Made in Montgomery sighting heroes and villains on ASF stages, and off Essay Example For Students

Made in Montgomery: sighting heroes and villains on ASF stages, and off Essay The first fruits, tangible and intangible, of the Alabama Shakespeare Festivals Southern Writers Projecta new play-commissioning program designed to cultivate writers and stories from the theatres own regionwere unveiled on the frosty January weekend preceding Martin Luther King Jr.s birthday at ASFs sprawling red-brick complex in Mongomery. The timing was anything but accidental. Since 39-year-old artistic director Kent Thompson assumed its reins in 1990, the festival has sought to enlarge the scope of its programming beyond the European and American classics that were founder Martin Platts specialty for 20 prior yearsand in the process roll out the welcome mat to the African-American half of Montgomerys population. Judging from the stylish, animated and thoroughly bi-racial audiences at the winter seasons opening weekend, Thompson has in significant measure succeeded. The fact that a real-life Ku Klux Klan rally was scheduled Saturday on the Capitol steps a scant five miles from ASFs stages added a cashet of urgency to the first full production of the Writers Project, Grover, Anniston playwright Randy Halls fervid account of the anti-Klan crusade conducted in the 1920s by his great uncle, Montgomery Advertiser editor Grover Hall Sr. (Alabamas progress in racial matters since Hall Sr.s day was evident when a motley three dozen diehard Klansmen, sans hoods, showed up for the noon rally; hours later, a performance of Grover packed ASFs 250-seat downstairs theatre to the rafters.) As it launched the Writers Project, the theatre also initiated an annual Pioneer Award, this year recognizing the achievements of four indomitable Alabama women, among them busboycott legend Rosa Parks (who lives today in Detroit, and whose award was accepted by Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center) and other heroines, black and white, of the early Civil Rights Movement. The awards were handed out, somewhat incongruously, on ASFs mainstage after the opening-night curtain of Flyin West. Pearl Cleages melodrama about pioneering black women in turn-of-the-century Kansas was given a lyrical and polished reading by associate artistic director Edward G. Smith, who joined ASF this season after helming A Raisin in the Sun last year. But Flyin Wests evident embrace of violence as a legitimate tactic in the struggle for African-American enfranchisementthe plays central conflict is resolved by the cheerfully coldblooded extermination of a villainous, wife-beating mulattowas thrown into sharp relief by the principled nonviolence of the evenings honorees. At a question-and-answer session the following day, Cleage stood by her plays thematic values. Im not a nonviolent person, she confirmed, going on to suggest that African Americans today, like those on the frontier, should be willing to consider the use of violence to combat racism and deal with problems in their communities and even within familiesgang violence, for example, or spousal abuse. The kind of hearthside lawlessness Cleage hopes African Americans can turn to their advantage has, of course, been wielded as a tool of oppression for generations in the South and elsewhere by the Klan and other hate groups, and ASFs focus on the most incendiary aspects of its regions history has included seminars with Klanwatch officials from the Law Center as well as outreach to the myriad churches, many of them politically active, that dot Montgomery. For Grovers mixed audiences, the images of organized racism that materialize in the plays climactic scenesheeted nightriders, a malevolent white crossprovoke powerful, sometimes uncomfortable responses. People are seeing their immediate past on stage, playwright Hall suggests. Unfortunately, the plays themes are as current today as they ever were. True, the Klan nowadays is not much more than a lunatic fringe. But the fact of racism is evident in our fear of immigration and of NAFTA, as well as in that irreduceable element of the population that subscribes to supremacist ideas. At their highest, LORT contracts accounted for 63,100 work weeks in the 198788 season, while Broadway represented 27,100 work weeks and the road 20,300 for a Production Contract total of 47,400. By contrast, by the 199293 season five years later, LORT work weeks had fallen 21 percent to 49,700, Broadway work weeks had decreased 3 percent to 26,200 and work weeks on the road had grown fully 50 percent to more than 30,600 for a Production Contract total of 57,000 work weeks. Rick Fisher: over there, over here EssayConverted banks are being used as theatre spaces in Philadelphia and Laguna Beach, Calif. The Philadelphia Arts Bank, which officially opened in January, was transformed from the Broad Street branch of the South Philadelphia National Bank and has two facilitiesa fully equipped professional theatre and a rehearsal hallavailable for rental use by performing arts groups. On the West Coast, Laguna Playhouse has chosen a former Bank of America branch as its second theatre. Projected to hold 250 seats, the new theatre will enable the Playhouse to offer a second season of contemporary, issue-oriented plays. The renovation is estimated to cost at least $500,000. The revolutionary Beijing opera Shajiabang: Spark Amid the Reedsthe first modern Beijing opera ever staged in the U.S.was presented last month by the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a full-scale production in English. In order to prepare students for the singing, stylized speaking, dance-like movement and martial acrobatics involved in the production, three master Beijing opera performers, Shen Xiaomei, Shen Fuqing and Lu Genzhang, were in residence through the fall and early winter. The Commercial Theatre Institutes 12th annual seminar, Producing for the Commercial Theatre, will feature 18 working professionals documenting their Broadway and Off-Broadway production experience. Included in the six panel discussions will be in-depth case histories of such productions as The Kentucky Cycle, Damn Yankees, She Loves Me and Jeffrey. The seminar will be held April 29May 1. For information contact director Frederic B. Vogel, CTI, 250 West 57th St., Suite 1818, New York, NY 10107; (212)-581-9450. The Phil Killian Directing Fellowship has been established by the Killian family in memory of the Indiana-based director and actor who died in August. The fellowship will be awarded annually to an outstanding young candidate chosen from a national search. Contributions may be sent to the Phil Killian Directing Fellowship, Indiana Repertory Theatre, 140 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46204-3465. OPPORTUNITIES Two playwriting fellowships of $10,000 are being offered by the Manhattan Theatre Club to writers age 35 or under. Applications for the fellowships, which include a one-year residency at the theatre and a commission for a new play, must be postmarked by March 15. For information, contact Bruce Whitacre, literary manager, Manhattan Theatre Club, 453 West 16th St., New York, NY 10011; (212) 645-5590 ext. 161. The Princess Grace Foundation offers competitive grants of up to $10,000 to emerging artists in theatre, dance and film to help realize their career goals. Individuals must be nominated by artistic directors of professional companies or department chairmen of academic programs. For information about the program, which has a March 31 deadline, contact Jennifer B. Reis, director of grants program, Princess Grace Foundation-USA, 725 Park Ave., New York, NY 10021; (212) 744-3221. The Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions provides grants of up to $2,000 for individual performing artists and up to $25,000 for organizations that have been invited to participate in international festivals. This years deadlines are May 2 and Sept. 1. For information, contact Arts International, Institute of International Education, 809 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017; (212) 984-5370. L.A. Theatres Ride Out Quake Despite the devastating earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale that shook the city in January, the majority of Los Angeles theatres have suffered only minor setbacks to their ongoing operations. According to Theatre LA, the membership service organization for professional theatres and producers, most theatre buildings suffered limited damage, such as chipped ceilings, cracked walls and electrical failure. But the earthquakes more tangential effects impacted many theatres more substantially: Performances were canceled or delayed, due less to structural damage than to the citys dusk-to-dawn curfew in the days following the quake and the traffic congestion that resulted from the collapse of freeway overpasses.