If The Miracle Worker had a male lead, Matt Clemens would be perfect for the part.

In the past year, I’ve seen two theater productions that forced me to upgrade my opinions of the musicals in question. The first was Sunday in the Park With George at Short North Stage; the second was CATCO’s current staging of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The one thing the productions have in common is that Clemens was cast as the male lead. To be sure, both shows have many other fine attributes, but it’s hard to overestimate the actor’s contributions. Not only does he sing like an angel—a fallen angel in the CATCO show—but he imbues his characters with enormous appeal.

In Scoundrels, David Yazbek and Jeffrey Lane’s stage adaptation of a 1988 movie, he plays a huckster named Lawrence who poses as a prince in order to prey on wealthy women vacationing on the French Riviera. Despite this morally bankrupt occupation, Clemens somehow convinces us Lawrence is a basically decent guy who’s worthy of our attention. Neat trick.

President Lyndon B. Johnson saw education as a critical way out of poverty. On April 11, 1965, he signed into law an often unrecognized but core component of his War on Poverty: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA. Not only was this legislation intended to give poor children educational access but also to ensure that they would receive a quality education.

While many Americans are aware of LBJ’s War on Poverty, most probably do not know that he started out as a teacher at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas – a Mexican-American school where he would become the principal. Long before he was a politician, he learned how important educational opportunity was for low-income and minority families. Toward the end of his presidency, he stated unequivocally his commitment to the value of education for all: “We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.” (October 16, 1968).

http://commonwonders.com/world/never-again-to-us/

Cancer took the life of film critic Roger Ebert in 2013, 14 years after it claimed former TV co-host Gene Siskel.

Unlike Siskel, however, Ebert did not sneak off into the great beyond. Even after thyroid cancer necessitated the removal of Ebert’s lower jaw—taking away his ability to eat, drink or speak—he remained a public figure with help from a prosthetic chin and a computerized voice.

Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) recaps Ebert’s storied career in Life Itself, a documentary named after the critic’s 2011 memoir. Because James began his documentary only five months before Ebert’s death, it also serves as a record of his harrowing final days.

It may be due to the unexpectedly short time James had with Ebert that Life Itself comes off as a bit messy. Though it follows a generally chronological outline, some segments seem to be stuck here and there for no particular reason.