Daily Record from Morristown, New Jersey • Page 23

Dally Becord, Northwest N.J. Tuesday, May 27, 1986 B11 ENTERTAINMENT Country-rocker makes a hit i II -m. Vj .11 I ft i i l. I JaV, Importance of longevity. In all, I learned the very basics of the Industry." However, being away from home for the first time at age 13 left him lonely.

"For the first five or six months, I was really homesick. Then one day in Heber Springs, I looked out the bus and my family was there to surprise me." Flatt offered to pay him $50 a week, but the musicians' union said the youngster should be paid the higher scale that everyone else received. Flatt relented. Stuart left the band when Flatt died in 1979. Flatt had been the longtime partner of banjo player Earl Scruggs, who together were best known for the songs "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" from the movie, "Bonnie and Clyde," and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," the theme song of the TV show, "The Beverly Hillbillies." Stuart has also played in Johnny Cash's band and with Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris and Billy JoeL Cash, he said, never stops creating.

"And he's a great communicator with people with a bum or with the president of the United States," said Stuart "He talks plain no razzle dazzle. duced him to Flatt, who offered him a spot in the band. Stuart's parents hesitated at first, but finally relented with the understanding their son would finish high school through correspondence classes. He did, In 1975, two years before his normal graduating date. It helped, too, when they met Flatt and saw that he was a good influence on their son.

"If he had been (heavy metal star) Ozzy Osbourne, they probably wouldn't have let me go," Stuart said. They have been real understanding, loving and patient They are proud to see things progressing." As a teen-ager, he lived in Nashville with White and then Flatt until his parents moved there two years later "He was like a father to me," Stuart said of Flatt. "I think about him every time I'm on stage. "I couldn't have asked for a better way In to music than Lester and his band," he said. "His peers were Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe and Grandpa Jones and everybody admired and respected him.

I was there listening, watching and learning. "I learned the basic rules of the road how to run a show and haul it up and down the road. I learned the By JOE EDWARDS Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. Marty Stu-jart was worrying about acne and 'girls when he quit school and started playing bluegrass with Lester Flatt That was 14 years ago. Now, at the age of 27, Stuart has his first solo out, "Ariene," which reached "the Top 20 In the country charts in March.

He also was an Academy of Country Music finalist for top new Jmale vocalist I- He lost the award to Randy Travis. gave It to the right person," said. "You'll have to look hard 'to beat Randy Travis. He's the perfect country guy humble and real" Stuart describes himself as a "a state of the art country-rocker." "It's real honest music. 'Drive' music has always appealed to me," said Stuart whose single, "Honky Tonker," will soon be released.

His music began taking shape as a 9-year-old in Philadelphia, when he learned to play guitar. He added the mandolin and fiddle when he was 12. He met a member of Flatt's Nashville Grass band, Roland White, at a bluegrass festival, and White intro Associated Press Marty Stuart started on the road to a music career at the age of 13. "People think of him as represent- He's a good guy to have on your contract with Columbia Records, ative of America. He represents the team." Flatt's Nashville Grass is still to-past future and the present of any Stuart left Cash's band when Cash gether and Stuart plays with them human being.

He's built a strong im- reduced his road dates and Stuart when he can. "It's my alma mater," age for himself, and he has vision. had the chance to land a recording he said. Syndicated shows give networks a run for their money Vane said. "I would say that's a foreshadowing of what we're going to see with all three networks.

They may abandon it entirely." What happened? It's simple economics. National advertisers learned their dollars went further buying spots in syndicated cartoon shows, where the commercials reach kids five times a week, rather than in network shows, which are on Saturdays only. They began to flock to syndicated shows. At the same time, the cartoon- makers smelled a much better deal for themselves. Networks usually order only 13 episodes of a new cartoon show, then may order only six more new ones for the following season.

It takes about 65 episodes for a show to be profitably syndicated. "The producer can't make any money on the first network run," said Vane. "He may be on the network four years and still not have enough episodes to syndicate. That's not a very attractive business." but not high-falutin' By RON MILLER Knight-Ridder Newspapers BURBANK, Calif. When Edwin T.

Vane left network TV for the murky world of program syndication in 1979, many thought he was steering a course toward a black hole in the universe that would swallow him up without a trace. "It was then a drowsy little backwater of production and distribution," Vane said of the syndication market seven years ago. "Now it has become the most expansive arena in all of television." What's more, Vane has become one of the primary movers and shakers in syndication. As head of Group Productions, the production arm of the giant Westinghouse Vane has helped ignite the syndication boom that is rapidly changing the face of American television. "Syndication can be an exciting place to be these days," Vane said in his large office near the backlot of A 'Candide' MILLBURN TWP.

Voltaire's miraculous tale of "Candide" a young man who while searching the world for goodness and honesty finds instead only malice and greed is of world literature's great satirical novels. In "The Best of All Possible (comic-operetta) Worlds," the musicalized "Candide" of Leonard 'Bernstein is one of the most distinguished and successful of American Operettas. Can it be that this most delectable 'new staging, now at the Paper Mill Playhouse through June 29, is, indeed, the best of all possible produc-t. tions? The answer is an unequivocal yes. That is, if you don't mind sacri- firing some coloratura for middle-of-i the-road tessitura.

If you can live with the fact that "Candide" fits more comfortably into the operetta genre than within the operatic, as it has often been pretentiously ascribed, then this less sanctimoniously sung version will completely Satisfy you. Generously stuffed with more fan make Richard Wilbur's dazzling lyrics eminently (no small feat) intelligible. Along with his co-director and choreographer Philip Wm. McKin-ley, Johanson has rather accomplished with "Candide" what has eluded most previous directors. The failure of the original 1956 Broadway version was mainly attributed to Lillian Hellman's sluggish book.

Although revamped for the 1974 revival to resemble a circus, and with a new book by Hugh Wheeler, "Candide" sacrificed its musical brilliance. The New York City Opera's 1982 staging tried to balance the energy of the revival with the vocal elegance of the original, but failed to sustain the ironic narrative drive. Johanson has blended all the quantum elements of this American musical masterpiece into a joyously harmonious and unforgettable experience. Dr. Pangloss, Candide's teacher (Sal Mistretta), a.k.a.

Voltaire, would no doubt have critiqued syndication of sitcoms already is changing the face of network TV by severely limiting the market for reruns of mediocre network comedies and expensive one-hour action-adventure shows. Producers cutting losses "There are in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 (half hour) situation comedies coming on the air in 1986 or early 1987," he said. This has given local stations a much more attractive alternative to paying high prices for reruns of one-hour shows like "Knight Rider," which are harder to work into a schedule and not as popular with viewers. (Universal now is offering a half-hour version of "Knight Rider" in a desperate attempt to sell the series in syndication.) If producers of one-hour shows can't make as much money in syndication anymore, then they're no longer willing to make them for the networks at a deficit. "They're all deficit financing per episode," said Vane.

"If you need 80 episodes before you can have a viable package for syndication, you can be $32 million in the hole before you can even start recap- flUCMMN ROXgURYMALL i 1 yinwnn hi succasunna ROXBURV MALL SUCCASUNNA M4-M0 ItAEA All Uwwt telon il.M. SUN.4HOL1t8liMiOnl TUMJ. All SHOWS 3 IICUABT "TOP GUN" 7:30,9:35 nvni CIRCUIT" I 7:45, 9:50 I I I "SWEET LIBERTY" (TO) 7:40,9:45 "THE COLOR PURPLE (PQ13) 1 I "COBRA" 7:30,9:10 "HANNAH HER (TO13) I 6:00,10:00 Movie Tuesday, BERNARDSVILLE Bernardsville Cinema "Sweet Liberty" 7:15, 9:05 CHATHAM Chatham Cinema "Hannah Her Sisters" 7:30, 9:30 CHESTER Cinema 1 "Poltergeist II" 7:00,9:00 Cinema 2 "Cobra" 7:30, 9:30 DOVER K-Adult "Seka's Greatest "Sweet Young "Layover" 11:30 a.m. continuous to 12:00 Mid. LEDGEWOOD Ledgewood D.I.

"Poltergeist II" 8:30, "Youngblood" MADISON Cineplex Theater 1 "Poltergeist II" 7:30,9:20 Theater 2 "Sweet Liberty" 7:00, 9:10 Theater 3 "FX" 7:20, 9:30 MORRIS COUNTY MALL Cinema 1 "Police Academy 3" 7:45, 9:45 Cinema 2 "Hannah Her Sisters" 7:20, 9:30 MORRISTOWN Community Theater "Cobra" 7:00, 8:30,10:00 Cineplex Theater 1 "Top Gun" 7:40, 9:40 Theater 2 "Short Circuit" 7:20,9:20 Theater 3 "Kiss Of The Spider Woman" 7:10,9:30 PARSIPPANY Loew's Twin Theater 1 "Cobra" 6:30, 8:15,10:00 Theater 2 "Poltergeist II" 6:30, 8:10,9:50 MORRIS HILLS CINEMA Cinema 1 "Top Gun" 8:00, 10:00 Cinema 2 "Sweet Liberty" 7:30,9:30 hiring it." The result? The producers no longer are willing to make action-adventure shows at a deficit for the networks. "The syndication marketplace is dictating what the producers will offer to the networks," said Vane. So far, though, Vane doesn't see the networks losing their position as the primary outlet for made-for-TV movies, even though many now are being made for first-run syndication. Group made its first two TV movies last season: "Lost in London," a low-rated CBS movie, and "Mafia Princess," an enormous hit for NBC and one of the 10 most popular TV -movies of the season. Vane said a careful producer can make a TV movie for the $2.5 million the network usually pays, then go into profit with foreign sales and syndication.

He said it's very hard to line up enough local stations to earn the same money for a one-shot syndicated telecast of a TV movie. After seven years in syndication, Vane said he now gets plenty of creative satisfaction out of his work, but without "the relentless pressure to produce high ratings, day after day" of his network days. BARGAIN MATINEES 12.75 WON THRU SAT AU SHOWS UFOAC I BUN. HOLIDAYS lu tMTINEC SHOW ONLY "POLICE ACADEMY 3" in) Fri.Tu.-Thur. 7:45,:45 "HANNAH HER SISTERS" (mi) Fh.

A 7:20, TUEt. NIOMT AU SEATS S2.7S Times May 27, 1986 nUblWIIAI TOWNSQUARE MALL Rockaway 12 Theaters Theater 1 "Cobra" 5:45, 7:45, 9:45 Theater 2 "Short Circuit" 5:30,7:45,0 5:45, 7:45 9:45 Theater 2 "Short Circuit" 5:30, 7:45, 9:45 Theater 3 "Jo Jo Dancer" 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 Theater 4 "Wise Guys" 5:45, 8:00, 9:55 Theater 5 "No Retreat, No Surrender" 5:45, 8:00, 9:45 Theater 6 "Sweet Liberty" 5:30,7:30,9:30 Theater 7 "Fire With Fire" 5:00, 7:30, 9:45 Theater 8 "The Money Pit" 5:15,7:15,9:30 Theater 9 "Poltergeist II" 5:15, 7:45, 9:55 Theater 10 "Ninja Turf" 5:30,7:45,9:45 Theater 11 "Top Gun" 5:00, 7:30, 9:55 Theater 12 "Poltergeist II" 5:15, 7:45, 9:55 SUCCASUNNA Cinema 10 Sixplex Cinema 1 "Top Gun" 7:30, 9:35 Cinema 2 "Sweet Liberty" 7:40, 9:45 Cinema 3 "Cobra" 7:30, 9:10 Cinema 4 "Short Circuit" 7:45,9:50 Cinema 5 "The Color Purple" 8:15 Cinema 6 "Hannah Her Sisters" 8:00, 10:00 SUMMIT Strand Theater "Hannah Her Sisters" 7:15, 9:15 UNION Lost Picture Show "The Official Story" 7:15, 9:15 Movie times often change from day to day and are furnished by advertisers. The DAILY RECORD assumes no responsibility as to their accuracy. Calling ahead is advisable on the day you wish to attend. In contrast they made 65 episodes of "He-Man" right from the start and went into profits in the first year.

"In terms of profits, it dwarfs anything you can make by offering the same program to a network," said Vane. As a result all the top cartoon producers are now sending their best shows into the now-crowded syndication market and Group has added several other series to its roster, including "She-Ra: Princess of Power" and the new "Ghostbusters." Syndicated shows like Group W's "PM Magazine" and "Hour Magazine," both long-time successes, also cut into the network daytime audience or provide stiff competition to syndicated reruns of off-network shows. Now Group is actively involved in developing original situation comedies for prime-time syndication as well as programs for late-night competition with the networks. Vane believes the boom in original his own performance with the help of some profound synergisms. But suffice it to say that the chamelion-like Mistretta walks off with the acting honors and most of the laughs.

His pupils, the devoted Candide (Johanson) and Cunegunde (Maureen Brennan) robustly tackle the ruffles and flourishes of both the score and the script No musical of this size and grandeur can succeed without a proper orchestra. Although Voltaire, in the extravagant prologue, had a hard time restraining the enthusiastic company from mocking, flirting and consorting with the pit musicians during the famous overture, they were enthusiastically supported by musical director Jim Coleman. All in all, the large cast and ensemble, whether ravaged by despoil-ers, burned alive at an auto da fe, shipwrecked, or lost in the jungle sang out to make this "Candide" the most glittering of them all. mother in writing plays, films and scores and directing. "Now I live in Winston-Salem, N.C.," she said, "and I am Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Yes, that is the heart of tobacco country. In fact, I have heard that in town the offices have signs reading 'Thank You for "I'm not living there because I'm teaching; I'm teaching because I'm living there. After the breakup of a marriage 'made in heaven five years I decided to give California a rest." Over the years, Miss Angelou became fluent in seven languages and has received 13 honorary degrees. She also has been nominated for a National Book Award for her nonfiction. She was active in the civil rights movement with the Rev.

Martin Luther King edited a news weekly in Cairo and taught at the University of Ghana. It was at the urging of author James Baldwin and writer-cartoonist Jules Feif fer and his wife, Judy, that she began writing about her own life, publishing "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" in 1970. Universal Studios. "Every day somebody makes up a new rule. In all my days at the network, I don't think I ever saw a competitive situation that resembles syndication." If Vane were still at ABC, where he once was In charge of prime time program production, he'd probably be growing ulcers over syndication guys like him.

Monopoly destroyed For one thing, the development of syndicated cartoon shows for children has nearly destroyed the Saturday morning monopoly the networks once had on children's entertainment In 1983, Group Productions, through its Filmation division, introduced "HeMan and the Masters of the Universe" as a Monday through Friday cartoon series for syndication to local stations. It revolutionized the business. "One network, ABC, already has cut back on the number of hours it fills with children's programming," that's fun, ciful stage wizardry than you can shake a stick at including a highflying hot air balloon that transports the lovers over the clouds, a multitude of opulent scenic wonders, designed by Michael Anania to make Ontho Simon Saltzman you gasp, and a sumptuous and colorful array of budget-be-damned 18th-century costumes by Guy Geoly, this "Candide" essentially has all the grand trappings and comic paraphernalia anyone could wish for. Wishes come true on the performance and staging level as well. Director Robert Johanson, who also manages to play the title role with appealing youthful exuberance, has assembled a cast who not only sing Bernstein's glorious, sophisticated score with resolve but who happily Associated Press Maya Angelou conciousness exploded, when American blacks were eager to reaffirm their heritage and promote their culture.

"We wore skeletons of old despair like necklaces, heralding our arrival, and we were branded with cynicism," Miss Angelou wrote of the black Americans who migrated to Africa. 4 i i (Author explores black heritage in her books However, after the first exhilaration of being black in a totally black environment, she found little of the idealism for which she had hoped. Only when she visited a fishing village just before returning to New York did she have a spiritual experience. An old woman mistook her for a friend of the distant past, and the author gained insight into the mutual legacy of American and African blacks. "Here in my last days in Africa," she writes, "descendants of a laged past saw their history in my face and heard their ancestors speak through my voice.

"The women wept and I wept I too cried for the lost people, their ancestors and mine. But I was also weeping with a curious joy. Despite the rapes, murders and suicides, we had survived. The middle passage and the auction block had not erased us. Not humiliations nor lynchings, indivudual cruelties nor collective oppression had been able to eradicate us from the earth." Maya Angelou returned here recently for lecture appearances and a round of interviews to promote "All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes." She has spent much of her life in California, appearing in television (she was Kunta Kinte's grand- By BOB THOMAS Associated Press LOS ANGELES Maya Angelou is an actress, playwright singer, film director, poet, lecturer and com- poser.

But her greatest fame has come from a series of autobiographical books beginning in 1970 with "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Now comes the fifth book, "All God's Children Need Traveling I Shoes" (Random House). It stems J.from "that thing in the human spirit that longs for the source of home. "It takes over like an epidemic of iCold or some kind of virus," Miss JAngelou said. "You build up the ro-'mance, especially if your life is not Irosy at the moment. You tell yourself, 'If I could just go And so in 1962 Miss Angelou went to Ghana and stayed for four years.

"I always write about my life 15 or 20 years later, then I can tell the truth about what happened, rather than the facts," she said in an interview. Her experience in the West African nation proved disillusioning, though with her poet's insight she achieved new perceptions of herself rand her black heritage. The '60s were a time when black.