everything up.

With 333 features scheduled over the coming days, the Toronto International Film Festival should have plenty to offer cinema lovers. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star encourages visitors to follow him for information and perspective on what's happening at the sprawling event. "A film festival is challenging you," Howell told WBFO, offering a warning to those in search of happy endings. "It's designed to make you think. That's the primaty mission."

There has been a change to Buffalo's landscape along Elmwood Avenue in front of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The museum's set to close in less than two months for a major expansion project. And as WBFO's Chris Caya reports, the prep work includes moving a highly visible artwork. 

Let’s say you’re making a movie and you want to film on the Grand Island Bridge. The only thing standing between you and your great scene is a little car traffic. So how do you do it?  If you are Paramount Pictures, you’re fortunate that the New York State Film Office is there to help. Buffalo Niagara Film Commissioner Tim Clark sheds light on the subject on this week's Press Pass.

International wings, beverages, blue cheese and yes, even ranch, will be on hand this weekend for the National Buffalo Wing Festival. 

Organizers held a sneak preview event Thursday at the Buffalo Niagara Visitor Center, as London-based wing maker The Orange Buffalo provided free samples to community members. 

Before Curtain Up! on September 20,  Jeanne Hebbbon Cairns will be inducted to "The Plaza of the Stars" on September 16 at 5:00 p.m. (free, open to the public, at Shea's 710 Theatre). WEST SIDE STORY opens at MusicalFare this Wednesday, and Anthony reports a very satisfying theatrical event, the six-hour (including lunch and two intermissions) production of MAN AND SUPERMAN with the often excerpted DON JUAN IN HELL. Only 17 performances have been scheduled at The Shaw Festival.

QRS has manufactured piano rolls at its home on Niagara Street in Buffalo since the 1960s. By the end of this year, they plan to close their doors for good.  It’s the end of an era for player piano lovers. Former QRS Music Director Bob Berkman spoke with WBFO’s Nick Lippa about the company’s history and how his love for the instrument led to a lifelong career in Buffalo.

Buffalo actors are busy prepping for Curtain Up!, but there's not much on stage yet. Charmagne Chi wraps up her "adult content" cabaret at MusicalFare tonight. Yet trips to the two great Canadian Festivals continue to yield treasures. A stunning CYRANO DE BERGERAC at Shaw stars Stratford/Shaw's Tom Rooney in a new translation/adaptation by Stratford/Shaw's Kate Hennig  whose play MOTHER'S DAUGHTER at Stratford is worth the drive.

In what has became a staple film series in the Buffalo movie-going community, Thursday Night Terrors returns Thursday night for its seventh season at the Dipson Amherst Theatre with showings of Frank Henenlotter’s 1982 cult classic Basket Case.

Big changes are coming to this year’s National Buffalo Wing Festival and they may be upsetting to the condiment snobs of the world.

Students from the Buffalo Youth Media Institute premiered their documentary "1988" Tuesday night at the Burchfield Penny Art Center. The film examines society’s relationship with climate change.

When Jimi Hendrix was taking the Woodstock stage for his legendary performance, Mike Desmond was driving back to Utica for work on Monday morning. That performance aside, Desmond was on-site covering most of the festival for The Daily Press.

For the Pittsburgh-based funk-jazz group Afro Yaqui Music Collective, advocacy is at the core of who they are. Their new album, a jazz opera titled Mirror Butterfly: the Migrant Liberation Movement Suite, is about climate change and mass migration.

Ellen Horst is the stern Holocaust survivor, Grandma Kurntiz, admonishing her daughter Bella (Diane DiBernardo) and her two grandsons, played by Ayden Herreid and Timothy Whipple, who get some great Neil Simon gag lines in LOST IN YONKERS. Out of town, there's fun for all at both The Stratford Festival and The Shaw Festival when actors take on wildly contrasting roles in different plays in repertory, such as Stratford's OTHELLO and THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR on stage this summer.

The young Samuel Clemens grew up along one of the world’s great rivers, the Mississippi, and eventually became a pilot on the riverboats that carried the trade of a continent to the world. Better known today as Mark Twain, he is now an entry on the greatest of trade routes: the World Wide Web.

About seven years ago, 12-year-old blues guitarist Hayden Fogle took Buffalo by storm after playing on stage with Buddy Guy at a University at Buffalo concert. Now he is traveling around the world, playing various festivals and releasing a debut album in October. Fogle came to WBFO’s studios to play a few tunes and chat with Reporter Nick Lippa about his growth as a musician in Buffalo.

While there is no shortage of bars in Buffalo, some establishments are building reputations by specializing in high-end cocktails.

American troubadour Robert Earl Keen has made his way from Texas to play Babeville Tuesday night for a rare Buffalo show. A pioneer of the Red Dirt sound that incorporates country, rock, blues, bluegrass and beyond, Keen keeps exploring the musical meaning of "Americana" as he discussed with music journalist Seamus Gallivan.

There are two major construction projects in the works for Canalside. One harkens back to the birth of the Erie Canal and the other to the boat-building industry which turned Western New York's forests into the boats on the canal.

While it's only an hour from downtown Buffalo, the Wyoming County Fair in Pike, New York can make visitors feel like they are a long distance from modern-day life. From its historic fairgrounds to the free admission, the event focuses more on agriculture and community and less on commerce.

Broadway dimmed its fabled lights in honor of Harold "Hal" Prince who earned 21 Tony Awards in his career and was involved with so many iconic musicals starting with THE PAJAMA GAME and WEST SIDE STORY, FIDDLER, CABARET, and more, who passed away at the age of 91. And, while in NYC, Anthony took in two "hot tickets" - MOULIN ROUGE and FAIRVIEW. Locally, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST continues to delight audiences in Delaware Park.