Category Archives: Theatre

Robinson Redux – February

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grand opening adHere are some of the highlights from the annals of the Robinson Center Music Hall nee Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium.  This entry looks at bookings from Februarys in years ending with an 0 or 5.

The building was officially dedicated on February 16, 1940.  A few days earlier a children’s theatre troupe had entertained school kids with a performance in the music hall.  Also that month high school basketball continued in the exhibition hall.  The month had kicked off with a much more glamorous event as the Movie Ball took place in the exhibition hall.

The year 1945 featured a ecumenical Christian Youth Rally on February 4, a concert featuring Tito Guizar on February 7, the operetta Blossom Time on February 8 and the long-running comedy Life with Father on February 19.   In 1950, Robinson’s offerings ran from the Grand Ole Opry featuring Hank Williams (February 5), to Dick Contino (February 8) to the magician Blackstone (February 10 & 11) as well as the opera Il Trovatore (February 15) and a recital featuring Mrs. Rece Price (February 21).

By the mid 1950s, the touring business was changing.  The only notable booking at Robinson in February 1955 was on February 20 as it featured the Duke of Paducah and a little known singer from Mississippi named Elvis Presley.  Five years later, Jackie Wilson and Jesse Belvin headlined a concert on February 5, 1960. The Venable Quartet and several other gospel groups performed on February 12 and the Beaux Arts Bal de Tete took place on February 19.  In 1965, Donald Voorhees and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra were in concert on February 21.

February 1970 showed much more activity.  Husband and wife Phil Ford and Mimi Hines starred in the national tour of I Do! I Do! on February 6 & 7. That show had been a hit on Broadway in the 1966-1967 season. Another hit from that season, Cabaret, played on February 19 & 20 with Tandy Cronyn starring.  In between, contralto Bernadette Greevy presented a recital.

Musician Jerry Jeff Walker performed at Robinson on February 23, 1975.  Earlier that month (February 19), the national tour of Pippin stopped by with Barry Williams (aka Greg Brady) in the title role.  Five years later, Ballet Arkansas welcomed Cynthia Gregory and Patrick Bissell in a performance on February 7, 1980. Later that month Mason Williams and his Bluegrass Band performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra on February 23.  The next two nights, a tour of Jesus Christ Superstar took the stage.

David Copperfield kicked off February 1985 with two shows on the 1st.  The next day the musical The Cotton Patch Gospel was performed.  Musican Carman performed on February 25.  In February 1990, Peabo Bryson and jazz extraordinaire Billy Mitchell shared the stage on February 22.

In 1995, the focus was on music.  There was “An Evening with John Bayless” on February 7 as part of the Greater Little Rock Community Concert Association.  On February 11, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra presented an evening of music of Rodgers & Hammerstein.  A few days later on February 17, various musical groups presented an evening of gospel music. The next night, Gladys Knight shook the house in a concert.  The month ended on February 28 with Nancy Griffith and the Blue Moon Orchestra. A February 8 concert with Della Reese was cancelled due to poor ticket sales.

Five years later, highlights included a tour of Camelot on February 15 – 18, and a staged concert version of the opera La Boheme presented by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.  In 2005, Kenny Loggins performed with the Arkansas Symphony on the 11 & 12. The ASO also presented an all Tchaikovsky concert with Jon Kimura Parker on piano.  Earlier in the month, President George W. Bush hosted a town hall forum on Social Security at Robinson Center.

In 2010, the ASO Valentine Pops concert featured Christiane Noll and Doug LaBrecque.  From February 16-18 STOMP rang out throughout Robinson.  The month ended on a more quieter note as the ASO and Philippe Quint presented the Violin Concerto by Jean Sibelius.

Dancing and Romancing on tap this weekend with Arkansas Symphony

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joan_kirby_artist_1Just in time for the Valentine’s Weekend, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra (ASO), Philip Mann, Music Director and Conductor, presents the third concert in the 2014-2015 Acxiom Pops Live! Series: Dancing and Romancing.

Broadway and Hollywood combine under the baton of ASO Associate Conductor Geoffrey Robson for a romantic and entertaining evening of song and dance with two veterans of the Broadway stage: Joan Hess and Kirby Ward. Inspired by the likes of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly and Eleanor Powell, this evening will put a song in hearts and have patrons dancing in the aisles. The Pops Live! Series is sponsored by Acxiom. The concert sponsor is UAMS.

Kirby Ward originated the role of Bobby Childs in the London production of Crazy for You (and is heard on the cast album). His Broadway credits include Show Boat, Woman of the Year and Never Gonna Dance.  Joan Hess recently starred on Broadway in Mamma Mia! Other Broadway roles include Crazy for You; Kiss Me, Kate; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bells Are Ringing.  She is also a veteran of national tours of Sunset Boulevard, Crazy for You, 42nd Street and Beehive.

The concert is held at the Pulaski Academy Connor Performing Arts Center, 12701 Hinson Road, Little Rock, AR, on Saturday, February 14, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.

Tickets are $19, $35, $49, and $58; active duty military and student tickets are $10 are can be purchased online at www.ArkansasSymphony.org; at the Connor Performing Arts Center box office beginning 90 minutes prior to a concert; or by phone at 501-666-1761, ext. 100. All Arkansas students grades K-12 are admitted to Sunday’s matinee free of charge with the purchase of an adult ticket using the Entergy Kids’ Ticket, downloadable at the ASO website.

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 49th season in 2014-2015, under the leadership of Music Director Philip Mann. ASO is the resident orchestra of Robinson Center Music Hall, and performs more than sixty concerts each year for more than 165,000 people through its Stella Boyle Smith Masterworks Series, ACXIOM Pops LIVE! Series, River Rhapsodies Chamber Music Series, and numerous concerts performed around the state of Arkansas, in addition to serving central Arkansas through numerous community outreach programs and bringing live symphonic music education to over 26,000 school children and over 200 schools.

Discover Mystery and History along the SCOTLAND ROAD at UALR Play

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ScotRoad1000UALR’s third theatre production of the 2014-15 season opens tonight and runs through February 15.  Jeffrey Hatcher’s Scotland Road plays at 8pm tonight through Saturday and 2:30pm on Sunday in the University Theatre on the UALR campus.

Mystery, history, and human obsession plot the course of Scotland Road.  Reality is called into question when a simply dressed young woman is rescued from a small iceberg in the North Atlantic. All evidence, including her one word to the rescuers, “Titanic,” points to her being a survivor of the world’s worst sea disaster 80 years before.

The play navigates its way through several unexpected twists and turns as the woman is questioned by John Jacob Astor V, great-grandson of one of the Titanic’s most celebrated victims and a man preoccupied with every aspect of the event. Each meeting both unravels and deepens the mystery, and forces Astor to embark on his own voyage of soul searching.

Highly stylized and rich with imagery, the play examines the depths of who we are and brings to the surface the realization that few things, and fewer people, are what they seem.

The show’s director is Dr. Jay E. Raphael, professor and chair of UALR Department of Theatre and Dance.  The cast features Keaton Duersch, Ashley Mahan, Heidee Alsdorf and Stacy Pendergraft.  The creative team includes William Marshall (scenery and lighting), Yslan Hicks (costumes), Jim Spencer (sound) and Karen Harris (props).

Ticket prices are $10 for the general public and $5 for UALR students, faculty, staff, and seniors.  For more information, tickets, and reservations call 501.569.3456.

Black History Month Spotlight: Gertrude Hadley Jeannette

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bhm gertrudePlaywright, producer, director, and actress of the stage and screen, Gertrude Hadley Jeannette, was born in Urbana, on November 28, 1914, to Willis Lawrence Hadley and Salley Gertrude Crawford Hadley. She attended Dunbar High School in Little Rock. Just before her high school graduation, Jeannette decided that she wanted to get married instead of attending Fisk University, as she had previously planned.  She and Joe Jeannette II, a prizefighter and the president of the Harlem Dusters, a motorcycle club, eloped to New York City in 1934.

In New York City, Jeannette learned to drive; in 1935 she became the first woman to get a license to drive a motorcycle. In 1942, because of the shortage of male taxicab drivers caused by the war, Jeannette became the first woman to drive a cab in New York City. During this time, Jeannette decided to further her education; she took bookkeeping classes in the basement of Abyssinian Baptist Church, and speech classes at the American Negro Theatre in order to remedy her speech impediments.

In 1950, she appeared on television in James Weldon Johnson’s Gods Trombone on CBS’s General Electric Hour; she had replaced Pearl Bailey, who was originally cast in that role. As a result, Jeannette continued to work both in the theatre and in film and television. Some of Jeannette’s film credits included Shaft, Black Girl, and Cotton Comes To Harlem.  Her Broadway credits include Lost in the Stars, The Long Dream, Nobody Loves an Albatross, The Amen Corner, Vieux Carre and a revival of The Skin of Our Teeth.  Off Broadway she starred in To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

In 1979, Jeannette founded the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players (Harlem Artists Development League Especially for You) in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. The mission of the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players was to give artists a chance to develop their talents and skills in the theatre, and to enrich the cultural life in Harlem. Jeannette went on to direct, produce, and write her own plays, as well as the works of other playwrights.

Jeannette was presented with several awards for her work and accomplishments. In 1991, Jeannette was honored as a living legend at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and in 1998, she was honored with the Lionel Hampton Legacy Award. Jeannette was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2002, she received the prestigious Paul Robeson Award from the Actor’s Equity Association. Jeanette, though retired, remained active and celebrated member of the New York theater scene well into her nineties.

For more on Gertrude Hadley Jeannette and other inductees into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, visit the permanent exhibit at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. That museum is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

A Mary Birthday

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MarySteenburgenDec09It is Oscar month, so it is fitting to highlight at Arkansas’ own Academy Award winning actress, Mary Steenburgen on her birthday.  She was born on February 8, 1953 in Newport, Arkansas.  After moving to North Little Rock as a schoolgirl, she had her first starring role as Emily in the 1971 Northeast High School production of Our Town, which was the new school’s first play.

After moving the start of a successful film career, she started returning to the stage in a London production of Holiday in 1987.  In 1993, she made her Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Candida (during Roundabout’s initial season with a Broadway house).  Her costars included Robert Foxworth and Robert Sean Leonard.

The next year, she starred in Marvin’s Room in Los Angeles.  She returned to the New York City stage with 2000′s The Beginning of August at the Atlantic Theater Company.  Steenburgen has remained an active supporter and is now a member of Atlantic.  In 2007, she and husband Ted Danson were honored by the Atlantic Theater Company.

Throughout her career, Mary Steenburgen has been a champion of the arts in Central Arkansas.  She has long been a supporter of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, where she and Danson served as honorary chairs of the Rep’s recent successful capital campaign.  In addition, she has been very involved in two other Central Arkansas arts endeavors.  Steenburgen has spoken at acting workshops and lent her support in many other ways for The THEA Foundation (which encourages arts education in Arkansas).

Steenburgen has also been an active supporter of the Oxford American magazine as well as South on Main restaurant and performance venue.

Final Weekend for THE WHIPPING MAN at the Arkansas Rep

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THEREP_THE WHIPPINGMAN (no credits)-page-001There are only three chances remaining to see the riveting play on stage at the Arkansas Rep – Matthew Lopez’s award winning The Whipping Man.  

An extraordinary tale of loyalty, deceit and deliverance, The Whipping Man opened off-Broadway in 2011 to critical acclaim, winning the 2011 John Gassner New Play Award from the NY Outer Critics Circle and becoming one of the most produced plays in the country.

On Passover, 1865, the Civil War has just ended and the annual celebration of freedom from bondage is being observed in Jewish homes across the country. One of these homes sits in ruins. As Jewish confederate officer Caleb DeLeon returns from the war, badly wounded, to find his family missing and only two former slaves remaining, Simon and John, the two men are forced to care for him.

As Caleb, Simon and John wait for the family’s return, they wrestle with their shared past as master and slave, digging up long-buried family secrets as well as new ones. With Passover upon them, the three men unite to celebrate the holiday, even as they struggle to comprehend their new relationships at a crossroads of personal and national history and to come to terms with the sordid legacies of slavery and war that threaten each of their future freedoms.

Ryan Barry, who was featured in last season’s Clybourne Park returns to the Rep joined by Michael A. Shepperd and Damian Thompson.  The production is directed by Rep vet Gilbert McCauley (Gee’s Bend, Looking Over the President’s Shoulder, The Piano Lesson, A Soldier’s Play, Fences, Frost/Nixon).  Other members of the creative team are set designer Mike Nichols, costume designer Yslan Hicks, lighting designer Dan Kimble, sound designer Allan Branson and props designer Lynda J. Kwallek.

Performances are at 8pm tonight, 2pm tomorrow and 7pm tomorrow night.

Black History Month Spotlight – Lawrence Hamilton

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LawrenceHamiltonLawrence Hamilton, the son of the Dr. Oscar and Mae Dell Hamilton, was born in the small southwest Arkansas town of Foreman With an interest in music stemming from childhood, Hamilton earned a music scholarship to attend Henderson State University in Arkadelphia where he studied piano and voice He graduated in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in music education.

From Arkansas, Hamilton traveled to Florida to work as a performer at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida where he would meet talent manager, Tommy Molinaro. This fateful meeting would prove to be a life-changing encounter, as Molinaro would invite Hamilton to come to New York to audition for the famed actor/director Geoffrey Holder. This marked the beginning of Hamilton’s bold and creative career in the performing arts, leading to performances on Broadway and on tours in Sophisticated Ladies, The Wiz, Uptown – Its Hot, Porgy and Bess, Big River, Play On!, and Jelly’s Last Jam among others. Perhaps his crowning achievement was starring in Ragtime.

Hamilton has been a member of the Southern Ballet Theater, Brooklyn Dance Theater, Ballet Tap USA, and the Arkansas Opera Theater He has performed in concert with the legendary Lena Horne at the White House for President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan, and at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II. Hamilton’s career also led to a stint as musical director for the renowned opera legend Jessye Norman, as well as vocal coach/arranger for the pop group New Kids on the Block

Upon his return to Arkansas, Hamilton served for several years as director of choral music at Philander Smith College. He also appeared in several plays at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre.  In addition, he performed at countless concerts, benefits and galas throughout Arkansas.  In 2003, he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.  In 2008, he was appointed to the Little Rock Mayor’s Task Force on Tourism.

Hamilton died in New York in April 2014 due to complications from surgery.  Just weeks prior to the surgery, he had appeared in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson in Cape Fear, North Carolina.  He had also starred in that play at Arkansas Rep a few years earlier.

For more on Lawrence Hamilton and other inductees into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, visit the permanent exhibit at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center. That museum is an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage.