BY JIM KNIPPENBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
So how about a round of birthday applause? Clap it, please, for UC's College-Conservatory of Music's Musical Theatre program.
It celebrated its 30th birthday Monday with a party and show full of grads home to make music.
Some event it was, full of heavyweight CCM supporters: philanthropist Patricia Corbett, publisher Dick Rosenthal, conductor Carmon DeLeone, Cinergy Foundation president Joe Hale, arts activists Norma Petersen, Ken and Murph Mahler and Shelby Wood, restaurateur Shirley Bernstein (dishing out paella in the buffet line).
Centerpiece was a show of grads who have made it on Broadway -- Pam Myers (Company), Jim (Sweeney Todd) and Bob Walton (Once Upon a Mattress), Jason Graae (Ragtime), Michelle Pawk (Cabaret) and Mark Waldrop (Evita).
Eavesdropping -- on account of they pay Psst! millions to do so -- what we overheard most was summed up by Indiana University grad Jan Brady, (no relation to the Bunch), who is an artist in Southern Indiana:
"This place amazes me -- do you know, if you're a CCM grad, you automatically get an audition (in New York)?"
The kids are so good, she added, that if "I didn't know better, I'd think they locked kids in a room and beat it (talent) into them. But I know the truth: They work them to death."
The other thing we heard, from the stage and at dinner, is that there's no musical in New York now without a CCM grad working in it. There's no way to check that, of course, but even if it's a lot of musicals, it's impressive.
IN THE BUFF:
Gracious hello, but aren't we seeing a lot of Christian Strong lately?
A heck of a lot. Strong is one of six college students in the All Nude Campus Hunks pullout section in November's Playgirl magazine. He hasn't had a minute of peace since it hit newsstands. "It's fine. I'm loving it," and never mind that he has a full load at school, works full time and has two daughters he sees a couple nights a week.
Strong, in his mid-20s, a psych major at Northern Kentucky University, lives in Lakeside Park and works at the Covington LaRosa's.
So how'd he get this gig? "My girlfriend and I sent pictures about a year ago. They called and asked if I'd be available. I sure was."
The photo shoot lasted five days in July in Los Angeles.
"I know sometimes these things lead to something bigger -- modeling maybe, acting," he says. "If it happens, I'm for it. If not, that's OK, too."
HEARD AROUND TOWN:
"It was a thrill when they called to say we won, but being here and seeing our house projected on the big screen, that's when it hit."
That would be Gill Lane at an awards event Tuesday thrown by Friends of Covington, a grass-roots outfit that pushes city beautification. Led by Riverside resident Tony Durso, it's a small group but ferocious in its activism.
Hence Tuesday: Cocktails, food and a mix 'n' mingle at Covington's Jack Quinn's Irish Ale House and Pub (also a rehab job and award winner). Amid talk of joists and construction dust, 15 home and business owners were honored for makeovers running a few thousand dollars to half a million (Ester Johnson's rehab of the 19th-century Morwessel Building from a drugstore into art studios).
Lane and Dan Strain got one for their spiffy renovation of a dilapidated painted lady in Covington's Wallace Woods area.
Psst! appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have an item to report? Call Jim Knippenberg at 768-8513; fax: 768-8330.
KNIPPENBERG ARCHIVE
