One, two, three, four.

Get my shoes then out the door.

Five I'm alive, six, seven, eight feelin' great.

Nine, gonna shine, life is good I'm doing fine.

Ten, Gonna do it right then do it again.

Yeah yeah.

I look up to the sky with all the beautiful color but, there's more than just for me so gonna share it with another.

I got to show, to give, let out, I want to sing and shout.

Take a look and see A beautiful morning that turns into beautiful evening.

And together make a beautiful life.

And if you want see, then come along with me.

That's right.

Hey it's Dave and welcome to Experience Michiana.

I'm here at the South Bend Farmer's Market to find out on next week's show why I am here.

But for this week, we're going to go to the Acorn Theater in Three Oaks to find out about a concert that's going on there.

I'm going to find out about Idea Week, which you've probably seen a lot of the advertising about at Notre Dame, but what exactly is it?

Well, you'll get an idea for it on this week's show, but first we're going to the DeBartolo, where Courtney is finding out what's happening there over the next month.

Hey high five.

We did in one take.

We are back on the stage.

Thank you guys for having us here.

And we are wrapping up the 20th season here at DeBartolo.

Thank you so much for having us.

And I have to say, you guys have a fantastic line up for the next season too.

Yes, and big stuff.

Now tell me more about the things that are wrapping up this season.

Yeah, well we still have our classics that are going.

These are films that, you know, might be from a past century that we revisit, repackage.

We have our classic seventh annual Jesus Christ Superstar singalong.

I'm going to be doing that seventh annual, that.

Yeah.

And, so open up your pipes.

Okay.

Is it a singalong?

Oh, yeah.

Singing along.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Now that's a whole nother level of lyrics on the screen.

Join in if you choose.

Oh, no judgment passed on your voice.

We just want to hear it.

I will be there.

And then we're wrapping up our film noir series.

This was a community class learning beyond the classics.

But you can still catch some of the films.

One offs just come for the screenings.

We have Orson Welles's Touch of Evil.

I had had Charlton Heston on it.

Bordertown noir.

As well as Infernal Affairs, a film from Hong Kong in 2002 that then gets remade by or remade by Martin Scorsese in The Departed, which we're showing as well, which won Best Picture at the Oscars.

And are you going to have any kind of a conversation around that too?

Yep.

There's about a ten minute introduction setting the film up, and we chat about the film for about 30 minutes afterwards and love that kind of stuff, like when you can actually take the time to debrief.

I love that.

Yeah.

So we have the educational component built right in.

So you can learn how these fit together.

And a broad history of film noir not only in America but around the world.

Absolutely, absolutely.

All right.

Now new stuff is coming up too.

We have a lot of new stuff, too.

Is there like a general theme for 2025, 2026?

You know, this is kind of where we we kind of get the odd stuff out things.

You know, we've been watching the show, and this is a chance to see the more real stuff.

There you go.

So we have a double feature of two kind of short features are long shorts.

We have Leos Carax.

It's not me.

Which is kind of, like Magritte.

This is not a pipe.

An autobiography film that he made about himself.

But it's not him.

And he's a French, goofball.

He made a net, and it's a really a comedy.

It's a little bit of everything.

Okay.

All around.

Gotcha.

And then we have from Argentina, Matteo Penas.

You burn me.

Which is an adaptation of, the Sappho, myth.

But it's done with footnotes and with interpretation.

And if people know his work is very literary, and those two will be in conversation one another, and together they're about two hours.

So it constitutes one film.

Okay.

We also have from Zambia, on becoming a guinea fowl, which is a dramedy that I think people will enjoy dramedy.

I feel like that's a newer phrase.

Right?

Yeah.

It's portmanteau.

Go.

It wasn't in the TV guide when I was a kid you know that.

And then also, a much more dramatic film, When fall is coming, which is from Francois Ozanne, whose French, he made thrillers like Swimming Pool or historical films like France.

And this is, a story about mature women and what's occurring toward, the sunset of their life for that kind of golden years.

And people will enjoy that as well.

I think we also have, two other films, a Serbian film called The Working Class Goes to Hell, which is a play on the 70s film, The Working Class Goes to Heaven and is some Serbian, factory workers who, when their union falls apart and their employer is cruel to them, with their conditions.

They go to a, lower power as it were.

Okay, and start a satanic cult.

In order to, in order to see if that can a comedy too?.

It's a little bit of everything.

It's a lot of what sets.

Okay, that's what we get at the interpretation, right?

Okay, okay.

But, but it's a really fascinating film about working labor, and, working conditions.

And then lastly, we have a film Eephus which is set in Massachusetts in the 1990s.

And it is a baseball game.

If, you know, Eephus like the Eephus pitch, like the slow roll.

I don't you tell me about, like a 40 mile per hour pitch.

Okay.

That's tough to hit.

So, and a great spelling bee word.

So, this is, shot and, or it set in Massachusetts in the 1990s, and it's the last game of an amateur baseball league before a stadium is destroyed.

Interesting.

So a very.

It's a sweet kind of sports movie.

Yes.

And it's such a wide range of options that you guys have.

I mean, you did this every year.

You've been doing it 20 years.

So you guys know what you're doing too.

Now we're also going to talk about performances because you still have one more to wrap up the 20th.

Exactly.

We have one last, performance to wrap up the 20th anniversary season.

And as an anniversary season, this is where we're looking back to artists who have been on our stage before.

But, seeing them in a new way.

Third Coast Percussion was the ensemble in residence at the Performing Arts Center for five years, a number of years ago.

So they're coming back with, Jesse Montgomery, who is a a composer and violinist.

She was the composer in residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

She's won Grammys.

She's amazing.

She wrote them a new percussion quartet, and then she'll be playing violin on a number of other pieces on the program.

Especially.

One is that one happened.

That is Sunday, April 27th at 4 p.m.. Coming up.

All right.

Got tickets for that?

Exactly.

And that's again the last one on the season to sort of wrap up, our celebration of 20 years Okay, let's talk about things that we have still going on, because I think we're going to be doing some opera here in the in the next season.

Yeah, we we pipe in the opera, live, from New York.

And we have a couple of more screenings this year.

And one of them, that's coming up is The Marriage of Figaro, which is the comedic Mozart, opera.

So you can check that out.

And we also have some kids films, too.

Or films for people of all ages.

Family friendly family friendly.

And we have two more left in that series.

We have Alice in Wonderland.

The witch version of that.

You have to tell versus the older animated version, which Disney, you know, was working on for decades before it finally materializes in the mid-century.

And then lastly, on May the 4th, we're going a little bit janky to do it, doing something Star Wars.

Well, we're doing The Last Starfighter which is J v Star Wars, but also is really good.

Like, it's it's it's awesome.

And it presages a lot of things that are occurring with video games.

Yeah, sure.

So come check out The Last Starfighter before.

And you guys also have sneak peeks that are happening to you.

I know there's a big film.

There's a lot of big films coming up this year to at least, you know what we're our families excited about.

So every once in a while, we are able to show a film before it's in theaters and we do this free and, we have the live action version of How to Train Your Dragon, which will be showing before it is released on May 11th.

And for that date and for everything else that we have going on, you've got a performing arts dot ND dot EDU.

And see when that will be coming.

And then, even for the free events, you still want to make sure you get tickets though, correct.

And sometimes you can reserve them online.

Sometimes they're available an hour before a screening.

Just be sure to read.

I was going to say small print, but the large print underneath the screening.

So you know how to get your free ticket secured.

All right.

So we're heading into the 21st season.

I know you guys.

We're almost out of time, but there's some great stuff that you guys have on the docket.

Exactly.

And as Ricky said, please check out the website.

For all all the listings and up to date information.

This is a sneak peek.

So it's not the full list will actually be adding a few artists.

Especially as a Broadway artist along the way.

So it's not on the list yet.

But we did want to highlight we're super excited to be welcoming the Joffrey Ballet for the first time.

So one of the preeminent ballet companies of the world, right next door in Chicago.

They've never been here.

So they'll be on our season next year.

And to compliment ballet, we'll be bringing in urban Bush women in the second semester as a nice sort of compliment, to that dance offering that I love the variety.

Exactly.

And we have jazz legend Christian McBride coming with his group, Ursa major.

They're going to be clinicians for the Jazz Fest.

And then, of course, do their own, concert that weekend.

And then we're we're very excited about speaking of opera earlier, Terence Blanchard, who is a jazz trumpet player, wrote an opera that, premiered at the met.

Terence Blanchard, it's fire.

Shut up in my bones.

So we're doing a concert version of that.

So just really exciting, big, exciting things happening.

You know, we we knew the 20th anniversary is going to be big, but the 21st is looking just like.

Keep up with that.

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Perfect, perfect.

Awesome.

Always a pleasure.

You guys, I know there's so much more we could talk about, but we're going to keep checking back in with you, especially as we move into the 2025 2026 season.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

We are so thrilled to have two beautiful people joining us today on Experience Michiana.

We have Nikki, who is the artistic and creative director at the Acorn Theater.

And we have artist Andy is Sy-dow or Si-Dow.

You got to tell me, how do I pronounce that, Andy?

Sydow rhymes with kiddo.

Oh, I got it.

Okay, Andy.

Sydow.

There we go.

Well, thank you both for joining us.

And, I'm actually going to start with Nikki, because.

Nikki, I have a feeling that you are so excited about this concert that is coming up at the Acorn Theater that you're actually wearing a t shirt of about it.

So, yes.

There you go.

I love it.

The last time I was with you, Kelly, I had this shirt on then too.

I think your viewers are going to think I have only one shirt.

And, you know.

And if I did have only one shirt in my wardrobe, this would be a good one.

Yes.

Yeah.

It was.

It was coincidence.

I swear it was.

Yes.

I am so excited about this show with Andy.

Thank you so much for having us on.

To talk about it.

I am, as you mentioned, the artistic director here at the Acorn, and one of my most favorite projects that I work on is our annual singer songwriter competition.

And last year, Andy was one of our finalists and ended up being, named our runner up.

So he took second place in the competition and, you know, as I prepare for that competition for the months leading up to it, I think I know all of the music that's been submitted better than anyone because I listen to literally every single song.

And sometimes I get an inkling from the first note, right when I open up those submissions and listen to them at home.

And with Andy, that definitely happened, with his submission, his song, Two Drink Tickets.

When I opened it up and I was listening to it in my home office, I was like, oh, this guy's for real?

This guy is going to make the finals.

I knew that, and this guy could win the crown.

I, you know, I just felt really strongly about, the quality of, of Andy's musicians ship.

So I'm really, really excited that we're able to bring him back up here to Three Oaks for a concert on April 26th.

Absolutely.

Andy, let's bring you on in.

Well, first of all, I'd like to know, how did you get involved with music?

Did you come from a musical family?

So, yeah, my, both my parents, played growing up.

You know, my dad plays guitar still and some piano.

My mom took piano lessons her whole, childhood.

So it was around the house, kind of my whole upbringing.

And they had me in piano lessons in elementary school.

You know, and I was playing saxophone in the band and then kind of started writing songs and, playing guitar in high school.

And so it was just kind of always, around.

And then on, on Sunday nights, a lot of times we'd go down to the Boulder Theater for this radio show called E-Town, and we would just see different artists play, most weekends.

I would say we went down there just to check out the music.

So it was just it was everywhere.

As a kid.

And, so what made you decide that you wanted to make this a career?

Well, I tell people, music keeps me up at night and gets me out of bed in the morning, so I wasn't really sure.

I didn't know what else to do.

So, I, I think I knew at some point in high school that, that's for sure what I wanted to do for a living.

And, and I was lucky to get to, to go to college for, piano and, just kind of keep pursuing it from there.

You can now, you know, it's one thing to.

I mean, it's it's wonderful that you play so many instruments.

That's one thing now, writing songs that that's that's a whole nother gift and talent.

What kind of drew you to that and and how easy or how difficult do you find that to be?

Yeah, well, I was I was drawn to it from a lot of those performers that, that we saw at E-Town growing up.

You know, and just from stuff I was listening to, with my dad, could have been Ben Harper or, Natalie Merchant or.

I mean, so many, so many different artists.

And there's times when songs come easily.

But a lot of times it's got to be molded and crafted over a period of time.

But I love my favorite part of the writing process, I tell people, is when the song is done and you play it back on a voice memo and it sounds just right, and I just love that feeling so much, and it drives me to keep doing it.

That's awesome.

Well, Nikki, tell us when the concert is.

I believe it's Saturday, April 26th.

You've got it.

Yes.

That's correct.

7 p.m. here at the Acorn.

Okay.

And will there be other artists joining Andy?

Yeah, actually, we have another local artist, Doug Hiasch, who will be, joining us, for the concert.

And we're really excited to feature, a rising star, Molly Cooper, who is a high school student who is one of those artists that will go off in the future and do something and will be sitting here in Southwest Michigan saying, we knew her.

So she's she's going to open up the show at seven, so it'll be Molly and Doug and then Andy.

Very nice.

Andy, what can, people expect when they come to the concert on Saturday, June 26th?

It's it's going to be a fun time.

I tell stories, I play piano and guitar, sing the songs, obviously.

I just hope it's, a fun community event for everybody.

Well, Nikki that's on again Saturday.

The 26th.

What's coming up as well?

Over the spring and summer months.

Gosh, that whole weekend we're busy here.

Kelly.

It's Art attack weekend in our community.

So we're kicking things off on that Thursday night with our annual launch party for Art attack.

We have a student showcase of visual artwork.

Students from New Buffalo and River Valley schools will be showing their artwork and then we're going to follow that with an open mic night.

I'll be seeing that event and I may, you know, be playing a couple songs myself that night.

That Friday night School of American Music on April 25th is hosting Patricia Barber here for a fundraiser for School of American Music.

Of course, Andy's Saturday night.

And then in May, we have just an incredible lineup of musicians, starting with Lissie on May 2nd, we have Michael McDermott, we have the flat five, we have Chicago Farmer in the field, notes.

Jackie.

Jackie Venson, sorry, and Matthew Logan Vasquez I was trying to combine their names and I knew that that's not right.

It's just it's been growing and growing.

Just a few weeks ago, we announced Steve Earle in June.

Just earlier today, we announced, Sean Mullins coming back in June and the steel wheels coming in in August.

We just are constantly adding new shows, which is why my brain sometimes has trouble finding them all up in there.

But we just have an incredibly, wonderful and diverse lineup of, of of events for people.

So Acorn live.org is the place to go to find out all the details and see who's coming up.

We have someone for everyone and to get tickets as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You can you can get tickets.

A lot of our shows do sell out in advance.

But you can sometimes, you know, come up to the box office the day of the show and get lucky even for some of those busier shows, but Acorn live.org or our box office, every, every time we have a show, the box office is open at 4:00.

All right.

Well, thank you both for joining us.

Andy, it was wonderful getting to know you a little bit more.

So thank you for taking time to be with us.

And, Nicky, as always, good to see you all.

So good to see you, too.

And the best of both of you.

Thanks for being with us.

Thank you Kelly, thanks.

So, you've probably seen a lot of the ads on TV and on social media for Idea week that is happening, but you may not know exactly what it is.

You might have no idea.

I'm joined now by Marty.

Marty, tell me a little bit about this.

This used to be run by Notre Dame, but that's kind of changed this year.

Can you kind of fill me in on on what Idea Week is and who is running it?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Great to be here.

Idea week was started in 2017 by the University of Notre Dame, and from its inception, it was meant to be a celebration of arts, culture, music, entrepreneurship.

When Notre Dame ran it, it was very, I would say very high tech focused, a little bit more high tech focused, high growth potential, startup focused.

They have for years been trying to shift it to a more community focused event.

Which is why they approached us last year at the end of Idea Week and said, asked us if we would be willing to take it.

The South Bend - Elkhart regional Partnership and sorry, our startup, South Bend.

Elkhart is, a regional entity that promotes economic development.

And, we were a longtime partner of Notre Dame already.

And so it made sense that we could take it over and drive it forward as more of a community based event.

And so tell me a little bit about the South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership, because, in some ways, your nonprofit organization has taken a back seat on a lot of community initiatives.

But I know that you're more, forward facing now.

So can you kind of explain before we get into Idea Week what it is that the regional partnership actually achieves, on an annual basis?

Sure.

Sure.

Yeah.

I mean, we are, an economic development agency that supports the region and by the region we're talking about Marshall County, Elkhart County and Saint Joe County also, Berrien Cass County counties.

And Michigan technically is our our region of support.

That we do the bulk of our work in Indiana.

Yeah.

I mean, we're a partnership, so we do rely a lot on what we can do to support other partners in the region that are doing work around economic development.

That said, we have been running many of our own initiatives, around talent attraction, retention on supporting entrepreneurship, supporting industry growth, which in some ways is more traditional economic development at a regional scale.

So like encouraging companies to work in the region, highlighting why this region is a great place to start a business or grow a business or expand a business.

And then I think importantly, we also manage that.

Ready for the, from the state of Indiana on behalf of the region.

So we don't make the decision.

We have an RDA that makes the decision, but we help process those dollars and get them out to the community for the projects that have been awarded.

And so with Idea Week, it did feel a little bit insulated on the campus, you know, and now it's it's more in the community.

So how can people get involved?

I mean, as a mentioned, we've seen a lot of the ads on TV and things like that.

So it seems like there's a lot going on for people to get involved with.

We're super proud of what we have built this year.

It's it was a kind of a heavy lift taking it over.

But we we feel really good that we have kept the original intention of it.

We can live that meaning, you know, a really innovative, forward looking conference that mixes up more than just entrepreneurship, but also innovation and networking and at play opportunities.

We in order to make it a little more community focused, we've done, we've really focused on bringing in more workshop, more tangible, workshop based things.

So we broke we broke the event into kind of two days, Wednesday the 23rd being very focused on Walk away thing.

So small business midsize that's an aspiring entrepreneur and pick a workshop.

We have about 15 different workshops running and walk away the next day with ideas that they can implement in their business.

Thursday the 24th.

Doing more inspirational work.

So we're bringing had some really interesting keynotes, some brilliance panels.

Ashley Flowers, who founded the Crime Junkies podcast Max Yoder, is doing a great talk.

He's really from Goshen on, entrepreneurship and mental health and, we've got panels.

Scott Cohen from GitHub, the founder of hollow coming at Notre Dame.

So we've got really interesting and a lot of ways, hometown heroes.

People who have built businesses, maybe they started in the region here, maybe they're somewhere else today, but they really have started to build something here.

Centennial companies.

So a company, regional companies that have survived more than 100 years and, you know, talk to us about how they pivoted, how they survived World War One, World War Two of the Great Depression.

You know, so many things.

And still thriving today in the region.

Like how did they do that?

How did they have to pivot?

How did leadership have to change?

So, really great inspirational stuff happening on Thursday.

And I do know somebody who started a business three years ago.

I mean, the challenges of feeling isolated and, you know, that lack of kind of people to bounce off when you're starting things up before they, they turn into something else.

And then when you do have the opportunity to meet with other people that are going through the same things or have overcome the challenges or can share that network with you and share the people that have helped them.

And we are stronger.

As cheesy as it sounds, we are stronger when we do work together and connect together.

Instead of working against each other, you know?

Absolutely.

Yeah, we we also truly believe that.

We truly believe that.

And that's why we, you know, when Max Yoder talks at lunchtime on Thursday, he talks about he was having his first child at the same time, he's trying to sell this company.

And like the burden that to family, that and the way that his friends and family were able to like support him through that time.

But that's also why we've layered on tons of networking opportunities.

We've got three different happy hours happening.

We've got, you know, okay, go concert coming Wednesday night at Morris.

We've got Rise Fest happening at the same time with an Irish rock band coming to that meeting, coming to Stockholm East.

We really want people to get to know one another, meet one another.

We hope that people are meeting the next business partner, or the next person who's going to invest in their business or, you know, that's what we want to see.

And that they're not alone in their journey.

Just like you're saying you and no matter how much you tell people, like people do business with people that they like, that they can connect with.

And so it's so important that you have these casual opportunities for people to get to know you.

And of course, they need to get to know your business, but they want to get to know you first.

And there's, you know, this is such a great, informal way to do that.

You know, you know, you know, informal, free for the most part, except for a couple of the concerts.

And, and, and yeah, I mean, we live in a world.

I mean, some of the sessions are about AI, right?

And how you can use it in your business.

But at the end of the day, it is still going to be those people that people connections that move your business forward.

Absolutely.

Look, there's so much going on.

Not everybody who wants to take part is an entrepreneur.

I know there's a lot of opportunities for people who just care about their community.

So, where is all this housed?

Where can people find out?

Because there is a lot going on.

So obviously a lot of our viewers will want to pick and choose what they can go to if possible.

So.

So where can they get all that information?

Yeah, yeah.

Idea Week dot com is the best place to get it.

So that's just like it.

Spell.

You can go there.

You can register.

We are using, event management software called Hoova So there's an app you can download after you register and you can add different sessions to your agenda.

It is designed as you know it to be all a cart.

So you can choose to go to a couple of workshops on Wednesday.

And then one of the keynotes on Thursday.

Really, fit your schedule?

Look through there.

We've been joking around like a great day to call in sick and just, take the day off and, go to some of these sessions, do the networking.

But really, you can you can pick and choose.

It makes it challenging to organize, but we're trying to make it as flexible as we can.

And I really it's also free other than a couple of things which are really well priced like the Ok Go concert, which is very good price tickets and a community in coming on Friday night.

The rest of it is free.

So, great chance to just network and plug yourself in.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, for all the work you're putting in.

I'm sure once idea week is over, you'll probably need about a three week vacation.

And would you get, But, but thank you for all the work you've put into it.

And I think it's a great thing for the community to have, so I hope everybody supports it.

Yeah.

Thank you Dave.

We do too.

We're we're very excited.

So as always, there is lots of things to experience in Michiana, so make sure you tune in to the show every week and follow us on social media as well.

Search for experienced Michiana on Facebook.

And maybe there's something happening that you think we should know about.

Like the reason I'm here at the farmer's market.

You can find out on next week's show.

Until then, we'll see you.

You say bye, you wave.

Nothing.

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