Copious Notes

Lexington Philharmonic music director Scott Terrell conducts a combined rehearsal of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras' symphony orchestra and the Philharmonic Oct. 19. CKYO director Kayoko Dan stands at the back of the orchestra, in a black blouse. Photos by Matt Goins.

When I moved to Lexington in 1998, one thing that immediately struck me about the ­local arts scene was the prominence of children and organizations geared toward children.

The Lexington Children’s Theatre’s shows rated the same sort of attention as productions at Actors Guild of Lexington and other area stages.

The Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras’ events and personnel moves were prominent news. There were two institutions - the Explorium (then, the Lexington Children’s Museum) and the Living Arts and Science Center - geared toward children’s arts, particularly visual arts.

The School for Creative and Performing Arts had a prominent place in town, but there were stage, art and music programs at other schools also producing talented graduates who went on to arts careers.

Children’s Health magazine recently ranked Lexington No. 6 on its list of the 100 best places to raise a family. The criteria included crime and safety, education, economics, housing, cultural attractions and health.

I’d be willing to bet that if someone wanted to rank best places to be an artsy kid, Lexington would rate high on that list, too. By virtue of what is offered, we tell our children that the arts are something to do and be respected for doing.

Students Madelyn Nelson, left, Sara Arthur-Paratley, and Mary Rollins-Mathews rehearsed with the Lexington Ballet on Monday in preparation for Youth Arts Day.

The Lexington Philharmonic, the Horse Capitol of the World’s flagship arts organization, will celebrate young artists with its Youth Arts Day family concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Singletary Center for the Arts. It will include young singers from SCAPA, Fayette County Public Schools and the School of the Lexington Ballet.

The prominence of youth-oriented groups here is quite a bit more than other communities that I have lived in or observed. Over the nearly 12 years since I arrived, it has become clear that a big reason for that is quality.

Take the Children’s Theatre: In a town that has struggled with the concept of professional theater for adults, the Lexington Children’s Theatre has established itself with its own building on Short Street and a professional staff, including actors. What’s more, Larry and Vivian Snipes have developed a national reputation for the theater by being a venue that presents and creates new work. And the primary beneficiaries are kids.

And it really wasn’t terribly surprising that when the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras went looking for a new music director at the same time that the Lexington Philharmonic was trying to fill a similar job, it ended up attracting and hiring Kayoko Dan, also a candidate for the Philharmonic post.

CKYO has graduated numerous professional musicians, including Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Nathan Cole and hard-to-categorize cello soloist Ben Sollee.

Outside of groups directly geared toward kids, Lexington arts groups have been generous to kids.
Look at Paragon Music Theatre, which routinely loads the stage with kids, including Hello Dolly! this weekend, and even makes a place for them in its cabaret shows.

During years without a professional company, the Lexington Ballet featured its students in productions, and it and Kentucky Ballet Theatre, which has always had a pro troupe, always find ways to present students. Former Ballet Theatre dancer Adalhi Aranda Corn saw such value in Central Kentucky’s young artists she left and formed Bluegrass Youth Ballet and eventually built CulturArte, an arts facility that acommodates a variety of disciplines.

Possibly one of the biggest statements about valuing student artists was when the Lexington Singers’ ­Children’s Chorus was invited to perform in the Our Lincoln performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington in February.

And now LexArts has formed a Youth Arts Council to help focus young artists in the area.

Clarinetists Andrew Burton, 14, left, of the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras and Mike Acord of the Philharmonic rehearsed together Monday.

Full disclosure: My children have participated in some of these groups, and one is in the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras, although not the ensemble performing Sunday with the Lexington Philharmonic.

In addition, I’ve gotten to know many other kids who participate in groups. Maybe the most important thing these groups engender is enthusiasm for the arts they are participating in. I hear spirited discussions about play rehearsal and genuine interest in Bach sonatas.

Like anything, Lexington’s youth arts scene isn’t perfect. I remain baffled, for instance, why SCAPA does not have a theater of its own. Then again, SCAPA regularly solves that problem by putting its kids on stages usually graced by adults and pros.

It occurred to me as I left a CKYO rehearsal last week with my daughter that by virtue of her participation in the orchestra, she’s on the University of Kentucky campus every week. Most of us didn’t get used to being on a college campus until we had enrolled.

That’s just one of many ways that through our youth arts, regardless of whether the students pursue arts careers, by supporting such substantial programs, we’re preparing our kids for the rest of their lives.

Quest Community Church's new state-of-the-art 2,400-seat auditorium was built with private funds. Could Lexington arts supporters do something similar?

What do you think of Lexington’s inventory of theaters and other venues for live performances?

Currently, leaving aside our behemoth of Rupp Arena, our major arts and entertainment venues are the Singletary Center for the Arts, which seats about 1,500, and the Lexington Opera House, which accomodates just under 1,000. Then, in the seats-a-few-hundred category, you have the black box theater in the Downtown Arts Center, the Lyric Theatre, which is currently being rennovated, and the Kentucky Theatre. There are also venues such as Studio Players’ Carriage House Theatre and the Lexington Children’s Theatre that are almost exclusively used by the groups that occupy them, and University spaces such as the University of Kentucky’s Guignol Theatre and Transylvania University’s Haggin Auditorium that are primarily used by the institutions.

Am I leaving any Big Kahunas out?

So, is that a good inventory. What do we lack?

Some lament we never got the major performing arts center that was supposed to happen where the courthouses now stand at Main and Limestone. Others say Lexington isn’t ready for a venue of that caliber. Others look at smaller spaces such as the Woodford Theatre’s venue in Falling Springs Arts and Recreation Center and wonder why Lexington couldn’t have something like that for groups that may see the Opera House as too big for their needs.

Still others say creativity trumps venues, and point to places such as Charleston, S.C., that have built vibrant performing arts scenes without an ideal inventory of venues. Here, we have examples such as Balagula Theatre at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar and the chamber music festivals that bookend the summer taking place in  an old tobacco barn at Shaker Village and Fasig-Tipton’s horse sales pavilion showing a creative use of non-traditional spaces in town.

Here’s another fly I’ll throw in the ointment: I just attended a concert last week in a new, state of the art 2,400-seat Lexington venue that would have been the envy of many area arts groups: Quest Community Church’s new sanctuary. If there is a desire for a new theater or theaters in town, do you need to have public funds to build it, or can the arts community come together to make something happen like, oh, Quest or a little baseball park near Broadway and New Circle that was built with private funds.

That’s sort of a distillation of conversations and thoughts I’ve had over the last several years about Lexington’s theater space.

So, what do you think? Hit the comment button and let’s talk.

The Lexington Children’s Theatre has announced a season of classics and shows with some interesting tweaks for its 2009-10 season.

Pinocchio, Sept. 27, Oct. 3 and 4: Vivian Snipes directs the season opener about a puppet that wanted to be a boy.

The Legend of John Henry, Oct. 10 and 11: LCT revives its classic production about the big-muscled, big-hearted working man.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake, Nov. 1, 7 and 8: Following up on the hit, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, here’s another Laura Numeroff crowd pleaser.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Nov. 28, Dec. 5 and 6, Lexington Opera House: The classic story of what happens to a church Christmas production when the worst kids in the congregation join the cast.

The Little Mermaid, Dec. 13, 19 and 20: How about Christmas under the sea? The holiday production is an adaptation of the classic narrated by two characters named Flotsam and Jetsam.

The Fisherman and His Wife, Jan 24, 30 and 31: Another LCT classic about a fish who teaches us greed really isn’t good.

Holes, Feb. 14, 20 and 21: Louis Sachar’s novel isn’t just a Shia LaBeouf movie. Here’s the stage version.

The Red Badge of Courage, March 13 and 14: Stephen Crane’s classic about heroism comes to the stage.

Go Dog Go, May 2, 8 and 9: Dogs and roller skates. What more could you want from a season closer?

Performances are at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Season tickets vary depending on the number of shows you choose. Visit the Lexington Children’s Theatre ticket office at 418 W. Short St., call 859.254.4546 ext 247 or visit www.lctonstage.org.

Actors Guild of Lexington will reprise its production of Theresa Rebeck's "Bad Dates," a one-woman show starring Leslie Beatty, June 18-27 at the Downtown Arts Center. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.

The economic downtown hasn’t hurt some local theaters at the box office, lately.

This week, both Actors Guild of Lexington and the Lexington Children’s Theatre announced they are adding performances of their current productions because the originally scheduled dates are selling out. And Actors Guild will reprise its previous production, Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates, in June.

Lexington Children's Theatre's production of "How I Became a Pirate" features (clockwise from top) James Hamblin, Mark Funk, Nicole Floyd, Daniel Nation and Lew Bowling.

The additional shows actually continue a trend stretching back to earlier this year when Studio Players added a performance of its production of The Last of Mrs. Lincoln, which quickly sold out.

Lexington Children’s Theatre’s production of How I Became a Pirate has added a performance at 2 p.m. May 17. The only tickets left for its remaining scheduled performances are pay-what-you-can tickets for the 7 p.m. performance this Saturday, and those tickets are only available to walk-up patrons the night of the show.

Actors Guild of Lexington will add a performance to the world premier production of Silas House’s Long Time Travelling at 7:30 p.m. May 14. The play is selling quickly on the strength of good reviews and House’s popularity as a Kentucky-based author.

Bad Dates, a one-woman show starring Lexington actor Leslie Beatty,  was a hot ticket in March and April and will return to the Downtown Arts Center stage June 18-27. Showtime and ticket information is forthcoming.

Bad Dates is something of a stand-in on the summer calendar for Shakespeare at Equus Run, AGL’s outdoor production in Midway, which was cancelled this year due, in part, to the economy. The series had run two years, and Actors Guild officials hope to bring it back in future summers.

James Hamblin as Braid Beard in "How I Became a Pirate." Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

The Lexington Children’s Theatre will go dinner theater for Saturday night’s performance of How I Became a Pirate. Chic-Fil-A, the show’s sponsor, will host a complimentary dinner at the theater at 6 p.m., prior to the 7 p.m. performance of the musical about a boy who runs off with pirates for a day. The meal is for all ticket holders to that performance.

According a Children’s Theatre release, this is the first time the theater has presented an event like this. Saturday’s show is a pay-what-you-can performance. There are also performances of the show at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (May 9 and 10).

Here’s our slide show of Lexington Children’s Theatre’s Celebrity Curtain Call. Mouse over the bottom of the slide show to get controls. Click on the little comment cloud to the left to activate captions (if you want captions on this show, it’s probably best to go to the large version of the show). If you click on a photo, it will take you to a larger version of it at Picasa, and you can click the link at the bottom left of the slide show window for a larger version of the whole show.

Emcee Jim Richardson opened the Lexington Children’s Theatre’s Celebrity Curtain Call 70th Anniversary show noting Gov. Steve Beshear had sent a letter congratulating the theater for “engaging young people in theater education.”

“That won’t happen tonight,” Richardson quipped.

Then he said U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler (D, Ky.) had sent a letter congratulating the theater for “bringing Central Kentucky youth to the stage” to the stage.

“That won’t happen tonight,” Richardson reiterated.

No. Saturday night was all about adults who had either been in or supported Lexington Children’s Theatre over the decades getting up and having a little fun. (There was an 18-cake party for the kids last weekend at Jospeh-Beth Booksellers.)

The Curtain Call probably didn’t change anyone’s life the way the theater clearly has, judging by some of the comments made during the evening. The event was a testimony to the lasting impact an arts group can have on a young person’s life.

But as unique evenings of theater go . . . well . . . where exactly do you think you’re ever going to see Alan and Kathy Stein play the marriage proposal scene between Tom and Becky from Tom Sawyer again?

There are lots of things that look good on paper, but don’t really work that well in practice. This was not one of those things.

The Steins delivered a really sweet moment, a lot of laughs and one epic smooch during their show-stealing scene.  Big L even demonstrated some theatrical acumen, tossing in stage phrases like “I shouldn’t have stepped on your line” and “back in character,” during the scene, which went so far off script prompter Vivian Snipes, LCT’s artistic director, threw up her hands.

Her husband, LCT producing director Larry Snipes, prominently pointed out the prompter before the show started, and it turned out she was greatly needed. One of the most accomplished actors in the cast, Transylvania University theater director Tim Soulis, gave something of a master class in covering line kerfuffles in his scene and staying in character playing the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

Photographer Larry Neuzel, who was there shooting for LCT, observed that the show got funnier the more lines were dropped. Karyn Czar and Pamela Perlman, both active area performers, helped serve as ringers to hold scenes together.

A performer in no need of a ringer was WVLK radio host Jack Pattie as Bottom from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pattie had played the role at LCT when he was 15, and he played it Saturday like he’d just turned 16.

Other participants in the show included Business Lexington editor Tom Martin, State Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, Lexington Center director Bill Owen, former Mayor Teresa Isaac, former Major League Baseball Player Doug Flynn, past president of United Way of the Bluegrass Kathy Plomin and chief judge Megan Lake Thornton.

Isaac’s scene From The Goblin’s Goblin — with Owen, Flynn and Czar — had her giving her shoes to Flynn. She said she went into Shoe Carnival and told the sales person she needed something she and big man could wear, and showed off the resulting backless pair of heels Flynn donned at the end of the bit.

Check out our slide show from the Celebrity Curtain Call above or at Picasa.

WVLK's Jack Pattie, who has been playing Santa Claus the last few years. He will return to his roots, Lexington Children's Theatre, for a benefit peformance April 25. Photo by Matt Goins | LexGo.com.

A 70th-anniversary party calls for more than one ­celebration, and in reality, the Lexington Children’s Theatre wanted to have two anyway.

So the celebrations will commence with an 18-cake birthday party on Saturday, ­followed by a celebrity  retrospective of LCT’s past seven decades on April 25.

“It just makes me feel old,” Children’s Theatre director Larry Snipes jokes, when asked about the anniversary. Then, looking at the Celebrity Curtain Call show that he is directing, he says, “We wanted to look at what this theater has produced over the last 70 years, and we wanted to have some fun with it.”

The April 25 show will feature excerpts from many of the theater’s past plays over the theater’s seven decades, starting with Noah’s Flood in 1939 up to How I Became a Pirate, which will close out the current season.

It helps that numerous local celebrities are LCT veterans, including WVLK-590 AM radio personality Jack Pattie, actor and attorney Pam Perlman, WLAP-630 AM reporter Karyn Czar and Lexington Center director Bill Owen among others.

“Jack Pattie and I always had supporting roles, and Jim Varney got all the good parts,” says Owen, whose job has him in charge of Rupp Arena and the Lexington Opera House among other facilities.

Varney, who grew up in Lexington, went on to worldwide fame as the goofball character Ernest P. Worrell in television commercials and movies. He died in 2000.

Owen will actually reprise one of his roles, from a play called The Goblin’s Goblin.

Among the other celebs in the show will be Lexington Legends president Alan Stein and his wife, state Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, who will perform the scene from Tom Sawyer wherein which Tom asks Becky to marry him.

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Christopher Tolliver’s friends and colleagues in the Lexington arts community will pay tribute to the late musician and actor in a memorial service at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Lexington Children’s Theatre.

Christopher Tolliver sang the role of El Gallo in a 2003 production of "The Fantasticks" at Studio Players. Herald-Leader file photo.

Tolliver was killed in a shooting at the Lexington Green shopping center on March 5.

The murder came at a time Tolliver’s career was just getting into gear, colleagues said, as he was composing music for the Children’s Theatre as well as a proposed outdoor drama in Corbin based on the life of Col. Sanders. Over the past decade, Tolliver had worked with an array of Lexington arts groups including the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre, Studio Players and ActOut Theatre Group.

In the last few years, Lexington Children’s Theatre had become Tolliver’s theatrical home, where he was the go-to music director for the theater’s recent musical productions.

Tolliver’s close friend Karyn Czar, a reporter for WLAP-AM 630 and actor, said the memorial will be, “very informal…a celebration of Chris.

“We’re going to be playing his original music, showing photos and videos of shows he’s worked on. There will be a short sing-along from the shows he music directed: Beauty and the Beast, Seussical and Honk. We’re also going to fill out memory cards for the family, some of our favorite memories of Chris at LCT.”

Czar said Tolliver’s friends and family are invited to attend.

Note: Since Chris Tolliver did not have life insurance, a fund has been set up to help his family with expenses. Donations can be made to the Chris Tolliver Memorial Fund c/o Ashley Norvell at Central Bank and Trust, 256 Southland Dr., Lexington, KY 40503.  If more is raised it will be given to Lexington Children’s Theatre.