Copious Notes

The Opera House's new look

Go into many towns in the United States and you can find old theaters that were once the hub of activity sadly showing their age with paint peeling, curtains falling and creaky old seats breaking as an era slips into oblivion. That is not the case with Lexington’s 122-year-old Opera House. Even last year, visiting artists such as the Broadway seasoned cast and crew from 12 Angry Men were singing the theater’s praises.

If they could see it now.

Over the summer, the Lexington Opera House underwent a $2 million renovation, updating the seats, soundsystem, dressing rooms and many other accomodations. Patrons get their first look tonight as the UK Opera Theatre opens its production of La Boheme. But Tuesday afternoon, photographer David Perry and I got an advance tour with Opera House General Manager Luanne Franklin. Above, you can see a slide show from our visit.

Click here for a larger version of the slide show.

Click here for the whole story on the renovation.

Click here for more on La Boheme.

And click here for the Opera House’s upcoming schedule from LexGo.

The Pavarotti look

Tenor Jeremy Cady rehearses the role of Rudolfo in the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre's production of La Boheme in the Schmidt Vocal Arts Center on Oct. 7., 2008. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo. Below: Luciano Pavarotti.

Tuesday night, I went over to the Scmidt Vocal Arts Center at UK to shoot some photos for a feature we’re running in Sunday morning’s paper about University of Kentucky Opera Theater tenor Jeremy Cady, who is singing the role of Rudolfo in La Boheme the next two weekends — he shares the role with tenor Phumzile Sojola.

As always, it’s fun to shoot artists at work. During this rehearsal, I had this particularly striking moment when I was looking at shots on my camera. There was one of Jeremy in the midst of singing Che gelida manina, eyes closed, mouth wide open, hands clutching at his chest.

“That looks like Pavarotti,” I thought.

Of course, it was Jeremy, a 34-year-old doctoral student at UK, who is racking up and impressive string of leading tenor roles, as well as leads and supporting parts in regional opera companies such as Kentucky Opera in Louisville and Cincinnati Opera. But with that image in mind, it was interesting to sit down with Jeremy the next afternoon and hear him start talking about how one of his early inspirations was a recording of Pavarotti singing Che gelida:

“Pavarotti was the first tenor for me that really sparked my imagination and amazed me with the power of the human voice to just soar over the orchestra.”

During that interview, Jeremy also said that rehearsal was the night that the opera, his favorite, really came together for him. That was the result of lots of listening, lots of work, and maybe he was channeling a little something too.

Here are a few other shots from that rehearsal:

Top to bottom: Director Michael Ehrman; David Baker as Schaunard, Mark Elliot Golson II as Colline and Eric Brown as Marcello; Jeremy Cady, Mark Elliot Golson II, Christopher Baker and Eric Brown; Jeremy Cady as Rudolfo and Amelia Groetsch as Mimi.

Natasha's next stage

Ryan Case and Shayne Brakefield on the new stage at Natasha's Cafe, where they will present The Mystery of Irma Vep, Oct. 5-17. Photo by Rich Copley.

Folks who turn out to see Balagula Theatre's production of The Mystery of Irma Vep will also see the debut of the new stage at Natasha's.

For years, the cafe has built an audience for its theater offerings usually performing on a stage the size of a modest walk-in closet. It definitely has its charm.

But, according to Balagula theater director Ryan Case, cafe owners Gene and Natasha Williams decided the audience had grown to the point it was time to expand the seating and the stage.

So, Natasha's boutique has moved up to the corner to Main Street and Esplanade as Props Lifestyle Gallery. In the boutique's space is a stage in the back corner of the additional space that was once the boutique, and seating will fill the floor in front of it. A bar will move in where the small stage used to be.

Case says Vep, a two man, myriad-character play could not have been produced on the old stage. He did not know what will follow Vep playwise, though Natasha's has regular schedule of music in addition the theater.

The UK Symphony's growing discography

UK Symphony Orchestra conductor John Nardolillo conducted the National Symphony Orchestra with Arlo Guthrie earlier this month in the same program the UK Symphony recorded last year. Photo courtesy of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Friday night is the season-opening concert by one of Lexington’s most active recording artists: the University of Kentucky’s student orchestra.

The student designation for the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra seems like a mere technicality as it has made several world premier recordings in the past year that have made it to the desks of influential critics.

“Playing Pasatieri’s skillful orchestrations under the assured leadership of conductor John Nardolillo, they sound more like a professional orchestra than a student one,” Opera News critic Joshua Rosenblum wrote in a review of the UK Opera Theatre and UK Symphony’s recording of Thomas Pasatieri’s Hotel Casablanca.

Recommending the same recording, “with enthusiasm,” FanFare magazine critic Henry Fogel wrote, “It is wonderfully encouraging that this production is from a university’s opera program, and that their student orchestra plays at such a high level as well.”

In 2006, it seemed like a pretty huge deal when the UKSO recorded Music of the Horse for Keeneland.
Since then, the orchestra has recorded three more albums: In Times Like These with folk legend Arlo Guthrie, the world premier recording of Epoch: An American Dance Symphony by George Frederick McKay, and the Hotel Casablanca recording, also a world premier.

Discussing an upcoming project -- a production of George Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess to be presented during the World Equestrian Games in 2010 -- UK Opera Theatre director Everett McCorvey called Nardolillo, “My soul mate in big ideas.”

Indeed, the University of Kentucky Symphony director is pursuing the same sorts of projects that helped the opera programs’ star begin to rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s:

■ Bringing in big name talent to work with students.
■ Pursuing high profile projects.
■ Getting the group on stages outside of Central Kentucky.
■ Getting the group recorded, so even if I’m in some far-flung locale with Bill Kurtis, as long as I have a wi-fi connection, I can listen to UK’s musicians.

UK Opera will present 'Porgy & Bess' at World Equestrian Games

Alicia and Everett McCorvey at a May event preceeding UK Opera Theatre's Grand Night for Singing. Alicia had just finished singing Can't Help Lovin' that Man from Porgy & Bess, which the UK Opera will present during the World Equestrian Games in September 2010. Copyrighted photo by Tom Eblen | LexGo.

The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre will present George Gershwin's Porgy & Bess during the World Equestrian Games.

"We will have all of these people coming over from Europe who hear European opera all the time," said Everett McCorvey, director of the UK Opera. "I was trying to think of a quintessential American Opera, and Porgy & Bess popped into my mind."

That shouldn't be surprising, as McCorvey has sung in more than 600 performances of Porgy & Bess and met his wife, Alicia Helm McCorvey, working on the Metropolitan Opera's production of Porgy in 1984. It's an opera that McCorvey has long wanted to present in Lexington, and the coming of the Equestrian Games in September 2010 provided the perfect catalyst.

This is the first performing arts event that has been announced for the games, though numerous groups are planning to present events during the Equestrian Games. LexArts has already announced a second edition of HorseMania that will be on exhibit during the games.

This Porgy will involve numerous other organizations. It will be a co-production with the American Spiritual Ensemble, which McCorvey directs. The group will also be performing in Lexington during the games. Porgy will utilize the chorus from Kentucky State University, the UK Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Nardolillo, and be presented elsewhere in the state before and after the games, including performances in Madisonville, Elizabethtown and Owensboro at RiverPark Center.

One or all of those centers may be involved in building the sets for the new production of the 1935 opera, which tells the story of a crippled man trying to save a woman from the clutches of her pimp and drug dealer in a Charleston, S.C., slum.

Other opera news: The UK Opera Theatre's March event, originally announced as a gala to honor retired UK voice professor and former Metropolitan Opera star Gail Robinson, has been expanded into a full-scale production to honor her: Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor March 6, 7, 13 and 14, 2009. Lucia was one of Robinson's signature roles.

KET show explores Kentucky-China connections

China. In the next week, many people right here in Central Kentucky will be packing their bags to head to  Beijing for the Olympics, be they athletes like Tyson Gay; broadcasters like Tom Hammond and Kenny Rice, or that Asbury College of Communications crew that always films the games; journalists like our own Mark Maloney; and others.

But there are many more people who have been to China, maybe travel there regularly and have developed first-hand impressions of the People's Republic.

Buck Ryan, a University of Kentucky Journalism professor and director of UK's Scripps Howard First Amendment Center, gathered some of those folks together for a conversation that airs at 10:30 tonight on KET: Citizen Kentucky/Citizen China: Hope for a New Century. It's a show that sort of makes you wish you'd been in the Niles Gallery at UK's Fine Arts Library where this was filmed to get a stronger sense of what the flow of the conversation was like and just to hear more. To say you want to hear more is saying something for a show that was essentially a room full of people talking.

But they touched on interesting ideas and observations about the relationships between China and the Bluegrass, from attorney Robert E. Rich's observation that the economic and cultural differences between the coastal Chinese cities and the interior is akin to Louisville and Eastern Kentucky to graduate student Chaoxun Zhao observing that part of the reason Kentucky is so well know in China is The Colonel -- KFC.

The participants in the conversation range from business people who primarily work in China, to people who have visited the country as tourists, to Chinese citizens or natives who now reside in the Bluegrass State. And there are diversities of opinion on some subjects, such as religious freedom in China, whether more American students should be learning Chinese and to what extent there is conflict between China and the United States.

Maggi Davidson, an adjunct professor at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, observes, "If you know people, you're not nearly so apt to wage war on people." So, she said, it is important people who can make these communications possible do so. And that is the thesis of the program, that next century of U.S.-China relations will probably take place between the nations' citizens as much, if not more, than the governments. Some of the current opportunities are in adoptions and China's quickly expanding business community.

Another opportunity, of course, is getting started, and this KET-UK production gives us something to think about as we watch the Olympics.

Derek Keeling in 'Grease' after all

Speaking of Broadway-casting reality shows and Kentucky, University of Kentucky graduate Derek Keeling is going to make his Broadway debut in Grease as Danny Zuko after all. 

Keeling and Ashley Spencer will go on as Danny and Sandy Tuesday night, succeeding Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, who won the roles on the NBC reality competition series, Grease: You're the One That I Want, in the winter of 2007. Osnes and Crumm debuted in the Broadway revival of Grease last summer. Spencer was the runner up to Osnes. Keeling finished third behind Crumm and Texan Austin Miller. The winners were decided solely by audience votes.

Since the show, Keeling has been involved in a number of projects, including a musical version of A Tale of Two Cities that debuted in Sarasota last fall and opens on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre Aug. 19. Aaron Lazar will play Charles Darnay, the role Keeling had in Sarasota.

Keeling's hometown paper, The Charleston Daily Mail in West Virginia, reports a healthy contingent of family and friends are heading to New York for Keeling's debut. His biography on the Grease website mentions his UK degree. Keeling and Spencer will be sharing the stage with American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, who is playing Teen Angel.

Above: Spencer and Keeling as Sandy and Danny. Photo courtesy of Barlow-Hartman Public Relations.

Video: Grand Night for Singing

A Grand Night for Singing opens this weekend at the Singletary Center for the Arts. In our story for today's paper, we talked about the talented "brain trust" that puts Grand Night together from scratch, every year. To compliment that, photographer and producer Emily Spence and I went out to talk to some of the singers about the tunes they get to share and the town and gown camaraderie of Grand Night.

Jason Epperson is coming home and likely making a movie

Jason Epperson acknowledged the crowd at Winchester's Calvary Christian Church at an August event to watch the final episode of On the Lot. Copyrighted photos by Pablo Alcala for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

See Jason Epperson's Blood Born at the bottom of this post.

It’s been a year since Jason Epperson stepped into the spotlight, and it still seems surreal.

“I still don’t know if it’s hit me,” the Winchester native says, “that I was on a reality show and I went through what I went through.”

The reality show was On the Lot, which bowed last Memorial Day weekend. It was a co-production of reality TV guru Mark Burnett and filmmaking deity Steven Spielberg. The aim was to find the next great film director, and Epperson wound up in the running up until the moment Texan Will Bigham was named the winner.

Though the show turned out to be a critical and ratings flop, Epperson’s runner-up status opened doors for him in Hollywood, where he, wife Cindi and son Isaiah moved after the show wrapped in August.

During a late-afternoon chat Tuesday, Epperson, 32, gave the move mixed reviews but said it was essential to getting his career in gear.

“I’ve made so many relationships in the business,” Epperson says. “Patience is the most important thing to have. You have to keep fighting. You have to keep going.”

Epperson says it was particularly frustrating for him and even Bigham to be trying to get their careers in gear during the writers strike last winter, which brought all production to a halt.
Now, Epperson is close to solidifying plans for his first feature film, a project that is bringing him home. He is planning to shoot The Phoenix, a film about Harold Dennis, a survivor of the 1988 Carroll County bus crash, which claimed 27 lives.

UK Wind Ensemble update: depature delayed

The University of Wind Ensemble's flight from Cincinnati to Chicago, United Flight 191, was canceled this morning, and the ensemble will spend an extra day in Cincinnati before departing Tuesday morning for Chicago and then Shanghai.

Cindy Stewart-Birdwell, wife of ensemble director John Cody Birdwell, addressed the delay and cancellation of their first concert due to China's three-day mourning period for victims of last Monday's earthquake in a post on her blog:

" . . . not to worry. We must simply stay another day in our rather comfy hotel here in Cincinnati...not a bad deal really, extra rest is now possible, and we have beautiful surroundings in which to idle the day away . . . all we're really missing is an extra day of sightseeing in and around Shanghai, and that's unfortunate, but it could have been worse. We will arrive at 2 p.m. with a free day and evening in front of us. Tired, needing to stretch and anxious to get into our hotel, we'll just take it easy and go with the flow."

The UK Wind Ensemble, bound for China

In this video, UK Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell and a couple of students discuss the group's upcoming trip to China. Video by Amy Jones, courtesy of UK Public Relations.

This morning, 67 students faculty and friends of the University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble are winging their way west -- Or, should we say far east? -- to China. The journey will take the UK band on a six city tour of the country that is eagerly anticipating the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics while simultaneously mourning the devastating earthquake that struck Central China a week ago today.

We've got a story about the trip, how it came about and what's going to happen, in today's paper and at LexGo.com.

We've added a photo album of pictures taken by the Herald-Leader's Whitney Waters at events leading up to the trip.

If you'd like to follow along, Cindy Stewart-Birdwell, wife of Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell, is blogging about the experience.

Click the play button below to hear John Mackey's Turbine from the UK Wind Ensemble's Distilled in Kentucky, the CD that was a key to earning the offer to play in China.

Click here to hear UK President Lee Todd's interview of Birdwell for WUKY's UK Perspectives program.

Following the UK Winds to China

University of Kentucky Wind Ensemble director John Cody Birdwell is taking his wife and kids along on the group's forthcoming trip to China, and said wife, Cindy Stewart-Birdwell (photo, right), is contributing to the effort by maintaining a blog about the experience.

Thus far, Stewart-Birdwell's HigherView blog has been about the stresses of prepping for the trip around the world that starts Sunday night.

But in view of recent events in China, her Monday post had the chilling note that according to an original schedule for the trip, when Monday's earthquake occurred, the Wind Ensemble would have been in Chengdu, about 60 miles from the epicenter. She writes:

"Life is fragile, this we know, so in the words of Leonard Bernstein, 'This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.'"

Click here to read Stewart-Birdwell's blog. I'll also set a link to it in the left-hand column here for the duration of the trip, May 19-29.

Over the weekend, we'll have a full report on the trip in the Herald-Leader and at LexGo.

New plays explore Kentucky

Playwright Arlene Hutton, whose As it is in Heaven will be presented by the University of Kentucky Theatre at the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. Copyrighted photo by Aaron Lee Fineman.

We often talk about the ability of theater to transport us to times and/or places far away, and that is definitely one of the stage’s beauties.

But sometimes, you get this nagging sensation that you’ve taken enough trips to Elizabethan England or the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and you know there are great stories around here.

Two upcoming productions are going to illuminate that point here in late May, when theater is usually dark.

■ LexArts and the Pick Up Performance Co(S.) present In This Place . . . , a play about the Oldham House, which was built by Samuel Oldham, the first free African American to own property and build his own house in Lexington. It will be presented at the Downtown Arts Center May 22 to 24. (Note: The company is holding open rehearsals at the Downtown Arts Center starting between 3 and 3:15 daily through May 21, except Sunday. The rehearsals are free, though if you come, you are asked to stay for the duration of the approximately 90-minute run through.)

■ The University of Kentucky Theatre will present As it is in Heaven, a play about nine Shaker Women set during the “era of manifestations” in early 19th Century Shaker culture. The play will be performed May 31-June 8 at an open air barn in the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, where the play is set.

The play was set there by Arlene Hutton, a New York-based playwright with Kentucky ties who has written about the Bluegrass on several occasions. She was the author of The Last Train to Nibroc, a play set in her parents’ home of Corbin, which spawned two sequels: See Rock City and Gulf View Drive, all with heavy references to local touchstones such as Berea College.

After frequently sitting through plays where I was certain I was missing some of the hip New York references, it was cool to see Gulf View Drive in The City last year fairly confident I was getting a number of things the New Yorkers weren’t.

But seriously, we don’t treasure theater with roots here so that we can somehow be hipper than everyone else when the shows venture out into the world. These are events to treasure because they help us understand the world where we live and the things that are around us we might not have time to or know how to investigate unless someone boils it down into 90-or-so engrossing minutes.

L.A. Times critic comes home to Lexington

The University of ­Kentucky College of Fine Arts distinguished alumni award has gone to such artists as sculptor John Henry, tenor Gregory Turay and Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche.

This year, it went to — I love this — a critic.

F. Kathleen Foley was a theater student at UK in the 1970s and has gone on to a career as a theater critic for the Los Angeles Times and several other publications in Southern California. Foley’s original intention was to act, which she did in New York, Kentucky and L.A.

“I became a critic by default,” Foley says from her home in Los Angeles. “I wanted the free tickets, so after acting didn’t work out, I kind of segued into this career.”

That’s one of two careers Foley has. By day, she works for Breakdown Services, a Los Angeles firm that reads scripts and ­disseminates information about the available roles to actors, directors, agents and other interested parties in the film trade. Foley and her colleagues read scripts, then distill them into quick information about the plots and characters to distribute to clients. For instance, a script might call for a 23-year-old blonde bimbo who roller skates, so when the information goes out, agents can send all of their clients who match that description.

“It’s really leveled the ­playing field,” Foley says.

And she and her ­colleagues have a lot of fun, including reading egregiously bad scripts out loud to one another.

“After Pulp Fiction came out, everything we got was really raw and awful,” Foley says. “But I read good scripts, too. I read The ­Departed,” which won the 2007 Oscar for best-picture.

By night, Foley loves to see good theater, filing an ­average of two reviews a week.

Above: F. Kathleen Foley accepts her distinguished alumni award at UK, May 4, 2008. Photo courtesy of F. Kathleen Foley.

UK Wind Ensemble still needs money for its trip to China

University of Kentucky trumpet professor Mark Clodfelter (left) performs with the UK Wind Ensemble, conducted by Cody Birdwell (right), at a April 20 concert previewing the Ensemble's upcoming trip to China. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Whitney Waters.

As the University of Kentucky Wind ­Ensemble is gearing up for its tour of China, from May 19 to 29, it is still in the process of raising funds for the journey.

“This is obviously not the best year to be trying to raise additional funds for a trip like this,” UK bands director John Cody Birdwell said, referring to the faltering economy and budget-tightening at the university.

But it’s also the one chance for the band to go be part of a cultural event leading up to the Beijing Olympics.

The trip will take place regardless of the state of fund-raising at take-off, but the band is still seeking donations. Tax deductible contributions can be made to the University of Kentucky Bands Alumni and Friends, 33 Fine Arts Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0022. For more information, call the band office at (859) 257-2263.

Tickets on sale for UK's new concert series

Manhattan Transfer -- (L-R) Tim Hauser, Janis Siegel, Cheryl Bentyne and Alan Paul -- will perform a Christmas show with conductor John Nardolillo and a small local Orchestra as part of the  Singletary Center's Signature Series.

A jazz legend and another marquee soloist for the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra are highlights of the Signature Series lineup at UK’s Singletary Center for the Arts. If the name sounds new, center director Michael Grice says that’s because he aimed to combine some of the best elements of the center’s several series — Corner on Classics, Turning the Corner and even Spotlight Jazz — into one series that would offer a broad spectrum of artists.

Leading off the season will be trumpet celebrity Wynton Marsalis (photo, left) and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, on Oct. 4. For Valentine’s Day, the UK Symphony Orchestra will perform with hot young violinist Gil Shaham (photo, right), who will play Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D, which he will perform five days later with the Cleveland Orchestra.

“If we can get artists here, not just to perform, but also match them with students and faculty, that’s nurturing the arts in our community,” said Grice, who paired the UK Symphony with cello legend Lynn Harrell last season.

Grice said that UK Symphony director John Nardolillo and a small orchestra of local musicians will accompany The Manhattan Transfer in its Christmas concert here, on Dec. 20.

Here’s the full schedule of concerts, most of which are on weekend nights:

• Oct. 4: Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.
• Oct. 23: Song and Dance Ensemble of West Africa.
• Nov. 8: Andrea ­Marcovicci’s Love Songs of World War II.
• Nov. 12: José Porcel and Ballet Flamenco.
• Dec. 20: Manhattan Transfer holiday concert.
• Jan. 30: Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra.
• Feb. 14: Violinist Gil Shaham with the UK ­Symphony Orchestra.
• March 13: Blue Note Jazz Tour.

Tickets for the series go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday, May 5, at the Singletary Center ticket office. Call (859) 257-4929 or go to www.singletarytickets.com. The center has changed its fee structure for the series, pricing tickets according to seat location instead of by status such as student, UK faculty and staff, etc.

“All the same prices are still available,” Grice said. “It’s just according to where you sit now.” He said that brings the Singletary Center’s pricing policies in line with most other performing arts centers and even groups that use the Singletary Center, such as the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra.
The center will offer five ticket packages, from all eight concerts to three shows, and ranging in price from $88 to $272. For complete pricing information and an order form, go to the Singletary Center website.

Notebook: UK's football play

University of Kentucky Theater Department Chair Nancy Jones introduces retired theater professor James W. Rodgers and playwright Andrew Shafer before the world premier performance of Shafer's Weak/Side/Help, which won the Rodgers Playwriting Competition. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Rich Copley.

Before the world premier of his new play, Weak/Side/Help, playwright Andrew Shafer sat down with University of Kentucky Theater Department Chair Nancy Jones to discuss his show, which won the second James W. Rodgers Playwriting Competition. In the chat, before a group of invited guests at UK's Briggs Theatre, Shafer's comments concentrated on his desire to be a new voice in the theater world.

"I want to completely revolutionize theater," Shafer said. "That may sound arrogant, but if you are not there to totally push the form, I don't see why you are there."

His play, which continues Thursday (April 17) through Sunday (April 20) at UK's Guignol Theatre,certainly brings some topics to the table that don't get discussed a lot in the theater: America's obsession with sports and issues in the sporting world such as performance enhancing drugs and racism.

UK football player scores acting touchdown

Ryan Harr, as sleazy reporter Stephen Detwaller, questions Jeremy Jarmon, as troubled quarterback Tyrone Wilmot, in Andrew Shafer's Weak/Side/Help. Copyrighted LexGo photo by Pablo Alcala.

They call it stunt casting: putting someone in a role for their ability to generate interest and ticket sales, not necessarily their ability to act.

On paper, that's how you could interpret the University of Kentucky Theatre's decision to cast UK football player Jeremy Jarmon in its new play about college football. But if this was a stunt, a theatrical Evel Knievel, then Jarmon cleared the gorge, did a few donuts with the motorcycle to kick up a spectacular dust cloud and pumped his fists in victory.

Jarmon was actually a lot more humble during the curtain call for his successful UK stage debut. But his performance in the world premier of Andrew Shafer's Weak/Side/Help was the highlight of this night at the theater. No. 99, when he suits up for the Wildcats, was the best prepared, most commanding and convincing player on the stage.

It was a brave role for Jarmon to take. The play, which won the second James W. Rodgers playwriting competition, is about a major college football program that becomes embroiled in performance enhancing drug and racial scandals. Tyrone is an explosive player who starts the play implicating his rival for the quarterback spot in steroid abuse during an interview with a newspaper reporter.

That moment brings the play to life after a weak opening, and Jarmon dominates all his scenes, including an intense confrontation with said rival quarterback, played by Alex Koehl in one of the play's other standout performances. While he often had to convey strength, Jarmon also had to portray some vulnerability, asking a team assistant to get him drugs, and he played the victim in the play's shattering revelation. It all rang true.

This is not entirely surprising. Football fans got to see film of Jarmon performing the "You can't handle the truth!" scene during UK games last fall -- ironic, since people's inability to handle truth is one of the themes of this play. The defensive end was an actor in high school, and according to UK theater department chair Nancy Jones, he said he had been interested in auditioning for the Fall 2006 production of A Raisin in the Sun, except it conflicted with the football schedule. UK Theatre should look for another chance to work this multi-talented student into a show.

This casting was an attention grabber. The only other time I've seen TV cameras in a Lexington play was when UK Theatre presented celebrated Kentucky novelist Silas House's playwriting debut, The Hurting Part, in 2005. The good news is, like that play, Jarmon's performance was worthy of the attention.

Read: UK football beat writer Chip Cosby's story about Jarmon's UK acting debut.

Coming Sunday: Check out the Arts+Life section and LexGo for more on Shafer and the Rodgers competition, and look here for thoughts on the play and highlights of Shafer's pre-show chat Thursday.

How to build an opera

We can't go back in time to see how Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte created their masterpieces. But you can check out how composer Joseph Baber, librettist Jim Rodgers and the University of Kentucky  Opera Theatre are creating their new opera, River of Time, at an upcoming event. Commissioned operas are something of a rarity for college opera outfits but the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth seemed to be the right occasion. The opera, which a local audience got a preview of at the Our Lincoln concert in February, looks at Lincoln's formative years in Kentucky. It will premier next spring.

How Opera is Made will be presented at in the Singletary Center for the Arts recital hall from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Thurs., April 3, and from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, April 11, at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. It will feature Baber, Rodgers and others talking about the creative process behind their work in progress. Both events are free and open to the public. Call (859) 257-9331 for additional information.

Photo above: Mark Golson and Denisha Ballew in a scene from River of Time at the Our Lincoln event in February. Copyrighted Herald-Leader photo by Joseph Rey Au.

See the acclaimed UK Women's Choir, Sunday

The University of Kentucky Women’s Choir will present a benefit concert at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Hillary Boone Center to support its trip to the Music Educators National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis.
The invitation to perform at the conference is one of two prestigious honors that director Lori Hetzel and the Women’s Choir have received this year. The group also has been invited to perform for the Southern Region Division of the American Choral Directors Association.

The fund-raiser will feature UK Opera Theatre star Brandy Lynn Hawkins, performing selections from Georges Bizet’s Carmen, and Megan McCauley, one of the winners of the 2007 Alltech competition. The concert also will feature a new spiritual by Roger Holland II, renowned composer for the Harlem Boys and Girls choirs, and UK professor Noemi Lugo singing two unpublished Venezuelan works.

In the copyrighted 2003 file photo, above, Hetzel readied the Women's Choir for a trip to sing at Carnegie Hall. Want any more evidence these ladies are good?