Monthly Archives: February 2014

Little Rock Look Back: Grand Opening of Robinson Auditorium

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auditoriumduskOn February 16, 1940, after three years of planning and construction, the Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium officially opened. It was a cold, rainy night, but those in attendance did not care.

Searchlights painting arcs in the sky greeted attendees. They were borrowed from the Arkansas National Guard. Newspaper accounts noted that only a few of the men who attended were in tuxedos, most were simply in suits. The work to get the building opened had been so harried, that it was discovered there was not an Arkansas Flag to fly in front of the building. Mayor Satterfield found one at the last minute courtesy of the Arkansas Department of the Spanish War Veterans.

The weather delayed arrivals, so the program started fifteen minutes late. Following a performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia by the fledgling Arkansas State Symphony Orchestra, Mayor J. V. Satterfield, Mrs. Joseph T. Robinson, Mrs. Grady Miller (the Senator’s sister-in-law and a member of the Auditorium Commission) and D. Hodson Lewis of the Chamber of Commerce participated in a brief ribbon cutting ceremony. Mrs Robinson cut the ribbon on her second attempt (once again proving that nothing connected with getting the building open was easy).

The ceremony was originally set to be outside of the building but was moved indoors due to the inclement weather. The ribbon cutting took place on the stage with the ribbon stretched out in front of the curtain. The opening remarks were broadcast on radio station KGHI.

Though he had previously discussed how he had voted against the auditorium in 1937 before entering public life, the mayor’s remarks that evening were appropriately gracious, statesmanlike and a testament to the effort he had invested to get it open upon becoming mayor. “We hope you have a very pleasant evening and hope further that it will be the first in a long series which you will enjoy in this, your auditorium.”

Tickets for the event, advertised as being tax exempt, were at four different pricing levels: $2.50, $2.00, $1.50 and $1.00.

The estimated attendance was 1700. Following the ribbon cutting, the main performance took place. The headliner for the grand opening was the San Francisco Opera Ballet accompanied by the new Arkansas State Symphony Orchestra (not related to the current Arkansas Symphony Orchestra). The featured soloist with the ballet was Zoe Dell Lantis who was billed as “The Most Photographed Miss at the San Francisco World’s Fair.”

At the same time that the gala was going on upstairs in the music hall, a high school basketball double-header was taking place in the downstairs convention hall. North Little Rock lost to Beebe in the first game, while the Little Rock High School Tigers upset Pine Bluff in the marquee game.

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Little Rock Look Back: John Wassell, Little Rock’s 27th Mayor

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JWassellFuture Little Rock Mayor John Wassell was born on February 15, 1813 in Kidderminster, England.

In 1829, he came to the United States.  He learned carpentry and construction in Ohio and ended up in Little Rock.  One of his jobs was as the finishing contractor on the State Capitol building, now known as the Old State House.

He later gave up carpentry and became an attorney.  (It is said that he did so after becoming embroiled in a legal dispute arising from one of his construction jobs.) Wassell also served as a judge.

In 1868, he was appointed Mayor of Little Rock by President Andrew Johnson.  He is Little Rock’s only Mayor to have served through a military appointment.  Mayor Wassell died in January 1881 and is buried at Mt. Holly Cemetery along with his wife and other family members.  One of his grandsons, Samuel M. Wassell also served as Mayor of Little Rock.

Broadway on Broadway with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

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ASO_revThis weekend, the music of New York City’s Broadway will be heard along Little Rock’s Broadway as the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra presents the next pop concert of the season — “Best of Broadway.”

Get ready for a walk down the Great White Way in an evening of hits from Broadway’s most beloved show tunes! Join the ASO in a selection of music that crosses all genres and brings a smile to all faces.  The concerts are tonight at 8pm and tomorrow afternoon at 3pm.

The ASO musicians will be under the baton of Associate Conductor Geoffrey Robson. One number will be led by special guest conductor Dr. Richard Wheeler.

The soloists for the concerts are Mandy Gonzales and Destan Owens.

Miss Gonzales has recently completed her run as Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway.  She was awarded Broadway.com’s Favorite Female Replacement Award for this performance. She created the role of Nina in the musical In the Heights.  She has appeared in Aida, Lennon and Dance of the Vampires (in which she starred opposite Michael Crawford and Max Von Essen).  She is perhaps best known for her Obie winning performance in the Off-Broadway musical Eli’s Comin’.

Mr. Owens is an Oklahoma native with a B.A. in Musical Theater from Oklahoma City University. His stage appearances have included Rent, Chicago, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, The Who’s Tommy, Dreamgirls, Jesus Christ Superstar and Sisterella. He appeared at Arkansas Rep in 2007 in It Happened in Little Rock.  He has been a soloist with several symphony orchestras across the country.

 

 

This weekend at Wildwood Park – 6th annual LANTERNS! Festival

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LanternsLANTERNS! Festival, Arkansas’ only deep-winter outdoor festival, will light up the night at Wildwood Park for a sixth year of family fun and illuminating entertainment! Travel paved paths illuminated with fire pits and thousands of luminaria to enjoy unique entertainment, authentic food and beverages for all ages at eight cultural vistas from around the globe!

LANTERNS! runs from 6pm to 10pm on Friday, February 14, Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 16.

Tickets are available at the gate during festival days:
$10 for Adults
$5 for Children (6-12 years old)
FREE for Children 5 and Under
At Wildwood, visitors will take a mystical stroll along paved pathways lit by fire pits and luminaries into the park’s winter woodlands to enjoy a variety of indoor and outdoor entertainment at lighted vistas representing six cultural vistas around the globe.
This year’s festival includes Asia, Jamaica, Mexico, New Orleans, Rome, and Shakespeare’s England.
Cultural entertainment, games, and discoveries span the Park’s arboretum, gardens, and lakeside performance spaces.
Wildwood’s performance complex, including the 625-seat Lucy Lockett Cabe Festival Theatre, is transformed into an international spectacle, meant to transport festival-goers to the far corners of the globe via magical tastes, sounds, and sights.
As visitors stroll through the glowing paths of of Wildwood’s lakeside forest, they will be immersed in a new culture at every turn.

A LOVEly 2nd Friday Art Night

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2nd friday art nightSince Valentine’s Day falls on 2nd Friday Art Night, expect some touches of red and pink along the way at the various sites.

Among the participating locations are Historic Arkansas Museum which will feature live music by Kit & Kaboodle as well as the opening reception for the Mid-Southern Watercolorists 44th Annual Juried Exhibition. Awards will be announced at 6 pm.

This exhibition includes 43 watercolors from members of the Mid-Southern Watercolorists (MSW), a group founded in Little Rock in 1970 with members in more than a dozen states.

MSW was formed to elevate the stature of watercolor and educate the public to the significance of watercolor as an important creative, permanent painting medium. MSW offers workshops, programs and competitive exhibits throughout the year.

The Old State House Museum‘s Second Friday Cinema will feature the film Hallelujah at 6:00pm.

One of the earliest Hollywood feature films shot on location in Arkansas, Hallelujah was innovative in several ways. It was the first talking picture made by popular director King Vidor, one of the first Hollywood movies with an all-black cast, and it introduced an early form of sound dubbing. Scenes of cotton picking and outdoor church revivals were shot in Tennessee and Arkansas, with the movie’s climactic chase scene shot in Ten Mile Bayou near West Memphis.

Ben Fry, General Manager of KLRE/KUAR and coordinator of the film minor at UALR, will introduce the film and lead a discussion after the screening.

At CALS’ Butler Center Galleries, they are promising “Sweet Art for Your Sweetheart.”

The featured artist is Russell Lemond.  He is a contemporary sculptural artist who works primarily with metal. His work is deemed “outside the box” by some, but he feels that in art as in life, there is no box.  The featured musician,Oksana Pavilionis, is a premier concert violinist playing mix of classical and folk tunes. Originally from Russia, Oksana now lives and teaches in Benton, Arkansas.

The current exhibitions are “Reflections in Pastel,” “Arkansas Women to Watch 2013,” “Native Arkansas,” and “Unusual Portraits: New Works by Michael Warrick and David O’Brien.”

Poet Mayda del Valle to ‘Bless the Mic’ tonight at Philander Smith

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pscdelvalleFebruary’s Bless the Mic at Philander Smith College features poet and spoken word artist Mayda del Valle. The program starts at 7pm.  Free and open to the public, it will take place in the M.L. Harris Auditorium. Tickets are not required; seating is first-come, first-serve. For more information, call 370-5354.

Chosen by O Magazine as one of 20 women on the first “O Power List,” the Chicago native is the youngest poet and first Latino to win the 2001 National Poetry Slam Individual Championship. Soon after she was chosen to perform on the first season of the HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, followed by a stint as an original cast member and contributing writer of the critically acclaimed Tony award winning production of Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

Del Valle, who has been featured in numerous publications including Urban Latino, Latina magazine and the New York Times, holds a B.A. in Art from Williams College.

Bless The Mic is a contemporary spin on the traditional President’s Lecture Series. These events, held on hundreds of campuses across the country, have been a way to stimulate the intellectual discourse on the campus. Even today, these series seek to bring in noted scholars, authors, politicians and public intellectuals to expose not only the campus community to their ideas and concepts, but the broader community in which the institution resides.

Little Rock Look Back: Lincoln Avenue Viaduct

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ahpp_nom_lincolnaveviaduct_largeSince today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, the focus is on the Lincoln Avenue Viaduct.  This arched bridge is traversed by thousands of cars each day, with most having no idea the name of the structure.

The Lincoln Avenue Viaduct is the arched bridge connecting LaHarpe with Cantrell Road which (literally) bridges downtown with the west along Highway 10.

The Lincoln Avenue Viaduct is a reinforced concrete rainbow arch bridge. It was opened at 2:05p.m. on Friday, December 28, 1928, and, despite later alterations, it remains particularly well
preserved. The Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, considered the most important railroad company in the state, constructed the bridge amid a series of improvements in Little Rock made necessary by the damage wrought by the infamous spring floods of 1927.

Though the bride was constructed by the railroad, the City had to give authorization to do so, this was accomplished by the passing of Ordinance 4,335, at the May 28, 1928, City Council meeting.

Lincoln Avenue was one of several names for stretches of Highway 10 in Little Rock. By the 1960s, the areas west of the Lincoln Avenue viaduct were all renamed Cantrell in honor of the man who had developed much of the area west of the Heights. The longest stretch of the road already carried that name. There had been an effort to rename Highway 10 (including sections named Lincoln, Q, and Cantrell) in Little Rock for Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson in 1930. He declined the offer because he did not want to diminish the contributions of Mr. Cantrell.  Over time the entire stretch bore the name Cantrell.

The stretches east of the viaduct which involved a couple of names were renamed La Harpe Boulevard in honor of the French explorer who first saw the Little Rock.

Though the street has been renamed, the bridge still carries the name of the 16th President of the United States.