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By Jane Horwitz By Jane Horwitz May 31 at 6:07 PM

An occasional look at family-friendly theater around Washington. (Shows are appropriate for age 4 and older unless noted.)

My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music lit up Broadway in 1956 and 1959, respectively, their scores now permanently enshrined in the American Songbook. The question is, can these musical-theater oldies keep younger audiences enthralled? True, children may have seen the The Sound of Music movie starring Julie Andrews (or 2013s live television version with Carrie Underwood) and perhaps the 1964 My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn. But will they enjoy these shows onstage with no close-ups or popcorn?

At Olney Theatre Center, guest director Alan Souza has moved the setting of My Fair Lady from 1912 to 1921, a short but meaningful leap to a time when British women were getting the vote and hemlines were rising. Souza chose Brittany Campbell, a New York-based singer/songwriter/visual artist/actress, to play Eliza Doolittle, the poor Cockney flower seller whose life is transformed by diction lessons with professor Henry Higgins.

Ive directed My Fair Lady before, but not like this, he says. This is like a complete rethinking of it, and [Campbell] is individual in the way that a modern woman is.

Souza hopes that Campbells Eliza will give the arguably bullying and condescending Higgins (Danny Bernardy) a run for his money ... because she is steps ahead of him all the time. And as both a person of color ... and also as a woman, I think thats going to be interesting, especially to kids.

As for the music by Frederick Loewe and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner (based on George Bernard Shaws play Pygmalion), Souza has no worries. The songs are infectious and theyre smart as can be, and if we have them engaged in the story, they may go out hummin the tunes.

Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, echoes that sentiment when it comes to The Sound of Music.

Theres something that gets into the real little kids when they see the show, Chapin says. Whether its Do-Re-Mi or My Favorite Things or So Long, Farewell, without having been written for them, the stuff is written so they can appreciate and take it all in.

Multiple Tony winner Jack OBrien staged this Sound of Music, which began touring in 2015. Two new leads have joined the cast: Nicholas Rodriguez, known to Washington-area theatergoers for star turns in Arena Stage shows, including Carousel and Oklahoma!, will play Captain von Trapp, and Charlotte Maltby is Maria. Chapin has no doubt that the Richard Rodgers tunes his melodies just get to you and Oscar Hammerstein lyrics will win children over fast if they dont already know them.

But what if youngsters have no concept of the pre-World War II period in Europe or why the von Trapp family must escape Austria? Children, Chapin says, will understand that theres something going on thats bothering the parents and making the parents have to make some pretty bold decisions, and that is all theyll need to know.

The Sound of Music: June 13-July 16 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org. $39-$169.

My Fair Lady June 21-July 23 at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd., Olney, Md. 301-924-3400. olneytheatre.org. $33-$80. Recommended for age 10 and older.

The Wizard of Oz at Creative Cauldron

At Creative Cauldron in Falls Church, theyre less than a week away from opening The Wizard of Oz. The small, award-winning company recently garnered two Helen Hayes Awards for its production of the musical Caroline, or Change, and Tiara Whaley, the Maryland native playing Dorothy, won for her supporting role in that show. Creative Cauldron is using the script from the Royal Shakespeare Companys 1987 adaptation of the movie, songs and all.

Matt Conner, a director and composer who creates professional works as well as shows for students at Creative Cauldron, is staging the production. He has to squeeze it into the 92-seat storefront theater.

Each theme that were used to seeing in The Wizard of Oz, were going to take just a little bit of a different angle, because were going to have to fit it into our small space, says Conner, who will use puppetry for the singing crows to harass poor Scarecrow (Alan Naylor).

Creative Cauldron, which offers acting classes for children and puts them in its Learning Theater shows, tried something new for The Wizard of Oz a professional training program for which youngsters had to audition. The 21 teenagers and younger children who made the cut and completed the program are now in the Oz ensemble as Munchkins and Emerald City folk. They will earn educational stipends, says Laura Connors Hull, Creative Cauldrons producing director, which makes the show Helen Hayes-eligible.

Even though we do adult productions, professional productions, she says, in our core we are an educational organization.

Whaley, who began performing as a child, is excited for the young actors.

I can learn from them just as much as they can learn from me, she says. Were really peers at that point.

The Wizard of Oz: June 8-25 at Creative Cauldron at Artspace Falls Church, 410 S. Maple Ave., Falls Church. 703-436-9948. creativecauldron.org. $30 for adults, $15 for children.

Peh-LO-tah at Kennedy Center

Marc Bamuthi Joseph loves soccer with a passion. As a playwright, choreographer, hip-hop poet, performer and educator, Joseph sees elements of art and politics in the sport. And he uses those elements to raise consciousness and to praise the game in his choreopoem Peh-LO-tah, coming to the Kennedy Centers Family Theater. (Pelota means ball in Spanish.)

As a dancer, as a choreographer, when I watch soccer, it looks like a dance to me something like birds in migration, Joseph says. But Peh-LO-tah plumbs the depths as well as the heights, which is why the show is recommended for age 13 and older.

Peh-LO-tah opens with bits of non-graphic audio and video (impressionistic no violence) from the night of Feb. 26, 2012, when Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla. From there, Josephs piece, which he performs with four other actor/singer/dancers, takes audiences on a visionary voyage using soccer as a metaphor for social ills and social change, expressed in poetry, music, movement and words of protest. A recurring theme contrasts running for joy vs. running for your life. The ideas are complex.

Joseph says his goal is to connect folks across cultures. Its to give a sense of what American promise might be if we are inclusive the way this sport that I love is inclusive ... ultimately to revert to a sense of joy and what freedom means, not just in the political sense, but what freedom means in the body.

Even my teenager certainly didnt get every reference, but he got a general understanding, Joseph adds. Its a choreopoem, and so, as with most poetry, we dont necessarily understand every single concept. ... I think in general that its emotionally legible enough that folks get it, teenagers as well.

Peh-LO-tah: June 9 -June 11 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. kennedy- center.org. Show is sold out. Recommended for age 13 and older.

ALSO PLAYING OR OPENING SOON

The bells will toll a few days more for Quasimodo and Esmerelda in a new wordless adaptation of Victor Hugos The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Synetic Theater, directed by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Through June 11 at Synetic Theater, Crystal City, 1800 S. Bell St., Arlington. 866-811-4111. synetictheater.org. $15-$60. Recommended for age 13 and older.

A revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rices 1970 rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Joe Calarco, continues at Signature Theatre, and teens might be enthralled by the edgy take on the New Testament. Through July 2 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. 703-820-9771. sigtheatre.org. $40-$114. Recommended for mature middle-schoolers and older.

Alice falls down a rabbit hole and lands in a crazy world where everyones a rock musician in Wonderland: Alices Rock & Roll Adventure, based on Lewis Carrolls Alice books, adapted by Rachel Rockwell (book and lyrics) and Michael Mahler (music and lyrics), and directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer. June 21-Aug. 13 at Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda. 301-280-1660. imaginationstage.org. $12-$30. Recommended for age 5 and older.

Junie B. Jones loses her furry mittens and suspects stealers in Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook, by Allison Gregory, based on the books by Barbara Park and directed by Washington actor Rick Hammerly. June 23-Aug. 14 at Adventure Theatre MTC, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. 301-634-2270. adventuretheatre-mtc.org. $19.50.

In July, the Kennedy Center will bring in yet another family-friendly classic, Rodgers & Hammersteins The King and I, about British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens, who went to Siam (Thailand) in the 1860s to teach the many children and wives of the king, in a Tony-winning revival directed by Bartlett Sher. July 18-Aug. 20 at the Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org. $49-$159. Recommended for age 8 and older.

More here:
Musical 'oldies' test their appeal to the young: 'My Fair Lady' and Sound of Music' in DC - Washington Post

The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration)

Moving Racial Equity and Inclusion from the Periphery to the Center: Lessons from an Incomplete Project The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration) On February 26, 2012, a seventeen-year-old Black teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman. Martin's death ignited a national debate about racism and justice. It was on the nightly news and in the ... and more »

Read more from the original source:
Moving Racial Equity and Inclusion from the Periphery to the Center: Lessons from an Incomplete Project - The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration)

Editorial Board, Corpus Christi Caller-Times 4:34 p.m. CT May 30, 2017

The Texas Capitol is shown Monday, Jan. 8, 2007, in Austin, Texas. Passage of a state budget is the only thing the Legislature is required to do in its 140-day regular session that convenes Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. It is in the House Chamber where members will vote Tuesday, the opening day of the 80th Legislature, to either keep Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, or oust him in favor of a new leader. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)(Photo: Associated Press, AP)

Let one mean-spirited act on the last day of the Texas legislative session taking out a cell phone and threatening to sic immigration authorities on protesters speak for what's wrong with the so-called sanctuary cities law and us as a state and nation.

Let it also serve as a warning that maybe it's not such a bright idea to let any ol' yahoo carry a gun.

The actions of state Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, should be remembered with disgust and embarrassment. Unfortunately, already he's a hero to some, perhaps many. And that's indicative of what's wrong with us as a people.

On Sunday, when protesters against Senate Bill 4, the sanctuary cities law, became loud, Rinaldi made a big show of taking out his cell phone to report them to immigration. Hispanic lawmakers who were nearby did not take kindly to it.

What ensued came close to getting physical, and Rinaldi was heard threatening to put a bullet in the head of state Rep. Poncho Nevarez, D-Eagle Pass.

Afterward, Rinaldi claimed that he had been jostled and threatened. And the office of Rep. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, received a call from a man who said "I stand with Matt Rinaldi and (expletive) all the illegal (racist label). White power."

Rinaldi unmasked SB 4 for what its critics have been saying it is mean-spiriteddiscrimination against Hispanics under the flimsy ruse of securing the border and preventing crime.

In that single, sarcastic, cold-hearted act of taking out his phone, Rinaldi contradicted what Gov. Greg Abbott said only a week earlier in an opinion column, co-signed by two border-area law enforcement officials, supposedly to set the record straight about what they claimed to be SB 4's true, benign nature.In thecolumn, published by the Caller-Times and other publications, the governor asserted that SB 4 had been misrepresented deliberately as a show-me-your-papers law that would encourage ethnic and racial profiling. Abbott asserted that SB 4 would do no such thing. Ethnic and racial profiling is illegal, Abbott wrote.

Then Rinaldi went and did exactly what Abbott said SB 4 wouldn't do. Dismissing Rinaldi as a lone wolf and a clown would be easy, predictable and politically expedient. But he did exactly what some if not many of his colleagues who supported SB 4 wished they had thought of in the moment.

Even if he werea lone aberration among the150 House members, which Texans know in their hearts he's not, that's still too many, mathematically. It would work out to three to four bad apples in Rinaldi's hometown police department, which has 542 employees. Common sense and experience say the vast majority of law enforcement officers are true professionals but the percentage of SB 4 abusers will outperform this math. Alot of unjustified hassling ofpeople who look like Nevarez and Blanco is in store.

Rinaldi's action deserved a response, but it didn't have to degenerate into an unseemly shoving match with death threats flying. In the not-so-distant past, a fair-complected, documented-looking conservative colleague or two of Rinaldi's would have stepped up quickly and rebuked him without further incident.

But nowadays, we have come to expect responses like the one received by Blanco's staff, from people who think Rinaldi did the right thing and who mislabel any rebuke of him as liberal politics.And we have come to wonder and worry how large a percentage of the population they represent.

And now we have a state representative who carries a gun and has threatened to put a bullet in the head of another state representative and who offers the George Zimmerman stand-your-ground doctrine as his defense. No telling how many of his colleagues will feel compelled now to arm themselves for protection from the likes of him. Rinaldi says on his web site that he's a proud concealed-carry permit holder who believes that his Second Amendment right is God-given. No matter who gave it, Rinaldi is one permit holder whose right should be revoked.

Read or Share this story: http://callertim.es/2rC7FuR

Read the original post:
Rep. Rinaldi showed what's wrong with SB 4, Texas and America - Corpus Christi Caller-Times

In 2002 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said that the lawful use of deadly force by the police may be ruled unlawful if the police themselves "created the need to use force" by acting in an illegal manner. "Where an officer intentionally or recklessly provokes a violent confrontation, if the provocation is an independent Fourth Amendment violation," the 9th Circuit held in Billington v. Smith, the officer "may be held liable for his otherwise defensive use of deadly force." Otherwise known as the "provocation doctrine," this legal standard has served as an important check on overreaching law enforcement tactics. Today, by a vote of 8-0, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the 9th Circuit's reasoning and wiped the provocation doctrine off the books.

At issue today in County of Los Angeles v. Mendez was a 2010 incident in which two deputies from the L.A. County Sheriff's Department entered the residence of Angel Mendez and Jennifer Garcia without a search warrant, spotted Mendez holding a BB gun (which he kept on hand to fend off rats), and shot both Mendez and Garcia multiple times in ostensible self-defense. Mendez's right leg was later amputated below the knee as a result of his injuries. Garcia was shot in the back.

Mendez and Garcia sued, charging the police with illegal search, illegal seizure, and illegal use of force under the Fourth Amendment. In March 2016, Mendez and Garcia prevailed at the 9th Circuit, which rejected the officers' pleas for qualified immunity and instead held that the two detectives were "liable for the shooting as a foreseeable consequence of their unconstitutional entry even though the shooting itself was not unconstitutionally excessive force under the Fourth Amendment." In other words, Mendez and Garcia prevailed under the provocation doctrine.

Writing today for a unanimous Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito overturned that 9th Circuit decision, dismantled the provocation doctrine, and ruled in favor of the officers. The provocation doctrine "is incompatible with our excessive force jurisprudence," Justice Alito declared. "The rule's fundamental flaw is that it uses another constitutional violation to manufacture an excessive force claim where one would not otherwise exist." According to Alito, "there is no need to dress up every Fourth Amendment claim as an excessive force claim."

Of course, if the police had not violated the Constitution to begin with in this case, the police would not have had the opportunity to use any sort of force at all. The indisputable fact is that Angel Mendez would still have the use of his right leg if the detectives had not disobeyed the Fourth Amendment, illegally entered his home, and shot him.

The Supreme Court's opinion in County of Los Angeles v. Mendez is available here.

Link:
Supreme Court Rules 8-0 for Police in Major Fourth Amendment Case - Reason (blog)

Law Enforcement Should Not Be Able to Bypass the Fourth Amendment to Search Your Devices

Sending your computer to Best Buy for repairs shouldnt require you to surrender your Fourth Amendment rights. But thats apparently whats been happening when customers send their computers to a Geek Squad repair facility in Kentucky.

We think the FBIs use of Best Buy Geek Squad employees to search peoples computers without a warrant threatens to circumvent peoples constitutional rights. Thats why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today against the FBI seeking records about the extent to which it directs and trains Best Buy employees to conduct warrantless searches of peoples devices. Read our complaint here [PDF].

EFF has long been concerned about law enforcement using private actors, such as Best Buy employees, to conduct warrantless searches that the Fourth Amendment plainly bars police from doing themselves. The key question is at what point does a private persons search turn into a government search that implicates the Fourth Amendment. As described below, the law on the question is far from clear and needs to catch up with our digital world.

A federal prosecution of a doctor in California revealed that the FBI has been working for several years to cultivate informants in Best Buys national repair facility in Brooks, Kentucky, including reportedly paying eight Geek Squad employees as informants.

According to court records in the prosecution of the doctor, Mark Rettenmaier, the scheme would work as follows: Customers with computer problems would take their devices to the Geek Squad for repair. Once Geek Squad employees had the devices, they would surreptitiously search the unallocated storage space on the devices for evidence of suspected child porn images and then report any hits to the FBI for criminal prosecution.

Court records show that some Geek Squad employees received $500 or $1,000 payments from the FBI.

At no point did the FBI get warrants based on probable cause before Geek Squad informants conducted these searches. Nor are these cases the result of Best Buy employees happening across potential illegal content on a device and alerting authorities.

Rather, the FBI was apparently directing Geek Squad workers to conduct fishing expeditions on peoples devices to find evidence of criminal activity. Prosecutors would later argue, as they did in Rettenmaiers case, that because private Geek Squad personnel conducted the searches, there was no Fourth Amendment violation.

The judge in Rettenmaiers case appeared to agree with prosecutors, ruling earlier this month that because the doctor consented both orally and in writing to the Geek Squads search of his device, their search did not amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. The court, however, threw out other evidence against Rettenmaier after ruling that FBI agents misstated key facts in the application for a warrant to search his home and smartphone.

We disagree with the courts ruling that Rettenmaier consented to a de-facto government search of his devices when he sought Best Buy's help to repair his computer. But the court's ruling demonstrates that law enforcement agents are potentially exploiting legal ambiguity about when private searches become government action that appears intentionally designed to try to avoid the Fourth Amendment.

The FBI's use of Geek Squad employees to do their dirty work of searching people's devices without warrants is in part possible because there is a legal distinction between searches conducted by purely private parties and searches by private parties done on behalf of government agents.

The Fourth Amendment protections for persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, only protects against searches conducted by state actors or someone deputized to act on their behalf.

That means if a private actorlike your next door neighborbreaks into your home and finds evidence of a crime, theres nothing keeping the police from using your illegally gotten property or information against you. The neighbor may be liable for trespass, but it wouldn't amount to a Fourth Amendment violation. This is called the private search rule and it applies unless a court determines that the private actors are working for the government when conducting the illegal searches.

The federal appeals court covering California and other western states has ruled that determining whether a party is a state or private actor comes down to two elements: (1) whether government officials knew of and agreed to the intrusive search and (2) whether the party conducting the search intended to assist law enforcement or further her own ends.

Under this rubric, the FBI's Geek Squad informants should plainly qualify as agents of the government. The records disclosed thus far indicate that FBI agents paid Geek Squad informants to conduct these wide-ranging searches of customers' devices, suggesting that officials both knew about the searches and directed the informants to conduct them. The payments Geek Squad informants received also demonstrate that they conducted the searches with the intent to assist the FBI.

Because both factors are present in the FBI's use of Geek Squad informants, we think any court encountering facts similar to Rettenmaier's should rule that the Fourth Amendment applies to the searches conducted at Best Buy facilities. Because the Fourth Amendment generally requires the FBI to obtain warrants before searching devices, the warrantless searches by Geek Squad personnel were the result of an unconstitutional search and thus any evidence obtained as a result of the illegal searches should be thrown out of court.

However, even if the Geek Squad is found to be a state actor, the government may still argue that computer owners waived any reasonable expectation of privacy in their digital files when they consented to Best Buys terms for repairing their devices. The U.S. Supreme Court applies a reasonable person standard when a property owner is aware that they are consenting to a government search.

This proved to be the pivotal argument in Rettenmaier's case, as the government argued in its briefs that computer owners waived their Fourth Amendment rights by signing a written form stating that they are on notice that any product containing child pornography will be turned over to the authorities.

We disagree with the government's flawed argument. While the Best Buy service contract does put customers on notice that it will report child porn to the FBI if it finds it, we don't think it comes close to informing customers that Geek Squad employees are working for the FBI and will search their hard drives far beyond the scope of permission customers gave. As the Rettenmaier motions show, it appears that Best Buy staff searched unallocated storage space where the problems with the computer would not be found.

When a customer turns their devices over to Best Buy or any other repair shop, their consent to searches of their devices should be limited to where the problems with the computer are locate. Thus, customers cannot plausibly consent to expansive searches of their entire devices.

A real world analogy highlights the absurdity of the government's argument. When you go to the doctor for a sore throat, you dont expect the doctor to order an MRI of your entire body.

The FBI's exploitation of the private search doctrine by relying on Geek Squad informants to conduct searches of people's devices is incredibly problematic. As technology advances, the wealth of information that may be stored or accessed from our digital devices implicate profoundly more private spheres of our lives, from protected medical and financial information to personal information about our friends, family, and loves ones.

If courts continue to rule that the Geek Squad informants arenot state actors,thenthey are free to turn over any evidence they find to the government and law enforcement can then reconstruct the private partys search free of any Constitutional taint to then obtain a warrant for the evidence. This subverting of Constitutional protections is made possible by an outdated and problematic legal concept known as the Third Party Doctrine that bars Fourth Amendment protection when a user voluntarily shares information with a third party (here, the Geek Squad), thus defeating any reasonable expectation of privacy in the evidence. This legal theory has been applied to eviscerate individual privacy interests in such private information as bank records shared with your financial institution and cell site location information shared with your cell phone providers and produced to law enforcement without a warrant.

Currently, theres a circuit split on how this search reconstruction may take place. In the Fifth and Seventh Circuits, courts permit law enforcement to search the entire computer without a warrant based on the private partys search. In contrast, the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits restrict government searches only to the files searched by the private party. And in at least one district court in the Northern District of Indiana, the court decided that a private computer repairman had the authority to consent to a government search on behalf of the computer owner by virtue of his possession of the device.

We think that the FBI's use of Geek Squad informants is not an isolated event. Rather, it is a regular investigative tactic law enforcement employ to obtain digital evidence without first getting a warrant as the Fourth Amendment generally requires. EFF continues to look for opportunities to challenge this type of law enforcement behavior. If you have had your digital devices sent to the main Best Buy repair hub in Brooks, Kentucky for repair and it resulted in criminal proceedings against you, contact us at info@eff.org.

Continue reading here:
Why We're Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants - EFF