Articulations
Arts companies are pulling in the green, playwright Dan Dietz is on the road again, and the stork delivers a couple of new artists.
By Robert Faires, Fri., July 13, 2001
On the Funding Front
Ballet Austin has secured $20,000 from the Austin Community Foundation to support its upcoming production, Not Afraid of the Dark. Featuring the music of recording artist Joe Scruggs, choreography by Stephen Mills, and performances by Ballet Austin II, the piece explores one night in the life of a child and the mysteries of sleep and dreams. The show, which had already been granted $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts, is part of the Arts Blitz project jointly created by the ballet, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum, and Zachary Scott Theatre Center to provide arts education workshops and performances for at-risk school children in kindergarten through second grade. The three partners take turns leading the project, and this year is BA's turn. Not Afraid of the Dark will be performed Sept. 7-9 at the Paramount Theatre -- with the lights off.
Women & Their Work has received a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts to strengthen its organizational and financial capacity and systemically enhance the organization's ability to serve artists. The grant is part of the Warhol Initiative, a three-year, $3 million program to develop support capabilities for up to 24 artist-centered visual arts groups. W&TW is one of eight groups with annual operating budgets of less than $1 million to receive a capital infusion grant of $100,000 this year, along with technical assistance, peer support, and consulting expertise.
Composer John Corigiliano, recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Symphony No. 2 and well known for his Oscar-winning score to The Red Violin and his opera The Ghosts of Versailles, has been awarded $25,000 through the Eddie Medora King Award for Musical Composition at UT-Austin. The King Award was created by the late Dr. William King Jordan of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to honor his mother, Eddie Medora King Jordan, a music lover who died in 1995. It is given to a distinguished composer every other year.
On the (Playwriting) Road Again
No moss growing under the feet of Mr. Dan Dietz. The co-artistic director of Salvage Vanguard Theater, who spent a couple of weeks in May in Seattle developing a new play with the good folks at the Annex Theatre, is off to Minneapolis this week to be one of three participants in this year's PlayLabs, the annual script-development program at the Playwrights' Center. Dietz will be at the center, along with a director of his choosing -- it's SVT's other co-artistic director, Jason Neulander -- to finish his script for Tilt Angel, his self-described "deadpan Tennessee fairy tale" about a family coming to terms with the death of their mother, set for production in October and November 2001 at the Off Center, 2211-A Hidalgo.
Welcome Arrivals
Congratulations to Austin Circle of Theatres assistant Rebecca Schwarz and her husband Bill Schwarz on the birth of a healthy baby girl June 4. According to ACoT Executive Director Latifah Taormina, Amelia Halley Schwarz was 7 lbs. 8 oz. and measured 18 inches long at birth. Congratulations also to former Beehive gal Robin Huston and husband Tom Orr on the birth of their son Henry Huston Orr on June 6. He weighed 7.07 lbs. and measured 20.5 inches at birth. Although Robin and Tom have been away from Austin for a few years, they're moving back. Tom is the new director of the theatre department at St. Andrew's School.
