Copious Notes

Actors Guild of Lexington artistic director Richard St. Peter and managing director Kimberly Shaw photographed in May in the theater's new offices in the Distillery District. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Actors Guild of Lexington Artistic Director Richard St. Peter has told the theater’s board that he will be leaving by the end of the 2009-10 season to pursue a doctorate degree in theater.

St. Peter declined to say where he will be going to graduate school, as he has not finalized those plans with the school. He did say that his departure is not a reaction to Actors Guild’s recent financial troubles which came to a head in June when LexArts declined to grant the theater an allocation for general operating funds.

“I want to stress as much as I can that this is not a bad thing, not death or disaster,” St. Peter said Saturday night. “It’s just the next thing.”

St. Peter said he is not leaving immediately and expects to negotiate a departure time with the theater’s board, when a succession plan is in place.

Actors Guild board president Jennifer Miller said that St. Peter’s decision was of his own volition. She said she had been aware he was contemplating pursuing a doctorate, but was still surprised when he informed her of his plans this weekend.

She said the theater’s board has not had a chance to meet and discuss searching for a successor, but she expected it would be a little while before that effort starts.

“We don’t want to make rapid decisions, we want to make the right decisions,” Miller said.

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The past few weeks have brought about some interesting Lexington arts headlines.

Lexington Ballet artistic director Luis Dominguez at work on a production of his original ballet, Cabbage Moon. Herald-Leader file photo.

Lexington Ballet hires executive director: The Lexington Ballet reached, ­almost literally, across the fourth-floor lobby of ArtsPlace to hire the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra’s education director, Joe Tackett, as chief business officer.

The ballet’s board president, Michael Potapov, said, “Over the past several years, the board has worked to position the organization to once again become a pillar of the cultural landscape in Lexington.”

The ballet begins auditioning for a new professional company this week.

LexArts cuts Actors Guild’s funding: After what LexArts says has been several years of trying to work through financial travails with Actors Guild of Lexington, the united arts fund’s allocations committee cut off funding for Lexington’s only semi-professional theater for adults.

AGL had requested a $70,900 allocation from this year’s Campaign for the Arts, a figure comparable to the theater’s allocations in recent years. Actors Guild has appealed the de-funding.

That Actors Guild and the Lexington Ballet almost simultaneously made arts news in Lexington is familiar.

In spring 1998, a six-figure financial meltdown devastated the Lexington Ballet, which until then had been one of Lexington’s leading cultural institutions. In 1997, it received more than $80,000 in the Campaign for the Arts from what was then the Lexington Arts and Cultural Council.

Less than two weeks later, revelation of a $20,000 financial shortfall prompted the Actors Guild board to fire all three members of its management team.

Both groups ended up initially shut out of funding from the Campaign for the Arts.

But from there, the paths diverged.

Shortly after its house-cleaning, Actors Guild hired Deb Shoss as its new producing director, and she quickly brought the troupe back into the council’s good graces. When Shoss retired in 2002, then-LACC director Dee Fizdale said, “The LACC got behind the organization because it came to us with a solid plan that it carried out.”

The Lexington Ballet? Not so much, as far as the LACC was concerned.

The ballet’s management chafed at moves to monitor its attempts to recover. Officials had a stormy relationship with a consultant hired with support from LACC, and they vehemently opposed suggestions to merge Lexington Ballet with Kentucky Ballet Theatre, which was formed by dancers and the assistant director who were fired from the Lexington Ballet.

Actors Guild and Lexington Ballet are both still in business, but the dance group has never resumed receiving allocations from the LACC, which is now LexArts.

Nothing is black and white. Lexington Ballet did have successes in the ensuing years, and Actors Guild has had problems.

But the recent headlines show how much things can change over time.

The none-too-subtle subtext of ballet board president Potapov’s statement about the troupe’s latest move: We want to return to our former glory.

LexArts president and chief executive Jim Clark says the ballet has a way to go before it will be considered for allocations again, but that under the leadership of artistic director Luis Dominguez, the ballet has made strides in programming and presenting guest artists, including a collaboration with Dance Theatre of Harlem this spring.

The addition of a business leader and a professional company, reportedly comprising four dancers, could build on that.

Actors Guild also has shown ambition recently. It just wrapped up its season with one of its biggest hits: The world-premiere production of Kentucky author Silas House’s play Long Time Traveling. And the theater has moved its offices into the burgeoning Distillery District and announced plans to create a second stage series and a cabaret series and to enter into an agreement with ­Actors Equity, the stage actors union. All of these moves have been cited as revenue-generating initiatives.

But all that was before the LexArts allocations committee’s patience with Actors Guild’s financial travails seemed to come to an end.

Actors Guild is appealing the decision. And even if it does not get the LexArts funds, leaders say the theater can continue, although after losing $70,000, it’s hard to imagine that it would be the same type of organization.

And hiring new people in the front office and for the stage at the ballet is no guarantee of success.

But for now, 11 years after some of the most tumultuous days in Lexington arts, the toe shoes seem to be on different feet.

Silas House looks on as "Long Time Travelling" director Richard St. Peter looks through the script to his first play, "The Hurting Part." Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Click the play button to hear our interview with Silas House:

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

There’s just one weekend left in the world-premier production of Silas House’s new play, Long Time Travelling at Actors Guild of Lexington. It’s been an indisputable hit, with AGL having to add performances to accommodate the sell-out crowds.

We couldn’t let this production go without giving you a chance to hear some of our conversation with House — and simply a chance to hear that distinctive voice. In our podcast, House talks about Long Time Travelling’s theme of change, and how it applies to the play, his life and some of the causes he’s taken up, such as his opposition to mountaintop removal coal mining.

In addition to his fiction, House recently published Something’s Rising: Appalachians Fight Mountaintop Removal, a non-fiction book about mountaintop removal with co-author Jason Howard.

Long Time Travelling has four more performances this weekend, and House will give a pre-show chat at 7 p.m. Saturday, prior to the 8 p.m. performance.

Patrons at the Mother’s Day performance of Silas House’s new play, Long Time Travelling, will get an extra treat. Cellist Ben Sollee, a Lexington native and University of Louisville graduate, will perform a set before the 2 p.m. performance of the Actors Guild of Lexington production at the Downtown Arts Center.

Ben Sollee at The Dame, Dec. 11. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

Sollee’s Bend was one of the songs House cited as inspiration for the play about change in the life of a rural family. After the performance, Sollee and House will particpate in a talk-back session about the play, arts and activism.

House will also give a pre-show chat at 7 p.m. May 16, prior to the 8 p.m. performance of the play that night.

Sollee also has another gig at the Dame coming up at 8 p.m. May 21 with special guest Anni Rossi.

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.

Here’s our slide show of Actors Guild of Lexington’s production of Silas House’s Long Time Travelling. 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 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.

This weekend, Actors Guild of Lexington presents acclaimed novelist Silas House’s second work for the stage, A Long Time Travelling. In the play, House set out to explore the idea of change through members of a family whose shifting ideas about religion and identity challenge their relationships.

We’ll have more about the show in Friday’s Herald-Leader and at LexGo.com. In the meantime, here’s a slide show from a couple of Longtime Travelling rehearsals.

The Downtown Lexington Corporation’s Kentucky Star awards will be presented tonight to two well-known, active artists in Kentucky and a well-known entertainer from the early 20th Century.

The awards, which will be presented in a 6 p.m. ceremony at the Downtown Arts Center, will go to University of Kentucky Opera Theatre and American Spiritual Ensemble director Everett McCorvey; author, activist and playwright Silas House, and magician and hypnotist William Preston Slusher.

McCorvey, who lives in Lexington, has directed the opera program at UK since 1991. During his tenure, the opera program has risen to national prominence and UK Opera Theatre has become one of Lexington’s most popular performing arts groups. McCorvey is also a well-known tenor-soloist and founded the Spiritual Ensemble, which performs throughout the U.S. and Europe.

House, who lives in Lily, is a best-selling author of novels such as The Coal Tattoo and Clay’s Quilt. He has two forthcoming books: Something’s Rising: Appalachian’s Fighting Mountaintop Removal, due March 17, and Eli the Good, due in September. House is also a music journalist and anti-mountaintop removal activist. His second play, Long Time Traveling, produced by Actors Guild of Lexington, will open at the Downtown Arts Center April 23.

Slusher was born in Pineville in 1915 and became a self-taught magician, initially touring around Eastern Kentucky and eventually becoming known nationwide.  He also became known as a impressario, booking entertainers such as Bob Hope and Tex Ritter at Fort Meade, Maryland during World War II. He eventually helped launch some of the first summer outdoor musicals in Kentucky.

The stars will be honored with their names in stars on Main Street in front of the Downtown Arts Center.  The ceremony is free and open to the public.

Silas House listens as Missy Johnson and rest of the cast of "A Long Time Traveling" read through the play in the lobby of the Downtown Arts Center on March 12, 2009. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.

“I didn’t write an Appalachian play,” Silas House said before a group of actors dove into his latest script. “I wrote a rural play.”

Thus began the Lily author’s second journey to the stage. House, author of Clay’s Quilt and other best sellers, first wrote for the theater in 2005 when the University of Kentucky Theatre premiered The Hurting Part. This time, House’s theatrical voice is in the hands of Actors Guild of Lexington, which will open his A Long Time Traveling April 23 for a four-weekend run at the Downtown Arts Center.

Thursday night, the author gathered with the cast for the first time. It was the group’s second time reading through the show, and House’s first time hearing his words.

Members of the cast received a CD House, also a sought after Nashville press kit writer, had mixed of 22 songs he said were representative of characters or scenes from the show.

• Long Time Traveler by The Wailin’ Jennys — “Another thesis of the play. Life’s a journey and all that.”
• Bend by Ben Sollee — “What these characters have to learn to do in their relationships.”
• Denomination Blues by Rodney Crowell — “The way Adam feels about religion and the point the play is trying to make.”

Adam (Josiah Correll) is an auto mechanic who’s discovered a love for literature, much to his bride’s chagrin. Said bride, Lora (Hayley Williams), is devoted to the memory of her late father, a fundamentalist preacher in their small town. But things are changing, including her mother and her husband, and it’s putting a strain on their young marriage.

Much of the discussion at Thursday night’s read through centered on trying to find authentic voices for the characters, Alyssa Graves, who plays the left-of-center Diva, getting particular praise for an accent that sounded authentically similar but separate from the rest of her family.

After the rehearsal, House marveled at how Williams, Missy Johnson who plays Lora’s mother, and Graves whose character is their cousin, looked alike.

“The casting is just amazing,” House said.

Playwrighting is a process of writing, rewriting, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and that is the process this crew is headed into. When the rehearsal was over, House snapped his notebook closed, said, “I know what to fix,” and headed into the snowy downtown Lexington night for the drive back to Lily.

But he will be back plenty of times between now and opening night.

For the day-after-New Year’s Weekender, Scott the editor asked me and the other Herald-Leader critics to weigh in on what we are looking forward to in 2009. Here’s my list of local arts events.

Gil Shaham performs Valentines Day at the Singletary Center.

Violin virtuosos: Early in the year, we will receive visits from two of the hottest ­violinists on the planet: Joshua Bell in recital with pianist Jeremy Denk on Jan. 26 at the Norton Center for the Arts in Danville; and Gil Shaham performing with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, on Feb. 14 at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Either one of the guys coming to town would be a big deal. To get both violin ­virtuosos less than a month from each other is huge.

Silas House’s new play: In 2005, the Kentucky author made his debut as a playwright with The Hurting Part, a play with the familiarity of characters close to our homes, sketched with great drama and wonderful language. In April, Actors Guild of Lexington is scheduled to present House’s second stage effort, and it will be interesting to see whether a new Kentucky playwright is indeed emerging.

TBA’s first season: In April, we will learn who is going to take the baton for the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra and lead the orchestra into the future. After 37 years of George Zack on the podium and two years of a search for a music director, it will be fascinating to see how this person settles in, what he or she will program, and what sort of public face he or she will bring to the Philharmonic.

River of Time: In 1999, University of Kentucky music composition professor Joseph Baber wrote An American Requiem, a powerful choral and orchestral work that seemed a bit like putting Ken Burns’ The Civil War into a classical composition. River of Time, Baber’s opera set to be premiered by UK Opera Theatre in the fall, will mine the same period, telling the tale of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood in Kentucky and the impact of his presidency.

The economy: Do I look ahead to this with anticipation or dread? It all depends on whether the country’s financial status continues to deteriorate or starts to turn around. Either way, it will dictate what arts groups do in 2009-10, and a severe financial downturn could irrevocably alter the arts landscape in Central Kentucky and across the nation.

Here are a few other things I’m looking forward to on the national stage:

New movies from Kentucky’s A-listers: Johnny Depp and George Clooney are notably absent from the awards race this year, but 2009 sees both with fresh, intriguing projects. Depp’s highest profile film has him playing gangster John Dilinger in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, due in July. Clooney is starring in Men Who Stare at Goats, the feature film directoral debut for his Good Night, and Good Luck co-writer Grant Heslov, a film about a U.S. military unit that uses the paranormal against its enemies. Depp and Clooney have other projects coming as well.

Other movies: We’re back with that old saw that Hollywood can’t make anything but sequels these days, and there are plenty this year, including a new Transformers and Harry Potter. A few reach farther into the past, and I am intrigued to see how Star Trek (sans Shatner) and Terminator (sans the Governator) fare with new visions.

Alan Gilbert taking over the New York Philharmonic: Like here in Lexington, New York’s leading band will get a new conductor starting in the fall. Unlike the recent line of venerable old conductors that have conducted the NY Phil, Gilbert promises to bring a new profile to what should be, but often is not, one of America’s leading orchestras. BTW, the NY Phil comes to Danville with outgoing conductor Lorin Maazel March 5.

Sean Watkins and Jon Foreman are Fiction Family.

Jon Foreman’s new project: The Switchfoot frontman’s solo EP’s were some of last year’s best music. He starts 2009 in collaboration with Nickle Creek’s Sean Watkins for Fiction Family. Speaking of Christian rock, I am also looking forward to new music — finally! — from Rebecca St. James.

The Obama administration: We haven’t heard a Presidential candidate or President-elect talk about the arts nearly as much as Barack Obama. His campaign included an arts platform, and both his campaign and transition team featured arts policy advisors, so it will be very interesting to see what kind of action this translates into. We’re talking about this more this weekend at le blog and in Sunday’s Herald-Leader Arts+Life section.