Category Archives: Literature

Falling Off a Tin Roof on Tuesday

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At “Tales from the South” the first Tuesday of the month means “Tin Roof Project.”

This month features Monica Staggs, who grew up in North Little Rock.

As she describes her childhood, she was a tomboy practicing how to rouchambeau boys on the playground and playing Charlie’s Angels in the woods behind her house.    During her senior year at college, Monica got to work on a film that came to Little Rock called Shelter where she was the stand in for the lead actress as well as landing a small part. She rode passenger as a car ran off an embankment, crashing through trees before and stopping just before a lake.

Getting a taste for the thrill of the film business, three weeks later, Monica flew to L.A. for the first time and worked on her second film. She fell in love with Los Angeles and everything about it. As soon as she returned to Arkansas she announced she was moving to L.A. and two weeks later she did on the plane, not knowing a soul, with three large duffle bags, a fork, a knife and a bath towel.

After moving to L.A., within three weeks she was lucky enough to land her third film. She began training in other areas of stunt work such as stunt driving, martial arts, stunt fights, and boxing. She has spent the last 20 years working in L.A.

Monica has done stunt work on more than one hundred film and television productions, including Kill Bill 2, Crash, The Italian Job, Bewitched, Starship Troopers II, Charlie’s Angels, Transformers, and many, many more. She has won numerous awards and accolades for her stunt work,  and at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards she was brought to the stage by Quentin Tarantino to share the award for Best Fight in Kill Bill 2. She is a board member of the Stuntwomen’s Association.

Monica still lives in L.A. where she writes sketch comedy and loves to play Texas Hold-Em, enters tournaments regularly and hosts home games where she attempts to take money from her fellow stunt peers. Her other pastimes include watching “South Park,” “Reno 911” and any and all horror movies.

Before her talk, music will be provided by The Salty Dogs and blues guitarist Mark Simpson.  To reserve a ticket go to   www.talesfromthesouth.com.

Starving Artist Cafe’
DATE: Tuesday, April 03, 2012
TIME: Doors open 5pm
Dinner 5pm-6:30pm
Show starts at 7pm
LOCATION: 411 Main Street, North Little Rock

Admission is $5

Dinner is from the special Tales menu.
 Purchase your tickets HERE

Frank Thurmond at WordsWorth this Saturday

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Little Rock native Frank Thurmond, an instructor at UALR as well as an author and musician will have a book signing and reading at WordsWorth Books tomorrow (Saturday, March 31) at 1pm.

Thurmond’s book, Before I Sleep: A Memoir of Travel and Reconciliation was published by Et Alia press.  Here is how they describe it:

Before I Sleep begins with a telephone call: Absent for three decades, Thurmond’s birth father phones from his death bed, offering his son a chance for reconciliation. During those decades of absence, the son has passed through childhood in the rural South to fulfill his dream of studying abroad at Oxford University. Along the way, his travels take him from Dallas to Madrid to Soviet Moscow. The people he meets are larger-than-life, including Allen Ginsberg, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Queen Elizabeth II. Recounting life-shaping events and the insights they yield, Before I Sleep brings Thurmond’s physical, intellectual, and spiritual journeying vividly to life. Readers will find this an engaging and deeply inspiring memoir.

Thurmond will also be featured at the Arkansas Literary Festival in April.

Deadline Approaching for Arkansas Arts Summit Registration

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The Arkansas Arts Council is pleased to be a sponsor of the 2012 Arkansas Arts Summit April 17-18 at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock. This intensive, two-day event will provide practical training for board members and arts administrators to help build and maintain art organizations and programs.

The conference will also offer performances, social events and networking opportunities. Registration is $95 and deadline to register is April 1. Click here to download a registration form, which includes a conference agenda and hotel information.

The Summit is presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center.

Led by Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser, the conference will equip participants to:

    • Recruit and manage board members
    • Achieve fundraising success
    • Create institutional image with impact
    • Improve strategic financial planning
    • Develop and support effective marketing campaigns

Sponsors include the Arkansas Arts Council, the William J. Clinton Foundation, Donna and Mack McLarty, Kaki Hockersmith, Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, the Windgate Foundation, Stella Boyle Smith Trust, the City of Little Rock and the City of North Little Rock.

CALS Lights Way at New Library Construction Site

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Photo courtesy of CALS

Just as libraries are places for illuminating minds, lights are shining on the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Children’s Library Initiative project at 4800 West 10th Street.

A tree on the site was lighted in November, and continues to highlight the work that has progressed. The structural steel is being erected, and roof beams are now being placed. The slab for the lower level has been poured, and the project is on schedule for the upper floor slab to pour very soon. Interior finishes are being selected, with the products and colors chosen for the countertops and the flooring carpet, tile, and cork.

Library staff is currently designing programming with Arkansas Out of School Network (AOSN), Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Central Little Rock Promise Neighborhood (CLRPN), the Clinton School of Public Service, and other organizations in preparation for the opening of the facility in early 2013. The library will offer programming for infants through middle school-aged children, including Storytime, crafts, music, and book clubs. The opening of the children’s library will allow CALS to expand the number and types of programs available for children. Public computers and a computer lab will allow more children to learn how to use and have access to computers and the Internet. Computer safety classes will teach them, and their parents, how to access the Internet safely.

Other planned features of the facility and site include a kitchen, gardens, and a greenhouse that will provide opportunities for enrichment activities for children in a wide variety of areas which cannot be duplicated currently by any other single organization. Located south of I-630 between the Pine/Cedar and Fair Park exits, the new Children’s Library will help anchor the renewal of the 12th Street Corridor Revitalization Project.

Olio Folio – Updates from the Rep, CALS and ASO

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Today we take a look at updates on a variety of previous posts.

First – the Arkansas Repertory Theatre has extended The Wiz through April 8.  It was originally supposed to end on April 1, but an additional week has been added due to overwhelming ticket demand.  Up next at the Rep after The Wiz – the annual ArtWorks auction followed by Next to Normal and A Loss of Roses.

Next up  – March 13 proved to be lucky for the Central Arkansas Library System as voters overwhelmingly approved the ballot initiative for future library expansion.  The vote was 4,548 FOR to 699 Against.  Because interest rates are at historic lows, bonds will be refinanced which will generate an estimated $19 million. Planned projects include:

– adding thousands of books, CDs, DVDs, children’s material, Arkansas history/genealogy materials, online audiobooks, databases, and eBooks to the collection
– adding space to accommodate the growing collections and services provided by the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
– adding approximately 250 new parking spaces on the Main Library campus
– expanding Internet capacity and adding more computers and other electronic devices
– expanding children and adult spaces at the McMath Library on John Barrow Road
– constructing a 350-seat auditorium on the Main Library campus for expanded programs for children and adults
– making miscellaneous improvements and repairs to various Little Rock branch libraries
– purchasing land in far west Little Rock for a future branch

 

Finally, the audience spoke at the recent Arkansas Symphony Orchestra “People’s Choice” Pops Concert.  The audience chose the following pieces to be performed:

Best Classical Composer
*Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 First Movement

Best Classic Film Score
*Lawrence of Arabia

Best Contemporary Film Score
*Titanic

Best Sci/Fi Soundtrack
*Star Wars

Best Animated TV Show
* “Looney Tunes”

Best TV Show
*“Mission Impossible”

Best Kids’ Pick
*Anastasia

Best Video Game
*The Legend of Zelda

Best Broadway Score
*The Phantom of the Opera

 

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.

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.