Our House takes on the Bard, CONT.
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THURSDAY AUG 21,2015 Begins 7 p.m.
in the M.L. Harris Auditorium, free and open to the public. For more information call
501-370-5354.
No tickets or RSVPs required.
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Dr. Walter Kimbrough
2014-2015 Lecture Schedule
Creator of Bless the Mic Kimbrough has been recognized for his research and writings on HBCUs and African American men in college. In October of 2004, at the age of 37, he was named the 12th president of Philander Smith College. In 2012 he became the 7th president of Dillard University All events in the BlessTheMic in New Orleans, Louisiana. series begin at 7 p.m. in the In February of 2013 he was M. L. toHarris Auditorium, named NBC News/The Griot. com’s and 100 open African toAmericans are free the public. making history today, For more informationjoining please another impressive group including callWashington, 501-370-5354. Kerry Ambassador Rice, NoSusan tickets orKendrick RSVPs Lamar, required Mellody Hobson, and RG III.
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900 Daisy Bates Drive 900 Daisy Drive Little Rock,Bates AR 72202 Little Rock, AR 72202 www.philander.edu www.philander.edu
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August 14, 2014
➥ Savor the City, Little Rock’s popular restaurant month, is in full swing with dining specials from more than 100 restaurants. Trio’s is offering half-price spinach dip or dessert at lunch, and at dinner a four-course special featuring appetizer, salad and a choice from four entrees for $28. Other deals include free cheese dip with purchase or two or more entrees at Casa Manana, a four-course chef’s tasting menu and wine paring for $40 at Ciao Baci, and half-price appetizers from 4-7 p.m. MondayThursday at Dugan’s Pub. Just ask your server for the Savor the City specials, visit www.littlerock.com. ➥ Embrace sultry summer with sangria and signature hors d’oeuvres at South on Main for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an event to benefit Arkansas Festival Ballet. The event is scheduled for 5-7 p.m. Aug. 24. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by visiting arkansasdance. org or calling 501-580-4480. ➥ Florist Tipton and Hurst is expanding with a new location at The Promenade at Chenal shopping center. The new Tipton and Hurst store will be located in the former Coldwater Creek and is expected to open in mid- to late September. It will offer a unique array of seasonal and holiday focused décor, floral arrangements, gifts and more. Special creative learning seminars will also be offered for the DIY customer later in the year. ➥ The Little Rock franchise of Kilwins sweet shop will open Aug. 16 at 415 President Clinton Ave., next to The Freckled Frog in the Arcade Building. The store will offer an assortment of taffies and assorted gourmet chocolates, along with caramel apples, covered Oreos, candies, flavored popcorn and ice cream. Store hours will be 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The original Kilwins store opened in 1947 in Petoskey, Mich. The company’s focus is on combining high-quality products with a warm, friendly customer experience that is supported through a successful community of caring owner-operators.
ADVERTISING SUPLEMENT TO ARKANSAS TIMES
with fellow resident Richard Taylor, said he would practice with Taylor around the shelter whenever the two found each other during a free minute. Ritchey also discussed the way the production accommodates the often-transient nature of homelessness. “People do drop out,” she said. “But we’re able to accommodate that based on the way we have it set up — that’s why we do it in a series of monologues. If somebody disappears in the middle of the [program], we can still have a show. Usually by the time we’re a month out from the show, we have a core group.” Our House resident Crystal Cresanto, who played Puck, actually dropped in. She arrived at the shelter in July, a month into the two-month rehearsal process. She took a job at the Little Learners Child Development Center, which provides programming for the children of shelter residents. While the children slept, she would practice her lines to the tune of soft music. “I played classical music in the background,” she said. “They say that if you play classical music while you’re trying to study or learning lines, it stimulates brain cells in the back. I’ve done that for my son to get him to do his homework.” In the week before production, the residents rehearsed twice, the stage was set, lights and ceiling-flag decorations went up, and more than 50 chairs were positioned. By the time the Saturday night production rolled around, the intake room, where the show took place, could accommodate standing room only, and barely that. Ritchey said the room was chosen intentionally. “It’s the first place people come when they come into the shelter,” she said. “It’s where they do all their paperwork and have all their bags searched. It’s a place where people are often having a dark moment. We try to make that as soft a landing as possible, but often it’s a difficult moment.” Shakespeare at the Shelter, she said, makes that room a space of hope a nd creat ive ex pression . Ritchey also said that while she considered hosting the program in the new, $5 million children’s center, she decided instead that this was an opportunity to draw in the community to witness a group of people who are often overlooked: “single, homeless adults.”
“Being in that physical space matters because it’s where people live,” Ritchey said. “People who’ve never seen a shelter before, even wellmeaning people who have compassion but who might be scared to come on Roosevelt — we can kind of lure them in with this program. Then the stigma goes away, and then they want to come serve a dinner or take a tour.” And the show went off without a hitch. Kirkpatrick and Taylor earned various rounds of applause for their repartee and wit as co-hosts. Other players included Hastings Bransford, Herbert Denson, Michelle Evans, Ashley Shaw, Mary Shue, Kelly Lopez, Crystal Mercer and Cresanto. “I just had a ball,” Cresanto said, who ended the show with Puck’s famous monologue, “If we shadows have offended —” “Because I knew I could close it out with a bang,” she said. The performance earned a standing ovation from the crowd, and after the lights went up, cast members sat on the stage and fielded questions from the audience about the show, about life in the shelter and about homelessness in general. Denson, who played Mark Antony in “Julius Caesar,” joked that he “should have been on bloopers” because he forgot his lines during Thursday’s rehearsal. His Saturday night showing, however, was flawless. “It really sparked a love I have for theater,” Bransford said. He played a very convincing Nick Bottom, the ass in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” whose song enchants the fairy queen Titania. Kirkpatrick, a U.S. Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan, echoed a similar sentiment. “This play has really given me an opportunity to reach out to everybody else, to pay back to the shelter something that they’ve done for me, and to decompress,” he said. “And that can be very important.” Cresanto said that in the process of studying the character of Robin Goodfellow, both through her own monolog ue and through Mickey Rooney’s 1935 film depiction of the character, she found a person she might’ve been surprised to discover: herself. “Playing Puck, I was mysterious, quiet and troubled, and it kind of blended everything to show everybody that even though I had a troubled past, this is me,” she said. “I could overcome anything.”