10 I Tuesday, Sept. 7,2010
The Curious Savage’ opens at Playhouse
By Heather Panetta
COLLEGIAN STAFF WRITER
Some people consider the
biggest challenges in life to be get
ting into college or finding a job.
But for one local actress, her
current challenge is playing a 60-
year-old woman.
Penn State alumna Rhiannon
McClintock, Class of 2003, plays
Mrs. Ethel Savage, the title char
acter in “The Curious Savage,”
which opens today at the Boal
Barn Playhouse, 300 Old
Boalsburg Rd.
The play closes The State
College Community Theatre’s
2010 season, theater president
David Price.
“The audience will find that it’s
a fun, uplifting play that recog
Clooney’s American’ grosses SI6M
By the Associated Press
LOS ANGELES George
Clooney’s hitman tale “The
American” has captured the top spot
at the box office with a $16.4 million
debut over the long Labor Day week
end.
Since opening Wednesday, the
Focus Features release has taken in
$19.5 million.
The 20th Century Fox revenge
romp “Machete” and Sony’s heist
thriller “Takers” were in a duel for
second-place.
“Machete” led with $l4 million
from Friday to Monday. “Takers” fol
lowed with $13.5 million, though the
two movies were close enough that
rankings could change once final
numbers are released today.
“Takers,” which had been the No. 1
movie the previous weekend, raised
its 10-day total to $4O million.
The weekend’s other new wide
release, Drew Barrymore’s romance
“Going the Distance” from Warner
Bros., opened at No. 5 with $8.6 mil
lion.
It was a typically quiet Labor Day
period for Hollywood, a transition
weekend as summer blockbuster
season ends and young audiences
DioGuardi
By Lynn Elber
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
LOS ANGELES Kara
DioGuardi is following Ellen
DeGeneres and Simon Cowell out
the door at “American Idol.”
Her departure leaves Randy
Jackson, who’s been with the singing
contest from the start, the last judge
standing, for now. Steven Tyler and
Jennifer Lopez are the reported
front-runners for the panel.
Entertainment mogul Simon
Ftiller, creator of the British show
“Pop Idol” that was the template for
the U.S. series he produces, called
DioGuardi a standout songwriter
whom he planned to work with in
music “for many years to come.”
DioGuardi, whose exit had been
rumored, is a hit machine whose
songs have been recorded by Gwen
Stefani, Faith Hill, Marc Anthony and
others, including past “Idol” winners.
“I felt like I won the lottery when I
joined American Idol’ two years ago,
but I feel like now is the best time to
leave ‘ldol,’” DioGuardi said in a
statement Friday, calling her experi
ence as a judge on the show “amaz
ing.”
Her statement, issued by Pox, did
n’t elaborate on her reasons for leav
ing. Her contract reportedly had a
HUB-Robeson Center
on-campus
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
nizes some aspects, although
some not good, of human nature,”
Price said. “It’s a great way to
close the season.”
The play is set in the 1950 s in an
upscale Massachusetts mental
institution, The Cloisters, where
patients are referred to as
“guests,” director Bruce
Fleischer said.
The comedy focuses on Savage,
who is committed to the asylum by
her three stepchildren because
they believe she is spending her
late husband’s money irresponsi
bly.
“On the surface it’s about con
trasting how normal the ‘guests’
at the sanatorium are as opposed
to the ‘normal’ family,” Fleischer
said.
“If you dig deeper it’s about the
prepare for the start of the school
year.
Hollywood closed its busiest sea
son with record revenue of $4.35 bil
lion, about $lOO million more than the
previous high set last summer,
according to Hollywood.com, which
tracks box office. Yet because of
higher ticket prices, movie atten
dance slipped to about 552 million,
the lowest since summer 2005, said
Hollywood.com analyst Paul
Dergarabedian.
“This is a perfectly unspectacular
end to a perfectly unspectacular
summer,” Dergarabedian said.
“If you look at how low the atten
dance figure dropped, that’s the audi
ence telling Hollywood this crop of
movies was good, but not good
enough to get us out in huge num
bers.”
“The American” stars Clooney as a
hitman who finds unlikely friendship
and romance while trying to lay low
in Italy before doing one last job.
“Machete” features a cast includ
ing Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba,
Steven Seagal and Lindsay Lohan in
a bloody tale of a former Mexican
federal cop (Danny Trejo) taking on
crooks, dirty politicians and thugs by
the score.
leaves ‘American Idol’
“I felt like I won the lottery when I joined ‘American
Idol’ two years ago, but I feel like now is the best
time to leave ‘Idol.”
one-year option remaining that the
network could have exercised.
Although she offered informed cri
tiques on “Idol,” observers faulted
her for lacking the pizazz and
unpredictability that ex-judge
Paula Abdul had provided.
DioGuardi’s departure comes as
the top-rated show continues audi
tions for its 10th season, which starts
airing in January. Tryouts have been
held in sue cities, with a seventh
announced this week for Los
Angeles on Sept. 22.
The final decision on which would
be pop stars make it on the show
rests with the judges, who are likely
to begin filming their audition seg
ments this month.
Cowell started the exodus from
“American Idol” earlier this year,
when he announced he was leaving
to launch another talent shbw for
Fox, “The X Factor,” based on the hit
British program he created.
In July, DeGeneres, who was
things that make us human...
Everyone has quirks and wonder
ful eccentricities.”
Stephanie Baker(senior-music
education), who plays Miss
Wilhelmina the nurse at the
asylum said the play centers
around defining sanity and insani
ty
“Are the people here insane or
are the children of Mrs. Savage
really insane and out of touch with
reality?” Baker said.
Despite the comedy, the play is
also very touching, Baker said.
“Every character really has
endearing moments and hopefully
at the end of the play the audience
will connect with the characters
and feel like they really know
them,” she said.
Savage is one of those charac
“Going the Distance” stars
Barrymore and Justin Long as a
couple trying to maintain a coast-to
coast long-distance relationship.
With Clooney’s appeal to adult
audiences, “The American” dominat
ed older crowds, while “Machete”
was a hit with Hispanics, who
accounted for 60 percent of the
movie’s viewers.
“The whole marketing campaign
was thrust at the Latino audience,
and they have clearly responded and
embraced the movie,” said Chris
Aronson, head of distribution for 20th
Century Pox. “I would go so far as to
say Danny Trejo is the first Latino
superhero.”
With $3.9 million over the long
weekend, Universal’s animated hit
“Despicable Me” raised its haul to
$241.3 million, surpassing the $238.4
million take of Dream Works
Animation’s “Shrek Forever After,”
which failed to catch the same box
office fire as the franchise’s earlier
installments.
Summer’s top hit, Disney’s ani
mated blockbuster “Toy Story 3,”
pulled in $2.7 million to lift its total to
$408.8 million, second only to “Shrek
2” at $436 million on the domestic
chart for animated features.
brought in to replace Abdul, said she
was leaving after a single season.
The talk show host said she felt
uncomfortable criticizing young tal
ent.
Some critics had complained
DeGeneres was more of a cheer
leader than an incisive critic in the
fashion of Cowell, who was consis
tently blunt in his remarks.
The judges’ turnover gives
“American Idol” a chance to recap
ture the Cowell-Abdul chemistry that
helped make the show a hit, along
with, crucially, its ability to launch
such top-selling artists as Carrie
Underwood and Kelly Clarkson.
While the show has long been No. 1
in the ratings, it has to stem a slide in
viewership to remain there.
A total of 24.2 million viewers
watched the ninth season’s final duel
between Lee DeWyze and Crystal
Bowersox, compared to the nearly 29
million viewers who saw Kris Allen
win over Adam Lambert last year.
CT H E DAILY
_ ollegian
ters, McClintock said, even though
her character is much older than
she is.
“I could see myself being like
her in 30 to 40 years,” she said.
“She’s a kind-hearted person
who’s also quick and witty.”
Both McClintock and Baker
said one challenge was adjusting
to playing characters in a different
time period.
“The way they would have acted
and responded in that time period
is different than how I.would
have,” Baker said.
But Baker said she hopes the
audience has a night filled with
tons of laughter which the per
formers have had at every
rehearsal.
“The larger the audience, the
funnier it is because we all feed off
Kara DioGuardi
former “American Idol" judge
Associated Press file photo
Singer Kanye West takes the microphone from singer Taylor
Swift as she accepts the "Best Female Video" award during
the MTV Video Music Awards in New York last year.
Kanye: Still dealing
with repercussions
Nekesa Mumbi Moody
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW YORK Hip-hop star Kanye West is still feeling
the pain over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year and
he’s expressing his pain all over Twitter.
West unleashed a torrent of emotions on his official
TVvitter account Saturday, acknowledging once again that
he was wrong for jumping on stage, grabbing the micro
phone from Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and say
ing her trophy should have gone to Beyonce.
But the rapper-producer said that he has experienced
enormous pain, been the subject of death wishes and suf
fered tremendous setback to his career.
“How deep is the scar... I bled hard
the number one pop star in the world
my clothing office,” he tweeted.
The multiplatinum, Grammy-winning superstar had
been one of the decade’s most successful and critically
acclaimed stars, despite sometimes boorish behavior and
meltdowns at other awards shows when things did not go
his way.
However, when he upstaged Swift the then-teenage
darling of pop and country music worlds —the public had
had enough. There was tremendous backlash against West
even President Barack Obama was caught calling him a
‘jackass.”
At the time, he went on Jay Leno’s prime-time show to
apologize and said he still had not recovered from his moth
er’s death two years prior. He said he would be taking time
off from the public eye. That time off came sooner than
expected. He canceled a joint tour with Lady Gaga that fall,
apparently due to low ticket sales.
The Daily Collegian
If you go
What: The Curious Savage
When: September 7-11,14-18
at 8 p.m.
Where: Boal Bam Playhouse
Details: Tickets- Adults: $l2
Seniors and Youth: $lO
the laughter,” she said.
And Price hopes the audience
will just simply be entertained.
“I don’t go to the theater to have
my life changed,” he said.
“I go to be entertained and I
think people will find ‘The Curious
Savage’ entertaining.”
To email this reporter: hapl6@psu.edu
cancelled tour with
closed the doors of
areer 9
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