American Idol auditions are coming to Nashville in July. Richard Dreyfuss will speak at the Henry Clay Center for Statesmanship in Lexington. A play called "The Prodigal" about a transgender woman and her experience coming out to her religious family will premiere at the Kentucky Center.

1. THE BUZZNEWS & NONSENSE
Compiled by
Christa Ritchie
‘Idol’ auditions
If you’ve got your heart set on
becoming the next Carrie Un-
derwood, Kelly Clarkson or
David Cook, then start honing
yourvocalsandpackingyourbags
for the Music City.
Nashville is the closest that
“AmericanIdol”iscomingtoLou-
isville this go-round. The Fox pro-
gram held auditions at Churchill
Downs in 2009. Aspiring singers
are invited to show off their vocal
talents July 17 at the Bridgestone
Arena, 501Broadway in Nashville.
In celebration of the reality
show’s10th
anniversary,“American
Idol” is expanding the eligibility
age to include men and women
between the ages of 15 to 28. The
previous minimum-age require-
ment was 16.
Wristbands will be given out
starting at 7 a.m. July 15 through 8
a.m. July 17. Competitors are not
permitted to camp out and must
return on July 17, by 5 a.m.
Dreyfuss in Bluegrass
Academy Award-winner
Richard Dreyfuss is Bluegrass
bound this week.
The “Jaws” and “Close En-
counters of the Third Kind” actor
is the keynote speaker at the third
annual Henry Clay Center for
Statesmanship
Student Con-
gress, which
brings a top col-
lege junior from
each state for a
five-day seminar
on the role of di-
plomacy, dia-
logue, negotia-
tion and media-
tion in public life and internation-
al affairs.
It’s supported by the Universi-
ty of Kentucky’s Patterson School
of Diplomacy and International
Commerce and Transylvania Uni-
versity.
Dreyfuss, who established the
Dreyfuss Initiative, a non-profit
organization focused on streng-
thening American democracy by
promoting civics education, will
also meet at Lexington’s Sayre
School on Thursday. Both events
are by invitation only.
Hollywood highlights
៑Orlando
Bloom just put a
ring on it. After
threeyearsofdat-
ing, the actor has
proposed to his
model-girlfriend,
Miranda Kerr.
៑Katie
Holmes’ ex-
beau Chris
Klein has voluntarily checked
himself into rehab after his sec-
ond DUI-related arrest.
៑Heidi Montag isn’t the
only one distancing herself from
Spencer Pratt these days. Us
Weeklytattlesthatevenhisfamily
is fed up with him and as a result
have removed all photos of Pratt
from their home.
៑A new book about Anna
Nicole Smith comes out Tues-
day. Written by former Fort Lau-
derdalejudgeLarrySeidlin,who
came to fame in the fight over her
remains, it’s titled, “The Killing of
Anna Nicole Smith.”
Visionary vintner Charles
Smith has captured lightning in a
bottle.
In 10 years, The Walla Walla,
Wash.-based winemaker has
gone from bohemian industry
outsider to emperor of the vine.
His brands, Charles Smith
Wines, priced in the $12-$20
range, and the more-extrava-
gant K Vintners, which are sold
for $40 to upward of $100, are
some of the most beautifully
packaged and respected wines
in the world.
They also have an irresist-
ible look: Skulls and cross-
bones, kung fu girls, fuse bombs
and more pop-arty images em-
bellish the bottles. Smith was
named Food and Wine’s Wine-
maker of the Year for 2009, and
his creations are sipped by such
stars as Steven Spielberg and
Smith’s friend actor Kyle Mac-
Lachlan.
Locally, his wines are sold at
stores including The Wine
Rack, The Wine Market, and
Westport Whiskey & Wine.
Smith, 48, a bushy-haired
former band manager, has
carved out an intoxicating
niche.
“My mission is to commun-
icate the language of wine to ev-
erybody who doesn’t speak
wine,” Smith said via phone
from Washington state. “I didn’t
Vintner’s creative brands are raising the bar
By Tamara Ikenberg
tikenberg@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Smith’s wine
in its own time
Photos courtesy of K Vintners & Charles Smith Wines
Vintner Charles Smith’s drive to impress wine critics is secondary to his desire to satisfy his customers.
Pop-arty labels embellish the bottles.
See SMITH, D3, col. 1
TUESDAY
JUNE 22, 2010 D
Features David Daley, editor | ddaley@courier-journal.com | 582-7104, phone | 582-4665, fax
Go to courier-journal.com/mobile
for celebrity news, horoscopes,
health, fitness and fashion tips.
News and info on your cellphone
““I’ve never said this before,
but I am a proud bisexual
woman.”
Singer VANESSA CARLTON,
to a crowd at Nashville Pride
over the weekend.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
NICKELODEON’S
STORYTIME LIVE!
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Kentucky Center,
501 W. Main St.
Admission: $13-$37
Information: (502) 584-7777
A-LIST EVENT
Reach Christa at critchie@courier-
journal.com or (502) 582-4144.
Find a week of "The Buzz" at courier-
journal.com/buzz
Actors, etc.
Ralph Waite 82
Michael Lerner 69
Meryl Streep 61
Lindsay Wagner 61
Graham Greene 58
Chris Lemmon 56
Tracy Pollan 50
Amy Brenneman 46
Donald Faison 36
Musicians, etc.
Kris Kristofferson
74
Peter Asher 66
Howard “Eddie”
Kaylan 63
Todd Rundgren 62
Alan Osmond 61
Cyndi Lauper 57
Talk-show host
Carson Daly 37
BIRTHDAYS
Annie’s Mailbox D5 | Comics D4 | TV D5
Tom Cruise has done action
films. He’s done comedies. But in
his 30-year career, he’s never
quite done an action-comedy.
That makes “Knight and Day,”
an otherwise typical-looking
summer movie that opens
Wednesdaya first of sorts for
Cruise, who stars as a fugitive
spy tethered to an everyday gal
(Cameron Diaz). In a way, the
roleofRoyMiller,awisecracking
pistol-packer,isalmostasmucha
departure as Les Grossman, the
foul-mouthed movie mogul
Cruise played in the 2008 come-
dy “Tropic Thunder.”
The actor generally seems to
have a strong sense of what his
audiences want, and what he is
best suited to give them. He pre-
fers to play heroes rather than
villains. He has rarely taken the
Meryl Streep foreign-accent
route, although he did star as an
Irish immigrant in the period ep-
ic “Far and Away” with then-wife
Nicole Kidman. He has never
played a superhero, probably be-
cause when comic books began
to dominate Hollywood, he was
already too big a star for tights.
He also has, somewhat curiously,
never starred in a Western.
In the past few years, the ac-
tor’s public image has been
marred by his increasingly vol-
uble support of Scientology and
somewhat baffling behavior in
public. His 2005 couch-jumping
spree on “The Oprah Winfrey
Show” seemed merely odd — he
was waxing romantic over his fu-
ture wife, Katie Holmes — but
his hostile appearance on the
“Today” show, during which he
criticized Brooke Shields for tak-
ing a postpartum antidepressant
(a Scientology no-no), was har-
der to forgive. Such conduct ap-
pears to be what led to his split
from Paramount in 2006.
Cruise has rebuilt the good-
will with his hip Les Grossman,
although whether “Knight and
Day”istherightwaytocapitalize
onthatremainstobeseen.Here’s
a look at his changing personae
over the years:
៑“Risky Business” (1983)
Cruise’s breakout role was a
martyred cadet in 1981’s “Taps,”
A career
that’s not
on Cruise
control
Hollywood hands
him lots of variety
By Rafer Guzman
Newsday
See CRUISE, Back page, col. 1
The church may be one of the least suppor-
tive environments for a gay man to come out in,
since many denominations consider homosex-
uality to be an abominable sin.
Butthat’swhatShemiyiaO’Bannondid.She-
miyia, a transgender church choir drummer
with a strong religious background, found her-
self shunned by a succes-
sion of congregations —
and even family members.
“In my childhood, we
went to 10 different
churches because I was
never accepted and my
family was never accept-
ed,” said O’Bannon, a
25-year-old nursing assis-
tant who was born male.
“All the sermons would
be about homosexuality
being wrong, that we
were all going to hell. This was every Sunday,
and every sermon felt like they were talking di-
rectly to me.”
Her ordeal, including an attempted suicide
that forced loved ones to reassess their beliefs,
is the subject of “The Prodigal,” a play written
by her mother, Sheila, which premieres at the
Kentucky Center on Saturday and will be pre-
sented on Sunday, too.
A departure for the urban-gospel theater
standard of one-dimensional characters and
melodramatic plots, “The Prodigal” is a serious
drama about homosexuality and the church,
written with life-and-death urgency and set to
music.
“At first, it was therapy,” Sheila O’Bannon, a
private drama teacher, vocal coach and music
minister in Jeffersonville, Ind., said about writ-
ing the play. “But different people read it and
said, ‘Oh my God, this should be seen!’ It would
educate the church about the lesbian, gay and
transgender community.
“One line in the play asks, ‘What is gay?
Whatistransgender?’Webelievethatnomatter
whatapersonis,Godwantsustolovethem.But
the church shuts out the homosexual commun-
‘Prodigal’ son is now a daughter
Musical tells family’s story
of church and change
By Larry Muhammad
lmuhammad@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Photos by Phillip Fletcher
“The Prodigal” cast includes, from left, Camille Foster, Shemiyia O’Bannon and Ashley Harwell.
See ‘PRODIGAL’, D3, col. 4
Shemiyia O’Bannon
Dreyfuss
Bloom
Time: 06-21-2010 19:54 User: ppitts PubDate: 06-22-2010 Zone: KY Edition: 1 Page Name: D 1 Color: CyanMagentaYellowBlack