Sunday, December 13, 2009
Arts & Extras: Theatre puts heart into benefit play
Photo courtesy of Roanoke Children's Theatre
"A Year With Frog and Toad" is based on Arnold Lobel's award-winning series of children's books.
Photo courtesy of Roanoke Children's Theatre
Drew Dowdy (left) plays Frog and Cory Cunningham plays Toad in "A Year With Frog and Toad," which begins Tuesday at the Taubman Museum of Art.
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
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A happy-go-lucky frog and a neurotic, grumpy toad are teaming up to help a Thaxton man afford a heart transplant.
The Roanoke Children's Theatre's production of the Tony Award-nominated musical "A Year With Frog and Toad" begins Tuesday at the Taubman Museum of Art.
On Dec. 20, the theater will hold a special performance to benefit Gary Foster, 42, who was diagnosed in January 2008 with an enlarged heart that has an erratically functioning left valve.
Married with a 9-year-old daughter, Foster is the brother of Shelley Lyons, the theater's director of development. "You can't really put yourself in his shoes," she said. "Pretty much his whole life has been taken away from him."
Foster, who worked as a machinist, had to leave his job and go on disability after he became sick. He was treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center and had a battery-powered mechanical pump surgically implanted. Called an LVAD, short for left ventricular assist device, it's intended to keep his heart working while he awaits a transplant.
His family expects that if a heart becomes available, he could have to pay $20,000 immediately for the surgery.
Knowing Foster's situation, artistic director Pat Wilhelms proposed holding an additional performance of the musical as a benefit, Lyons said.
Wilhelms said that she'd been receiving daily updates from Lyons about her brother's condition. She saw what the family was going through and thought this might be a way the theater could help.
The musical is based on Arnold Lobel's popular, award-winning "Frog and Toad" series of children's books, which starts with "Frog and Toad Are Friends."
New York theater veteran Abe Reybold will direct. Reybold is no stranger to Roanoke, having taken part in several past Mill Mountain Theatre productions. He wrote the script for Mill Mountain's 40th anniversary commemoration, "Starlight & Showbiz," and directed "Beauty and the Beast."
The "Frog and Toad" cast is a mix of professional actors and Roanoke Valley high school and college students.
An account has been established for Foster through the nonprofit National Transplant Assistance Fund. All proceeds from the $20 tickets for the special performance at 4 p.m. Dec. 20 will be placed in his transplant assistance fund. For more information on that fund, visit www.transplantfund.org.
Other showtimes for "A Year with Frog and Toad" are 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 20; 7 p.m. Dec. 22; and 2 and 7 p.m. Dec. 23.
Tickets are $20; ages 18 and under, $15. On Saturday, which is Grandparent's Day at Roanoke Children's Theatre, any grandparents who come to the 2 p.m. performance may afterward tour the Taubman Museum of Art free. For information call 309-6802 or visit roanokechildrenstheatre.org.
Virginia History Society to offer free admission
Starting Jan. 2, admission to the Virginia Historical Society museum and research library in Richmond will be free.
According to a news release, the society's trustees voted to waive admission fees in a November meeting. The release said the society intends to employ fundraising strategies to make free admission permanent as part of its mission to promote its historical collections "and remove obstacles to sharing history."
Exhibits the museum will showcase in 2010 include "Cold War Crisis: The U-2 Incident," Jan. 16May 30; "Memories of World War II: Photographs from the Archives of The Associated Press," May 9Aug. 1; "Virginia Rocks: Rockabilly Music in the Old Dominion," Aug. 28Dec. 30, and "Organized Labor in Virginia," Sept. 4Dec. 30.
For information call (804) 358-4901 or visit www.vahistorical.org.
On the Arts blog
For a preview of "Walking the Parallels to Terminus," an exhibit by artist Fiona Ross that opens in January at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University, as well as other arts-related tidbits, visit my blog at blogs.roanoke.com/arts.
Mike Allen's column runs every Sunday in Extra.
An account has been established for Gary Foster through the nonprofit National Transplant Assistance Fund. All proceeds from the $20 tickets for the special performance at 4 p.m. Dec. 20 will be placed in his transplant assistance fund. Visit www.transplantfund.org.
