Chestnut Hill Local

Paulo Faustini is the grapest opera singer in Chestnut Hill

By LEN LEAR

Paulo Faustini, 40, was brought up to sing in church, almost from the day he was born. His late mother was a piano teacher and church musician, and his father is a retired Presbyterian minister and composer of church music. So it was no surprise when Paulo went off to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., on a scholarship and earned a bachelor's degree in church music and a master's in voice performance and pedagogy.

But Faustini, who sings every Sunday at the 9 a.m. service and 11:15 a.m. service at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields in Chestnut Hill, also has grape expectations. In addition to his acknowledged musical talent (Paulo has sung at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and other major venues under the direction of some of the world's greatest conductors such as Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta and the late Leonard Bernstein), Faustini is just as passionate about his wine business, CIAO!

The company, run by Faustini and his partner, Lisa Smith, goes to people's homes or to BYOB restaurants to conduct wine tastings and wine education classes. For example, a recent event took place at a BYOB near South Street. There was a one-hour class from 6 to 7, and at 7 the 15 participants ordered dinner. During the first hour Paulo and Lisa offered five different wines for tasting and explained how to savor the intensity and complexity in the wines, swirling them around in the mouth with close-eyed concentration so...

To walk into the Happy Butterfly is to become immediately surrounded by history, friendship, love and the tradition of careful handwork. You meet a woman whose dream it is to help customers find just the right present, and to wrap it to reflect them. Ginny Ashenfelter, a lady with a huge heart of gold, started this shop in 1983.

Ginny met Charley Robertson's daughter, Carole, at a party one evening. These two, both creative, found mutual fascination in making gifty things, which they sold at Marty Smith's store. For Ginny, that was the seed idea that sparked the start-up of a shop.

Beginning in a small room behind the present location in the Community Center Building at 8419 Germantown Ave., the business took off right away. People asked for handmade baby clothes. Ginny somehow found crafters to produce them. She still works with many of those early artisans, knows their life stories and loves them like family.

It must have been a premonition of the election outcome that led Stagecrafters to open its run of Book of Days last Friday night. This excellent drama takes place in the "Red State" of Missouri. Playwright Lanford Wilson grew up in rural Missouri, and he speaks of its evangelical cultural milieu with an extraordinary bitterness.

The play begins in the town of Dublin, where Walt Bates (David Swartz) owns a cheese factory. His manager, Len Hock (Joe Herman), loves fine cheese, and wants to introduce a gourmet provolone. When Walt dies in an apparent hunting accident, ownership devolves to his son, but James Bates (Tom Tansey) is only interested in quick profits. He scuttles the "pretentious" gourmet product. Len's wife, Ruth (Catherine A. Pappas), is starring in the community theater production of Saint Joan by G.B. Shaw. She thinks, "something's not right" about this whole thing, and begins to investigate Walt's death.

In this two-act play, the townsfolk address us both directly and in chorus. At the onset, they speak from stage and auditorium aisles, and proudly inform us of the virtues of their small town. The first act moves slowly. Through a series of vignettes, we get to know the townsfolk and their problems. The pace quickens when Ruth, like a modern-day Saint Joan, confronts the townsmen with her suspicion that Walt has been murdered.

'Moving' concert at Hill church aids dying patients

by MICHAEL CARUSO

This past weekend of concert-going was one of the most varied and enjoyable I've recently experienced. The Pennsylvania Ballet opened its 2004-05 season in the Academy of Music, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society continued its series of programs in the Museum of Art's Van Pelt Auditorium, and the Curtis Institute of Music celebrated the 90th birthday of legendary piano pedagogue Eleanor Sokoloff with a concert by its Symphony Orchestra in the Kimmel Center.

It was right here in Chestnut Hill, however, that last week's most moving performance took place. St. Paul's Episcopal Church was the site of "Here's to Life," an annual concert held to raise money for Keystone Hospice, in memory of Kathleen Carroll, who was cared for at the facility in Wyndmoor while she was ill, until her death at the age of 50 in 2003. Concerning her care at the Hospice, Kathleen had said, "I am blessed with an environment and a dedicated and talented staff that is so rare and special. I am now able to express more love and gratitude than ever before."

Kathleen began playing the viola at the age of 10. Having auditioned at and been accepted by the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School of Music in New York City and the New England...

Shallowness, pretention slay 'Homeland Security'

By CLARK GROOME

I knew less about the subject matter in Stuart Flack's Homeland Security after seeing it than I thought I knew going in.

With the title Homeland Security, the play at Philadelphia's edgy and socially-conscious InterAct Theatre is likely to deal with controversial issues. In this case, it seemed as if we were in for an excoriating profile of the Patriot Act and the suspension of some Constitutional guarantees that have caused so much controversy of late.

Well, that's what Homeland Security starts off being about, sort of. We first meet Raj (Aly Mawji) and Susan (Michelle Courvais) when they are being interrogated by a Justice Department agent (Brian Anthony Wilson) after returning to Chicago's O'Hare Airport from a trip to Raj's ancestral India.

The agent asks questions about what he was doing there. He tells them he is a doctor, was helping to set up vaccination programs for children. In the past, he has traveled extensively in that part of the world (to all the "Stans," Paki-, Afghani-, Kurdi-, etc.).

For some reason his name is on a list. Why, he isn't told. Nor, for that matter, are we. During the play's intermissionless 95 minutes, we learn precious little about these people. We learn that the divorced Susan has a contentious but ongoing relationship...

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