Brian Stokes Mitchell To Open 'Starry Summer Nights' Series At NYC's Town Hall

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Few people are as enthusiastic about the future of musical theater as Brian Stokes Mitchell. The Tony Award-winning actor, who was last seen on the Great White Way in the musical adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar’s “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” in 2010, says today’s Broadway is part of a natural and “wonderful” evolution of a uniquely American art form.

“Everything evolves, and theater is the same way,” Mitchell told The Huffington Post in an interview. “It’s about new inspirations, new talent and new ways of looking at things. Musical theater is not what it was 50 years ago or 100 years ago, it’s turned into something new, so let’s stay on that horse, keep riding it and see what comes next.”

Still, Mitchell -- who belongs to that unique group of Broadway performers who inspire excitement simply by having their name attached to a marquee -- will turn back the clock a bit for his July 8 performance at New York’s Town Hall. The 55-year-old baritone is the inaugural performer of Town Hall’s 2013 “Starry Summer Nights” series, which will also include “The Hit Men” featuring the former stars of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (July 18) and Linda Eder (July 22). The basis for Mitchell’s forthcoming show is his 2012 album, “Simply Broadway,” which includes songs from “Porgy and Bess,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Les Miserables” among other smash shows, and features accompaniment from longtime pianist and arranger Ted Firth.

The actor calls his new show a whirlwind tour of “50 years of classic Broadway baritone” as told in a stripped-down, piano-and-vocal style. The album (and, consequently, the forthcoming show) also features vestiges of Mitchell’s well-known stage roles in “Man of La Mancha” and “South Pacific,” though the actor says he made a point to emphasize material he’d never previously recorded.

“I call it haiku-style music, because it really is about the most essential elements,” Mitchell, who said he was inspired by the 1975 “Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album,” noted. “I treat every song as an acting moment, so these were songs that had really great acting moments in them.”

As for his own future on Broadway, Mitchell is mostly tight-lipped, but noted that he’s “getting itchy to do another show,” though recent years have seen him tackle high-profile turns on television series like “Glee,” where he’s still contracted for one additional episode as one of Rachel Berry’s gay dads (“It’s difficult to plan anything when it comes to TV and film…they’ll call us as they need to,” he said).

Citing leads in “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Sweeney Todd” as among his dream roles, he nonetheless hopes his next project will entail “something we haven’t seen yet that we don’t know…something by a new young writer. A different voice, different subject matter.”

Until then, however, he’s relishing his successful concert career: “What’s most fun about it is that it’s so spontaneous. I’m not stuck to a script and every show can be very, very different and have its own unique fingerprint.”

Brian Stokes Mitchell plays New York's Town Hall on July 8. For more information, click here.

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Lincoln Mitchell: Edward Snowden and the Story of American Weakness

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The NSA surveillance story is evolving from one of outrage-by many Americans upon learning that their government has, to cut to the chase, been spying on them, and by many in the political establishment because a mid-level contractor has told this to the world, to one of bad comedy. The story is now one of the U.S. trying to figure out where Snowden is, what flights he did or did not board and what countries are going to sympathize with the U.S. and turn Snowden over to the American authorities. It feels like a global game of where's Edward with the U.S. cast as the incompetent detective.

This entire episode has been bad for the U.S. for several reasons, but one that has been largely overlooked it the extent to which it makes the U.S. look weak. Spying on citizens, tracking their phone calls and other communications is what one expects from vulnerable authoritarian regimes, not from governments claiming to be the leaders of the free world. Strong countries have a functioning modern state that can assure secrecy and do not seek to cut fiscal corners by contracting out key functions to private companies who often enjoy useful ties to current and former government officials. Again, this kind of incompetence and weak state is not what the most powerful country in the world should be projecting.

If a similar thing had occurred in another country, particularly one that was not on good terms with the U.S., the news about surveillance would be described by the U.S. government and most of the American media as prima facie evidence of a non-democratic regime in that country. The role played by private contractors would be presented as evidence of a weak state, low accountability and a degree of cronyism or corruption. It is not surprising that the U.S. media has not focused on these issues with regards to Snowden, but these points are not lost on the rest of the world.

The U.S. is further projecting weakness by seeking to portray itself as a victim. Much of the world, including many in the U.S., look at these revelations and become very concerned about a superpower which apparently has been gathering information and tracking the behavior of millions of people both inside and outside its borders. For these people, the U.S. needs to be held accountable for its activities, or at least recognize what they have been doing. The U.S., however, and rather appallingly, appears to see itself as a country that has been betrayed by a rogue contractor perhaps in cahoots with Russia, China or somebody else.

More strikingly, the U.S. has proved unable to convince any of these countries to support its position and help bring Snowden back to the U.S. The U.S. looks weak when one rather obscure contractor can pose what the government presents as a serious security breach, and looks even weaker when it cannot even find that contractor or have him returned to the U.S. The efforts to apprehend Snowden, replete with unsuccessful efforts to determine in what country he is hiding or what flight he is boarding are beginning to make the NSA look like the Keystone Kops.

The U.S. is the most powerful country in the world and frequently presents itself as the arbiter, in one form or another, of what is just, legal and democratic, not just within our borders but globally. Portraying Snowden as a national security threat, traitor or criminal, and the U.S. as Snowden's victim, undermines U.S. credibility in these matters. Anybody who has listened to U.S. rhetoric on democracy and freedom can more or less plainly see that even, and perhaps particularly, by American standards, Snowden should not be considered a criminal. By insisting, with little success, that the rest of the world see him this way, the U.S. government isolates itself and stakes out a position defined by hypocrisy and an inability to admit its own wrongdoing.

The series of decisions that got the U.S. to this point is also troubling because it reflects poor judgment as well as a myopia and lack of perspective at almost every step along the way. Did the people who made the decisions to authorize the NSA surveillance program really think that such widespread surveillance was necessary, helpful or consistent with the values of a free society? Did the decision makers think this would remain secret, particularly when poorly vetted contractors were given access to important information? Did they think the rest of the world would hurry to cooperate with efforts to apprehend Snowden rather than be outraged about the surveillance itself? These poor decisions have damaged the U.S. image and credibility abroad more than Snowden could have.

Follow Lincoln Mitchell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LincolnMitchell

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Monika Mitchell: Celebrating 50 Years of Climate Policy Progress

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"Climate deniers" are whopping mad and who can blame them? President Obama has turned the tables on climate denial with a brilliant and brave move to issue executive action on carbon control. The controversial step by the Administration to bypass a resistant Congress will surely lead to heavy backlash from the fossil-fuel industry.

Taking his cue from environmental action groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Obama is ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to create a carbon emissions policy under the decades old Clean Air Act.

The origins of the Clean Air Act, dating back to 1963, might not be commonly known, but they were in part the result of efforts by environmental economist Hazel Henderson. Due to the indefatigable determination of this "ordinary housewife"-turned-activist, Hazel Henderson singlehandedly galvanized her neighbors, the New York City community, local television stations and news journals to action and eventually gained the support of New York Senator Robert Kennedy.

If you wonder whether one person can make a big difference, Hazel's story may help make up your mind.

From SGI Quarterly:

Living in New York City in the 1960s, Hazel (Henderson) founded Citizens for Clean Air because, as she says: "We were anxious that our children have the best future possible. Thinking back, I realize that's what gave us the strength to endure numerous persecutions and keep pushing ahead."

It all started when she noticed that her daughter was coming home stained with soot. She herself was suffering from a persistent cough. She started talking to the other mothers at the neighborhood park as they watched their children playing. Starting with the simple question, "Don't you think the air here is bad?" she engaged the mothers in discussions that eventually led to the formation of Citizens for Clean Air.

First Major Environmental Law in the U.S. Established
That was 1963, and a young mother's commitment to her daughter's health led to the "first major environmental law to include a provision for citizen suits in the U.S." The Clean Air Act was expanded several times over the next three decades. In 1970, the Clean Air Act provisions that inspired President Obama's recent executive order established regulatory controls for air pollution. The last update to the 50-year-old law occurred in 1990 in response to growing concerns over acid rain and depleted ozone layer. Twenty-three years later, we are finally moving the needle forward to keep up with the Joneses -- or, rather, Germany, China and 21st century climate science.

The plan by Obama and environmental groups is to catch up with Germany and China's energy policies. China has become the world's largest wind power producer jumping far ahead of a recalcitrant and fossil-fuel loving U.S. Germany is the world's leader in climate control having established policies beginning in 2000 with the Renewable Energy Act. Conservative leader Angela Merkel has had the foresight to see climate change as an urgent priority despite the EU's economic challenges. The world's fifth largest economy currently derives 25 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources. Official policy, "Energiewende," mandates that by 2030, Germany will be 50 percent off the grid.

In the United States, in terms of climate policy, economics has trumped environment. No surprise there, since oil and coal are major U.S. industries. Obama's plan calls for the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent over the next seven years. The backlash and resistance to the President's call to action is already showing its ugly face given that the fossil fuel industry is one of Washington's most powerful lobbying forces. Fox News claimed following Tuesday's announcement that Obama has declared "War on Coal," and threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Alternatively, the president has called upon American innovation to "win" the clean energy race. He stated, "I want America to win that race, but we can't win it if we're not in it." Again, it is up to America's innovators to unleash the creative and entrepreneurial power behind our nation's enormous success. The truth is the fossil fuel industry has refused thus far to redirect its efforts to renewable energy. The hundreds of thousand jobs to be lost in oil and coal can be recreated in healthier (and safer) wind, solar, and geothermic alternatives. "I believe Americans build things better than anybody else," the president added.

That indeed might be true, yet took one British-American mother to set the clean energy race in motion. If we get discouraged by the fierce fight that is certain to be waged by "climate deniers" and oil and coal industries, Hazel Henderson's half century battle for climate control reveals that, in the end, persistence, determination, and the will of one individual can lead to remarkable progress. Imagine what we can do together.

Happy Fiftieth, Hazel and America.
The Clean Air Act of 1963.

Follow Monika Mitchell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/monika_mitchell

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George P. Mitchell, the Texas oilman and the 'father of hydraulic fracturing,' dies at 94

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Former Mitchell Energy & Development Corporation chairman George P. Mitchell Wednesday, March 9, 2011, in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

HOUSTON -- George P. Mitchell leveraged a penchant for hard work, an appetite for risk and dogged persistence in the face of futility into a technological breakthrough that reshaped the global energy industry and made the wildcat oilman a billionaire.

Mitchell, the developer and philanthropist who also is considered the father of fracking, doggedly pursued natural gas he and others knew were trapped in wide, thin layers of rock deep underground. Fracking brought an entirely new – and enormous – trove of oil and gas within reach.

Mitchell died Friday at age 94 his home in Galveston, his family said.

The son of a Greek immigrant who ran a cleaning and shoeshine business in Galveston, Mitchell became one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. While his technological breakthrough transformed economies in states like North Dakota, Texas and Pennsylvania and is expected to migrate around the world, many environmentalists have attacked the practice over concerns about air and water pollution.

For the entire oil and gas age, drillers had searched for hydrocarbons that had seeped out of layers of sedimentary rock over millions of years and collected into large pools. Once found, they were easy to produce. Engineers merely had to drill into the pools and the natural pressure of the earth would send huge volumes of oil and gas up to the surface.

These pools are exceedingly rare, though, and they were quickly being tapped out as the world's consumption grew, raising fears that the end of the oil and gas age would soon be at hand and raising prices to alarming levels.

Mitchell's idea: Go directly to the sedimentary rock holding the oil and gas, essentially speeding up geological processes by thousands of millennia.

He figured out how to drill into and then along layers of gas-laden rock, then force a slurry of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into the rock to crack it open and release the hydrocarbons. This process, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, is the now-common industry practice known generally as fracking.

Engineers after Mitchell learned to adapt the process to oil-bearing rock. The U.S. is now the world's largest producer of natural gas and is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer by the end of the decade, according to the International Energy Agency.

Daniel Yergin, the energy historian and author of "The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World" said in a statement that Mitchell "Changed the world energy outlook in the 21st century and set in motion the global rebalancing of oil and gas that is now occurring."

The fracking boom sent natural gas prices plummeting, reducing energy costs for U.S. consumers and businesses. And by boosting U.S. oil production, it has sharply reduced oil imports.

Electric utilities used more natural gas to generate power because of its low price, while reducing the use of coal. This has led to a substantial reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and toxic chemicals such as mercury by U.S. utilities.

But the practice has also sparked powerful antagonism, especially in the Northeast, from residents and environmentalists opposed to increased industrial activity in rural areas and concerned that the fracking process or the wastewater it generates can contaminate drinking water supplies.

New York, which is thought to have considerable natural gas resources, has imposed a moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing and star-studded activist groups have staged countless rallies and events to generate opposition to the practice.

In some areas fracking has been blamed for air pollution and gas leaks that have ruined well water, but the Obama administration and many state regulators say the practice is safe when done properly.

Mitchell's family, on the family foundation website, said he died of natural causes while surrounded by relatives.

"His story was quintessentially American," the family statement said. "George P. Mitchell was raised as a child of meager means who, throughout his life, believed in giving back to the community that made his success possible and lending a hand to the less fortunate struggling to reach their potential."

George Phydias Mitchell and his wife, Cynthia, who died in 2009, had 10 children. Their work together was "dedicated to making the world a more hospitable and sustainable place," the family said.

Mitchell graduated first in his class of 1940 at Texas A&M University with degrees in petrochemical engineering and geology. He helped pay for his school costs by running a tailoring and laundry business in College Station and selling candy and stationery to his fellow student Aggies, then in later years became the school's largest benefactor with donations topping $95 million.

This year, the annual Forbes list of wealthiest Americans ranked him 239th with a net worth of $2 billion.

Mitchell spent four years in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. Afterward, he struck out on his own with a brother and a partner as a wildcatter operation.

Over his career, he participated in drilling some 10,000 wells, including more than 1,000 wildcats – wells drilled away from known fields. His company, Mitchell Energy & Development, was credited with more than 200 oil and 350 natural gas discoveries.

The firm spent nearly two decades developing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, finally finding success in North Texas' Barnett Shale formation in the 1990s.

"There's no point in mincing words. Some people thought it was stupid," Dan Steward, a geologist who began working with the Texas natural gas firm Mitchell Energy in 1981 told The Associated Press in an interview last year. Steward estimated in the early years, "probably 90 percent of the people" in the firm didn't believe shale gas would be profitable, and that Mitchell's company didn't even cover the cost of fracking on shale tests until the 36th well was drilled.

But he credited the company namesake as a tenacious visionary.

"There's not a lot of companies that would stay with something this long," he said. "Most companies would have given up."

"Because of Mitchell's persistence ... we are today witnessing an unprecedented boom in domestic energy production and the associated economic benefits in Texas and nationwide," Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman agreed Friday.

Mitchell sold his energy company in 2002 for $3.1 billion.

Over the years, he spent tens of millions rebuilding his hometown of Galveston, resurrecting a long-dormant annual Mardi Gras celebration and providing money to restore the city's historic downtown Strand District.

He donated the land for Texas A&M University at Galveston.

"To say he was a great man with foresight and generosity isn't enough," Adm. Robert Smith III, the school's president, said. "His contributions to this university literally made this institution possible."

His Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, founded in 1979, has made more than $400 million in gifts.

In the early 1970s, Mitchell began developing The Woodlands, a suburban Houston master-planned community designed as a place for mixed-income residential development with jobs and amenities nearby while preserving the East Texas forest and other natural resources that covered the 27,000 acres. He later would call it his most satisfying achievement.

The Woodlands is now home to about 100,000 people, and one of the nation's busiest outdoor performing arts and entertainment venues there carries his wife's name, the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

"His ambition and success have transformed our region," Houston Mayor Annise Parker said. "He was a visionary, and showed his love for Houston through his work and hometown pride."

Funeral arrangements were not immediately released.

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Fahey reported from New York. Associated Press writer Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation http://cgmf.org/p/family-statement.html

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