Phillies open Thursday; no roster changes for announcers
And, ‘Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War,’ plus two performers who defy classification
Batter up!
The Phillies regular season opener, against their fiercest division rival, the Atlanta Braves, can be seen at 3:05 p.m. Thursday on Channel 10. It’s also the team’s 2024 home opener.
Accenting the rivalry are two of the slickest starting pitchers in baseball: Zack Wheeler for the Phils and Spencer Strider for the Braves.
Announcing crews remain the same as in recent years.
On television, Tom McCarthy calls play-by-play while John Kruk, Ben Davis and Ruben Amaro Jr. alternate with analysis. Mike Schmidt joins them on weekends. Taryn Hatcher reports from the stands.
On radio, WIP (94.1
FM), Scott Franzke handles play-by-play, joined by Larry Andersen for most home games and Kevin Stocker for games Andersen doesn’t cover. Gregg Murphy does sideline reports.
A broadcast in Spanish, heard on WTTM (1680 AM) features Bill Kulik, Oscar Budejon and Angel Castillo.
‘Turning Point’ is the bomb
Documentaries interest
me, but I often watch them skeptically, waiting for the moment when the writer or director tips his/ her hand and show a bias or ulterior motive.
I’m old-fashioned. I prefer documentaries to be objective. The may show a range of opinion, but I want that opinion to be balanced, a collection of points of view that allows the viewer to make his/her own judgment. I like openended dialogue and factual presentation.
My predilection is not so much to take one side or another but to understand the myriad intricacies involved in just about every phase of history.
A documentary that grabbed my attention, and
admiration, is “Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War,” a nine-part series by Brian Knappenberger currently airing on Netflix. Knappenberger’s episodes are the movie equivalent of a pageturner.
You want to hear absorb all the filmmaker has to show in all of its detail.
That might mean hearing an idea or opinion that rankles.
But that’s OK because Knappenberger aims for and provides a discussion among the experts he’s chosen to include. Differences in outlook help establish the comprehension of the entire picture I look for most.
I was impressed from the beginning by Knappenberger’s sense of history. I am a lifelong reader, and I often see how documentarians twist information or beg issues to lead their audiences to a specific point of view.
Knappenberger simply presents the issues and the ideas various historians, commentators, authors, politicians, and participants have about them.
There’s a clarity in “The Bomb and the Cold War” that gibes accurately with the wealth of history I’ve read in a half century of fascination with events from the end of World War II to the end of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.
“The Bomb and the Cold War” covers that period, while including a preamble showing machinations in Europe and Asia that led to World War II and going beyond to the world of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and various others who are fomenting a new cold war in our time.
At least we hope it stays cold given that today’s leaders do not always demonstrate the brinksmanship, savvy, or clout of their predecessors.
In his first installment, Knappenberger concentrates on the atomic bomb that is so much the subject of the recent Oscar-winning film, “Oppenheimer.”
It was while watching this episode I gained appreciation for Knappenberger’s research, grasp of history, and fairness in storytelling.
I am not through all nine parts of “The Bomb and the Cold War,” but I continue to be impressed at its even-handedness and careful presentation of the various aspects of the Cold War and how they were handled.
Handling was especially delicate considering several regimes had the power to annihilate segments of the world now that they possessed an atomic weapon that showed its might in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
History and politics on television these days often devolves into propaganda, partisanship, pandering, and preaching to the converted.
“The Turning Point” transcends all of that.
It is a refreshing throwback to balanced journalism, a neutral relation of history and commentary on it that tells an interesting, comprehensive, accurate, and thought-provoking story it is important for us to know.
Defying classification
During a recent visit to Las Vegas, I concluded its many theaters and hotel showrooms are reposi
tories for alumni of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and MTV’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Las Vegas isn’t alone. Many of the acts seen on “America’s Got Talent” tour extensively throughout the United States and in some cases, the world. Given the roster of entertainers coming to New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse prior to its regular summer stock season, next week will resemble Vegas on the Delaware.
Although, as I say that, I can think of one entertainer coming to New Hope who would not like that allusion.
Chris Funk, who bills himself as a “wonderist” for reasons to be explained further on, is happy to be on the road seeing what he can of the world through its theaters and local audiences.
Funk will be at the playhouse for two shows, 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Ian Carney’s Lightwire Theater brings a different kind of show, “The Ugly Duckling” to New Hope for three shows, student matinees at 9 and 11 a.m. and a evening performance at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 5.
Both Funk and Carney had established work that earned them an invitation to compete on “America’s Got Talent.” Both of them pride themselves in doing full-length shows that expand on and go beyond anything designed to fill a 90-second segment on a television reality show.
Funk’s program has evolved over years and includes music as well as close magic and illusions.
Carney, while working with his Lightwire cofounder, Corbin Popp, in Broadway’s “Moving On,” developed a unique medium for storytelling by using electric luminescent, or EL wire, to creating lively images.
Each built his repertoire over years of working in front of audiences and developing skills as artists, innovators and entertainers.
Funk was a music prodigy. He started dabbling with instruments at age 4, learned the violin at age 6, and added the guitar and saxophone at age 12.
The violin was his primary instrument, and in a telephone conversation from his home in Edmonton, Alberta, Funk said his childhood was spent practicing and preparing for the concert stage.
Music was his expected career, and in some ways, he gave up a social life to hone the skills necessary to be a professional performer.
Then, someone showed a card trick. Funk was fascinated and wanted to learn more about it. He began to get deft at close magic. He put together a show of it.
When he was 19, his uncle booked him to do a show at a gathering he was having at his house.
“That was the day I realized I could do what I like, that I could invent a show and communicate with and entertain an audience.”
Music didn’t exactly go by the wayside. Funk incorporated it in his performances. He uses a guitar as both an instrument and a prop.
Watching one of Funk’s music-oriented videos on YouTube, one immediately sees his gift with instruments as he sets a drum beat and a bass riff in preparation for a larger bit involving a guitar.
Funk’s use of music, his emphasis on magic, and his forays into mentalism is why he calls himself a “wonderist” and not a magician.
“I chose the word out of place of frustration,” he says. “I started at the bottom doing magic at birthday parties and eventually at my uncle’s.
“I didn’t do only magic. I was also a mentalist.
And then there was the music.
“The entertainment business likes to classify people. You’re either a magician or a mentalist, either a magician or a musician.
“I was all of the above. If I called myself one thing or another, I ran into the prejudice about classification. ‘Which are you’ people would ask, ‘a magician or a mentalist’?
“I was both, so I invented a word to encompass it all and avoid the penchant for categorization.”
Carney is also one who defies classification. For most of his life, from childhood, he was a dancer. He reached a career highlight when in his 30s, a time he considered late in his career, he landed a role in “Movin’ On,” a Broadway show with Twyla Tharp dances set to Billy Joel’s music.
Carney was with a show for two years as a swing, meaning he could be tapped on any night to play any role. He could be in the chorus or play Eddie, the lead — as in “Brenda and Eddie.”
During the run, he met Popp, a fellow dancer.
“Corbin was playing with this substance called EL wire,” Carney says in a telephone call from his home in New Orleans.
EL wire is like wearable neon. You can make it into shapes. You can contour it to your body, and bright colored lights can make images.
Carney and Popp continued playing. They saw how one could dance in EL wire. They saw how characters could be made from it. They worked to form a dinosaur that became the basis for their first show.
The experiments led to a collection of shows that have been performed around the world and attracted “America’s Got Talent.”
In New Hope, their company, Lightwire Theater, will perform “The Ugly Duckling,” which Carney says has images and characters that delight children while having lines and humor to appeal to adults.
Both Funk and Carney benefited from their exposure on “America’s Got Talent” and other programs such as “Wizard Wars,” which Funk describes as a magician’s version of “Chopped” and “Penn & Teller: Fool Us.”
They understand what “AGT” in particular did for them, but both prefer independence.
From his New Orleans studio, Carney plans shows, maintains costumes and props, and travels the work with Lightwire Productions. From Edmonton, Funk embarks on rigorous tours that take him hither and yon across the continent each month.
They acknowledge the hard work involved but enjoy the freedom.
Carney enjoys the creativity and intellect that makes “The Ugly Duckling” entertaining to children and their parents. He enjoys melding dance and technology with storytelling.
Funk works unscripted. He understands what a 40-week residency in Las Vegas and can mean but doesn’t like the control and business factors that come with it.
Just as he did at 19, he relishes doing what he likes and making it work with each individual audience.
Funk also says shows like “America’s Got Talent” do a disservice to the entertainers who appear on it.
“Some performers have a great 90 seconds, but they don’t know how to follow it up and make a complete show from it. They don’t have the experience or the material for a full evening.
“I was doing an entire show before I was on ‘AGT.’ It made a difference.”