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THREATS & PROMISES
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EVERYDAY PfOPLE
THIS WEEK’S ISSUE:
NEWS & FEATURES
City Dope 4
Athens News and Views
Corridor studies, local stimulus lobbying (good things, both), bio-lab reverberations (!) and more.
Athens Rising 7
What’s Up in New Development
A new plan in East Athens could serve as a positive model for the future of local affordable housing.
ARTS & EVENTS
Human Rights Festival 10
Ready to Take Over Downtown Again
This year's event features Athens' first Festival of Immigrant Rights, plus music and speakers aplenty
Handy Work 15
It’s Craftstravaganzaa Time
The newest edition of the local indie arts and crafts test is a two-day affair.
MUSIC
Against Me! 18
Don’t Care About Being Punk
The Florida quartet ditches the punk label and explores rock and roll's roots.
Brad Downs and the Poor Bastard Souls. . . 19
Winter Breathing
Brad Downs leads an all-star cast on his debut album.
COVER DESIGN by Kelly Ruberto
featuring a painting by Jemmy Hughes
on display at the ACC Public Library
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EDITOR l PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR l PUBLISHER Alicia Ntckles
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Larry Tenner
MANAGING EDITOR Christina Cotter
ADVERTISING SALES Anita Aubrey. Melinda Edwards, Jessica Pntchard
MUSIC EDITOR Michelle Gilwnrat
CITY E0I10R Ben Emanuel
CLASSIFIEOS, DISTRIBUTION l OFFICE MANAGER Paul Karjian
AD DESIGNERS Ian Rickert. Kelly Ruberto
CARTOONISTS James Allen, Cameron Bogue, Aaron Fu. Joe Havasy. Missy Kuiik, Jeremy Long. Clint McElroy
ADOPT ME Special Agent Cindy Jerrell
CONTRIBUTORS Hillary Brown, Jason Bugg, Oeb Chasteen, Tom Crawford, Jeff Gore. Chris Hasswtis, John Huie,
Gordon Lamb, Drew Wheeler, Kevan Williams
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleat, Jimmy Courson, Swen Froemke. Eric Mullins
WEB OESIGNER Ian Rickert
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Maggie Summers, Aisha Washington
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Jennifer Bryant
EDITORIAL INTERN Christina Downs
MUSIC INTERN TiagoMoura
ADVERTISING INTERNS Kristin Ballard, Rebecca Elmquist
VOLUME 23 •
ISSUE NUMBER 17
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I VERIFICATION I
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APRIL 29, 2009 • FLAGPOLE.COM 3
CURTAIN
Actors are not special people: they come in all shapes and
sizes; some are handsome, some not; they're just ordinary, reg
ular people who love the theater like other people love cross
words or fishing or music, which is not to say that actors can't
love those other things, too. Actors are like football players.
They have to do an incredible amount of hard work that con
sumes long hours out of the public eye. They have to perform
individually and as integral parts of a team of players depend
ing on each other for split-second timing and the ability to get
the job done under pressure. Like football players, actors labor
in a profession defined in public by celebrities and superstars
with high salaries and acclaim that have little to do with the
good blocking the spectators never notice unless it's not there.
Sure, all actors think maybe someday Broadway, the movies,
but it takes more than those dreams to work all day, grab some
supper and show up at the theater to rehearse a scene and
come back on weekends to screw partitions together to help
build the set. What it takes is comrades equally ready to run
lines or power tools to make the play take shape, especially
that phalanx of experts never seen on stage: the "techies" who
run the lights and the sound and do the heavy lifting building
the set. Odd, that the theater shares with football the "play,"
the precisely drilled
Ben and Marie and Tom
were supernovas within
the tight-knit world of
Athens theater.
execution of a scripted
maneuver designed to
move the ball or the
audience. Understandable
that those who go
through these endless
drills together come to
rely on one another and take each other's measure. If you don't
show up for practice, you let the whole team down. If you
don't know the play, the whole team suffers. If you put in the
hours, no matter how much you may be hurting, you become a
team player: you earn the respect of your teammates, whether
or not the audience has the eye to see what you are doing in
front of them. The audience sees stars; the players see profi
ciency; the audience applauds; the players respect—and love.
Ben and Marie and Tom—savagely killed on Saturday—are
loved by those who worked long hours with them in the Town
8. Gown Players. They were actors—"doers"—who brought their
wit and work to the newest show, always enmeshed in a net
work of collaborators who couldn't help becoming friends.
Ben was the eminence grise, the techie-in-chief who
knew how to transform an empty stage into a cozy study or
a 17th-century drawing roOm, who could direct the play, act
in it, counsel those in difficulty and haul off the unsalvage-
able pieces after the set was struck. Marie breathed life into
the characters she portrayed, the actors she directed and
the friends who were energized by her vitality. Tom's quiet
brilliance brightened all around him: his ingenious sets, the
widening range of characters he challenged himself with, and
the entire process of theater he delighted in sharing with his
fellow actors and techies.
Ben and Marie and Tom were supernovas within the tight-
knit world of Athens theater. They made friends who know their
true worth, because another oddity about acting is that you
can't be somebody else unless you know who you are. You can't
create the character if you're not real. Actors have to be honest
with themselves and with their compatriots. When you work
with actors, you get down to the core of who they are and who
you are. Those who worked with Ben and Marie and Tom knew
them and loved them without illusion.
And now, those who would have rallied the troupe are gone,
and those who love them left to grieve their friends, along with
their theater. They cannot be gone. Like phantom limbs they
linger just offstage, surely to return on cue. And yet, they're
lost, and their troupe must somehow stumble forward, remem
bering their invigorating presence, thinking, "Ben wouldn't
have let me get away with this," or "Tom could have figured
this out," or "Marie would have loved this."
Meanwhile, Ben's beloved wife Fran, a director herself, first-
friend to the actors and a Shakespearean scholar, found at the
end of Lear the Bard's benediction on grief: "The weight of
this sad time we must obey/ Speak what we feel, not what we
ought to say."
That's the essence of theater and of Ben and Marie and Tom.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com