INGENUITY INK

The Ingenuity Festival opens tonight, with a percussion spectacular called SYMPHONY FOR 1,000 DRUMS. My son Dave has been helping the Ingenuity folks, networking with local drum circles trying to organize drummers. ("Organize drummers?": sounds like an oxymoron. More like herding cats...)

The piece is being put together by the ultimately cool Egyptian-born composer Halim El-Dabh, who has been a fixture in NE Ohio thanks to his decades teaching at Kent State. Halim is one of the most righteous dudes you could ever meet -- eighty-some years young. He stayed on my futon one night when he had a premiere at CPT. Hearing him talk about his career -- everything from working with Martha Graham to his desert encounters with Berber tribesmen -- was fabulous.

Today I tinkered some more with my accordion piece, the Cell Phone Sing-Along -- changing some lyrics, adding a bridge so it's more musically interesting. Here's a link to an article about Ingenuity, including some ink about our show, Tech-Yes! Tech-No! -- look under "Cleveland Theater Collective". Also, check out "Lost Prospect", a collective creation by a group of area writers, including my Holiday Hotline collaborator Mike Sepesy.