>> From WXXI News.

This is.

Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made on the big screen where a local man has made his film debut, Rochester's Race Eberhardt is the star of a new comedic action film called Strait Undercover.

Eberhardt, who has down syndrome, says working on the film has been a dream come true.

He's been traveling to promote the movie, even made a stop at the Today show.

His next stop is the Connection Studio, and when he was sat down for today, they talked about him being the first person with down syndrome to star in an action movie.

We're going to talk about what they want to do with that movie coming up here.

But first, Rochester is known as a festival city, and festival season begins soon.

City magazines Patrick Hosken is going to stop in and tell us what to expect this season, and we begin the hour with some development news.

Demolition in the city of Rochester is paving the way for a new pedestrian plaza.

WXXI Investigations and enterprise editor Brian Sharp has been following the development of what's being called Main Street Commons planning for this block on East Main Street began at least 20 years ago.

Wow.

I haven't heard this term in forever.

Back then it was Renaissance Square, a $230 million top level design for a performing arts center, a bus terminal, and an MCC campus.

In December of 2022, ideas coalesced with the Downtown Revitalization Initiative and received $10 million from the state, focusing on revitalizing that block punctuated by the Main Street Commons.

So we're going to talk about what this vision looks like, and this is a really cool development story.

I mean, again, we're not cheerleaders.

We're covering the story.

But I say cool in that this is not going to be easy.

And Brian has been detailing the kind of very difficult work that's going to have to be done to, to get this well, get one thing down and another thing up.

Hey, welcome.

Nice to see you here.

Thanks.

You too.

Were you here when it was Renaissance Square?

That was all the talk there?

>> Yes, in fact, it is what taught me how to spell Renaissance.

>> R e NAISS2 S's, right?

Right.

S s a n c e. I was told there'd be no spelling and that for people who don't remember the idea, there was a downtown the new downtown bus terminal, right?

With a high end performing arts center on top of it.

>> Yeah.

And then some shared space.

Remember, there was the I came across the name and now I'm going to mess it up.

D or the.

>> Moshe.

>> Moshe Safdie.

There we go.

See, I knew it was going to screw it up.

Yeah.

but yeah, that that's roughly when I got here in oh five.

So I.

>> Was there in oh three.

Yep.

A lot of talk then about that.

>> It was in full force and then it kind of crashed.

>> The idea was, let's leverage these federal transportation dollars and build a new bus terminal.

And then we'll just put we'll raise a bunch of private money and put a high end performing arts center on top.

And, you know, eventually they were like, I don't know if that mixes.

Like, I don't know if.

>> That was an odd.

Yeah, it was.

>> It would have been interesting.

But obviously the, the point there is that for decades now, this what used to be sort of the beating heart downtown has been, I think the people you talked to said, admitted it's been it's been moribund.

So.

>> Right.

And I mean, and you have to look at that too.

You had folks who owned buildings there who for very long time were told their building was going to be torn down.

and so there was a lot of you know, just letting the buildings go.

Why would you go put a new roof on a building that, you know, they're going to take down in another couple of years?

And so then when it pivoted to, no, wait, let's, let's go, you know, restore this block, let's build it back.

you're seeing some of that work happening now where they're taking off the glass panels.

>> Situated by the way, for, for listeners and viewers who don't know where exactly we are.

>> We're on East Main between Saint Paul and North Clinton.

So just to the west of Sibley that stretch you've seen investments there on the corner, Harper's corner used to be the one where it had a bunch of billboards anchored to the building.

they got in there and had a lot of cleanup to do.

there was down the way was McCrory's.

went in there and put that's where the city's traffic court is now.

the building used to have the sort of undulating metal face to it tore that off.

Now it's all glass.

And then there's the all glass building that kind of reflects you know, the hotel and whatnot.

Across the street there's Stone Street, basically, if you think of that road that comes by the Hilton Garden Inn and just dead ends right on the opposite side of that is what was built, I think, as a McDonald's last was Metro Market, and that's the building they're going to tear down.

>> So for starters, putting this in perspective, why this is important and why this is so important to the overall plan for downtown for this block.

What we're going to be talking about is the old McDonald's.

It's like this little now it's on a McDonald's.

It's empty, but the small building between two larger buildings, they're going to try to carve that thing out.

I'm reading Brian's piece and there's like this debate about, I don't even think it's a debate anymore.

Is this little building the steel tied to the other buildings, and is it going to make it really hard to do this work?

So it looks like a small job.

It's not a it's not a small job at all.

Right.

>> Right.

And it's and this is the, the thing with the whole block one, it's hard to work on these spaces because all the buildings are connected and the buildings have very often shared walls, which was the case with this.

It's anchored into the buildings beside it all the way down to it's even older foundation.

This building dates to like the 70s.

Its foundation dates older.

And so you've got to take this building out and then shore up the walls of the building beside it.

And then they're going to excavate.

And there's another plan.

We can talk as we go of, of all the things that are going to put there, not just lay down bricks and, and.

>> Have well, they're going to put geothermal heating and cooling in there.

>> So Patrick Dutton has the building immediately to the east.

And he was because of the tightness of the area, he's going to bring in a rig with a big drill bit on the back.

And he's got to get a crane to lift it in because they'll have excavated down to the foundation, drop it in there.

Well, not drop it, hopefully set it.

>> That would make it a very expensive project.

>> It'd be more expensive even than and and then it'll do its work.

Then they got to pick it up, turn it around, pivot it, turn it around so it can actually get to it because it can't turn around in that space, finish the work, then come pick it up and take it out again.

so the way it's going to work, the city go in, they'll, they'll tear down the building they'll excavate the foundation, they'll add in additional supports, shoring up the walls of the buildings on either side.

Dutton will come in, do the Wells City will come in, backfill it.

It'll be a gravel lot fenced off for a while while they use that area for staging, putting whatever supplies and whatnot to work on the two buildings to the side.

Dutton initially to get this project approved and through the state and some state funding, he bought the building banking on the fact that this would all go through because he had to have site control.

Then he sold it to the city for what he bought it for and retained permanent rights to the underground for his thermal wells.

and so, yeah, so that's kind of because I saw somebody was asking, you know, on, on when we posted the story, like, well, how does he like, what's he banking on?

How does he get this right to be there?

It's because he initially did roll the dice that this thing was all going to come together, took the risk of buying this building.

and so yeah, now we're finally getting it and it's really, I, and this is what has to happen along the whole block is the coordination that has to happen for this developer to go in, for this person to be there.

Okay, now you go, now we go because everybody can't be there at once.

And you're seeing, they're having to, you know, when they were at the corner of Clinton and Main, they were having to work out into the street a little bit.

you're seeing some of that now with the what's going to be gateway apartments, that all glass building that they're taking off.

And so these folks have to, yeah, I'd call it like a dance before because, you know, you step in, I step out kind of thing all along the way.

>> Yeah.

Tight spaces.

That's what I, when I mentioned it's going to be kind of cool again, that's not saying anything about the project other than this is not going to be easy.

And if, if anyone happens to be witnessing this kind of work, you're going to see some very delicate work from the wells taking down this, the little the old McDonald's in the middle that joins these two.

It's not like popping a Lego off, right?

>> You look at it and you think, well, that should be simple.

and they're like, yeah, eight months give or take.

And we got to take it down piece by piece.

>> Whereas if it were a standalone building, it'd be about about a month.

Your piece said about a month.

Amazing.

So that so let's do this here.

Let's make sure people understand here what's going to go eventually in the old McDonald's is a pedestrian walkway.

They they got these renderings and they think people want more walkability, more a little more green space, a little more grass, places to sit, place to have a cup of coffee.

And then on the other two sides, you've got the Dutton building and then the other building you've been talking about.

What are those two buildings going to be?

>> So yeah, so two things.

One is this is also when you think about it, they refer to it as a superblock because it's really two blocks long of just all building front.

So to break that up and allow some pedestrian circulation through there to create a space for these two buildings that they can put sidewalk cafes out into that space, you could think like at some, it becomes sort of its own little gathering point.

You could have, you know, small bands, stuff like that.

You could have things going on.

Dutton then also thinks behind there is Division Street, a little street that's real.

It's hard to call it a street.

It's a glorified alley.

but it is I guess street size, but, and that's the thought of like, you know, you could have street fairs back there, you could do all kinds of stuff and then open up.

So Dutton initially had proposed a hotel and he's saying, you know, right now looking at you've got the convention center is going through some renovations, looking around to the different.

He said he's not sure at this point they're not bullish on doing a hotel.

They might wind up doing something when they get in there that, you know, looks like an apartment now and can, you know, an efficiency type rooms that can convert to a hotel if they get there on the other side.

And then he'd put some kind of retail coffee shop, wine bar, some kind of thing on the front restaurant or on the on the street level, same deal on the other side and above there is going they're putting in apartments.

It's a developer out of Syracuse, I believe.

Well, they have offices all over, but it's s a e v I is their name.

They're calling it Gateway Apartments.

>> Okay, so that'll be apartments there.

Let's listen to something that Connor Kenney told you about.

Why this does, why this is important and what's going on here.

Who is Connor Kenney?

>> And he is with he's basically the project lead on this with s a e v I.

>> Let's listen.

>> We'll have space that that opens up onto the commons.

We'll also have commercial space fronting Main Street.

So another one of our goals here, beyond creating a product that caters to a multitude of income levels was to activate Main Street with something that we felt strongly about.

The city feels strongly about, and we think we're going to be able to achieve with the current design.

So we'll have about 8000ft of ground floor commercial.

It's a little early right now.

In an ideal world, I'd love to have restaurant space there and really activate utilize the commons.

really get, get some, get a bunch of people right there on Main Street.

That would be wonderful.

But it's a little early.

We're, we're open to ideas and we'll try to be as creative as possible and do something cool there.

That that benefits, you know, not only the residents, but just the wider Rochester area folks who want to come down and eat or do something in the city.

>> All right.

So that's one of the developers.

And so before I let Brian go, I want to hit a couple other points from his reporting.

Number one, you write that councils had to approve some money, obviously, for this.

And I recall during the most recent mayoral campaign, Mayor Evans, running for reelection, defended the city's desire and willingness to spend some money to try to revitalize that block.

He said downtown needs its beating heart back, and there used to be a lot there, and it's been moribund for a long time.

So the city, at least a lot of the leadership, is committed, even if it's going to take some money.

There's two things that I think I want you to address before you go.

Number one, you've been inside some of these buildings.

They're not in the best shape.

So some of the risks that you're talking about here is buildings that aren't in great shape.

A lot of timely sort of repairs or change or tear down and cost associated.

tell me a little bit about that.

And then the challenges, even when you get what you want here, if you build it, will they come?

I don't know if any of us know the answer to that, but they're betting that people will write that's not right now.

That's not a spot that is generating a ton of foot traffic, retail traffic interest like that.

But maybe that changes.

>> Yeah, yeah.

No, you see, I mean, the building's really, really very you know, on the corner what's Harper's corner?

you know, the, that one I didn't go into, but I was told you could walk up and basically shuffle through the various and, and things of pigeons and pigeon droppings and other things who just set up shop there.

There was another building, Glenny building.

I did go into that's another Dutton property.

we would walk around, he would point to the parts of the floor not to go over to because you would fall through them.

he talked about when they went to, they had to shore up the back wall and this is a bit, I'm assuming of overstatement, but he said it was, it was largely almost held up by gravity.

it had so deteriorated in the back.

So they've had to put in a lot of money to make some of these buildings.

usable again, workable again.

and then, but yeah, I think to, in terms of the, the beating heart when I got here was oh five was Duffy was campaigning for mayor Bob Duffy and he would always, one of his speeches was, you know, get off the bus there at Main and Clinton and you'd smell the nuts roasting and you do this and everything there.

Just this murmur through the crowd, remembering what downtown was like.

Fast forward to Evans when he got elected.

We sat with him and he had his campaign offices at one East Avenue, the building right there on the corner of East and Main, and he was talking about removing blight.

And I said, well, what, you know, give me an example.

And he stood up, walked over to the window, pointed to Main and Clinton and said, that is what he wanted to fix.

Wow.

so it was the same spot, you know, from then to now.

And will they will they come?

I mean, you're seeing the conversions of buildings to housing.

You're getting people down there.

Now there's of course the, the struggle with you've had post Covid, the offices emptying.

>> Out, right?

>> You need, you need people.

so I think that's the challenge and that's why you're seeing a lot of, I think that's why you're seeing Dutton saying, well, you know, we'll see about a, a hotel, but the housing is working now.

And you, you know, you're seeing a good amount of that going in.

so, but the issue of filling these restaurants, you know, the one I was talking about, McCrory's, that's one where they say, we want to put a restaurant in there, but it's, you know, sort of the same as what Conor Kenney said.

It's a little early.

We're going to wait and we'll see.

>> Well, I'm not going to put this in the class of Renaissance Square and sort of confined to the idea bin of Rochester history, because there are some very serious people involved.

They've already put a lot of money into this.

And so this is moving.

And we'll keep following this and look for your reporting on this.

So thanks for making the time to come in and update us.

Thank you.

That's Brian Sharp.

We'll take a brief break.

Come back with my colleague Patrick Hosken from city magazine.

>> I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections on the upcoming occasion of the country's 250th birthday and the president's 80th birthday, the white House is bringing in the Ultimate Fighting Championships, a six fight card this coming June.

How did fight culture make its way to the White House?

We'll talk about it then.

In our second hour, Brendan Carr says media companies could lose their broadcast licenses if they don't cover the Iran war the way the White House wants.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, center, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson.

Believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary cariola.org.

>> Just a couple of days ago, I saw a local meteorologist say that from Sunday into Monday, we could see either one inch of wet snow or 16.

And I think the euro model on the 16 side is probably a little aggressive, but nobody wants that.

Nobody wants more snow right now.

We can deal with it in January.

It's March.

We're looking ahead to festival season.

Patrick Hosken from City Magazine is here and it is not that long.

Regardless of what happens over the next five days.

Patrick, we are going to see warmer weather and festivals kicking off and starting.

And first of all, it's nice to have you in studio here.

>> Thank you.

It's happy.

I'm happy to be here on the Vernal equinox.

Speaking of seasons changing.

>> Yeah.

Officially.

Yeah.

Goodbye, Winter.

>> That's right.

See you.

So no matter what happens, we know that what season it really is.

>> That doesn't really actually help all that much.

so let's start with Lilac Festival.

Yeah.

before we, we hear a clip from Dave Drago who's done work on the festival for years.

what's on the menu for you?

What caught your eye here?

>> Well, it's interesting.

It's ten nights, I should say days and nights.

because the music starts pretty much as soon as the day starts with, with local folks and then kind of moving up to the 7 p.m.

headliners every day.

But I mean, it's ten days of live music and kind of continuing with what the Lilac Fest has been doing over the past few years.

You have some headliners that are in this, in our case this year, some local, but largely a lot of touring acts supported by a very large number of locals.

So I always like that blend of local and kind of touring.

It gives you a bit to sample.

you know, maybe you go out to see your friends or friends of a friend's band or a band that you like and earlier in the day and you kind of stick around for some of these major more major touring acts, you know, Sema funk coming through, who played Jazz Fest last year, which is cool.

Lee fields who's kind of like a big deal soul legend playing, which is just kind of cool to, to see that particular.

It feels like a very vintage club show being played in a, in a park in Olmsted Park around, around the flowers is kind of cool.

but yeah, kind of going through it's a multi-genre.

>> Can I flag one, please?

Michaela Davis's album release show is really cool.

So we've talked to Michaela a couple times on this program and she look, I have not talked to her recently and I don't know the I don't know if there's any pivots in the new album, but she is extremely talented.

and she plays the harpsichord.

She's really good and she's got a great band around her.

So that's pretty fun.

That's May 13th.

>> And yeah, it's the album release show, which I feel like is a big deal.

Like she's, she's largely based in the Hudson Valley now, but she still records and I think most of the members of her band are based here.

So she still has such good roots here that I think when she was probably looking at, you know, where can I do the album release show and everything kind of lined up with the festival?

I feel like that's a big thing, you know, see her on the big on the stage with her big harp, like in her band.

I think that's that's definitely a big deal.

And by the way, on the new record, which she's putting out next month she's got some pretty, pretty top tier guests on there.

Tim Heidecker is on there.

Who's, who's a comedian and a singer.

he has guest vocals on his song.

So yeah, it's kind of a kind of a big deal.

>> So that's May 13th again.

The Lilac Festival runs May 8th through the 17th, and our colleague from The Root Hannah Maier had a chance to sit down with Dave Drago, who's talent director for the Lilac Festival.

Want to listen to a short section of that interview here?

>> One thing I noticed about the Lilac Festival this year, the artists are so diverse.

There are so many different genres.

I mean, we have brass bands, we've got bluegrass, we have R&B, we've got more pop.

I don't know, it literally seems like you have almost every single genre on here.

What goes into booking the acts for the festival and what went into both of you deciding who are we going to pick and what's it going to sound like?

>> Yeah, I mean, I think going back to like our first meeting, the big thing that we were both excited about was using that stage to promote like more local, original artists and, you know, make sure that that stage was, was being used to like, help perpetuate some of the great art that exists in this place.

Because, you know, we have an art show.

And if you went up to our art show and, you know, saw a bunch of like, you know, Monet's that someone decided to paint themselves or, you know, traditional stuff, you'd be like, well, where's like the original art?

So why not take that approach to the music stage?

And so you know, we, we source some of our bands through our application.

We have an application page on our website.

A lot of bands don't know about that though.

that's something I really want to work hard to promote moving forward to make sure that like bands know that their music will be listened to and we will consider them through the front door, you know, that application page.

and yeah, I mean, it's, it's a lot of application bands emailing us directly, friends of friends stuff.

Jenny will text me and be like, if you don't book this band, I'm going to have a problem.

You know, stuff like that.

And but generally we start with the headliners first.

we do our national work with the national booking agents and find that, that sweet spot.

And then once we're there, then the good thing about Rochester is there's so many bands and there's so many different genres.

And I'm not exactly the type of person that likes to book a festival lineup where it's like, oh, this day has an R&B headliner, which means everyone has to be an R&B group.

Like I, in fact think that people can handle quite a bit more than, you know, just liking one thing.

So I try to like keep it a little, you know, changed up a bit.

so not every band is like trying to do the same kind of thing.

And I don't know, it's, I give a lot of props to Rochester.

It makes it really easy on me because there's so many genres, there's so many great original artists.

And you know, if we didn't have a community like this in Rochester, you know, my job would be a lot harder.

>> So that's my colleague Hannah Maier talking to Dave Drago.

And Hannah's work is so good.

You can hear the full interview and a lot more from Hannah at wrur.org.

but there's something interesting that Dave said to our colleagues at city a couple of years ago related to what you just heard, I want to ask Patrick about that.

He talked about when people go to Newport, Newport Folk Festival.

He said that, you know, of course they study up, they do their homework on the bands playing, and he wants to build that kind of curated experience here.

So for a long time, when I got to Rochester, the joke was like a few local bands and rusted roots.

>> Right?

>> Like, like, has it been a little while since Rusted Roots been at the festival?

What are they doing these days?

>> You know?

Great.

They're probably still.

>> Enjoying the rusted.

>> Sink money from Send Me On My Way, which probably rolls in every.

Yeah, which is a great song.

>> Great song.

Do you know how much money they had to make on Send Me on My Way.

>> So I, I would like to know the figures, but yeah, so much.

It's a great song.

>> It's a, it's a, it's a song.

It's a good song.

It's a good song.

I like that album.

Like anybody else growing up around that time.

But what Dave is talking about now is, is a really diverse set of curated experiences.

And the question is, can we achieve that?

Do you see us?

I mean, Newport is Newport, but do you see that this festival kind of leveling up in that way?

>> I do.

I what I hear so much, so much like year after year is like, oh, I don't know, like I looked at the lineup and I didn't see, you know, whatever, like any, any big names.

And I first of all, I think that that's necessarily not true.

But also it's like, I think people have to kind of realize like what the festival is and what it isn't, you know, you're not gonna it's ten, it's ten days, ten nights of music programming.

You're not going to get, you know, like I don't even know what a good example would be, but somebody who would play it like KeyBank center in Buffalo, for example, or even Blue Cross, you're not going to get that at the Lilac Festival.

>> Goo Goo.

>> Dolls there you go.

Yeah, which would be great.

>> But buffalonians.

>> Yeah, that would be the entire budget, you know, probably.

>> That's exactly right.

>> So if you go into it thinking, okay, I like this idea.

I like what Dave's saying about having a blend.

You know, you don't have to go just for this is the R&B day.

This is the rock day.

This is the jazz day, whatever.

If you go into it, you know, with this idea of there's going to be a little bit of everything.

It kind of does.

It lends itself well to the festival atmosphere where there's vendors, there's kind of like a patchwork of the community.

So I think that that can translate very easily to the music.

And I think this is we're seeing it where, you know, you have one of the headliners is a Taylor Swift tribute act, right?

So you're giving the people what they want in terms of this top tier artist, that those were more homespun version of that.

sitting alongside, you know?

Yeah.

Mikaela Davis, who we talked about, there's a jam band Edguy, they're playing, JD McPherson's playing.

He's played here quite a bit.

Even just recently over Christmas time in Rochester.

So I think there's this idea that like, if you can, it's not even adjusting your expectations necessarily as a festival goer.

I just think it's like realizing what the festival is and what it isn't and going in and just like having a good time.

And I think that there's a and also like knowing how much and how discerning music fans are here.

Obviously, we have the jazz festival in June too, but like realizing that like at the Jazz Fest, for example, part of the fun is the discovery, right?

People get the club passes, they walk around, they want to be in this club show where then the performer comes back the next year and they're playing to the bigger, the bigger room.

You know, a version of that might happen at lilac, it might not because it's a much different scene.

It's outdoors, you know, it's kind of the outdoor festival thing.

But I think that going in with that kind of curated open mind is, is going to do so much better for folks who go to the Lilac Festival.

>> And I want to get your take on one other thing that's on my mind with live music.

the pandemic has really accelerated a number of habits that are going to threaten certain parts of the arts industry.

For example, movie theaters.

Now, I like to think, not just because we're homers, that the littles of the world will probably last, but certainly you're going to see chains shrink.

You'll see closures.

That's not anything surprising in the next 10 to 20 years.

It's going to be carnage for movies.

It's really tough.

People are streaming.

They're not leaving their house.

They want to be able to watch from home.

But live music is still doing pretty well post pandemic that did not.

I thought, oh my gosh, are we going to see venues closed?

Are we going to see touring acts not able to to get crowds and they can get crowds, which I guess to me says something about the power of just the experience of live music together, that human beings still gravitate toward.

What do you think?

>> Well, yeah, on the fact of on the point of tribute acts, I think part of it is like knowing how prohibitively expensive a lot of those acts are just, you know, how much, how many, several hundreds of dollars does it take to see the real deal?

So maybe a Taylor Swift tribute act, for example, kind of gets you as close as you can be.

so there's that, I think budget reasons, but in terms of theaters, I think, you know, we have the, the the Tinseltown, the Imax screen in gates they're showing project Hail Mary on 70 millimeter Imax, one of the few in the country.

I think there's only like 70 theaters, right?

>> That's really cool.

>> So I think things like that do kind of cultivate a particular fondness for the ritual of going to the movie theater, which will help, you know, I agree with you.

I think that we're sort of forecasting there's going to be some major, you know, movie theater consolidation, kind of whatever else happens in the because of streaming.

But live music is different in that like, you know, you can watch a movie at home, you can watch a movie in the theater.

The experience is a little different, but it's the same movie.

And it's like, you know, the sound system is better, the picture quality is better, but live music is kind of a different beast.

And I just think that, you know, in terms of a presentation you know, we, we've done some reporting at city through the years about, you know, do we need more rooms?

Do we need bigger rooms here?

Anthology obviously reopened.

which, which can, you know, bring in a a certain caliber of artists because the room's a little bit bigger, but I think like, I think a big part of it is that the experience of live music can't really be replicated in the same way.

as theater stuff.

So I think that festivals and specifically like the stronghold that festivals do have here in Rochester is going to keep that moving and keep that machinery running.

>> Well, I think that's a really good observation.

And before we let you go, you want to talk a little bit about, I mean, the jazz festival announcements are always big and grandiose.

People are always wondering who's going to headline there.

any news there to share here?

>> So three ticketed headliners the three, I should say have been announced.

past year's has been five this year there's three.

So it's Chris body.

>> Bodie, I think.

>> Chris Bodie.

>> Excuse me.

I never want to correct you on music.

I think it's should do it.

I think it's Bodie.

>> I think you're right.

he's a and then this is sort of goes along.

It's like when you give the credentials of somebody like that, it's like, well, here's all the people he's played with, right?

And then it's kind of like, it kind of elevates it for people who've never heard you kind of Trojan horse them in, right?

I love that.

Well, he performed with Paul Simon in Central Park.

You know, he has this cruise where he invites Elvis Costello, Boz Scaggs, all these people to go on on the cruise for him.

But he's also a particularly gifted composer and a trumpeter and collaborator.

So he's he's one of the ticketed headliners at Kodak Bondi.

>> I bet you I bet you you're right.

>> You know what?

And this is the thing where now that we're on radio, I'm.

I'm a print journalist.

Evan.

Come on, we're on radio.

This is not my turf.

>> I've always said Bodie, but usually I should defer to Patrick.

And sneaky recommendation here.

If if you are turned off by the overly produced national anthems that you see.

Chris Bodie did an amazing Star-Spangled Banner.

Oh, there we go.

You can look it up and find it.

I like that it's really good.

It's really pretty.

>> So that's Thursday, June 25th.

The following nights, Gladys Knight so she is Gladys Knight solo without the pips, which of course was her famous backing band.

>> I think it's Gladys Knight.

>> All right.

Well, now you're just okay.

>> I think it's night.

>> the Empress of Soul, of course.

>> Of course.

So?

So that's a big, big name.

>> That's a big one.

and I, I think that there's, there's a lot of we see kind of the, the legacy there of like, you have a legacy Motown artist come through to headline a jazz festival that of course, is more than jazz.

So kind of in keeping with the Smokey Robinson of last year and things like that.

>> Michael MacDonald's been here totally.

Yeah, yeah.

>> That's the but then interestingly, so the third ticketed headliner is the following night, Saturday, June 27th is the Count Basie Orchestra, one of the longest running big bands in the country.

and almost a century old.

So Count Basie was sort of like a seminal band leader of the big band era.

They kind of like Kansas City swing, like a little bit of of swing music, jazz music.

Around the time that big bands were were the rage and yeah, continued to go to this day and, you know, like, and it's not like some nostalgia thing, of course, like the history is celebrated, but also like they were nominated for a Grammy this year, you know, so like they're still it's what's his name?

Scotty Barnhart is the music director now.

So, you know, it's one of these foundational things to where it's like, you have the history of jazz.

I mean, literally almost foundational going back to 1935, still touring to through today, blending a lot of different musical styles.

So yeah, I like that about the Jazz Fest where it doesn't, you know, a couple of years ago, it was John Oates from Hall and Oates.

Yeah.

Kind of stretching the limits of his own catalog.

So it doesn't always need to be that.

It can sometimes be this big celebration of jazz as a, as a genre, right?

>> You've got, got us excited for festival season and the coverage, of course, in city that's coming.

Best show you've ever seen at the Rochester Jazz Festival?

>> Well, last year when I went to Thundercat, it was pretty mind blowing in the sense of you know, people talk about, as I was saying before going to these small club shows, seeing these amazing performances, what's the jazz joke?

It's like jazz is you play pop music is you play three chords for a million people, and jazz is you play a million chords for three people.

I love that, and I think there's some truth to that.

Right?

But with Thundercat, it was like, you got you got a little bit of the opposite where it was.

This was a ticketed headliner show at Kodak Hall, but you had this person whose virtuosity is, is kind of you know, unparalleled.

So that was a great show, I enjoyed that.

>> That's great.

Yeah, I'm gonna say Caravan palace for me.

Okay.

Outside an incredible packed show.

they always I mean, jazz festival brings cool stuff.

Hey, listen, thank you for popping in on this Friday.

>> Thank you for having me.

And can I just plug that next month in the May issue of city, we will have a big festival guide where there will be all this and more because there's, you know, dozens of festivals all around the Finger Lakes.

>> Hey, the city have a website.

>> We do.

And in fact, you can go there anytime at Rock city.com.

>> The hours are 24 hours.

>> There it is.

We never close.

>> Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

We're going to close the week with a conversation.

I don't think you want to miss this.

the star of a film that could be the next big action movie is here.

That's next.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

On the upcoming occasion of the country's 250th birthday and the president's 80th birthday, the White House is bringing in the Ultimate Fighting Championships, a six fight card this coming June.

How did fight culture make its way to the White House?

We'll talk about it then.

In our second hour, Brendan Carr says media companies could lose their broadcast licenses if they don't cover the Iran war the way the White House wants.

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>> Welcome back to Connections.

All right.

Let me set a little scene for you here.

An undercover agent, a corrupt corporation, addictive, genetically modified vegetables, robots, aliens.

Sounds like a blockbuster to me.

I'm talking about a new film called Strait Undercover, starring a local man named Race Eberhardt.

He plays race Straight, an agent for the USDA.

And when he and his colleague Lonnie discover some suspicious smoke in a farmer's field race, decides to go undercover to solve the mystery.

The film's got a lot of press.

They've had a stop on the today show.

It screened at the little theater.

And if you missed that, not to worry, you can watch it on YouTube tomorrow where it's going to be screened for free in honor of Down Syndrome Awareness Day, the Strait Undercover team says race is the first actor with Down syndrome to star in an action film, but this is not.

And you're going to hear Ben, the director, talk about this.

This is not a movie about Downton.

It's just an action movie.

And race happens to be the star.

So we got Race Eberhardt, who is the star of Strait Undercover here.

Race.

Welcome.

Nice to see you, sir.

Hi.

Great to have you and great to have Ben Gonyo, the director of Strait Undercover.

Thanks for making the time here.

>> Hey, thanks for having us.

>> So, Ben, how did you and Grace get together on this project?

>> I met race through another project, TV pilot.

We were casting somebody with a disability, and it was important for me to get somebody authentically to play that part.

So I went over to Artists Unlimited Race.

Why don't you tell them briefly what Artists Unlimited is?

>> Well, this program is from the the group Performing Arts program is called through Artist and there were lots of performers out there.

like with Ben saw me back in during the day.

and a, with a lots of music has ever been on before.

it's this group was from the group event monitor disabilities in the theater showcases.

>> So I met him.

So they do theater shows.

Okay.

And it's largely comprised of actors with disabilities for the cast, and they do a great job.

And I met him through there.

I met race through there, and he had a small part in a TV show, but I saw so much more.

And as I started to look around, I said, wow, nobody has done a movie where the lead star is the person with disability.

We always see it.

The sidekick, what's more, is I never saw they always made a big deal about the disability.

That was the stereotype.

That's what they had to identify with on screen.

I said, this is a great opportunity to do something that nobody's done.

We never mentioned disabilities, down syndrome, anything like that.

In the movie, he's just a star.

He shines the way he is.

and so that really got me excited.

You know, I own a production company.

That's what I do.

So we kind of pool our resources in the community and said, let's just make this happen by any means necessary.

>> So race for you.

Is this a dream come true scenario?

>> yes, this is my dream.

This is my dream come true as I live well in the movie of Strait Undercover is more like, oh my gosh, it was so awesome, so great.

And everybody we get to like it.

This movie, everybody could chance to see it.

It was outstanding.

People with about my age of the group, if it was to monitor the stability B in the movies, just like my friends from DC, my friends from Eyal Zamir today some other theater groups out there get attached to their stars to be their dreams come true someday.

>> And where did you shoot this movie?

>> All around Rochester.

So it's truly a hometown.

hometown affair.

We did some stuff at Kodak up on Ridge Road.

They gave us some great spaces.

Buckingham Properties gave us some great spaces to use.

So big shout out to them because they're a big help.

you know, farms, homes, our studio, a variety, it's got a very big feel for being a small budget local movie.

We really tried to extend what we had access to and we shot it all locally.

>> I think we can share the trailer, can't we?

So even if you're just listening here, you're going to get a sense of the action, some of the plot, you're going to hear Ray shine in here.

Let's let's check out the trailer here for Strait Undercover.

>> For agents with the United States Department of Agriculture.

MM.

Not like secret agents.

Unless you're trying to play James Bond when your power is in the plants.

Little man.

>> Did you forget the reason you got into this work?

>> Soil samples, water runoffs, cattle contracts.

This.

This is what we do.

Race.

>> I could do more if I had more skills.

>> You know, as Big Malone egg right over there.

Who knows what they're putting in the water?

>> They're trying to poison Bruce's land.

>> Now you're barking up the wrong tree.

They're too big for you anyway, little guy.

>> Look, you're gonna go over there sticking your nose into things.

You're going to get us both in trouble.

>> I am not afraid.

You two are afraid.

I'm a government agent.

Gonna do something.

I go undercover.

I got insight.

>> Oh, come on, you're crazy.

>> Are you ready?

>> New developing a new product called the One Seed.

>> We need help right now.

>> It's time to make them pay.

>> You're gonna.

You're gonna have to walk me through all of this.

>> You are nuts.

Rice.

I love it.

>> So, Strait Undercover, you can see.

How can people see this film?

>> This will be on YouTube.

World Down Syndrome Day is tomorrow, Saturday, March 21st.

You can just search Strait Undercover.

You'll find our our page.

It's straight s t r a I t. That's his last name in the movie.

Ray straight Strait Undercover.

You just put that in the YouTube, it'll pop up.

You can subscribe to the page and the movie premieres.

It'll it'll go live about 6 a.m.

I believe on Saturday and have fun.

It's a very fun movie.

It's, it's a comedy.

And this guy's full of charisma.

So.

>> And before we kind of talk to race about how this, how his role came together here, I want to ask you, Ben, what do you want to do with this movie?

Ideally, what happens next with it?

>> I mean, we would love to do another one.

Honestly, it was a lot of fun.

But you know, it's it's very resource intensive.

It's a big project.

And we just did this out of our own gumption.

You know, we made this happen ourselves.

But, you know, maybe we get some good traction online.

People see it, they see the value of this type of film.

And we get the opportunity where we can do it with a little more resources, maybe make it a little bit bigger, have, but it's a it's a lot of fun.

I would love to do another one, but right now we just want to put it out.

And we did it for free because we want the most people to see it.

We don't want you know, there's a lot of options for entertainment now.

We don't want that rental barrier.

We our thing is exposure.

We want people to see it, share it, love it, appreciate the amount of work that that has gone into this project and celebrate it for that.

>> So you know, who is you're competing with this weekend.

You versus Ryan Gosling.

It's Project Hail Mary and Strait Undercover.

>> That's a big chance.

>> That's a big action weekend.

>> Absolutely no chance.

>> So, Ray, I want to talk to you about your acting career and tell me a little bit about, first of all, why you wanted to be in the movies.

Who do you love in the movies?

Do you have role models in the movies?

>> we're actually saving my friends from who's in the film.

It's better for the extra actor scene where if it was a fun to the monitor disabilities to be in the the film for the extras like GTSC Playhouse has a few extras and also has one too.

And I want to say their names, but they could be crazy.

>> So who are your big time movie stars?

Because you have a couple, you're always talking about?

>> Oh, sorry.

>> No, that's okay.

That's a great answer.

But who do you.

Yeah.

Who are the big ticket stars that you love?

>> well, I like my favorite long time girlfriend is Liam.

I'm from and my favorite is High school musical was released on Hudson's and and I like Second Veronica's my favorite and my first favorite movie was this new series was now on Disney Plus.

Is a live Broadway show down in New York City.

It is one of my favorite shows.

It was so much fun.

>> So race in this movie.

This is the biggest project you've ever worked on.

It's a lot of it's probably a lot more memorization of lines or dialog and things like that.

What did you have to do to to become race under Strait Undercover here?

>> Well, actually, when my local director been helping me out, actually doing some lines, doing some other stuff like that it's kind of he needs help.

but I says, which is more scripting and more lines for the, for the film, for the movie, for Strait Undercover.

It's more like let's, let's do more scripts, more lines, actually doing the set during the film of Strait Undercover.

It's quite a bit he needs more help.

Actually.

He's he's great guy.

Also, and he's going to start with that also is.

Personal.

The making of the film.

It's more like Ben is going to help me out, including my mother who's not helping me out during the documentary thing.

>> Oh, right.

Well, racist saying, well, we did a lot of rehearsal.

Absolutely.

We did a lot of rehearsal and then.

>> A lot of lines together.

>> And what we would do is we and I learned a lot from this, is that we would adjust things.

Maybe we had a line in there that was tough for him to say, had like a soft sound to start.

We would adjust it.

He would come up with new lines or say something that was much better, and then we would adjust the script that way.

and so it was really collaborative process in that way.

and then yeah, and we would grow stuff.

And sometimes in the movie, he would just go off and start saying something funny or off, you know, in left field and everybody would be like, that's pretty good.

So we would kind of run ad lib with it a little bit on set.

>> That's great to hear how these things come together.

And we also saw in the trailer, we saw race some real action.

I think you got thrown into a display of there's a couple of real action shots there.

And I, from what I can tell, you're doing your own stunts.

It looks like.

Director.

Is that correct?

He's doing his own.

So what was that like?

>> Well, actually, my favorite scene with the particular with the battles with with some two goons from beginning of the film and they're doing the anti, the film was the, the actor who played Tommy Moran.

Yeah.

His, the feeling of the movie also with the better with him too.

All the time.

And then I will start choreography that guy who just hired from Ben.

Great.

Because of the we'll be doing lots of stuff we're doing fine choreography person in the face something like that.

>> And yeah, we did.

>> We did it.

Lots of lots of great stunts on the time.

>> So yeah, we had a stunt.

Greg Robbins out of Buffalo does stunts and he was great.

And the funny thing was, he was much more nervous than race was.

Race wanted to run these scenes over and over.

But you know, you take all the proper care that you can when you're doing filmed stunts and.

But race did them all.

He operated his own live Taser.

He punched guys in the face.

He took falls, he took hits.

He did a lot more than I did, I'll tell you that.

>> it looks like such a fun movie.

And you made it.

It's a it's a light hearted action film.

How would you describe it?

>> Yeah, it's.

I say it's an action comedy.

It's a buddy movie.

It's a buddy movie.

It doesn't take itself seriously.

If you look back at you know, genre films we love is, you know, stuff in the 90s, early 2000 that are these goofy comedies or those Bill Murray movies, even like the good burgers that don't try to take themselves too serious.

You see a little bit less of those now.

And so we really leaned in on one of those type of films.

>> So a little bit more about the film here.

By the way, it's a Monsanto like farm corporation that is creating genetically modified, addictive vegetables and wants to take over the neighboring small farms.

And, you know, there's always the little roots of truth to.

>> We wanted to get back to some, some things we all know about.

And then we threw a big a big robot drone in there, which we did practically, meaning we had a real eight foot costume with operated by a buddy of mine, Tim.

And we threw some elements of fantasy and science fiction in there also.

>> and I want to mention as well somebody who would know about comedic timing is our producer Megan Mack, who writes, teaches comedy, et cetera.

had a chance to see a lot of this film and says race has great comedic timing.

Loved his fight scene in the convenience store when he called a farmer poor baby big boy.

His rattling off corporate buzzwords like pivot and synergy.

When he was applying for a job at Malone's in the film.

his mouth pain videos.

So there's a there's some real comic timing.

Yeah.

So let me ask the director first.

I want to ask Grace about this.

Yeah.

you know, comic timing is something people typically can learn, but often they either kind of have it or they don't.

Here.

What do you see?

>> I did not try to fit race into a mold that he doesn't already fit into.

He's hilarious.

he has this it factor that he's just a, he's just funny.

And when we met him, as I mentioned, this TV pilot we're working on, that was a very small role.

And I just saw so much more in him.

He was busting my chops, making the whole crew laugh, and I said, if we could bottle this real character and put him in a movie or write a movie around him, that's going to be successful.

So that's what we tried to do was take the real life race and develop a character and a script that's, that's essentially you know, captures that.

>> So race, have you always gotten laughs?

Are you always been kind of a funny dude?

>> yes.

we're we're straight was a very pop and park.

he's like a gangster pub car culture guy and he's more like he came out of retirement with Department of Agriculture.

and he just came out with it as a sad day, but for those goons, bad guys and everything, it was he's funny.

And he's a really nice guy.

You know, he's coming away, you know, he's kind of really cool for him for his purpose of coming of age of 32 years old.

Has Down Syndrome as the character as very straight.

So I came up with this idea where I saw this particular scene I saw this particular thing.

It was, it was so cool.

Which is so cool.

Guy.

Oh my God.

>> And a lot like the real life Race Eberhardt who you've been meeting this hour.

So as we get ready to wrap here one more time Ben, where can people see this film tomorrow?

>> YouTube.

It'll be on YouTube.

>> Strait Undercover free to see free.

>> Yep.

Free, free free.

>> Strait Undercover straight is s t r a I t. Yep.

Named for the character Ray straight that the real life Race Eberhardt plays in this movie and Race Eberhardt maybe down the line we'll talk about a sequel or something else.

Sounds like you'll have more movies than your future.

What do you think?

>> yes, exactly.

This is exactly when Ben mentioned about it.

Strait Undercover too, but, it caught him up all Sandy just mentioned about it.

Is this title called Strait Undercover two Borisit back at town.

Where to go?

He's got it.

>> He's already.

>> Got it.

Number two.

Yeah.

>> Hey, Grace.

Congratulations.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you so much.

>> And thank you to Ben Gonyo, the director of Strait Undercover.

Congrats on this project.

Good luck this weekend and be on with it.

Thanks for being here.

Thanks.

Thank you.

From all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening.

Whatever platform you're on, hopefully we are on two and feel free to share, like and subscribe.

If you're on YouTube, share with all your friends here.

Share with all of racist friends, share the movie this weekend.

Have a great weekend everybody, and we'll be back with you next week on member supported public media.

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