Texarkana Entertainment Blog

Looks like the weather should be fantastic Friday and Saturday for the 2010 Quadrangle Festival right here in downtown Texarkana (at a new Front Street location on the Arkansas side). Here’s a rundown of what’s happening both days, including the two street dances, the centerpiece events of this year’s festival:

- Street Dance Friday night: The Gourds (8:30 p.m.) and Ray Wylie Hubbard (7 p.m.) – Tickets are $10; purchase at the gate or in advance at the Museum of Regional History.

- Street Dance Saturday night: Robert St. John Band (8 p.m.) and Quadrangle Battle of the Bands (5:30 p.m.) – Tickets are $10; purchase at the gate or in advance at the Museum of Regional History.

- STARZ Youth Talent Show: Saturday, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the main stage on East Front Street (between Walnut and Wood streets). This event, featuring talented local singers and performers, is free to see.

- Quadrangle History Scavenger Hunt: Saturday, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., starting at the KTAL tent on East Front Street (between Wood and Olive streets). Entry fee: $35. (Register at TexarkanaMuseums.org or at scavenger hunt starting point.)

- Quadrangle Barbecue Cookoff: Barbecue lunches available starting at noon on Saturday ($10 per plate). Teams competing for a total of $2,000 in cash prizes.

- Discounted admission ($2.50) to the Texarkana Museums System three museums on Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: Discovery Place Children’s Museum, Ace of Clubs House, and the Museum of Regional History. Farmers market sellers and antique cars.

- STREET DANCE notes: Vendors will be selling beer and other beverages, as well as some food. People may bring their coolers and lawn chairs.

For more information, call the Texarkana Museums System at 903-793-4831.

- Aaron Brand

Staff photo by Eric J. Shelton. The lead singer of the Robert St. John Band, Scott Morton, is photographed at his home in Texarkana, Ark. Morton and his band will headline the Quadrangle’s second-night street dance on Saturday, Oct. 2

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A couple firsts.

I finally saw a set by North Carolina band American Aquarium here in Texarkana, an event that took far too long to realize. I’ll be seeing them again, I imagine. The late Sunday night show at Fat Jack’s saw the fellas in fine form, playing songs from their new album “Small Town Hymns,” as well as some earlier material. I enjoyed their album and its songs about longing to leave home and bad romance—something in their unadorned, straight-ahead delivery makes these themes feel fresher and honest. Seeing them live, however, on a cool night at Jack’s really brought out the band’s charm and swagger and sense of fun. American Aquarium inspired some unique dancing in front of the Fat Jack’s stage, and even when BJ Barham, alone with just his acoustic guitar, pulled out some sad ditties of one-night stands beneath the bar lights, it was done with a smile. Look for the band to be back in town around the first of the new year.

Another first was catching a play performed by the Texas High Little Theatre Company. Cast and crew staged an engaging production of “Over the River and Through the Woods” at the Sullivan Performing Arts Center’s John Thomas Theatre this past Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I caught Saturday night’s show. This was also the first time I’ve seen theater at the spacious, new Texas High venue, and though I wasn’t sure how a play would feel on this stage I thought that it served the set well and I felt the action engaged the audience. The Joe DiPietro play is a comedic, heartwarming tale with a serious undercurrent to it about cross-generational family ties. The cast on this night—Aaron Harper, Travis Helmstetler, Kelsey Townsend, Robert Morris, Brooke Hubbard, and Jazmine Harrison—made it a heartfelt, emotionally affecting story. Kudos to director Michelle Robinson.

- Aaron Brand

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TexRep posted the cast list for the theater crew’s next production, the zany comedy “The Foreigner.” A shy Englishman coming to a fishing lodge is the set-up for this play written by Larry Shue. On stage for this production are Russ Walker as “Froggy” LeSueur, Michael Skotnik as Charlie Baker, Janice Russell as Betty Meeks (she was just seen in “Steel Magnolias”), Stephen Searles as Rev. David Marshall Lee, Emily Cokeley as Catherine Simms, Kenneth Price as Owen Musser, and Austin Alford as Ellard Simms. Performances of the play run Nov. 5-7 and 12-14 with Friday and Saturday shows at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday shows at 2 p.m. As in all their productions this season, TexRep is reviving a play they’ve performed before to celebrate TexRep’s 20th anniversary.

- Aaron Brand

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The late Arkansas filmmaker Charles B. Pierce received some posthumous honors earlier this month: induction into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame. As such, he joins some other local notables (Collin Raye, Tracy Lawrence, and Patsy Montana, for example) who’ve made it into the hall. Pierce didn’t grow up here in Texarkana but did run an advertising agency in town and two of his films, “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” and “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” have local ties. We wrote about his induction in a Sunday Accent page story: Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame honors Charles B. Pierce.

- Aaron Brand

File photo. Arkansas filmmaker Charles B. Pierce is pictured in this 1983 file photo by the Texarkana Gazette. Film posters of two of his films, “Bootleggers” and “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” can be seen on the wall behind him. Pierce died in March at the age of 71.

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Theater in Texarkana is truly something for all ages, and Texas High School’s Little Theatre Company gets in on the act with “Over the River and Through the Woods” this week. Three presentations of the play, described as a comedy with a tragicomic, inter-generational dialogue involving a young marketing exec and his grandparents, are on tap: 7 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday, 2 p.m. on Sunday. The cost is only $5 and tickets can be purchased at the door. For more information, contact Michelle Robinson at 903-794-3891.

- Aaron Brand

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If Quadrangle with The Gourds and Ray Wylie Hubbard, Collin Raye and Jamie O’Neal at Collinfest, and the Texas Gypsies for the Cass County Performing Arts Council were not enough, in the coming weeks both Grammy winners Brave Combo and legendary singer and songwriter Guy Clark are coming up for area live music dates. It’s an impressive lineup of musicians hitting local stages the first couple weeks of October.

Clark, a legendary singer-songwriter who released his latest album, “Somedays the Song Writes You,” about a year ago, performs at Music City Texas in Linden at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 16. More info: Music City Texas Theater. Tickets are $35 for reserved seating; call 903-756-9934.

Two-time Grammy Award winner Brave Combo, founded by Texarkana native Carl Finch, comes back to town for a show at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 7 at the Sullivan Performing Arts Center & John Thomas Theatre in Texarkana. The show benefits the Texarkana Public Schools Foundation Tiger Scholarship Program. Tickets ($20) can be purchased at Bryce’s Cafeteria, Paper Dolls, Red River Lumber Company, Sunnyside Natural Food Market, TEXAR Federal Credit Union, Timothy’s Gourmet Grill, and the TISD administrative offices. More info on the band here: Brave Combo – The Official Website.

- Aaron Brand

Brave Combo in a photo by Jane Finch.

Guy Clark in a photo by Senor McGuire.

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The folks at TRAHC host a public reception tomorrow, Thursday evening (5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.), to say thanks to local Boy Scouts and introduce a new exhibit at the Regional Arts Center, “The Art of Scouting.”

When I was a kid, the museum exhibits that stirred my imagination most were ones that had tangible, physical gadgets, gizmos, and doodads to see, and this new RAC exhibit has a bit of that. (Examples from my past: dinosaurs at the Field Museum and airplanes at the Museum of Science and Industry, two stellar museums in Chicago.) Set up right now on the Regional Arts Center’s first floor are a Boy Scout camp, tent included, as well as old backpacks that recall bygone days of trekking through the wild. There’s also much more helpful, colorful information to give insight into Boy Scout life and lore and celebrate the Boy Scouts of America’s 100-year anniversary. (The organization was founded in 1910.) Norman Rockwell and Joseph Csatari paintings are displayed, as are photographs, patches, flags, and an assortment of other memorabilia.

The exhibit will be on three floors of the RAC through the end of the year, and in addition to tomorrow’s reception associated with the exhibit there is an Occasional Thursday, “For God and Country,” planned for Nov. 11; that event will be a tribute to veterans by the Caddo Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Tomorrow’s reception is a chance to enjoy refreshments, mingle, and get an intro to the exhibit. Catch it if you can. It’s free.

- Aaron Brand

Staff photo by Christena Dowsett. Boy Scouts volunteer Bennie Raney sets up a camping display in the lobby of the Regional Arts Center for “The Art of Scouting” exhibit.

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The venue was packed last Thursday evening for the Texarkana College Department of Music opening concert of the fall 2010 music series. And listening to Angela Park’s exquisite, sensitive playing of the cello, it’s easy to see why. Park, a National Federation of Music Clubs 2009-2011 Young Artists winner seen below in a submitted photo, played a beautiful mix of music while accompanied by pianist Cai Lei. Her program included Bach, Barber, Rachmaninov, and Tchaikovsky. The Wednesday Music Club co-sponsored the event, which saw a standing-room-only crowd show up in the Stilwell Humanities Building music hall. The caliber of performer who wins this award from the National Federation of Music Clubs is high; Zuill Bailey, who performed last year with the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra, is a prior winner.

The TC Department of Music has plenty more on tap for the fall, including the James Herrin Piano Festival Guest Artist Recital with pianist Gay Grosz on Nov. 18  and “Yulefeste” on Dec. 3.

- Aaron Brand

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TexRep is in the thick of its 20th anniversary season, and the theater crew has brought back old favorites to celebrate turning 20 years old. In May it was a rousing production of “Grease.” The second show of four for this season, “Steel Magnolias,” opened last Friday. I caught the Sunday afternoon performance from this all-female cast and they impressed the heck out of me with their comedic timing and the powerful portrayals of six women for whom friendship is an enduring, deep bond. Corrine Book, Leah Green, Claire Reynaud, Alethia White, Janice Russell, and Renay Turner Everett have made for a compelling cast, but the show is not over. If you haven’t seen “Steel Magnolias” yet, the second and final weekend is coming up Friday and Saturday (7:30 p.m.), and then again Sunday (2 p.m.). Kudos to this crew and their director, Michael Cooper.

- Aaron Brand

Staff photo by Eric J. Shelton. From left: Corrine Book, Claire Reynaud and Renay Turner Everett rehearse a scene from the play “Steel Magnolias” at Texarkana College's Stilwell Theatre.

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You never know what you’ll find in a basement, and that’s sort of true at the Regional Arts Center. The local ArtsSmart program has used it as an impromptu gallery space for artwork related to its in-school programming, and now the lower-level RAC area houses something unusual and, to my eyes, awesome: more than 20 chairs decorated, reworked, rearranged, and truly reinvented. “The CHAIRS,” as it’s billed, saw artists rework a bunch of old naugahyde club chairs in creative ways. One turned into a horse, and another became a sitting spot for portraits. The chairs will ultimately be auctioned off to benefit TRAHC’s Arts on Main arts class programming, and in the interim they’ll be inspiration for a student and adult writing contest. Here’s our story from a recent Friday Accent page: Local Artists Transform Identical Chairs Into Unique Pieces of Art. And here’s a series of portraits photographed using one of those chairs: TRAHC Chairs (Sit, Smile, Stand, Snap). Down below are some photos of these chairs in “The CHAIRS” – first two are courtesy of TRAHC’s Bryan Phillips and the others were snapshots I took.

- Aaron Brand

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