Community School for the Arts

It has not been until I started my time in the CODA program that I realized the revolutionary power of a program that had been going on in my Presbyterian church in Knoxville, Tennessee for over ten years. When our former pastor came to Knoxville in the later 1980s, one of his first initiatives was to advocate and organize an arts education program in our church. He had previous experience establishing the Community School for the Arts in Charlotte, North Carolina and believed it would work in our downtown church as well.

The mission of the CSA is to provide the highest quality of artistic training to children from all backgrounds. Donors provide scholarships for students who cannot afford their own lessons in instrumental music, voice instruction, visual art (painting, drawing, sculpture), or dance classes. Students then learn from the best professionals in the area, members of the Knoxville symphony, regular singers in the Knoxville Opera company, professional artists in the city. With this level of professionalism, the program goes well beyond "getting kids of the street" and begins to offer genuine opportunity for these children to grow intellectually and creatively.

The CSA is a national organization with schools like the one in Knoxville all over the country. It is not a particularly "faith-based" program but appears to be funded often by people with a religious calling to work for those without many opportunities. Below I have posted one of the success stories of this program, a member of the Knoxville CSA, Shelly Story:

I am so thrilled to announce that Shelly Story, Community School of the Arts graduate of the Class of 1999, will be playing second chair violin tomorrow night in the orchestra for the Grammy Awards!
For those of you who don't know Shelly or the Story family, Shelly, now 27, is the oldest of a family of six children who started at the Community School of the Arts in 1993. All during Shelly's childhood, the family lived in poverty (I remember very distinctly the house on Old Sevierville Hwy. that had only one bathroom), but were able to take weekly lessons, nonetheless, in violin, piano, voice, and visual arts at the Community School of the Arts through full scholarships all through their school years. Shelly, with financial aid from the Community School, attended the North Carolina School of the Arts for her Bachelor of Music degree, went on to continue her studies at Boston Conservatory, and will receive her Masters degree from NCSA next year.
In talking with Shelly's mother, Denise Story, today, she marveled at the fact that this little girl from Lenoir City would not only be playing in the orchestra in Hollywood tomorrow night on live television, but will also "walk the red carpet" and attend the official post-show party with the nominees and winners. "And none of this would have happened," she said, "without the Community School of the Arts and all the people who stand behind it." I hope you all join me as our hearts swell with pride!

With thanks and gracious goodwill,
Jennifer Willard, Executive Director
Community School of the Arts

We got reviewed!

Some good news on the How I Learned to Drive run. We were reviewed this week in both the Memphis Flyer and the Memphis Commerical Appeal. It is a fairly regular occurance that we are reviewed by the Flyer. Being the "secondary" or "alternative" paper, they tend to pay more attention to the smaller guys like college theatre (plus their reviewer is Rhodes alumnus and director of the Rocky Horror Show, Chris Davis). This week, however, we also have a feature in the Commerical Appeal, which typcially does not review college theatre. I think we must give CODA some credit here for buying us some air time on the local radio station WKNO, to have an interview with our director and leading performer, Shannon King broadcast two weeks ago. This has greatly enhanced our exposure to the larger Memphis community.

Instead of providing links to the reviews, I have copied the text below in my blog with production photos. Enjoy!
Theater review: Dark comedy drives home powerful message

'Lolita'-inspired play deftly examines variety of emotions

By Jon W. Sparks
Special to The Commercial Appeal
Friday, February 22, 2008

The Pulitzer Prize-winning "How I Learned to Drive" won accolades 10 years ago for playwright Paula Vogel, not only for its deft writing but for fearlessly tackling the trickiest subject matter without cliches or prejudice.

Vogel is a fan of Nabokov's "Lolita" and was intrigued with the idea of a woman writer delving into the topic of underage sexual abuse. The dark comedy, jumping back and forth in time, reveals the relationship between fatherless girl Li'l Bit and her Uncle Peck. There are no caricatures here of a pubescent temptress and an ogre -- instead we have fascinating examinations of love, pain, desire, compulsion, doubt, anger and betrayal.

The production directed by Wes Meador at Rhodes College's McCoy Theatre is exceptionally well done with spare set and minimal props, relying primarily on the nuances of performance.

The core metaphor of the tale is how over the years Uncle Peck (Greg Krosnes) teaches his niece (Shannon King) how to drive a car. Like any youngster, she is curious about how to handle this conveyance of freedom and adventure. Her tortured uncle is happy to oblige, although his efforts to stay with the automotive lesson plans are too easily corrupted.

King is amazing as Li'l Bit, portraying the girl-woman from age 11 to adulthood. She slips effortlessly among these incarnations, from tomboy to first-time drunk to college student to reluctant photo model. Narration preceding scenes throughout the play tell us the years of the various events, but King's subtle attention to detail and gifts for comedy and drama make those clues superfluous.

Peck is a similarly demanding role, one that Krosnes carries off well enough but, at last Friday's opening performance, he was shaky in spots. He effectively portrays a man who feels confidence only in the presence of Li'l Bit, but he reveals too little of the tortured soul underneath.

Rounding out the cast as three members of the Greek Chorus are Andrew Whaley, Katie Preston and Mallory Primm, all showing savvy stage presence. Despite the seriousness of the theme, "How I Learned to Drive" is very often funny as it sketches the details of Li'l Bit's family and friends. This trio did much to keep it witty without detracting from the powerful message.

The Breaks

How I Learned To Drive mines comedy from tragedy.

BY CHRIS DAVIS | FEBRUARY 21, 2008
Memphis Flyer
"I love the smell of your hair," says Uncle Peck to Li'l Bit, his niece (by marriage), in the opening moments of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning black comedy How I Learned To Drive.

It's a simple statement of fact, but in Rhodes College's current mounting of Vogel's disturbing and difficult show, community actor Greg Krosnes lecherously imbues the straightforward comment with perverse meaning and laces it with a hint of menace. He not only tells audiences everything they will soon discover about Peck but also how they should feel about it. He might as well have said, "I want to lick your [name the naughty part]."

With that first line, Krosnes can make you feel dirty all over. And not merely dirty but squirmy, anus-clinching, "get me into a shower right now" dirty. It's both a fine testament to his gifts as a performer and a problem from which Vogel's sophisticated, nonjudgmental play almost never fully recovers. Although Peck is unquestionably a pedophile with bad intentions who started molesting his niece when she was only 11, he is — following the model of Nabokov's Humbert Humbert — a molester the audience is allowed to like and with whom they are encouraged to sympathize. To achieve its maximum effectiveness, viewers must be seduced into a kind of complicity with Peck, a tortured WWII vet and recovering alcoholic, whose pure and tragic adoration of his niece mitigates the horror of his transgressions.

How I Learned To Drive is modeled after the dark political comedies of Aristophanes, complete with a Greek chorus. It borrows openly from Lolita. But more than anything else, it is a lyrical, overtly poetic memory play that owes much to the rough-hewn Americana of Sam Shepard and even more to Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

After all, it's Li'l Bit the adult who checks her side and rearview mirrors before taking the audience on a guided tour of her troubled youth. It's particularly comforting for the audience knowing that there is a witty and reasonably well-adjusted adult sitting in for the little girl whose driving lessons graphically turn into something far less innocent. In this role, junior psychology major Shannon King is often excellent, even if she occasionally (and understandably) has a bit of trouble humanizing Vogel's more overtly lyrical passages.

Li'l Bit's history is complicated. She was raised in rural Maryland — "before the malls came" — by a single mother and grandparents who couldn't understand why a girl with such big boobies would ever want, let alone need, a college education. Big Papa (an East Coast descendant of Williams' perverse Big Daddy) is explicit in his declaration that the most important work she'll ever do will be accomplished on her back and in the dark. Peck — whose own problems make him particularly sympathetic to the idea of being an outsider inside this closely knit family — understands that his niece is special and gives her the encouragement and self-confidence she can't find elsewhere.

Though far too young for the role, Andrew Whaley is appropriately gaseous as Big Papa, but many of the play's best moments belong to Katie Preston, who fills a variety of adult and teenage roles. Her "Mother's Guide to Drinking" is, by turns, hysterical, heartbreaking, and reasonably useful.

How I Learned To Drive is far from condoning child sexual abuse, but neither is it a finger-wagging movie-of-the-week. It's a necessary and refreshing corrective reminding us, uncomfortably at times, that even our most strongly held moral convictions are riddled with nuance and ambiguity. While Krosnes' naked lechery hinders this from time to time, his gentleness makes amends. And Vogel's script is strong enough to survive the storm, mostly intact.

Director Wes Meador, who captured all the eerie moods and textures in his 2006 staging of Ellen McLaughlin's Tongue of a Bird, has not fared quite as well this go-round. His use of music and projection seems random, and his racy, Vargas-esque slides of a mature-looking King are more tasteful than exploitative. Still, it's thought-provoking work thoughtfully staged.

Opening Weekend

How I Learned to Drive had a successful opening this last weekend. I must commend all the people who helped with our publicity through wearing shirts, helping lay down the triangle, hanging posters, and simply telling people about the show. I will admit that it certainly wasn't the excitement of Rocky Horror, but that was to be expected being a play of more serious subject matter and with a smaller cast. I have heard from those who came to see the show that they really enjoyed it (for what that's worth...who tells you to your your show was horrible?).

On opening night we were close to sold out. The theatre professors, alumni, and other Memphis-area people joined the Rhodes student body for a great opening night. Openings are always fun but provide little insight into the success the run will actually have. Saturday night was much smaller, as was expected. I would say we had about 25 to 30 people in attendance.

One of the things I have learned from being in CODA and studying audience development is that you always have a somewhat limited number of patrons for your arts project. You can try hard to get people to come to your event but if there isn't some kind of initial impetus on their part, you probably won't succeed. In our case Saturday night we were competing with two other high-profile events that affected our campus. Joshua Bell had a concert at Germantown Performing Arts Center, and CODA sold tickets to students for $5 (and they went fast!). Then for V-Week, students were also in the final performance of The Vagina Monologues on the other side of campus. Both of these events detracted from our numbers. Hopefully those who attended this weekend will spread the word around for next week. The words "You have to see this show" are the most important for a successful run.

Even with our small crowd on Saturday night we had an engaged post-play talk, or fireside chat. Aramark provided goodies, and we had a small fire in the fireplace. Luke Branim facilitated, and it went well. It was originally my intent not to have the cast and crew present so that the audience who stayed felt more at ease to speak their minds about the production, but fearing that no one would stay, I invited the cast to stick around. We had 8 audience members hang around (and from an audience of 25, that's almost a third of the people!). They were a mix of Rhodes students, older members of the community, and students from another college. It was a great discussion with many different opinions about the play. We filmed the session, and I hope to get the footage online so that you can see how things went.

Overall it was a good opening weekend, and we can only hope for an even more successful second week!

How I Learned to Drive

The McCoy Theatre's production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive opens this weekend at Rhodes College. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. and runs for an hour and a half. The shows run lasts from Friday, February 15th to Saturday, February 16th, and again from Thursday, February 21st to Sunday, February 24th. Anyone near Memphis should come!

My work on my CAP project has really picked up in the last two weeks. We are currently distributing t-shirts for promotion. We are going to re-build the McCoy triangle on the lawn outside of Palmer again and have giant posters to place in the three corners. Our promotional video will be running the Refectory on campus beginning tomorrow at lunch, and it should be posted on the Rhodes website tomorrow as well. You can watch it for yourself by clicking HERE
(you will need quicktime in order to watch this). I must give huge thanks to Katie Bryant who shot the footage, Dr. Dave Mason for helping with the editing, and to the cast for taking time outside of rehearsal to put this together. We felt that a video preview would give students the opportunity to see what they will be coming to see. I think it will be a success.

I have also been in contact with the Women's Center and they will be sending two first responders to each of our Saturday performances. These women will take part in our post-play discussion following the show and will also be there if anything audience members see makes them feel like they need to speak to someone.

It has been a busy and productive week on the CODA front. I'll update next week about how opening weekend went!

Gershwin Revisted

I must be on a kick for Hurricane-Katrina-inspired theatre, but I discovered today another production worth looking into. Opening last weekend was Porgy and Bess at the Zach Scott Theater in Austin, Texas. Dave Steakley, the artistic director for the theatre, applied for a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to provide funding for this project, and in the first weekend of the production, they made $100,000 in ticket sales!

This project, as with the production of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, began with someone seeing the plight of those victims of Hurricane Katrina and feeling the need to respond. Unlike Paul Chan's concept, however, this production of Porgy and Bess desired to celebrate those resilient survivors of that tragedy instead of dwelling on governmental incompetence.

Dave Steakley says in a recent article in the New York Times that his inspiration for this production began with the recordings of songs from Porgy and Bess done by Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Ray Charles. Listening to these singers perform in more in the genre of blues and jazz instead of opera, led to a re-orchestration of the score to bring out musical themes to remind the audience of the music of New Orleans.

The staging, furthermore, highlights the plight of those victims, setting the singers on rooftops, surrounded by "water." While the city of New Orleans is never officially mentioned in the production, it is certainly obvious what sense the directors desired to bring out. With an all-star cast of performers, this theatre has shown us again the ability of the arts to celebrate the resilience of people.

This kind of theatre is exciting to read about, and it brings the arts to the center of our society. Visual art, music, theatre, dance, these should all reflect what is going on in our world now. The arts don't exist as museum pieces to be examined in the context of their original time only. They are to be revisited, reshaped, made into new creations that force us to examine our own lives, our place in society, and those around us.