Sunday, February 13, 2000
Fine Arts Fund grants vital to small groups
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
There's time for a second cup of morning coffee before you go out to enjoy this final day of free family fare in Fine Arts Sampler Weekend. Most of the dozens of kid-oriented events don't start until noon today.
The sampler, of course, culminates in the unveiling of the annual Fine Arts Fund goal at this afternoon's Cincinnati Symphony concert. Then it's 10 weeks of fund-raising for the region's arts organizations.
Where does the money go?
Ask Bruce Miller of Theatre IV ArtReach, which tours to schools locally, regionally and nationally. The company became an associate member last year, and here's what Fund support has meant:
“We can now have a full-time Arts in Education manager,” Mr. Miller says, “and we launched a national search that has recruited three new African-American actors for our professional touring companies.”
Some of the benefits are just as direct but not so obvious. There's now a League of Cincinnati Theatres of which ArtReach is a member. The league was able to come into being thanks to a fund grant.
ArtReach has been able to create arts-in-education partnerships and cooperative ventures with non-arts institutions including Children's Hospital Medical Center, thanks to its board president Edgar Smith.
Mr. Smith came to ArtReach as a business volunteer, part of a program instituted locally by the Arts Services Office. That office is part of Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts, which oversees the fund drive.
The Fine Arts Fund drive enters its second half-century (this is its 51st year) with a new commitment to all the region's arts. The Big Eight will always come first. For smaller and developing arts to continue to benefit, it will demand a high level of giving to meet an $8 million-plus goal.
Now's the time to invest in the arts.
P.S. — Dear Institute, next year could you please add a Friday night Sampler component for grown-ups?
CCM'S DREAM COME TRUE: Hello, gorgeous. The Studio Theater in the College-Conservatory of Music “campus village” makes its official debut this week with Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard.
It's a dream of a space, for students, faculty and audience.
“Flexibility” is the key word, drama department head Richard Hess says. The space has lots of built-in theatrical toys to make the playing more pleasurable.
Portable risers built on wheels shift the audience to accommodate staging at either end of the U-shaped space. It can be transformed into theater in the round, even theater below ground, via trapdoors that can take the playing area (and the audience) six feet below floor level.
The Studio sports portable bridges and staircases to accommodate two levels of playing and viewing.
The theater design might be best described as post-industrial classicism. There are brick and stone walls. “The stone was chosen for its color and texture and the way it lights,” Mr. Hess says. “Shakespeare would be right at home.”
There are concrete pillars, visible ducts and catwalks, chic floor lighting and “wall sconces that do cool things.”
“Theater is always more than a building,” Mr. Hess says. “There's an X-factor that makes it magical. This is magic.”
Events in the Studio Theater are free. Coming up: Feb. 17-19, The Cherry Orchard; March 9-11, Children of Eden; March 30 and April 1, drama and musical theater senior showcases; April 24, Sonic Explorations; May 4-6, The Triumph of Love; May 18-20, Fifth of July.
Call 556-4183 for information.
A BIGGER FESTIVAL: After a year off, the Black Theatre Festival returns to Arts Consortium March 30-April 9. It will be bigger and better than ever, producer Don Sherman promises.
“The theme is past/present/future,” Mr. Sherman says. Charles Holman, who was key to the local African-American theater scene before his move to Indiana, returns as a keynote speaker (and to lead a master class). Work by new writers will be offered in readers theater.
A number of productions are scheduled this year, including local writers Carlos Edwards' Smokin' It Over and Faith Britton-Robinson's Life as We Know It. Dean Tabler will revive Athol Fugard's Sizwe Banzi Is Dead from earlier this season at Arts Consortium. Also planned are gospel play How Sweet and performances of Talk to Me Like the Rain ... and Day of Absence.
There will be a schedule of master classes, a poetry jam, and Mr. Sherman is hunting for a children's play or musical.
For more information, call Arts Consortium (1515 Linn St.) at 381-0645.
A VIBRANT ARONOFF: As Cincinnati Arts Association positions itself to hunt for a new exec, board members talk about what they'd like to see, particularly for the Aronoff Center.
“As a group, we need to be clear as to the vision statement and mission statement,” Barbara Gould says. “Whoever comes in and the continuing staff and board need to know what it is we're trying to do.
“My agenda is only mine, but I believe the Aronoff should be a vibrant, lights-on facility for little kids, big kids, grown-ups. We should be wearing out the carpet, like at the Holocaust Museum. It doesn't start in the building, it starts on the street outside. There should be a way to meet people at the door.
“In the arts you have to constantly be searching. There's an opportunity to reach more and more different people who are coming with different interpretations of what is art.
“I took my niece for an acting lesson at CCM (College-Conservatory of Music) the other day, and I thought "This is vibrant. This is an arts center, this is what arts are about.' If it's not alive, it's dead. There's no in-between in the arts.”
EMERY NEWS: Small arts groups can catch up with The Emery Center at a brown-bag lunch (drinks and desserts provided) starting at noon Wednesday at Memorial Hall (1225 Elm St.).
“We would have loved to have kept everyone in the loop, but it didn't happen,” the back-in-charge Beth Sullebarger says. Short-term exec director Stu Fabe left in December.
After interested parties have been brought up-to-date, there will be a question-and-answer session.
“We're hoping for unified support from the arts community,” Sullebarger says. Call 721-4506 to reserve a place by Monday.
OUTFOXED: Jhon Marshall is marking his 204th local production in the role of Sly Fox for Stagecrafters, opening Wednesday and continuing through next Sunday.
More than half of Mr. Marshall's stage credits — 129 — are as a director. This time he's being directed, by Cathy Gill. Sly Fox is Larry (M*A*S*H*) Gelbart's take on a 400-year-old classic about a greedy rich man not above a scam or two.
T. Michael Mattingly and Dee Ann Bryll are among the supporting players. For reservations and information call 351-1234. Stagecrafters performs at the Jewish Community Center, 1580 Summit Road.
Jackie Demaline is Enquirer theater critic and roving arts reporter. Write her at Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202; fax, 768-8330.
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