Advertisement
January 30, 2009
E&H Theatre Students Going to Regional Competition
For the second year in a row, the Emory & Henry College Theatre Department will be represented by eight students at an upcoming regional competition.
January 29, 2009
Review: Small Troupe to Pull Off Big Finale
Hey, I just saw a raw, un-costumed and unpolished rehearsal of the Royal Oak Players’ upcoming dinner theater production of “You Know the Old Slaying.”
January 27, 2009
Hitz! Hits Paramount Feb. 5
“Puttin’ On The Hitz!” comes to the Paramount Center in downtown Bristol on Thursday, Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m.
January 24, 2009
Lincoln Theatre To Kick Off Winter Gala
On Saturday, Jan. 31, The Lincoln Theatre in Marion will host a fundraising gala to start festivities for the 5th anniversary of the theater’s reopening.
January 22, 2009
Paramount Players To Perform At King College
King College will host a concert by the Paramount Players on Saturday, Feb. 21, in the Memorial Chapel.
January 14, 2009
Review: ‘Smoke on the Mountain’ is Tuneful and Inspiring
Wytheville’s Wohlfahrt Haus Dinner Theatre is kicking off 2009 with a truly wonderful mix of gospel music and “witnessing” as the Sanders Family Singers come back to the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church for “Smoke on the Mountain: Homecoming.”
January 11, 2009
Spring Into The Arts
Film Series, Concerts, Much More On Tap For Mountain Empire
ABINGDON, Va. – Virginia Highlands Community College will open its Spring Semester Arts Array’s Film Series with “Pete Seeger: The Power of Song,” a documentary about the legendary folk singer and composer who helped shape a generation with his songs.
The film will be shown on Jan. 19-20, at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Abingdon Cinemall.
Now in its 38th year, the Arts Array Film Series showcases documentaries, foreign films and independent American films that are not shown in the commercial theaters in the Tri-Cities region. According to Ben Jennings, Arts Array coordinator, there is a need for the series.
“Many of the most critically acclaimed films never get to the commercial theaters in the area,” Jennings said. “And there are a lot of film buffs who still value seeing movies where they were intended to be experienced – on a big screen in a movie theater.”
December 18, 2008
Review: Two Christmas Productions on Stage at Barter Theatre
For those sad souls completely convinced that if it isn’t stamped “Made in China” or needs batteries that it can’t be Christmas, I extend my sincere condolences.
If you find lumps of high-sulfur bituminous in your stockings Christmas morning, don’t try to pawn the fault off on me.
For the rest of us, who still believe Christmas, Hanukah, the Winter Solstice or whatever else anyone chooses to call it means something special, may I suggest you treat yourself to one or both of the Barter Theatre’s magnificent, uplifting and soul-warming holiday productions.
December 07, 2008
ETSU Student Achieves Dream Of Designing Video Games
Jonathan Phebus is 27 years old, attends ETSU, and does what many kids can only dream of. He designs video games. While he works as a programmer and has been doing that since he was five, that’s not where his passion lies. Plus, stocking stuffers for the video gamer in your life.
December 04, 2008
Annual Christmas Story Contest Deadlines Dec. 8 at Noon
Share thoughts of holiday season and enter Christmas story contest
November 30, 2008
REVIEW: Biggest Surprise In ‘Role Models’ Is Its Nonstop Laughs
If audience laughter is the best barometer of a comedic film, then “Role Models” is a winner.
November 27, 2008
‘Religulous’ Review: Maher Should Stay on HBO, Forget Documentaries
Ever since the release of comedian Bill Maher’s “Religulous,” I wondered how the documentary would play in this part of the Bible Belt. I figured it would be a tough sell but didn’t expect to be the only one in the theater.
November 24, 2008
Country Christmas at Winged Deer Park
The Johnson City Parks and Recreation Department will host a Country Christmas at the Robert Young Cabin on Friday, Dec. 5 from 6-9 p.m.
November 20, 2008
A Christmas ‘Miracle’
Actors Rehearse For Classic Holiday Play
ABINGDON, Va. – On a cold and blustery night as snow lingered in the clouds, a dozen or so actors gathered on a third-floor soundstage.
It’s Sunday night. Several blocks from Barter Theatre’s main stage and less than a week from opening night of “Miracle on 34th Street,” actors young and old ran through the play.
Set to run from Nov. 21 through Dec. 28, the play draws from the classic film from 1947.
Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle won an Academy Award for best supporting actor. Veteran actor Rick McVey fills the role at Barter.
“It has its challenges because it is Santa Claus,” McVey said. “You have to do it from the heart and not from the head.”
A Wonderful Show
Radio play Based On Holiday Movie Can Be Seen On Nov. 24
Return to the days of live radio. Voices carried over the airwaves like beacons from faraway lands to ignite imaginations gathered around millions of radios.
So it goes with “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.”
Scheduled to stage at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol, Tenn. on Nov. 24, the show will not exactly transmit via the airwaves, but it sure recalls days of yore when live radio dramas dominated many a radio in many a living room.
Joe Landry wrote the play nearly 20 years ago while still in high school. A fan of the Frank Capra classic film version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” when Landry’s interest in old-time radio shows grew, he decided to adapt his version as if it were a radio show on stage.
“It’s a lost art, writing a radio play,” Landry said last week from his home in Fairfield, Conn. “There’s a tip to nostalgia, but I also tried to keep it relevant.”
November 02, 2008
Operas Recommended For Group Attendance
BRISTOL, Va. – The Metropolitan Opera will return to Tinseltown, 3004 Linden Drive with the following live performances at 1 p.m.:
Nov. 22: Berlioz: “La Damnation de Faust” with Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani and John Relyea.
Feb. 7: Donizetti: “Lucia di Lammermoor” with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon.
March 7: Puccini: “Madama Butterfly” with Cristina Gallardo-Domas and Marcello Giordani.
March 21: Bellini: “La Sonnambula” with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez.
May 9: Rossini: “La Cenerentola” with Elina Garanca and Lawrence Brownlee.
Tickets are $15 for ages 11 and under, $22 for ages 12-64 and $20 for ages 65 and older. Call (276) 669-0588.
‘Doctor Atomic’ Opera To Be Screened
Opera essentially equates to drama overload.
J. Robert Oppenheimer certainly applies as fodder for an opera.
The renowned nuclear physicist is the subject of “Doctor Atomic,” an opera scheduled to air via satellite from the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on Nov. 8 and then again on Nov. 19 at Cinemark’s Tinseltown in Bristol, Va.
“It is a contemporary opera,” said Charlie Siedenburg, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Opera. “It’s sung in English, whereas most operas are sung in a foreign language.”
English or not, “Doctor Atomic” drips with relevancy and nail-biting drama.
Opera Lover Hopes to Introduce Art To Students
ABINGDON, Va. – Step inside the home and life of Bill Campbell.
Incredibly moving music from “The Damnation of Faust” by Hector Berlioz resounds within Campbell’s living room. No television. Instead, thousands of opera tapes, CDs, LPs and 78s dominate his home.
To paraphrase English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, opera, opera everywhere with neither rock nor roll in sight.
Now, the retired schoolteacher and lifelong opera aficionado is on a mission to introduce local students to the wonders of opera. Enter Campbell’s newly minted and multi-tiered Opera in Schools program. It started kind of simply.
October 26, 2008
Sixty Years Of Dance, Dedication And Discipline At Bristol Ballet
Seven-year-old Elizabeth Oakley fidgeted just a little bit.
October 24, 2008
Ghost Hunt Invesigation Reveals Evidence
Chair moves by itself, voices appear from nowhere and more.
October 23, 2008
Short Takes: Get the Scoop on the Famous, Infamous at Star Museum
Hollywood long ago perfected the practice of scaring the stuffing out of us. Just watch 1973’s “The Exorcist.”
Or partake in Abingdon’s Star Museum Stagefright tours. Scheduled for Oct. 23-25 and 28-31, the tours delve into the dark side of Hollywood courtesy artifacts from the collection of spiritualist C. Robert Weisfeld.
October 20, 2008
Forest of Fears: Take a Journey ... If You Dare
Ed and Carol Bowers sing gospel music. Willy Pierce umpires youth baseball. Rick Webb volunteers in the service of children.
Family and friendship tie them together.
And so does Halloween.
October 16, 2008
‘Desperate Hours’ is Good Ol’ Fashioned Drama at Its Best
After a season of blockbusting, exuberant and technically amazing musicals, it’s great to see the Barter Theatre in Abingdon offer us a tried and true drama – a nice, one-piece set upon which superb actors can ply the height of their craft without fear of being upstaged by pyrotechnics or loud music.
Such is “The Desperate Hours.”
October 09, 2008
Sign Language Interpreter Sees Job As A Ministry
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. – For M.J. Light, joining the cast of “The Firebird” at the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre was a serious challenge.
At 22, the Bluff City woman has been working for five years as a sign language interpreter for East Tennessee State University and other schools. She also serves on a team of interpreters at the Celebration Church of Blountville, Tenn.
Light developed an interest in sign language a few years ago while being home-schooled. She met a deaf woman and studied sign language. She also took courses at ETSU and earned a national interpreter’s certification.
“I felt the calling into it kind of as a ministry as well as a profession,” Light said.
Deaf Actor Hopes More People Learn To Use Sign Language
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. – Ashley Reuss can’t hear the director’s calls during productions of “The Firebird.”
She is deaf.
“So, I have to make sure that my lines and my timing [are] exact, so I’m watching all the body language of all the people,” Reuss said through an interpreter. “I don’t want to miss something. So, I have to make sure I remember each line and remember each movement.”
A recent arrival to Johnson City from Washington, D.C., Reuss, 24, plays the role of the “Signing Duke” in the current production of “The Firebird,” now on stage through Oct. 12 at the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre.
“I think this play is going to be interesting for everyone – people who are deaf, hard of hearing or involved with the deaf community,” Reuss said. “Anyone who is interested in sign language will love it.”
Shared Stage
Theater Staging Two Plays At Once – One For The Hearing And One For The Deaf
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. – You cannot clap and get your point across.
The deaf, after all, cannot hear you banging your hands together.
So instead, you must flail your hands above your head – and wiggle them wildly.
And then come the smiles, along with the clapping, at the conclusion of the Jonesborough Repertory Theatre’s current production of “The Firebird.”
This is kind of like a split screen – or a split stage, you should say – with two plays going on at once: one for the hearing and one for the deaf.
And yet, it’s really only one. It feels like only one in that the actors all mesh together – the ones who can hear and the three who have no hearing.
October 02, 2008
2008 National Storytelling Festival - Oct. 3-5
The 2008 National Storytelling Festival runs Friday through Sunday in Jonesborough, Tennessee. The weekend-long literary festival features spoken word, call and response and fairy tales for all ages.
Theater Review: Walt Disney Would Be Proud of Barter’s Production
The late Walt Disney was a man of vision, spirit and seemingly limitless imagination and was one of my all-time childhood heroes.
Theatre Review: ‘Seven Brides’ is Lively and Fun
With lyrics by the legendary Johnny Mercer and spirited interpretation by Wohlfahrt Haus’ fine cast, “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” makes for an enjoyable dinner theater experience.
September 22, 2008
Magical Opening For Barter Theater’s “Beauty And The Beast”
Barter Theater officially opened its production of the Disney classic on stage in Abingdon Sunday afternoon with a cast and crew who came together for yet another of this season’s truly magical performances.
