From: ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live (Los Angeles, CA)
On ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, Ed Helms tells Jimmy Kimmel: “I’m giving the commencement speech at Knox College in Illinois… My (honorary degree) will be an actual medical degree, so I’m going to be doing some recreational thoracic surgery…” Read more…
From: Business of Cinema (Mumbai, India)
Bollywood’s first-ever zom-com, or zombie comedy, ‘Go Goa Gone’ is all set to hit theatres this weekend [opening May 10 in India]. And [2002 Knox grad] Vir Das revealed that he loved doing improv while shooting ‘Go Goa Gone’.
“All credit to my directors Raj and DK who allowed me to go all the way,” said Vir. “I want to do things differently and based on my act on stage, I know that 9 out of 10 times it would work for a film as well. I am an actor who loves to improvise and one thing that I love most is to deliver my lines differently.”…
“When I came to India, there was no audience for stand-up comedians. Still, I managed to create some market for that. Now same holds good for a zomcom like ‘Go Goa Gone’….” Read more…
Update on opening day coverage… Times of India: ” Vir Das and Kunal Khemu are hilarious characters and share perfect comic chemistry.” … Koimoi Inside Bollywood: “an unabashedly crazy film with Vir Das and Kunal Khemu delivering super performances.”
From: The Hollywood Reporter (Los Angeles, CA)
The Hollywood Reporter praises the set design of Knox grad Richard Hoover, ‘69, in its review of “Mad Forest” by Caryl Churchill, playing March 16-May 4 at the Open Fist Theatre in Los Angeles: “Inspired by the 1989 fall of Romania’s Ceauşescu regime and written in the heat of the aftermath, this panoramic epic of a people in turmoil remains pertinent and incisive… [Director] Marya Mazor orchestrates its intricacies with unflagging forward energy and clarity, assisted in particular by the sinuous scenic design of the peerless Richard Hoover, who manages to suggest an aptly stolid architectural rigidity while permitting limitless flexibility of movement for the actors in history’s pageant…” Read more…
From: The Register Mail (Galesburg, IL)
Birmingham, Ala.-based band Bourbon & Bleach, with Galesburg native Bob “Hurricane” Harrison serving as lead vocalist and on harp (harmonica), has released its first self-titled CD… Bob was born in Galesburg, and was graduated from Galesburg High School and Knox College. His first band, “Innocent Byproduct,” was formed by Bob and pals in high school. His second band, “Tricyle,” was organized at Knox… Bob’s day job is assistant creative director for Luckie Co., a Birmingham advertising agency… Read more…
From: Humanities (National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC)
American poetry has seldom promised a path to fame and fortune. One lively exception was the work of Carl Sandburg, who achieved a celebrity before his death in 1967 that seemed more typical of a Hollywood screen legend or a Hall of Fame athlete… But since his death, Sandburg’s stock has fallen… Along with frequent striving to please the popular culture’s broad middle, a more radical strain of thought provided an alternating impulse in Sandburg’s poetry, sometimes giving his poetry an edge that pushed prevailing social conventions…
“Sandburg has to be viewed as a political writer, someone who was very much concerned with politics and social issues,” said Jeffrey A. Douglas, director of the Henry M. Seymour Library at Knox College, where some items from Sandburg’s literary career are archived… Read more…
From: Hindustan Times (New Delhi, India)
In Chandigarh [India] to play Banta in the upcoming Hindi film, Santa Banta, Vir [Das] gets talking about taking respite in comedy and turning jokes with double meaning into a heavy dose of humour.
Born in Dehradun and raised in Africa, Vir’s father is a farmer, mother a wildlife enthusiast and sister was a documentary maker. Finding Nigera unsafe to live in, Vir went to the US, where he started pursuing a degree in economics from Knox College, Illinois. “One day, I took an acting class and my mentor told me to do theatre instead of economics. For four years continuously, I did theatre, mostly dark roles. Since these were turning me insane, I started doing stand-up comedy as almost a rebellion,” he says… Read more…
