Monthly Archives: March 2012

People’s Choice at Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

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Forty candidates. Thousands of possibilities.

This weekend, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will perform a People’s Choice concert.  For the past several weeks, the ASO has been encouraging people to vote for favorites in a variety of musical genre categories.

The winners will be revealed at the concerts this weekend – tonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 3pm – at Robinson Center Music Hall.  It is appropriate that a facility named after a beloved Arkansas politician would be the home to a concert programmed by popular vote.

Best Classical Composer
*Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 First Movement
*Gershwin – Summertime
*Mozart – Eine kleine Nachtmusik
*Tchaikovsky – Romeo and Juliet Overture
*Vivaldi – The Four Seasons

Best Classic Film Score
*James Bond
*Lawrence of Arabia
*The Pink Panther
*The Wizard of Oz

Best Contemporary Film Score
*Gladiator
*The Godfather
*Harry Potter
*Pirates of the Caribbean
*Titanic

Best Sci/Fi Soundtrack
*Back to the Future
*E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
*Star Trek
*Star Wars

Best Animated TV Show
* “The Flintstones”
* “The Jetsons”
* “Looney Tunes”
* “The Simpsons”

Best TV Show
*“Bonanza”
*“Hawaii 5-O”
*“Mission Impossible”
*“The Young and the Restless”

Best Kids’ Pick
*Anastasia
*Cinderella
*The Little Mermaid
*Mary Poppins
*Peanuts

Best Video Game
*Civilization
*Halo
*The Legend of Zelda
*Super-Mario Brothers
*World of Warcraft

Best Broadway Score
*Les Miserables
*The Phantom of the Opera
*The Sound of Music
*West Side Story

ASO Music Director/Conductor Philip Mann will conduct the winners.  The program hosts will be Craig O’Neill and Dawn Scott.

The Weekend Theater presents THE MIRACLE WORKER

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Nicholson and Sawyer (photo by Byron Taylor)

William Gibson’s Pulitzer and Tony winning play The Miracle Worker opened last weekend at the Weekend Theater.  It continues tonight and tomorrow as well as March 23 and 24.

Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through March 24; there is also one matinee scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 18. Tickets, $16 for general admission and $12 for students and seniors age 65 and older, can be ordered online at the theater’s Web site, www.weekendtheater.org, or purchased at the door before each performance, based on availability.

Though the play is the story of Helen Keller (Sarah Nicholson) at the start of her remarkable life, it is also the story of her family and the indomitable Annie Sullivan (Hannah M. Sawyer).

The cast includes Byron Taylor and Patti Airoldi as Helen’s parents, Captain Arthur and Kate Keller, along with Drew Ellis, Zoe Dickerson, Diondre Wright, Patty German, Henry Melhorn, Donna Singleton, Patty Landry, Adrianne Owings, and Colin Boyd.

Andy Hall directs the production.

Clinton School Lecture: William Faulkner

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Ledgers of History
William Faulkner, an Almost Forgotten Friendship, and an Antebellum Plantation Diary

A scholar of Southern literature at Emory University, Sally Wolff-King will discuss her book “Ledgers of History: William Faulkner, an Almost Forgotten Friendship, and an Antebellum Plantation Diary,” which offers a compelling portrait of the future Nobel laureate near the midpoint of his legendary career and also charts a significant discovery that will inevitably lead to revisions in historical and critical scholarship on Faulkner and his writing.
The book explores the childhood recollections of Dr. Edgar Francisco whose father was a close friend of Faulkner and reveals that the famous writer drew inspiration from a seven-volume diary kept by Dr. Francisco’s great-great-grandfather. This program is dedicated to Lyon College professor Dr. Terrell Tebbets, a noted Faulkner scholar.
The lecture will take place at noon today at 12 noon at Sturgis Hall.

AAC Children’s Theatre: If You Take a Mouse to School

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The Arkansas Arts Center Children’s Theatre is now presenting If You Take a Mouse to School through March 25, 2012.  Performances are Fridays through Sundays; during Spring Break there are special matinees throughout the week.

Based on the book If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff, this popular character returns to the Arts Center’s Children’s Theatre stage.  This is the fourth time a Numeroff book has been produced at the Arts Center. Previous productions have been If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (in 2008), Merry Christmas, Mouse! (in 2009) and If You Give a Pig a Pancake (in 2011).

The cast for this production includes Katherine Campbell, Josh Rice, Paige Herschell, Vanessa Sterling and Aleigha Morton.  Bradley Anderson directs this production, which was adapted by Katherine Campbell and Josh Rice.  The creative team also includes Miranda Young (scenery), Erin Larkin (costumes) and Penelope Poppers (lighting).

A Conversation with Rocco Landesman this afternoon

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Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will be making his first visit to Arkansas. Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will be making his first visit to Arkansas today.

As a part of that visit, he will be participating in a Please join us for a very enlightening panel discussion at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. It is being co-hosted by The Rep and the Oxford American. Arkansas First Lady Ginger Bebee will introduce the conversation.

Visiting Arkansas for the first time, Chairman Landesman will participate in a panel discussion with Rep Producing Artistic Director Bob Hupp and Oxford American Publisher Warick Sabin. Arkansas Arts Council Executive Director Joy Pennington will moderate the panel on “Creative Placemaking in Little Rock.”

The panel discussion will take place in the Rep’s Cindy Murphy Theatre at 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Following the panel, there will be a reception at 5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
The panel discussion and lobby reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Rocco Landesman was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 7, 2009 as the tenth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Prior to joining the NEA, he was president of Jujamcyn Theatres, which owns five Broadway theatres. A Broadway theater producer and multiple Tony winner, he has brought Big River (1985 Tony Award for Best Musical), Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1993 Tony Award for Best Play), Angels in America: Perestroika (1994 Tony Award for Best Play), Into the Woods, and The Producers (2001 Tony Award for Best Musical) to Broadway.

Tuesday – Explore Intelligent Cities at Art of Architecture lecture

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As part of the monthly “Art of Architecture” series, this month Susan Piedmont-Palladino will present a lecture entitled “Intelligent Cities.”  This month’s lecture is presented in conjunction with the Clinton School for Public Service lecture series and will take place at Sturgis Hall on the Clinton Presidential Center campus at 6pm on Tuesday, March 13.

Professor Piedmont-Palladino is a professor of architecture at Virginia Tech’s Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center and a curator at the National Building Museum. She will give a lecture titled “Intelligent Cities,” which investigates the intersection of information technology and urban life and design.

Susan C. Piedmont-Palladino is an architect and Professor of Architecture at the Washington/Alexandria Architecture Consortium (WAAC), the College’s urban campus.

She received her Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech and her Bachelor of Arts in the History of Art from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Before joining Virginia Tech, she taught at the University of Maryland and the Catholic University of America.

Her 1st book, Devil’s Workshop: 25 Years of Jersey Devil Architecture, on Jersey Devil and design/build was published by Princeton Architectural Press. Her articles have appeared in the popular and professional press, including the “Journal of Architectural Education”, “Journal of Urban Technology” and “Perspecta 29” among others. And she has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, as well as schools from Mississippi State in Starkville to Universidad de Desarrollo in Santiago Chile.

She is the former national president of Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, served on the design committee for the National Peace Garden Foundation, and has been a consultant to the Department of Energy for the Solar Decathlon.

Since 2002 she has been a consulting curator to the National Building Museum, and most recently was the guest curator for Tools of the Imagination and editor of its eponymous companion book, to be published by Princeton Architectural Press in fall 2006.

Sculpture Vulture: St. John the Baptist

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On the grounds of the St. John Catholic Center are several sculptures.  Today’s entry focuses on the statue which is the focal point of the campus.  The statue of St. John the Baptist sits in front of the Morris Hall.  The campus was founded in the Heights in 1916.

St. John is depicted holding a crucifix in one hand.  With the other hand he is pointing to the sky in the manner of an exhortation.  At his feet is a lamb  looking up at him.  Interestingly, for a person who is depicted in the Bible as wearing camel’s hair, this John is wearing a robe.

Once, St. John the Baptist watched over the seminarians on the campus. Today he is more likely to watch over the various walkers, joggers, pets and others who use the greenspace on the grounds.  In addition, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra offices are currently located in a building on the St. John campus.

The statue was erected in memory of Thomas Lafferty an early Little Rock business leader.