It is time for the 15th Annual Arkansas Literary Festival

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The Arkansas Literary Festival puts the LIT in Little Rock.  (Or does Little Rock put the LIT in the Literary Festival?)

Notable authors, including Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winners, filmmakers, singers, and artists are among the diverse roster of presenters who will be providing sessions at the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) fifteenth annual Arkansas Literary Festival, continuing through April 29, 2018.

Events will be held at CALS Main Library campus and many other Little Rock venues. Most events are free and open to the public. More information »

The premier gathering of readers and writers in Arkansas, the Festival offers a mix of sessions, panels, special events, performances, workshops, book signings, and opportunities to meet authors. More than 70 authors, essayists, and illustrators—who have achieved national and international acclaim—represent an array of genres and will discuss topics such as science fiction, fantasy, crime, southern life, social commentary, science, women’s history, young adult and children’s books. Presenters come from a variety of backgrounds ranging from professors at New York University and Yale University to former NBA All Stars. The full list of authors is available at www.ArkansasLiteraryFestival.org.

Special events include:

 

Author! Author!, Friday, April 27, at 7:00 p.m.

A cocktail reception with the authors. Tickets are $40 at the door. Special rates are available for students and groups.

An Evening with Sebastian Junger, Saturday, April 28, at 7:00 p.m.

Renowned author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger (Tribe, War, The Perfect Storm, Restrepo) will discuss his coverage of multiple wars along with his literary and film work, as he gives the CALS J. N. Heiskell Distinguished Lecture for journalism. An Evening with Sebastion Junger is free, but reservations are required. Tickets are available at www.ArkansasLiteraryFestival.org

Festival sessions for children will take place in Youth Services and Level 4 at the Main Library, 100 Rock Street, and at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center, 4800 W. 10th Street. Events at Children’s Library are hosted in partnership with Junior League of Little Rock/Little Readers Rock.

In addition to programming at CALS locations, the Festival provides presentations by several authors for Pulaski county elementary, middle and senior high schools, and area colleges through the Writers in the Schools (WITS) initiative.

This year’s Festival authors have won an impressive number and variety of distinguished awards and fellowships such as the Pulitzer Prize, Grammy Award, Coretta Scott King Honor, NAACP Image Award, National Magazine Award, SAIS Novartis Prize for Journalism, National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame, Wizard World Hall of Legends,  Eisner Award for editing,  National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, CantoMundo Poetry Prize, Dzanc Books ILP International Literature Award, Bard Fiction Prize, Autumn House Fiction Prize, Guggenheim, Cullman Center, FONCA, DAAD, Michener Copernicus Society, Callaloo Creative Writing, The Francis Writer-in-Residence at Yale, artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania, Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, the MacDowell Colony, Capote, Mississippi Arts Commission, Bronx Council on the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, and Iowa Writers Workshop.

The work of this year’s Festival authors has been featured in notable publications including:

  • New York Times
  • The Los Angeles Times
  • Psychology Today
  • USA Today
  • The Atlantic
  • Parade
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Esquire
  • Grantland
  • TIME
  • The New York Daily News
  • New York magazine
  • ELLE
  • Rolling Stone
  • Vanity Fair
  • The New Yorker
  • Entertainment Weekly
  • Harper’s
  • National Geographic Adventure
  • Outside
  • Men’s Journal
  • Slate
  • Travel + Leisure
  • Newsday
  • San Francisco Chronicle
  • Smithsonian
  • Best New American Voices
  • Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy
  • VICE
  • The New York Times Book Review
  • New York Review of Books
  • Wimmin’s Comix
  • Yale Review
  • Best American Nonrequired Reading
  • The Guardian
  • Backstage
  • McSweeney’s
  • Huffington Post
  • Granta
  • Best New Poets
  • com
  • Texas Monthly
  • Tin House
  • Oxford American
  • Southwest Brewing News

Support for the Arkansas Literary Festival is provided by sponsors including the Arkansas Humanities Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, Friends of Central Arkansas Libraries, Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, Rebsamen Fund, Department of Arkansas Heritage,  ProSmartPrinting.com, KUAR FM 89.1, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Clinton Presidential Center, UA Little Rock Department of English, Windstream, Wright Lindsey & Jennings LLP, Whole Foods, Museum of Discovery, Capital Hotel, O’Looney’s Wine and Liquor, Oxford American, McMath Woods P.A., Hall High School, Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School, Mabelvale Elementary School, Terry Elementary School, ESSE Purse Museum, Historic Arkansas Museum, Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, Mick Wiggins, Christ Episcopal Church, Literacy Action of Central Arkansas, Celebrate! Maya Project, Hampton Inn Downtown Little Rock, Residence Inn Downtown Little Rock, Argenta Reading Series, University of Arkansas for Medical Science, Pyramid Books/Hearne Fine Art, Arkansas Times, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, The Root Café, Humane Society of Pulaski County, Bob Razer, Mollie Savage Memorial, Four Quarter Bar, and partner Junior League of Little Rock/Little Readers Rock.

Carol Gold’s INFINITE DANCE wins 2018 Public Monument Sculpture Competition

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­­­­­Carol Gold was named as the recipient of a $60,000 commission on Thursday at the conclusion of the 2018 A Night in the Garden – Where Sculpture Grows. The commission was sponsored by Sculpture at the River Market.

Sculpture at the River Market invited sculptors to submit a proposal for its $60,000 Public Monument Competition. This is the eighth such competition.

Forty-one artists submitted a proposal. After a review by the Sculpture at River Market Committee and voting by ballot, the three finalists were selected. Guests at the Night in the Garden party voted to choose the winner.  The other two finalists were Giuseppe Palumbo and Stephen Shachtman.

The piece will be located in a new plaza in the western end of Riverfront Park near the elevated bike and pedestrian ramp which goes from the park up to the Broadway Bridge.  It will be installed in April 2019.

Infinite Dance depicts a female figure dancing atop a large ring.  The joyfully dancing figure represents the vibrant cultural scene of Riverfront Park.  The sculpture’s ring shape ties into the curving bridges surrounding the site.  The shape of a circle holds deep symbolism, referring to concepts such as inclusion, unity, wholeness, and infinity.

The cast bronze figure measures 7 feet high, 4.5 feet wide, and 2.5 feet deep. It is securely attached to a stainless steel ring that is 7 feet in diameter. This gives the sculpture an overall height of 14 feet.  The stainless steel will be anchored to a concrete footing at, or below, grade. This will allow the viewer to walk through the circle and interact with the sculpture.

Gold’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and Canada. Among numerous awards are those she has received from the National Sculpture Society and the North American Sculpture Exhibition. Gold’s FIESTA was one of the original sculptures installed in Little Rock in November 2004.

Carol Gold’s Infinite Dance will join seven other sculptures that have been recognized previously with the commissions through the Sculpture at the River Market’s Public Art Monument Sculpture Competition.

*       The 2011 winner was Chapel, whose work The Center was installed near the Junction Bridge.

*       In 2012 the recipient was Bryan Massey’s Nautilus. This was installed to the north of the Marriott Hotel near the new children’s spray fountain.

*       The 2013 winner was Ted Schaal for his piece Open Window which was placed near the La Petite Roche plaza and First Security Amphitheatre.

*       Lorri Acott’s Peace was the 2014 commission winner; it is sited at the southeast corner of Main and 2nd Streets.

*       Michael Warrick’s Mockingbird Tree, the 2015 winner, is located at the corner of Chenal Parkway and Chenal Valley Drive.

*        Clay Enoch’s United, which won in 2016, was installed at Central High School in September 2017.

*        Stephen Shachtman’s Arkansas A, won in 2017.  It was installed earlier this week at the entrance to the Southwest Community Center complex on Baseline Road.

Pulitzers Play Little Rock: CRIMES OF THE HEART at Arkansas Rep

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Crimes of HeartSince at least Chekov, playwrights have been fascinated with a trio of women at the center of a play.  Southerner Beth Henley put her own twist on this concept with her 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner Crimes of the Heart.

Focusing on the three Magrath sisters and their assorted friends in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, the story looks at how they come together because one of the sisters is accused of shooting her estranged husband.  A comedy with some dark undertones, it was a hit Off Broadway and then transferred to Broadway after winning the Pulitzer.

Arkansas Rep presented it in April 1985.  The cast featured Evelyn Carol Case, Cathey Crowell Sawyer and Laurel Anne White as the three sisters.  Maggie Murphy, Jeff Bailey and Mark Johnson rounded out the cast.  The show was directed by Cliff Baker, who had  directed the same show (with a different cast and design team) at the Alley Theatre earlier in 1985.

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama being given. To pay tribute to 100 years of the Pulitzer for Drama, each day this month a different Little Rock production of a Pulitzer Prize winning play will be highlighted.  Many of these titles have been produced numerous times.  This look will veer from high school to national tours in an attempt to give a glimpse into Little Rock’s breadth and depth of theatrical history.

RIP Gertrude Hadley Jeannette

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bhm gertrudeA reader pointed out that the April 26, 2018, New York Times had an obituary for Gertrude Hadley Jeannette.  This native Arkansan (and inductee into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame) died at the age of 103.  Throughout her life she was a trailblazer in the arts but also was a trailblazer in other fields because of her race and her gender.

Here below is from a 2015 feature of her on this blog.

Playwright, 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.

Little Rock Look Back: World Premiere of a movie in Little Rock

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Dr Wassell adAll right Mr. DeMille, Little Rock was ready for its close up.

From April 24 to 26, 1944, Cecil B. DeMille was in Little Rock for the world premiere screening of The Story of Dr. Wassell.  This 1944 Paramount Pictures Technicolor release told the story of wartime hero Dr. Corydon Wassell.

Why was Little Rock chosen?  It was the hometown of Dr. Wassell.  His paternal grandfather, John Wassell, was Little Rock’s 27th mayor.  His first cousin, Sam Wassell, was serving on the City Council at the time of the film’s release and would become Little Rock’s 51st mayor.

Based on a book by James Hilton, it was inspired by the heroic efforts of Dr. Wassell, a naval officer, as he led the evacuation of several sailors (and treated their wounds) in Java in February 1942.  President Roosevelt highlighted Dr. Wassell in his May 26, 1942, fireside chat.

Little Rock rolled out the red carpet (literally and figuratively) for DeMille and a contingency from Hollywood.  Dr. and Mrs. Wassell also returned to Little Rock for the festivities.  Unfortunately, Gary Cooper (who played Wassell in the film) was unable to attend due to illness.  His costar, Laraine Day, was making another film and could not attend either.    Those in attendance with DeMille (and Mrs. DeMille) included actresses Signe Hasso and Carol Thurston, and actor Melvin Francis.  The latter played himself; he had actually been one of the sailors saved by Dr. Wassell.

On April 24, 1944, DeMille and Dr. Wassell appeared on a radio program broadcast live from the music hall of Robinson Auditorium.  The next day, the troupe toured Camp Robinson and spoke to the soldiers there.  Later that day, Miss Hasso and Miss Thurston sold war bonds at Pfeiffers and M.M. Cohn’s.

April 26, 1944, was a full day for the DeMilles, the Wassells, and the others.  It started with a luncheon at the Hotel Marion, hosted by the Lions Club and Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.  Governor Homer Adkins presented DeMille with an Arkansas Traveler certificate.  DeMille, in return, presented Governor Adkins with a copy of the script.

When it was Dr. Wassell’s time to speak, he praised Little Rock’s efforts on the home front.  He also asked for a standing tribute to longtime Little Rock school superintendent R.C. Hall, who had died the day before.  Dr. Wassell had taught with Mr. Hall decades earlier.

Following the lunch, there was a parade on Main Street.  It started at 10th and Main and proceeded to Markham before ending at the War Memorial Building (now the Old State House Museum).  Newspaper accounts said that it was four miles long and featured many military units and marching bands.

Dinner that evening was at the Lafayette Hotel before screenings of the movie at the Capitol and Arkansas Theatres. Both screenings were sold out.  On April 27, 1944, a regular run of the movie started at the Capitol Theatre.  It would be released nationally on July 4, 1944, which also happened to be Dr. Wassell’s birthday.

Pulitzers Play Little Rock: THREE TALL WOMEN at the Weekend Theatre

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Photo by Karen E. Segrave

Edward Albee received his third Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for THREE TALL WOMEN.  It not only marked his return to the Pulitzer fold, it was his first critical success in nearly two decades.

In April 2001, the Weekend Theatre presented the play.  Directed by John Haman, the play featured Glenda Hope Fortenbury, Deb Lewis and Sue Diaz as C, B, and A, respectively — the trio of the title.   The relationships between the characters may or may not change in the play.  As with most Albee plays, much is enigmatic.

2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama being given. To pay tribute to 100 years of the Pulitzer for Drama, each day this month a different Little Rock production of a Pulitzer Prize winning play will be highlighted.  Many of these titles have been produced numerous times.  This look will veer from high school to national tours in an attempt to give a glimpse into Little Rock’s breadth and depth of theatrical history.

The Toes Will Go On

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Ballet ArkansasAs previously scheduled, Ballet Arkansas will present its “Ballet Arkansas in Concert” the weekend of May 4 through 6 at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre.

Though the Rep is suspending operations effective immediately, that is not altering the Ballet’s planned performances.

Join Ballet Arkansas as they present paramount works by international choreographers, excerpts from beloved classics, and a collaboration with world renowned Van Cliburn award winning pianist, Dr. Drew Mays. ​

Featuring works by TONY AWARD winner Agnes de Mille, TONY AWARD winner Christopher Wheeldon, and Michael Fothergill’s WORLD PREMIERE

Tickets for the Ballet are still available for purchase on the Rep’s website.

And don’t forget Ballet Arkansas presents DanceWorks this Saturday from 10am to 4pm at the studio on Main Street.

DanceWorks is a free event that celebrates the impact of dance and the arts in the Little Rock community. Join them for open dance classes in a variety of disciplines, stop in for an open rehearsal and chat with the Artistic Directors, and enjoy a preview of Ballet Arkansas In Concert: With Drew Mays and a new work by Company Artist Paul Tillman to conclude the event. Visit balletarkansas.org to learn more!

Open Dance Classes 10 am- 3 pm
Open Rehearsal and Informal Chat with the Artistic Directors 3-4pm
LIVE Performance 3:30pm!
*Colonial Wine & Spirits will be generously providing celebratory libations at the performance preview!