Sunday, August 16, 2009
Arts & Extras: Theater opens season with tale of girl, runaway slave
Courtesy of Studio Roanoke
"Shade of the Trees" was written by Studio Roanoke owner Kenley Smith, who was inspired by his family history.
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
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Studio Roanoke, the city's new black box theater on Campbell Avenue, will conquer a few firsts when it opens "Shade of the Trees" Aug. 25.
The play, written by theater owner Kenley Smith, will kick off Studio Roanoke's first full-year season. It also, for the first time, will feature sets for a period piece.
"Shade of the Trees," takes its inspiration from a story Smith's father told him about his great-grandmother when she was a little girl in West Virginia during the Civil War. Smith wrote it for the Hollins University graduate program in playwriting.
Smith said that passed-down tale amounts to little more than a "word picture" of his great-grandmother being warned by her family to stay close to the house because Yankee soldiers might be in the nearby woods.
For the full-length play, Smith sets the story in 1863, not long after the death of Stonewall Jackson, and recounts the tale of a young girl named Henrietta who discovers a runaway slave from a North Carolina plantation hiding in an abandoned barn. The runaway, Absalom, himself only 16, wound up stuck in the Virginia mountains while making his way north.
"These two young people, they actually come to find a bond that you wouldn't imagine," Smith said.
Despite the inspiration from family history, "the circumstances in the play are entirely fictional," Smith said.
The play is aimed at young audiences, which is a departure for Smith and another first for Studio Roanoke.
"I tend to look at darker adult issues, darker shades of life," Smith said. His goal with "Shade of the Trees" was to create a play "suitable for presentation at a public school."
While the play has no objectionable language, "it does deal very frankly with the hard realities of race and the hard realities of wartime," Smith said. "This is probably a good PG-13 kind of play."
Some familiar names in Roanoke's theater world are involved in the production. "Shade of the Trees" is directed by Pat Wilhelm, who runs the Roanoke Children's Theatre at the Taubman Museum of Art. Smith described the effort as a partnership between the two theaters.
"Kenley's script is smart and emotional and takes us to another time and place during the Civil War in Virginia," she said. "It is a wonderful treat to work on."
Wilhelm said the two organizations have worked well together. "We want to help each other succeed."
The sets are being built by Jimmy Ray Ward, a veteran of many productions at the now-dormant Mill Mountain Theatre.
Because of the way it touches on oral tradition and a sense of family, the play will also serve as the dedication of the building, which is named after Smith's father, K.W. "Pete" Smith.
"Shade of the Trees" runs Aug. 25-30 at Studio Roanoke. For more information call 343-3054 or visit studioroanoke.org.
'Giver' adaptation
The Roanoke Children's Theatre has announced that it will open its 2009-10 season with a stage adaptation of Lois Lowry's Newbery Award-winning novel "The Giver."
The hour-long play depicts what at first appears to be a science fictional utopia.
It's told from the point of view of Jonas, who lives in what seems to be a perfect world where pain, fear and inequality do not exist, said artistic director Pat Wilhelm.
When Jonas turns 12, he's selected to become a "Receiver of Memory" and begins to learn difficult truths about what the world was like before the government took steps to eliminate emotions from everyone's lives.
The book is taught in middle schools but has also stirred controversy over its content. "It's definitely for ages 10 through adult," Wilhelm said. "It's about what happens when government oppresses a society."
The play opens Oct. 6.
For more information call 309-6802 or visit www.roanokechildrenstheatre.org.
Taubman exhibit features Floyd artist
Floyd artist Donna Polseno's work combines pottery and sculpture. Her creations often merge the female figure with clay vessels in what she has called a symbolic celebration "of the life spirit they both share."
Her earthenware artworks, which evoke ancient artifacts, make up half of "Reverences," an exhibit at the Taubman Museum of Art that will be open through Aug. 23.
Polseno and her husband, Richard Hensley, are part of the 16 Hands artist group in Floyd County and both are part-time instructors at Hollins University. Her work has been exhibited in Italy and in museums across the United States.
The Taubman exhibit pairs her with Terri Dowell-Dennis, a North Carolina artist who uses various handcrafted media, including topsy-turvy dolls, to explore religious belief systems and the traditional roles of women.
For more information, call 342-5760 or visit www.taubmanmuseum.org.
Next Emerging Artist show Thursday
The next Emerging Artist series show at Roanoke's main library on Jefferson Street will feature the work of Sean Cuddy, a Roanoke native inspired by the candid "street photography" of French photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The show, starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, also features the music of indie rock band Way, Shape, or Form. Call 853-1057 for more information.
Roanoke photographer on display at Link museum
The O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke is showing an assortment of 30 digital images by Roanoke photographer George Warner.
Titled "A Few Things I've Seen," the exhibit contains imagery such as hot air balloons firing up at night and extreme close-ups of flowers. Warner's photos will be on display until October in the museum's Robert Kulp Trackside Gallery.
For more information call 982-5465 or visit www.linkmuseum.org.
