The Lasters

If it seems hard to believe that it's already been a year since Steve White's last Yardfest, that's because it hasn't. Although White's beloved front-yard celebration of all things folksy is usually held in early September, he pushed it forward this year to Saturday, May 1, to accommodate a trip he plans to make in September to another folk festival in Georgia.

Ivanov at the Rodey Theatre

Just before the curtain rises, director Eugene Douglas hops on stage to address the crowd.

"I can't tell you how excited I am you're all here tonight," he says. "I'm pumped. I am so pumped!"

For me, it's always heartening to see creative types express this kind of enthusiasm for their projects. Douglas' passion seems to have fueled the action on stage. In Ivanov, he's managed to coax some smart and energetic performances from an accomplished student cast.

Douglas' production plays through this weekend at UNM's Rodey Theatre. Chekhov's first full-length play to be staged, Ivanov has never been considered a masterpiece on par with his later, better-known plays such as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters or The Cherry Orchard. That said, the play, composed when Chekhov was only 27 years old, still contains some remarkable displays of the Russian writer's innate literary wit.

Untitled photograph by Lynne Pomeranz

House O' Fire Sculpture Garden and Gallery

This is news to me: Apparently the area around Mt. Taylor, which is located just west of Albuquerque near Grants, is home to a herd of wild mustangs called mestaños. This is an interesting factoid in itself. What's even more amazing is that these mestaños are the likely descendants of escaped horses originally brought to New Mexico by Don Juan de Oñate himself over 400 years ago. Award-winning photographer Lynne Pomeranz presents an exhibit of photos of mestaños at House O' Fire Sculpture Garden and Gallery in Corrales. The show opens on Saturday, May 1, with a reception from 4 to 6 p.m. The Dance of the Mt. Taylor Mustangs runs through May 21. Stop by for a rare glimpse of these elusive animals. 890-3141.

2003 Albuquerque Poetry Slam Team

Outpost Performance Space

And so it comes down to this. All year long local poets have been locked in a deadly struggle for the distinctive honor of joining this year's Albuquerque Poetry Slam Team. This Saturday, May 1, at 8 p.m. at the Outpost Performance Space the battered and bruised survivors will stumble into the ring to beat each other to poetic pulp. Join co-hosts Danny Solis and Kenn Rodriguez for the poetry highlight of the season. Admission is $7. These poets will rock your socks off. 268-0044.

An Interview with Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman opens her new book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (Hyperion Books, hardcover, $21.95), with a hair-raising account of her 1991 trip to East Timor. The trip was hardly a vacation. Goodman visited the tiny island country to cover the atrocities committed there by the Indonesian military, which, in 1975, began massacring 200,000 Timorese—two-thirds of the entire country—largely with U.S.-supplied arms.