Marx and I had been trying to make it to the Covellite Theatre all season, and we finally made it on the last weekend. I’m glad we didn’t just decide we were too busy and decide not to go.

The current show, Hidden in the Hill is an interesting story and well-told.

“Hidden in the Hill” is a full length suspensful drama that deals with a couple of Butte’s most well known ghost stories.

A collection of ghostly happenings and haunts that take place in Uptown Butte. Find out what’s behind all of the historic buildings and hidden under the mines.

One thing that was interesting about the way the show was run that was the live acting was interspersed with pre-filmed bits, which allowed the action to take place at a variety of places in Uptown Butte–the BSB Courthouse, the Dumas Brothel, and the BSB Archives.

According to their website, it’s a pretty unique set-up:

The 17′ x 11′ projection screen and the band stand allow the Buttenik Ensemble to combine short films and live performances, creating a genre of live theatre that isn’t offered anywhere else in Montana.

It certainly makes the action more involved, and allowed the viewer to understand more clearly what was going on. It is also very apparent that a lot of hard work went into putting the whole thing together so that the transitions between the live acting and the video stuff went smoothly.

It’s pretty clear that the entire thing is one heck of a lot of work and the show is definately worth seeing. It will only run twice more before the season ends (Saturday and Sunday nights at 8 p.m.) but if you’ve been contemplating it, I recommend seeing the show.

I also had not been in the building and I was quite impressed at what they have accomplished with what was once just a shell of a building. Between the downstairs, where the box office and the Dead Cat Cafe are located, and the theater upstairs–the building is interesting and well-apportioned.

The only point of contention I’d have is that it was not a very busy night, and we were given specific seat numbers to sit in, but none of the seats are labeled so we were walking around in the dark, disturbing other people looking for our seats. In the end it didn’t matter, because we just sat down somewhere (in the wrong row) and watched the show. Had we sat in our assigned seats, the entire audience would have been crowded into the first few rows, but this way we were able to spread out and have some buffer zones from others.

I don’t know how it works out on their busier nights with a packed house though. When we went to the Virginia City Players earlier this summer, the cast members act as ushers and show you to your seats. I think that’s an excellent way to bridge the gap between the public and the cast, and it helps folks find their seats.

Overall, I’d highly recommend seeing anything the Butteniks do. If you can’t catch them this season, line up next year when they open for their third season.

Sorry for any delays (however expected they may have been), but it’s an honor to be invited to take part in Butte Talk.  With my ongoing schedule I can’t promise anything too regular, but I’ll chime in whenever I have the time or feel the tickling need to rant.

These days, Butte is becoming an exciting place to be, with all the talk of economic revitality and the bustling restoration work underway on some of our awesome Uptown homes and buildings. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…for once it seems that some of our people are actually moving BACK to Butte instead of away. That’s a good thing.

I would just give the bit of wisdom that we should all be more apprehensive than anxious at this point, so we don’t make any mistakes that sell our town’s image and soul down the river. Maybe that’s why it’s such a good thing the Butte folks are coming back to town: they don’t want to miss out and they want to be a part of it to make sure it happens right. I think Butte Talk can be an effective and informative venue for people to get the word from the street and hopefully in many cases, right from the respective horse’s mouth. At least that’s the best we can hope for, right?

So with that, I’ll cut my introductory post short and look forward to some engaging and hopefully enlightening discussions soon. If our wives will ever again allow it, heck, maybe Foles and I can even team up for an occasional tour of duty as well.

Until next time, “don’t leave ‘em grind ya down,” as an old codge from the old M&M used to say to me (add that one to your list of Butteisms!) in parting.

MV

 

School Announcement:

All Freshman and new students for the 2006-07 school year at Butte High are to report to the Butte High Auditorium at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 to get aquainted with the school and to recieve their schedules.

East Middle School will also hold their orientation session for all new students (including those entering 7th grade) on Wednesday at 9:00 AM.

All Butte Schools (including Butte Central) will begin first day of classes on Wednesday, August 30, 2006.

Okay, so they put another 45 MPH sign southbound along Rowe Road, which is great. It’s not buried in the weeds. And that’s fantastic.

I still have yet to be able to actually go 45 MPH on Rowe Road because there’s always SOMEONE who insists on going 20! This is my biggest Butte peeve by FAR. If you want to go that slow, Butte has many other streets available. But for now, the speed limit on Rowe/Holmes is 45 and it’s dangerous to drive that far below the speed limit. There is going to be an accident one day with how backed up it tends to get.

When Mr. Matt Vincent found out about Billy’s joining BT, he had him pass the word along to me that he was interested in playing too.

So ladies and gentlemen (…drum roll…please…) I give you Matt Vincent!

Look for his contributions soon… (No pressure buddy.)

Thaks to everyone who turned out for this year’s Montana Irish Festival, An Rí Rá. It turned out very well. I think the Copper Ceili Stage was a great addition to the entertainment part of the festival. It allowed for more excellent performers to showcase their talent.

We’ve uploaded a few photos of the festival to our Flickr and remember that you can add your photos to our pool.

On the subject of our newest addition to BT, Mr. Bill Foley, I’d like to once again extend a thank you to him for accepting our invitation to join. We are very happy to have him on board. ButteTalk will be seeing positive changes in the near future.

Aw, geez. I not sure if I can live up to such a high billing. But I’ll give it a shot.

Bill Foley here. Many of you might recognize me from the Montana Standard sports page where I had a weekly column on Tuesdays from November until last month. Before that, of course, I rode the coattails of Matt Vincent into fame and fortune (well, small-time fame, anyway) in Rat Chat.

I’m pleased to announce that next Tuesday will mark the return of my weekly column, which I call “Tap ’er Light” because it was the first real mining saying that I learned. I will also chime in as much as possible on ButteTalk.com and ButteRats.com, the Standard’s chat site.

When I learned of Marx’s true identity, I knew ButteTalk.com was a place for me. Marx and Delaney have done a great job on this site, and I’m flattered that they asked me to be a part of it.

I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to so many people who called or wrote the Standard in support of me and the column. Not only did you guys help bring my column back, you made me feel really good. The wife thinks my already oversized head will become as big figuratively as it is literally. When you write a column it seems like most of the letters, e-mails and posts you receive are negative — like the guy on this site who called me an incompetent after reading exactly one column. So if it took something like getting my column cancelled to see such overwhelming support, then maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all (sniff, sniff).

I’ve been asked quite a bit about what happened to “Tap ’er Light.” So here’s my version:

I wrote a column for July 18 that never ran. (I happened to think it was a really funny column and was planning on heading down to see my buddy Paul Thomas to pick out a suit for my Pulitzer Price acceptance speech. But I guess now we’ll never know.) I usually try to submit my columns to the editors by Friday, and after I submitted the one on Friday, July 14 I was told that the column was being cancelled. Coincidentally, I started a two-week vacation after covering a Muckers doubleheader on July 15. It was perfect timing for the vacation because I got to sit back and just see how the reaction was, and I didn’t have to make any knee-jerk reactions. The timing of the vacation also looked suspect, and many people thought I was suspended or fired. Honestly, it was a vacation.

On the 18th, I was called in from my renovation of my front porch to meet with the editor and new publisher. By 10 a.m., they had already heard tons of complaints, and I came away from that meeting thinking the column would most likely be back. This past Tuesday, I had a meeting to confirm my suspicion. So on the 15th I’ll be back on a weekly basis.

I should note that I have not been given any parameters or limitations for the column. I won’t be “watered down” so to speak. I plan on writing the column the way I have been … with a little humor and a whole lot of incompetence. Hopefully I’ll get better each week and make a few people laugh. After all, laughter probably is my No. 1 reason for writing the column in the first place. My buddy Joe McClafferty, the new AD at Tech, once said that people have just got to realize that my Tuesday column is a stand-up routine. There’s a lot of truth in that. That Joe is a smart guy.

Hopefully one day I’ll be able to announce that Rat Chat will be brought back to the Standard. We had so much fun writing that column and putting Geno Riordan’s kids through college. Unfortunately, I think that day is still a ways down the road. We will, however, continue the Elsie Awards. The Elsies moved exclusively to the Archman’s show on KMBR last January. We’ve also discussed other events with the Archman’s show before the Elsies are due out again. I’ll keep you posted. We have a lot of fun on the radio because Arch has a way of getting us going, and we don’t have any editors telling us “No! You can’t say that!” Plus, what do we care if we get fired from a job we do for free?

Anyway, I look forward to having some fun here on Butte.Talk. I love to hear comments after my columns run, so please chime in as much as possible. That includes the person(s) who thinks I’m incompetent. Actually, especially the person(s) who thinks I’m incompetent.

Thanks again for the invite and such a generous billing.

As you can tell from our special An Rí Rá layout, the An Rí Rá Montana Irish Festival will kick off this morning with a golf scramble at Anaconda’s Old Works Golf Course. The party really gets swinging in Uptown Butte around noon with the flag-raising ceremony at the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse.

For a full look at the schedule of events for today check the Montana Standard or look at the full schedule on the Montana Gaelic Cultural Society website.

Prices:

• Weekend Pass: $25
• Friday or Satuday only: $15

Tickets are available at the gate, on Park near Montana Street, which is where most of the festival will be concentrated.

Related Links & Info

• Montana Gaelic Cultural Society – An Rí Rá
• The Cathie Ryan Band
• The Makem Brothers with Mickey and Liam Spain
• The Prodigals
• Trinity Irish Dancers
• Tiernan Irish Dancers
• Celtic Dragon Pipe Band

We have just added a new writer to our site. It’s a secret though. We’ll let him/her introduce himself/herself.

This will be an awesome addition to the BT team and we’re very excited. Check back often! We’ve got a lot of great things in store for you!

On Saturday evening, Delaney, Murphy, and I went to see the Virginia City Players.

We saw The Colleen Bawn:

A highly dramatic and suspensful tale of love and betrayal full of star crossed lovers, sneaky villains, double crosses, harrowing escapes, surprise twists and satisfying endings. This is all done with a distinctly Irish flavor with Celtic tunes of the day interspersed into the action of this most lyrical tale. The stage hit of 1880, this play will bring you to cheers and tears as good wins out in the end.

We enjoyed the performance, especially the second half, the Varied and Vigorous Vagary of Vivacious Vaudeville Acts.

Other shows you can see this season are The Monkey’s Paw and Rumpelstiltskin.

Check out their website for a full schedule and to order tickets online using PayPal.

Side Note:

When ordering tickets online, especially if you order one or two days before the show, print your confirmation sheet to bring with you in case it hasn’t cleared through their PayPal account yet.

VirginiaCityPlayers.com