Sara Lindsey Feature-Baltimore Sun Newspaper

Late last month, Tom Cruise heroically came to Sara Lindsey's rescue. More recently, Matt Damon offered the Howard County native a boatload of money to allow his corporation to lease her land. Granted, these events happen in the movies and not in real life, but it's all pretty exciting just the same.

"I have been super lucky," says Lindsey of her eventful first year in Hollywood.

With pivotal roles in two high-profile releases, Cruise's action flick "Jack Reacher," and "Promised Land," opening on Friday, Jan. 3, the 23 year-old actress seems poised to make an even greater big-screen splash in 2013.

The rising star was able to make it home for the holidays, but was back on a plane the day after Christmas to take care of business in her new home base of Los Angeles.

"I'm always auditioning and waiting for my next project," said Lindsey during a Christmas Eve phone conversation from her parent's home in Ellicott City.

That kind of drive and determination wasn't always so evident. When Lindsey, known as Sara Trapnell when she was a student at Wilde Lake High School, was first a member of the school's drama club, her attention was often directed elsewhere.

"I had the typical teen angst over boys and whatever my friends were involved with," she remembers with a laugh.

By junior year though, Lindsey's high school dramas were playing out on stage, not in her social life.

"I vividly remember being in a rehearsal one day and I must have been fooling around," she recalls. "My drama teacher pulled me aside and told me that I had to start focusing and really working hard if I wanted to succeed."

The pep talk had its intended effect.

"I realized at that point what it was going to take, and I started getting really serious," she said.

Soon after, Lindsey was winning leading roles in such Wilde Lake High School productions as "Grease" and "Beauty and the Beast." She also performed in several plays at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia and was an active member of the Maryland All State Choir. Then there were all those singing and dancing lessons.

Luckily, Lindsey's parents approved of her extracurricular activities.

"They were always toting me around to one thing or another," says the youngest of four children and only daughter of Ellicott City physicians Carol Braun and Charles Flexner. "They were always supportive and encouraging. My mom is probably my biggest fan."

Even so, acting was never allowed to trump algebra when Lindsey was growing up.

"School was always the number one priority," says the 2007 Wilde Lake High graduate. "My parents always stressed to me that I was going to get an education and I was expected to do well."

Lindsey went on to study drama at Pittsburgh's prestigious Carnegie Mellon University and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2011. That same year she landed her first movie role in "Super 8," produced by Steven Spielberg. After getting her diploma, Lindsey packed her bags and headed to LA to pursue her professional career. Within one year of graduating, the actress had landed roles in four feature films.

Last September, she played a principal's assistant in the drama "Won't Back Down," a film about two mothers trying to transform a failing inner city school. The following month, the actress was a sexy college coed in the Halloween themed comedy "Fun Size." In "Jack Reacher," she plays a woman whose abusive boyfriend is taught a lesson in manners by Cruise.

"It's exciting to be able to do such a variety of roles," Lindsey notes. "It's so easy in Hollywood to get put into a certain category."
In "Promised Land," Lindsey has her most prominent role to date as Claire Allen, a single mother trying to do what's best for her young son.

"You can track my character throughout the whole movie," says Lindsey. "She's an integral part of the story." "Promised Land," directed by two time Academy award nominee Gus Van Sant, is set in a rural Pennsylvania town hit hard by the economic decline. Matt Damon is a salesman for a natural gas company who arrives in town to buy drilling rights from local residents.

The process of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is a controversial method which has recently emerged as a subject of heated debate.  In the movie, the townspeople have to decide what's best for the community.

"The messages in the movie are incredibly powerful and very topical but it's also a story about people and relationships and love," says Lindsey. "My character has to make some tough decisions. Her choice could turn things around for her family but it comes with a sacrifice. The script is really phenomenal."

With its impressive cast and contemporary story line, "Promised Land" is expected to be a big draw at the box office. It's a good thing then that Lindsey auditioned for the movie despite warnings from several friends.

"They told me not to get my hopes up because they thought I was too young to play a mom," the actress recalls.

That assessment seemed as though it might be on target, even after Lindsay got a callback to meet with the film's director.
"I auditioned two or three times with the casting people before I was asked to audition for Gus," recalls the actress. "After I finished, all he just said was OK, great, thanks. As I was leaving I was thinking to myself that I definitely did not get the part."

But as she was heading for the door, Van Sant called Lindsey back into the room and asked if he could take her picture. Several weeks later, she got a call from the casting director. "I was at the beach when I found out I got the part," says Lindsey.

 "I was like, 'Oh my God,' I starting jumping up and down. My friends were a few feet away getting food and they saw me. They knew I was waiting for the call and they came running over and we all did a joyous dance right on the beach."

Filming for "Promised Land" wrapped in September and Lindsey is currently doing promotion and attending some of her first red carpet events. It's a heady time, but the life of a Hollywood newcomer certainly has its challenges. For every part she gets, Lindsey may hear dozens of no's. How does she manage to navigate all the ups and downs?

"I really try not to be too hard on myself," she says. "There is a lot of auditioning and a lot of not getting jobs. I just do the best that I can and try to get my name out there. You never what kinds of things are going to catch."

Additionally, Lindsey also is a writer, so when she's not working on a film or auditioning, she collaborates with colleagues on screenplays and independent projects. "Keeping busy is really important, not only for your mental health but to keep up your chops," she says. "You can't sit around waiting for the phone to ring. A lot of my friends struggle with that and sort of place their worth on whether they're getting work or not. You can't do that. You have to know that you are awesome and amazing just the same. You can't doubt yourself."

Yarn Feature-Virginian Pilot

When Blake Christiana was first approached with the idea of raising funds online to help finance his band's latest album, he wasn't sure it was such a good idea.

"We didn't want to be just another bunch of musicians begging for money," said the singer and acoustic guitarist for the roots-rock band Yarn.

That changed when halfway through recording "Almost Home," the Brooklyn-based sextet ran out of cash.

Rather then leave the studio and sit on an incomplete record, the band called in the "Yarmy," its group of diehard fans. The Yarmy answered the call for aid by contributing more than $5,000 through the web-funding platform Kickstarter - surpassing the band's financial goal.

"They really came through and helped us put the record out there," Christiana said. "It's an honor to know that we have fans that are willing to go to such an extreme." "You know," he said, "watching the news, you wouldn't imagine that there are generous, kind souls on the planet, but this proved otherwise."

Since forming in 2007, Yarn, which plays the Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach on Sunday, has built its fan base through constant touring and significant fan interaction.

"It's the only way to survive right now as a developing grass-roots band," Christiana said. "Our fans are really involved, and I think they feel like they have a stake in the band's success.

"Just a couple of weeks ago we were in North Carolina having dinner before a show and some fans came by and brought us a box of T-shirts that they had made up with our logo on the front and some of my lyrics on the back. They said they just want to give something back and thought we could make some money by selling them at our shows."

Yarn's genre-mixing blend of rock, knitted together with country and a bit of bluegrass ramble, has also caught the attention of prominent music industry insiders. After Grammy-winning producer Bil VornDick caught a Yarn performance in Nashville, he let the band know that he'd like to work with it. A couple of months later the native Virginian, whose credits include projects with Bob Dylan and bluegrass great Alison Krauss, was in the studio with Yarn producing "Almost Home." The disc, released last March, was recently named one of the Top 100 Americana albums of 2012 by the Americana Music Association.

Another admirer is John Oates, of Hall and Oates fame.

"We just wrote a couple of songs together," Christiana said. "He's the most humble dude in the world. One day we were in the recording studio listening to a playback, and he said, 'Hey, man, I think you should recut your vocal.' He called me back later that night and said, 'Hey, I hope I didn't offend you.' I had to laugh. I want that kind of insight, especially coming from a guy like him."

The newly penned tunes, slated for an upcoming Yarn release, could raise the band's profile even higher. But for now, Christiana seems satisfied in his role as leader of the Yarmy.

"Ultimately, we just want to play," said the 36-year-old musician. "What we get to do for a living is pretty darn special. I feel like we are building a kind of community. That is the best part of all of this for me. We have these little pockets of family all over the country. That's about as good as it gets."

 

Beauty 4 Ashes Dance Feature-Virginian Pilot

In the bright and airy practice space of his downtown Hampton dance studio, Beauty for Ashes founder and artistic director David Riddick directs his troupe as he talks about his theater company's upcoming production, "One," and how it was inspired by the long and short of love.

"I came up with the idea for this show after reading a newspaper article about the high divorce rate," said Riddick, 28.

"My grandparents are still together, and that got me thinking about love's obstacles and trials." "One," he says, is an examination of the stages involved in a long-term relationship.

The dance is the physical representation of that journey. The show, to be presented at the Jefferson Davis Middle School in Hampton this Friday and Saturday, fuses dance forms from modern to ballet.

"My dancers have to be committed because the mind has to control the body," Riddick said as he put his young troupe through its paces during a rehearsal.

As the performers alternately pirouette, kick and stretch, their mentor is encouraging yet firm.
"Everyone has to be in the game because dancing is hard."
 
The Hampton native speaks from experience. Riddick toured as a member of Tennessee's Kingsport Ballet Company after earning a degree in Fine Arts from Virginia Intermont College in Bristol.

"I studied dance, but I was also fascinated with choreography," he said. "The other students complained about having too much work, but I really paid attention and started taking small choreography jobs."

Riddick was planning to further his professional studies when a family illness brought him back home to Hampton Roads in 2006. "I was applying to the London Contemporary Dance School, but my mom got real sick and I wanted to help out," Riddick said.

He quickly found work as a dance instructor for the city of Newport News before landing a gig as a program director for the city's Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center. All the while, Riddick kept dreaming big. He founded his dance company four years ago and opened his studio last spring. In its short tenure, Beauty for Ashes - the name is a Biblical reference - has managed to draw the attention of several prominent modern-dance figures, most notably Sharon Gersten Luckman, executive director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York.

"She did a workshop with us a couple weeks ago," Riddick said. "My dancers performed for her, and when they finished, I asked her for a critique. She said she had nothing to critique because we were the total package."

That's no small praise, given the dance executive's pedigree. Better still, Gersten Luckman offered to help Beauty for Ashes attain arts grants, and is writing a recommendation letter for one of the company's dancers to study with Alvin Ailey next year. Darrell Shields, a senior at York High School in Yorktown, is the principal dancer for "One." The former athlete started training with Riddick three years ago.

"I wouldn't have been able to have a career in dance if it weren't for David pushing and encouraging me," Shields said. "We're all about digging deep here. It's all about emotion and passion. It's not about doing the kind of tricks you see on 'So You Think You Can Dance.' It's about having heart and being able to touch people."

 

JD McPherson-Virginian Pilot Feature

If either of the presidential candidates wants to point to evidence of job creation, they might want to name-drop J.D. McPherson.

After the 35-year-old middle school art teacher in Broken Arrow, Okla., was handed a pink slip, he promptly grabbed his guitar and hit the road, effectively creating his own small business. But the musician's second act was hardly intentional.

"I never would have quit my job," McPherson admitted. "I have a family to provide for. I couldn't just say, 'Sorry, kids, I'm going to ditch my steady gig so I can play some rock 'n' roll shows," he laughed.

Not that the scenario was all that farfetched. After all, McPherson was in a band that had recorded an independent album.

"We worked extremely hard on the album and we played some gigs every once in a while, but that was the extent of it; I was a teacher. If I hadn't been let go, none of this would have happened."

Not the buzzworthy music career that carries McPherson to The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach this Monday. Not the rave reviews for McPherson's retro-rooted sound that borrows from influences like Little Richard and Fats Domino as well as punk rock and hip-hop.

"I went through just about every subcultural phase there was," he said. "There's a picture of me wearing all black and a Cure T-shirt, but I still had a hillbilly mullet haircut, so clearly I was trying to figure things out."

One thing never in doubt was McPherson's passion for the arts. After studying film in college, he earned a master's degree in fine arts, which landed him his teaching position.

"The only thing I miss is the kids," McPherson said of his former occupation."You wouldn't think middle school teachers would be involved in cloak-and-dagger stuff, but they are. It was pretty political and cutthroat."

In 2010, McPherson released his debut album, "Signs & Signifiers." It was picked up and reissued by Rounder Records earlier this year. The record's old-school vibe was produced with vintage microphones, old tube amplifiers and an analog reel-to-reel tape recorder.

"Everybody was in the same room, playing together," McPherson noted. "That's almost a radical concept at this point, because it's not how it's done anymore. These days you put headphones on the drummer, give him a metronome, and he lays down a drum track. The next day the bass player records his part and then the guitarist comes in and plays. That's why you get this homogenized sound. There's no evidence of the hand in it at all."

That throwback attitude inspired many critics to describe McPherson in a way that once made him wince.

"The term 'retro' used to bother me," he said. "But I understand why people use it. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what word people use. If someone is excited by what we do, they can say whatever they want."

Natalie MacMaster Feature-Virginian Pilot

With her pop star looks and vibrant showmanship, Natalie MacMaster plays the fiddle like a rock star. And since she's been an ace with the instrument since her teen years, it might be easy to call this Canadian musician a virtuoso.

Don't.

"I think it's a great compliment when people use that term to describe me, but that's not what I am," she said. "To me, a virtuoso is someone with great technical ability, and I've never had that. My strength is a feel for the music. My husband says I have the groove."

It's a knack the musician developed while growing up on Cape Breton, an island off Nova Scotia that was settled by Scots.

"There was a fiddle in every house," MacMaster said. "Music is in our genes."

Jamming with friends and family was a part of everyday life, but the holiday season always managed to kick things up a notch. "As a kid I loved Santa Claus, but what I remember most about the holidays is the house parties," she said. "The days after Christmas right up until the first of the year were always filled with music."

That yuletide atmosphere will be in the air Tuesday when MacMaster brings her own holiday party, "Christmas in Cape Breton" to The American Theatre in Hampton.

"The show is a reflection of my Christmas memories," she said.

It's also a chance for some local children to make a few of their own. The Hampton Roads-based Virginia Children's Chorus will perform a medley of Christmas tunes with MacMaster to open the second half of her performance.

"I'm very much looking forward to that element,"MacMaster said. "It's going to very lively and joyful." As the mother of five kids under 8, the 40-year-old fiddler is familiar with the pitter-patter of little feet and says her transformation from mom to musician is pretty easy. "All you need is some glitter and a tube of lipstick," she laughed.

 And you won't hear this working mother expressing angst over striking a balance between career and family.

 "I actually like being on stage even more now," she revealed. "It's my little departure from momhood. When you're on stage you're in your own world. It's wonderful for the time that it lasts."

MacMaster was just a teenager when she self-released her first album, which was only available on cassette. The fiddler's toe-tapping jigs and Scottish reels won her a loyal following and made her an in-demand collaborator. She's toured with The Chieftains and bluegrass great Alison Krauss and won a Grammy for her work with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. MacMaster's live performances generate buzz thanks in part to a trick she's perfected over the years.

"I was just 16 when I first started step dancing and fiddling at the same time," she recalled. "As the years went on, people came to expect it. As you get older you get a good sensibility for what the crowd wants. It's called getting your show legs."

Last year, MacMaster released her 11th album, "Cape Breton Girl," a title that seems to sum up the fiddler's attitude. "I was never trying to conquer the world," she noted. "I'm a traditional girl. My only motivation has always been about making great music. I just want to play."

Karmin Feature-Virginian Pilot



In early 2011, a quirky indie duo named Karmin began posting its homemade music videos on YouTube.

The group quickly went viral and became an online sensation, but unlike so many of their viral peers, Karmin found a way to migrate its popularity outside the digital world. Since posting those first videos, Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan have performed on "Saturday Night Live," made the cover of Rolling Stone, and count Kanye West among their admirers.

Monday, the band will headline a gig at The NorVa in Norfolk. But while they've logged millions of views on YouTube, the engaged musicians and their smiling covers of pop songs don't appeal to everybody. One music critic called them "cringe inducing." Another called Karmin's existence "a crime against humanity." Your view depends on whether you find the duo's versions of Top 40 hits to be a gimmick, or the work of geniuses.

Either way, Karmin's viral cover songs have made an impression. And now they're hoping to parlay that buzz into interest for their original material.

The duo recently released their debut album, "Hello." The pair's mix of pop and hip-hop is conveyed with the same kind of goofball charisma that made Karmin an Internet phenomenon - one that was the result of a marketing brainstorm session.

As newcomers, Heidemann and Noonan realized it was unlikely a mass audience would seek out their music. That's when inspiration hit. The notable rapping skills of a 20-something white girl from Nebraska didn't remain a secret for long and the blogosphere blew up after Karmin posted its rendering of "Look at Me Now" by Chris Brown. The clip has since been viewed more than 76 million times.

Karmin got some celebrity love too. Roots percussionist Questlove, an early supporter, even performed on Karmin's YouTube video cover of Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass." While not as endearing as the version by British tykes Sophia Grace and Rosie of "Ellen DeGeneres Show" fame, Karmin's Minaj cover still has its charms.

While fans wait for the duo's next move, let's take a look at a few of their buzzworthy covers and what the people of the Internet have to say about them.

"Party Rock Anthem" The original by LMFAO is an exuberant club-ready piece of hip-hop heaven that was everywhere in 2011. Karmin's version is perhaps its least successful homage, but exhibits the duo's interpretive creativity. The lone keyboard instrumentation is more pity party than anthem. But it's Heidemann's bizarre facial contortions that seem to have sparked the most wickedly entertaining web comments. "She forgot to take her meds," and "Her eyes scare me," are two of the more G-rated insults directed at the singer's theater kid histrionics.

"Look at Me Now" There's good reason this Karmin cover of the Chris Brown track scored the duo a record deal. Love her or hate her, there's no denying Heidemann's razor-sharp verbal agility on Brown's bouncy ode to his self-proclaimed awesomeness.

Karmin's supporters included rap star The Game and "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest, who both shared the clip with Twitter followers. But not everyone is a believer. The hilariously snarky website Gawker was so appalled by the specter of Karmin that it compiled the mocking tome, "A Hater's Guide to Karmin."

"Someone Like You" There's nothing jokey about this lovely version of Adele's hit. Heidemann and Noonan sing beautifully. If this is any indication of how Karmin sounds when swapping stunt for sincerity, the duo may very well have a long career.