BURGER COLUMN: A country boy plays the Piccolo

When I was a kid, the movie theater in my hometown had the words "Opening Soon" on the marquee for 10 years. But it never did.

Culture in our little town consisted of school plays and, well, that was about it.

That's why I'm envious when I see big-city parents taking their kids to plays, museums, musicals, art exhibits and fringe theater productions.

Do those kids know how incredibly lucky they are? Do they appreciate that they are being exposed to avant-garde art, the creative process, beautiful music, customized costuming, dramatic dialogue, amazing actors, singers and dancers?

Or do they simply take it all for granted?

Good and bad

I was 50 years old before I saw my first Broadway show. Ever since, I've tried to cram as much art and music into my life as I possibly can.

In addition to our year-round venues like Pure Theatre, Footlight Players Theatre, Charleston Stage and Village Playhouse, we are blessed to have Spoleto Festival USA, the creative extravaganza that graces Charleston every spring.

But the best part of Spoleto for me is Piccolo, the city's sidecar event of smaller, less expensive presentations that are a special gift to the average, adventurous fan willing to experiment and explore.

This past week, I went to two Piccolo events. One was "The Me Nobody Knows," a musical about kids growing up in the inner-city, and "Mark Twain's Final Tour," a one-man show about the talented American storyteller.

To say they were great would be an overstatement. They were good. A few of the young performers weren't quite as terrific as some others, and Twain was almost Hal Holbrook.

But that didn't take away from the experience of live theater. Because when it comes to art, this country boy learned to cull the good from the bad a long time ago.

Artistic vegetables

To me, you see, art is lot like vegetables.

When I was growing up in the hinterlands of South Carolina, farm products were abundant and usually shared by everyone in the community. It was not unusual, therefore, to find a crate of corn, a bucket of butterbeans or a passel of peas on the back porch when you got home from church.

Naturally, not every vegetable was perfect. It wasn't like today's grocery stores, where the fruits and vegetables are coiffed and polished to a perfect hue. Nature just isn't that consistent.

No, you had to pick through the offerings and select the ones that weren't bug-eaten, bird-pecked, lopsided, squashed, molded, rotten or otherwise unacceptable.

That's how I view every live performance I attend. Some, of course, are better than others. And some are not quite as good as you hoped they'd be.

But it's worth it when you find that one piece of produce, that one perfect tomato, that makes the entire experience worth the effort.

That, my friends, is the essence of art.

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Ken_Burger.