Articulations

In our haste last week to welcome the Austin Symphony Orchestra`s brand-new music director, Peter Bay, we neglected to make note of another personnel change at the symphony made simultaneously with the hiring of Bay: Timothy Muffitt, the ASO's Assistant Conductor for the past two years, was promoted to Associate Conductor. Judging from the symphony's press release, the move sounds rather like a lateral one, with Muffitt's chief responsibilities in the new post continuing to be the "artistic development and direction" of ASO's summer and Pops concerts. It may be that other new duties for the Associate Conductor aren't as yet clearly defined, or it may be that the promotion is more of an acknowledgment of Muffitt's value to the organization in the face of the fact that he was a candidate for the music director's job but was not the symphony's first choice. Whatever the reasons, a promotion is still a promotion and deserving of congratulations. Muffitt will continue to be the Music Director for the University of Texas orchestras. For more info, call 476-6064.

In Memoriam

Another friend of VORTEX Repertory Company and the Austin theatre community has died. Laith M. Radif, a multi-talented theatre artist from the Dallas area, passed on Thursday, December 4. Radif worked in dozens of Dallas theatres, as actor, director, designer, and teacher. In the last couple of years he had also made a few trips down to Austin, where he made several notable contributions to VORTEX's work. He appeared as an actor in As the Beaver (1995), The M.O. of M.I. (1995), and Khafji (1996), and he wrote and directed the VORTEX fundraiser Murder at the Planet (1996). A memorial scholarship fund in his name has been set up at Plano Repertory Theatre, and a service honoring Radif's life and career will be held January 17 at Plano Rep. For information, call 478-LAVA.

Jones on the Mend

Everybody get your get-well mojo workin' and send it up Massachusetts way. That's where local playwright/performer/director Daniel Alexander Jones is recuperating from a ruptured appendix. Jones is known for his autobiographical soul sagas such as Blood:Shock:Boogie and Clayangels, and for his directorial work on such productions as Shay Youngblood's Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery for First Stage Productions. According to Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre artistic director Vicky Boone (who first lured Jones down from Minneapolis to direct the company's production of Talking Bones and helped persuade him to stay), Jones was stricken several weeks ago and had to be hospitalized for some time. He's on the mend now, but he ran up approximately $20,000 in hospital bills and has no insurance with which to pay them. Boone is trying to coordinate a series of fundraisers with theatres around the country to help defray the costs. We'll provide more details as they're available, but if you want to help right now, call the F@HPT offices at 302-4933. And think good thoughts.