Copious Notes

Eastern Kentucky University’s new performing arts center, which is currently under construction, has an executive director.

Katherine Eckstrand. Photo courtesy of EKU.

Katherine Eckstrand, who is currently director of community development for the Ohio Arts Council, will be the director of the Center for the Performing Arts at Eastern Kentucky University, which is scheduled to be completed in the middle of 2011.

The 93,000-square-foot center will include a 2,000-seat theater capable of presenting Broadway-style productions and a “black-box” theater that will seat as many as 250. The center is adjacent to EKU’s business and technology center, on the south side of the Eastern By-Pass, between Lancaster Road and Kit Carson Drive.

Prior to working with the Ohio Arts Council, where she oversees four grant programs as well as many other projects, Eckstrand was the arts director and director of cultural programs at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va. (1986-1994), and the executive director of the performing arts center at Clark State Community College in Springfield, Ohio (1994-2005). She has been the president of both the Ohio Arts Presenters Network and the West Virginia Arts Presenters and served on the boards and in other capacities for numerous national, state and local organizations.

Her husband, Edward Weisenbach, is a retired educator and technology director who is also a bluegrass musician in the Muleskinner Band.

The screen rights to Eastern Kentucky University creative writing professor Derek Nikitas‘ novel Pyres have been optioned by Andrew Fierberg of Vox3 Films, which has produced films such as this year’s Rage starring Judi Dench and Jude Law.

Derek Nikitas. Photo from St. Martin's Press.

The 2007 novel is about a rebellious teenage girl dealing with criminal conspiracies surrounding her father’s death and the detective investigating the murder. The book was nominated for an Edgar Award, one of the top honors in mystery writing, for best first novel. The screenplay is being developed by writer and director James Ponsoldt, whose first feature film was Off the Black, a Sundance Festival official entry starring Nick Nolte.

Nikitas’ next novel, The Long Division, is coming out in November.