Artober – Museums…. the Museum of Discovery

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Scott

October is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month. Today looks at the Museum of Discovery.

Related image Little Rock’s oldest museum, it was founded in 1927 as the Museum of Natural History & Antiquities. After starting in a downtown storefront, it later moved to the third floor of Little Rock City Hall. In December 1929, it was given to the City as a “Christmas present.” In the mid-1930s, the museum went dormant when the space it occupied in City Hall was needed to house federal New Deal agency offices.

In 1942, the museum reopened in a new location, the formal Arsenal Tower in City Park (now MacArthur Park.) It would remain in that building for over 50 years. In 1998, with name change to its current one, it relocated to the Museum Center in the River Market district. In 2011, the facility closed for a major renovation and reopened in January 2012.

Related image

Today, the Museum of Discovery is Arkansas’ premier science and technology center, with a mission to ignite and fuel a passion for science, technology, engineering, arts and math through dynamic, interactive experiences.

The permanent galleries include Discovery Hall, the Amazing You gallery, Earth Journeys, Tinkering Studio, Room to Grow, the Tesla Theater and Tornado Alley Theater.

It has been ranked the 6th best Science Museum in the US. by MENSA.

Little Rock and VIRGINIA WOOLF

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Scott

On October 13, 1962, Edward Albee’s first Broadway play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened on Broadway.

Though not in the original cast, Little Rock native Ben Piazza had participated in early readings of the play. In fact the first time the script was ever read through aloud it was by Albee, Piazza, and producers Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder.

After original cast member George Grizzard left the show due to another commitment, Piazza joined the cast in February 1963. He remained in the production throughout the rest of the run. Piazza holds the record of most performances of any Edward Albee play on Broadway.

The play was selected by the Pulitzer jury for drama to receive the prize in 1963. But because the award criteria still contained language about “moral example” the final committee rejected the choice and no play was recognized that year. The public hue and cry over the decision served to shake up the criteria for future play selection. Albee would receive the Pulitzer for A Delicate Balance, Seascape and Three Tall Women.

The New York Drama Critics Circle recognized the play as Best Play. It also won Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Producer of a Play (Richard Barr and Clinton Wilder), Actor in a Play (Hill), Actress in a Play (Hagen) and Director of a Play (Alan Schneider). Dillon, who received a Tony nomination for Featured Actress in a Play, received a Theatre World Award for her performance.

During the run of Virginia Woolf, Piazza was writing a novel called The Exact and Very Strange Truth. This would be a fictionalized account of his boyhood in Little Rock. Whenever he would stop writing on it, he would put the manuscript in the freezer of his refrigerator to keep it safe.

Piazza would go on to appear in several other Albee plays both on and off Broadway. He would direct and appear in other productions of Virginia Woolf? throughout the country.

Fifty years to the day after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? first opened on Broadway, the production’s third revival opened. It starred Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, Carrie Coon and Madison Dirks. It was directed by Pam MacKinnon. Nominated for five Tony Awards, it won three: Best Revival of a Play, Actor in a Play (Letts) and Direction (MacKinnon).

One of the producers on stage accepting the Best Revival Tony was Little Rock native Will Trice. Like Piazza, he was a graduate of Little Rock Central High School. Now Trice is the Executive Artistic Director of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre.

7th Annual Vintage Military Vehicle Show today at MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

Posted on October 12, 2019 by Scott

The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History will host its seventh annual vintage military vehicle show on Saturday, October 12, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Two dozen military vehicles from World War II through Desert Storm will be on display in front of the museum, located at 503 E. 9th Street in downtown Little Rock’s MacArthur Park. The vehicle show will feature Jeeps and other vehicles from the Arkansas Military Vehicle Preservation Association and the West Tennessee Military Vehicle Collectors Club.

The event features living history performances by World War II Reenactors of Arkansas. Refreshments are provided by Woodmen Life, Bluebell Ice Cream, and Premium Refreshment Services.

The show appeals to those who have an interest in military history, as well as in vintage cars and trucks. It is free to the public.

Artober – Inspired by….. Robinson Center Performance Hall

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Scott

October is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month. Next up is a topic called simply “Inspired by….”

Many things, events, people, and occurrences have inspired me. But the architecture, history, and artistic & historic events from Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium (now known as Robinson Center performance Hall) may collectively have inspired me the most.

As a performance venue, it has played host to Marian Anderson, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Donna Axum, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, Carol Channing, Yo Yo Man, Bernadette Peters, Zuill Bailey, well the list could go on and on for multiple paragraphs.

It has been the resident home of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra since 1973 and hosted Ballet Arkansas’ The Nutrcracker for 40 years. Touring Broadway shows and concerts come through on a regular basis.

It was the site of a memorial service for Daisy Bates. It was NOT the site of a Duke Ellington concert in 1961 because administrators refused to desegregate the facility. (He had previously played there in the 1950s). After a lawsuit, the national tour of Hair played there. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, and Bush 43 spoke at the building. Buzz Aldrin held court discussing his trip to the moon and his desire to see the US go to Mars. George Takei held the audience in rapt silence as he detailed his experiences as a child in a Japanese internment camp in Arkansas. Elvis’ first recorded version of “Hound Dog” took place in this building. Jesse Belvin’s final concert was in this building.

The architecture by Lawson Delony and George Wittenberg working with Eugene Stern combines neoclassical elements with Art Deco elements and good, old fashioned New Deal sensibilities. In 2014, Ennead Architects working with Polk Stanley Wilcox led a top to bottom reinvention of the space which brought the performance spaces into the 21st Century while also restoring much of the original 1940 decor which had been decimated in an early 1970s renovation.

This building was the culmination of an effort which started in the 1890s to create a municipal auditorium for Little Rock. Many Little Rock leaders worked on that effort for decades. Once New Deal funding made the project possible, the drama did not end. Construction funds ran out and Mayor J. V. Satterfield, Jr., had to use innovative financing methods to get the building completed. This February Robinson will turn 80.

While Senator Robinson had nothing to do with the project, as the state’s senior U.S. Senator, he certainly was involved in giving approval to it. After his death in the summer of 1937 it was announced in December 1937 the building would be named in his memory. Nearly 80 years later it still stands as a testament not only to him, but to the tens of thousands of performers who have been on its stage.

October 2FAN at HAM – Some ballet, some music, some beer

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Scott

Image may contain: 2 people, tree and outdoor

Join Historic Arkansas Museum for a preview of “Sleepy Hollow” presented by Ballet Arkansas.

The multimedia ballet, designed in collaboration with the creative team at Cranford Co., features projected video and photo backdrops filmed at HAM. This unique take on Washington Irving’s classic tale combines the beauty of visual art with breathtaking original choreography by Executive and Artistic Director, Michael Fothergill, and local scenery. Come experience a first look of the first production of Ballet Arkansas’ 41st season, and enjoy a Q/A with the choreographer after the preview.

In addition to the ballet performance…

🍂 Autumn activities on the Historic Grounds

🎶 Live music by The Marchese Hendricks Project

🧼 Sawmill Gap Mercantile in the Museum Store highlighting a selection of their products

The reception is sponsored by the Historic Arkansas Museum Foundation, with special thanks to 107 Liquor. Beverages and appetizers will be served in the Stella Boyle Smith Atrium including beer from Stone’s Throw Brewing. The exhibits and reception are free and open to the public.

2019-2020 Little Rock Winds season starts tonight

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Scott

Image result for little rock winds The Little Rock Winds and conductor Israel Getzov open their 2019-20 Season on Thursday, October 10^th at 7:30 p.m. with “Melody and Passion”, a program of gorgeous melodies that exude passion and fire!

And, for the first time, the LR Winds’ will feature a string player as the guest soloist. Stephen Feldman, cello, will perform Tramonto: Romanza for Cello and Winds, a reflective piece by Luis Serrano Alarcón that artfully employs full wind symphony accompaniment to the romantic cello solo. Other lush melodies include songs from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and Whitacre’s Seal Lullaby. Chance’s Incantation and Dance and the finale from Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 present passion and fire so hot, the band may need fire-proof tuxes.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 10, 2019
Second Presbyterian Church, 600 Pleasant Valley Drive, Little Rock.

Tickets are available online at lrwinds.org and are $15 for adults, $12 for adults 65 and over, and free for students.

Program

Davide Delle Cese         L’Inglesina
John Barnes Chance    Incantation and Dance
Eric Whitacre                 The Seal Lullaby
George Gershwin         Porgy & Bess
Luis Serrano Alarcón   Tramonto: Romanza for Cello and Winds
                                           Stephen Feldman, cello
Dimitri Shostakovich    Symphony #5: Finale
Leonard Bernstein        Slava!

A gifted and enthusiastic communicator in recitals, chamber music, and solo performances, Stephen Feldman’s cello playing has taken him from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Sacramento, California. Formerly a member of the Fetter and Rivanna String Quartets, he also performed in the Quapaw and Sturgis String Quartets during his six years with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of Swarthmore College, the Eastman School of Music, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Feldman’s mentors include cellists Steven Doane and Timothy Eddy. He considers chamber music coach Julius Levine and Baroque specialists Arthur Haas and Paul O’dette also to be significant musical influences.

Israel Getzov has been the Music Director and Conductor of the Little Rock Wind Symphony since 2015. He also serves as Music Director of the Conway Symphony Orchestra, and previously held the position of Associate Conductor of the Arkansas Symphony and Principal Conductor of the Tianjin Philharmonic, the resident orchestra of the Tianjin Grand Theater. Mr. Getzov has conducted orchestras throughout the United States and abroad including Abilene Philharmonic, Asheville, Symphony, Cleveland Pops, Monroe Symphony, Skokie Valley Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Symphony of the Mountains, Tianjin Symphony, Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, Bolivia Classica, University of Taipei Symphony, and the Encuentro Jovenes Musicos Festival in La Paz, Bolivia.

Mr. Getzov started the violin at age 3, and later studied viola, piano and percussion. An in-demand educator of ensemble techniques, Mr. Getzov holds a tenured professorship at the University of Central Arkansas and has given clinics at many schools in the U.S. and internationally. A

Little Rock Winds was founded in 1993 to recognize the diverse heritage of the wind band tradition in Arkansas. It is dedicated to providing Arkansas communities live wind band music, including a variety of compositions and transcriptions that inspire audiences, challenge the players, and preserve the wind band tradition. LR Winds is an important outlet for the wind and percussion musicians in the central Arkansas area. The approximately 48 professional and semi-professional musicians are selected by audition and participate for personal development and enjoyment and as a service to the community. Six concerts are performed annually in Little Rock, and the band has performed statewide, from Texarkana to Cherokee Village, Harrison to McGehee.

Dedication of sculpture for 100 years of Women’s Suffrage in Arkansas

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Scott

Today, October 10, 2019, Jane DeDecker’s Every Word We Utter sculpture and the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Plaza will be dedicated in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden in Riverfront Park.

The ceremony will take place at 11:00am. Among the speakers will be Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. as well as the sculptor.

In July 1919, in part largely to the leadership of Gov. Charles Brough and First Lady Anne Roark Brough, the Arkansas General Assembly approved the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, making Arkansas the 12th state of the 36th needed.

Two years earlier, Arkansas had given women the right to vote, but only in party primaries. This was not the first attempt at granting Arkansas women the vote. In 1868, a bill was introduced to allow voting regardless of gender but it failed.

As throughout the United States, the efforts to establish women’s suffrage in Arkansas began prior to the Civil War. By 1869, articles started appearing in local newspapers about women’s suffrage efforts. In 1881, the Arkansas Woman Suffrage Association had been founded. The Arkansas Equal Suffrage Association was created in 1888. Both of these early groups disbanded when their leaders died. However they planted the seeds for future efforts.

The Political Equality League was founded in Little Rock in 1911. That year an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution was proposed which would have granted women the right to vote. While it failed, the effort created momentum, and women’s suffrage leagues were created throughout Arkansas which led to ultimate victory in 1919.

DeDecker’s sculpture features Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Stanton Blatch, Alice Paul, and Ida B. Wells, all national leaders in the Women’s Suffrage movement.

It also features two Arkansas women who played important roles: Josephine Miller Brown and Bernie Babcock.

This sculpture features two Arkansas women: Josephine Miller Brown and Julia Burnell “Bernie” Babcock. Brown came to Arkansas to work on the woman’s suffrage movement and decided to make it her home, while Babcock grew up in the state and learned about the suffrage effort as a teenager. Both have descendants in Arkansas to this day. This duo were chosen to represent the many women who worked on the suffrage movement. Some were from Arkansas, others came here–all of them worked for decades in this state to advance the cause of women’s suffrage.

Other courageous women who were part of the decades-long women’s suffrage effort in Arkansas include: Frances Reeve Edmonson Almand, Freda Hogan Amerigner, Dr. Ida Joe Brooks, Mary Ascena Burt Brooks, Anne Wade Roark Brough, Haryot Holt Cahoon, Florence Lee Brown Cotnam, Cate Campbell Cuningham, Eliza Bradshaw Dodge, Mary Fletcher Drennan, Pauline Floyd, Elizabeth Wallin Foster, Minnie Ursula Oliver Rutherford Fuller, Lizzie Dorman Fyler, Mary Knapp, Mary W. Loughborough, Clara Alma Cox McDiarmid, Josephine Irvin Harris Pankey, Charlotte Andrews Stephens, Adolphine Fletcher Terry, and Gertrude Watkins.

Little Rock Culture Vulture

Cultural events, places and people in the Little Rock area

Category Archives: History

Artober – Museums…. the Museum of Discovery

Little Rock and VIRGINIA WOOLF

7th Annual Vintage Military Vehicle Show today at MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History

Artober – Inspired by….. Robinson Center Performance Hall

October 2FAN at HAM – Some ballet, some music, some beer

2019-2020 Little Rock Winds season starts tonight

Dedication of sculpture for 100 years of Women’s Suffrage in Arkansas

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