SPOLETO BUZZ BLOG

From the Chapel Theatre, I hoofed it up Calhoun to King and across a flag-filled Marion Square to John Street and Charleston Music Hall, where I found Sheri Grace Wenger in the lobby overseeing the start of a 5pm show from longtime Piccolo fave Quintango. If you’ve never seen them before, Quintango is a quintet of five musicians (piano, double-bass, cello and two violins) who play tango music (get it? quin-tango?). They’ve been packing ‘em in at Footlight Theatre for as long as I can remember. Since Footlight isn’t producing its own Piccolo series this year, Wenger decided to make them part of her new series at Charleston Music Hall, which has never been utilized for the festivals, apart from the occasional Pat Conroy lecture about depression or suicide.

Wenger’s got a big lineup of audience-friendly stuff at the Music Hall, which technically may be the most sophisticated performance venue in town (and rent for the facility reflects that). Straight music performances on the program include singer-songwriter John Brannen, the Lovell Sisters (who played with the CSO at last Friday’s opening night Sunset Serenade), Blue Plantation, and Quintango. Wenger’s also got a slate of music theatre in the space: her ever-popular Always … Patsy Cline, Workshop Theatre in Columbia’s production of A Chorus Line, and her own long-running Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven show. It’s a lot of ground to cover, and, again, there’s no guarantee that Wenger will make back the money she’s sunk into renting the facility and hiring these groups to perform, to say nothing of the cost of producing her own stuff. But she told me yesterday she was pleased with turnout so far (though the rain had her, like everyone, worried), and there seemed to be a good crown in the theatre for Quintango.

With Quintango, all you get is tango music, but they do that exceedingly well. Host and violin player introduces each song with a story or a short history less, and there’s lots of references to Argentina and Buenas Aries. This production also includes a pair of dancers, who liven up the already sulty songs with some very real, very good tango dancing. The crowd at Wednesday’s afternoon show was predominantly of the grey- and silver-haired variety, but what was happening between the dancers up there was enough to stand in for a week’s worth of Viagra.