Join the Old State House Museum at noon on Thursday, December 3, for a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture led by Dan Fowler, Chief Operating Officer at Cromwell Architects Engineers, as he speaks about the influence and history of 130 years of Cromwell.
Join the Old State House Museum at noon on Thursday, December 3, for a Brown Bag Lunch Lecture led by Dan Fowler, Chief Operating Officer at Cromwell Architects Engineers, as he speaks about the influence and history of 130 years of Cromwell.
The Arkansas Repertory Theatre works in partnership with the Clinton School of Public Service to participate in the UACS’s Distinguished Speaker Series, hosting educational panel discussions on various Rep productions.
The latest in these takes place today, Thursday, December 3 at 12 noon at Sturgis Hall in Clinton Presidential Park. It focuses on the Rep’s upcoming production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
Adapted from the beloved fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen into one of Disney’s most popular animated films of all time, “The Little Mermaid” is now a lavish theatrical spectacle you won’t want to miss.
From Hans Christian Andersen to Disney to The Rep, generations have fallen in love with the young mermaid who dreams of love and life on land. This musical has it all: a great story, lush designs and all the songs you sang with your kids.
Join the Clinton School for a panel discussion about this production with moderator Bob Hupp, producing artistic director at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre.
The play opens officially on Friday evening and runs through Sunday, January 3.
At Legacies & Lunch, Bill Worthen, director of the Historic Arkansas Museum, will discuss the museum’s history, placing emphasis on Louise Loughborough, founder of the museum, and Ed Cromwell, who led the museum after Loughborough’s death.
Worthen, a Little Rock native, is a graduate of Hall High School and Washington University, St. Louis. After teaching high school in Pine Bluff for three years, Worthen became director of what was then known as the Arkansas Territorial Restoration in 1972. In 1981, the organization became the first history museum in Arkansas to be accredited by the American Association of Museums. The museum was renamed the Historic Arkansas Museum in 2001 to reflect its expanded facility and mission. Worthen’s current research interests are the bowie knife, sometimes called the Arkansas toothpick, and the Arkansas Traveler, in its many forms.
Legacies & Lunch is free, open to the public, and supported in part by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Programs are held from noon-1 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Attendees are invited to bring a sack lunch; drinks and dessert are provided. For more information, contact 918-3033.

Today is #GivingTuesday. Since most of the cultural institutions are non-profits, please remember them when considering a donation.
Tonight, Monday, November 23, join the Arkansas Rep for its new event series, Behind the Theme, for a discussion of The Origin of Fairy Tales!
The Little Mermaid is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale of the same name. Before you plunge into the colorful depths of the Rep’s production of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, UCA professor Jay Ruud will lead a discussion on Tolkien’s theory on the nature of myth and ‘fairy-stories.’ Find out where fairy tales originated and how they’ve become the stories we know and love today.
Monday, November 23, 6 p.m.
Foster’s, located on the first mezzanine
FREE and open to the public
Cash bar available
Please RSVP to Allyson Gattin
501.378.0445 ext. 125 | agattin@therep.org
Tonight at 7pm, the Clinton School will screen the documentary Most Likely to Succeed. It will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s producer Ted Dintersmith.
Where a college diploma once meant a guaranteed job, now more than half of America’s new college graduates are unable to find employment. Director Greg Whiteley locates the source of the problem not in the economy but in our educational system, which was developed at the dawn of the Industrial Age to train obedient workers and has changed little since, despite radical changes in the marketplace wrought by technology and the outsourcing of labor.
With a world of information available a click away, and the modern workplace valuing skills like collaboration and critical thinking, our rote-based system of learning has become outdated and ineffective. Charter schools like San Diego’s High Tech High, which replaces standardized tests and compartmentalized subjects with project-based learning and a student-focused curriculum, offer an alternative. Whiteley follows students, teachers, and parents to see if this different model can reawaken the love of learning and offer the potential for a paradigmatic shift in education.
In “Empire of Cotton,” Sven Beckert tells the epic story of the rise and fall of the cotton industry, its centrality to the world economy, and its making and remaking of global capitalism. The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities.
“Empire of Cotton” weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist. The book won the Bancroft Award, The Philip Taft Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Sven Beckert is an American historian and Laird Bell professor of American History at Harvard University, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political, and transnational dimensions.
The program starts at 6pm tonight at the Clinton School of Public Service.