Articulations

The Austin arts community turned out in huge numbers to pay tribute to one of their own, founder and longtime Managing Artistic Director of Capitol City Playhouse, Michel Jaroschy, at a memorial service on Wednesday, October 16. Hundreds of artists and friends of the arts packed Cedar Street to hear more than a dozen speakers celebrate Jaroschy's life, which was suddenly cut short last Friday by a fatal heart attack. Directors, actors, designers, technicians, administrators, volunteers, and patrons stood elbow-to-elbow in the open-air club and on the stairs leading to it as CCP volunteer Ken Murphy introduced the speakers. Most recalled Jaroschy's generosity and passion. Live Oak Theatre Artistic Director Don Toner exhorted the crowd to keep Jaroschy's dream of a theatre alive and to support his family by giving to a trust fund created for them. He announced that his theatre's November 5 performance of On Golden Pond would benefit the fund. Donations may also be made to the Jaroschy Family Trust Fund, c/o NationsBank. And a fundraiser for Capitol City Playhouse will go forward on Thursday, October 24, at the Austin Music Hall. Ruben Ramos & the Texas Revolution, Joe "King" Carrasco, Los Pinkys, Los Jazz Vatos, and the Matt Powell Band will play to benefit the theatre, which must vacate its current home. Concert tickets are $7. Call 472-2966 for info.

Honors

Novelist James Michener and his late wife Mari have been named recipients of the Medal for Distinguished Philanthropy from the American Association of Museums for 1996. The medal, presented annually to persons or organizations who have made outstanding contributions to museums, recognizes the couple's gifts of $100 million to museums, including their art collections (such as their Twentieth Century Painting Collection, housed at UT's Archer M. Huntington Gallery). A formal presentation of the medal will take place Saturday, October 19, during a luncheon at the Huntington.

Opera Online

Question: If you sing an aria in cyber-space, is there a sound? You can find out next Wednesday, October 23, when the cyberspace opera honoria in ciberspazio is broadcast over the World Wide Web. The opera, a comedy about five lonely humans looking for love on the Internet, is an Austin creation, developed by Madelyn Starbuck, aka honoria, a mail artist, grad student, and member of the Advanced Communication Technologies Lab. She drew the libretto from rhyming couplets submitted to the opera's website, added electronic loops of opera music, then in April of this year, broadcast the work on the Web using videoconferencing technology. This week's webcast, which features some new material, can be found at http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~slatin/opera and begins at 3pm. Call 441-4496 for more info.

Send literary, performing, and visual arts news to: "Articulations," PO Box 49066, Austin, TX 78765 or onstage@auschron.com