Wednesday April 24, 2024
Local Connection
Weather
Traffic
@LouisvilleDispatch
@LouisvilleDisp
Subscribe
The Kentucky Arts Council invites Kentucky schools to be part of the fun and excitement of the Kentucky Derby by decorating canvases for the Governor’s Derby Celebration.
Picnic tables on the Old State Capitol grounds will be fitted with horse heads and tails, and the canvases, or “Derby blankets,” will be placed over the tabletops like a blanket over a horse. Any Kentucky school, public or private, can participate.
Schools must provide their own supplies to complete the project. Blankets need to be 36 inches wide and 60 inches long and made of durable, water resistant material. Paint must be outdoor latex and able to withstand inclement weather.
There are no theme requirements, but painted canvases must be sent to the arts council by April 23 for consideration to be part of the Governor’s Derby Celebration. The arts council reserves the right to select which canvases to display at the event, but each blanket will appear in an online slideshow on the arts council website as well as on arts council social media platforms. Schools that participate are acknowledged at the celebration.
Ship blankets to:
Kentucky Arts Council
1025 Capital Center Drive
Third floor
Frankfort, KY 40601
For more information contact Jean St. John at jean.stjohn@ky.gov or 502-892-3124.
Photo: Actors Theatre of Louisville
Actors Theatre of Louisville Artistic Director Les Waters and Managing Director Kevin E. Moore are delighted to announce the lineup for the 42nd Humana Festival of New American Plays. A cultural highlight for theatre lovers, artists and producers across the country, the Humana Festival runs February 28 through April 8, 2018.
This year’s Festival program will feature six world premieres, including (in order of opening; for more information on individual plays, see below):
- God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler
- Marginal Loss by Deborah Stein
- Do You Feel Anger? by Mara Nelson-Greenberg
- Evocation to Visible Appearance by Mark Schultz
- You Across from Me by Jaclyn Backhaus, Dipika Guha, Brian Otaño and Jason Gray Platt
- we, the invisibles by Susan Soon He Stanton
“The Humana Festival of New American Plays is a leading force in today’s theatre. Our writers explore and define the world that we all share,” said Les Waters. “I am very proud that Actors Theatre’s passion and dedication to artistic risk and courage creates a space for these voices to be heard.”
Kevin E. Moore added, “The Humana Festival has long been a vital part of the American theatre landscape. Our partnership with the Humana Foundation is unparalleled, and their nearly four-decade-long commitment ensures that theatre continues to thrive in this country and around the globe. The 2017 Festival was attended by more than 36,000 people, with visitors from 39 states and 57 colleges and universities represented in the audience. By investing in the future of American theatre, Actors Theatre makes a significant impact not only on the national theatre canon, but also on the local economic prosperity and cultural vibrancy of Louisville.”
For over four decades, Actors Theatre of Louisville has been a driving force in new play development, introducing more than 450 plays into the American theatre repertoire and representing the work of more than 400 playwrights and ensembles. The internationally acclaimed Humana Festival is recognized as a crucial incubator for new work and a launching pad for myriad subsequent productions around the country and the world. Plays recently commissioned and/or produced by Actors Theatre—such as Lucas Hnath’s The Christians, Jen Silverman’s The Roommate and Colman Domingo’s Dot—have been seen by audiences far and wide.
This year’s lineup of plays will be performed in rotating repertory in three theatres located in Actors Theatre’s downtown Louisville complex: the 633-seat Pamela Brown Auditorium, 318-seat Bingham Theatre and 159-seat Victor Jory Theatre. The 2018 Humana Festival schedule also offers a weekend of enrichment events for college students, and features special weekend packages for theatre lovers and practitioners alike. These weekends are packed with discussions, networking opportunities and parties, making Louisville a vibrant destination for American theatre this spring. A full list of the weekend package offerings is included in the listings section below.
Actors Theatre celebrates the 42nd Humana Festival with underwriter the Humana Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Humana, Inc. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Detailed information about each of the plays in the 42nd Humana Festival of New American Plays follows:
God Said This
by Leah Nanako Winkler
directed by Morgan Gould
February 28 – April 8
in the Bingham Theatre
With her mom undergoing chemotherapy, New York transplant Hiro returns home to Lexington, Kentucky after years away. Sophie, her born-again Christian sister, fights to maintain her faith amid adversity. James, their recovering alcoholic father, wants to repair his fractured relationship with his daughters, but redemption isn’t easy. And John, an old classmate and single dad, worries about his legacy. Wry and bittersweet, God Said This is a portrait of five people confronting mortality in very different ways—and unexpectedly finding that their struggles bring them together.
Leah Nanako Winkler is from Kamakura, Japan and Lexington, Kentucky. Her plays include Kentucky (2015 Kilroys List; world premiere: Ensemble Studio Theatre/Page 73/Radio Drama Network; West Coast premiere: East West Players), Two Mile Hollow (2017 Kilroys List; simultaneous world premiere: Artists at Play, Mixed Blood Theatre/Mu Performing Arts, First Floor Theater and Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company), and more. Publications: Samuel French and Dramatists Play Service. Winkler received the first annual Mark O’Donnell Prize from The Actors Fund and Playwrights Horizons, and a 2017 Audible commission for emerging playwrights. She is currently a Time Warner Fellow at WP Theater, a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writers Group at Primary Stages and Ma-Yi Theater Company’s Writers Lab, and is an alumna of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre.
Marginal Loss
by Deborah Stein
directed by Meredith McDonough
March 6 – April 8
in the Pamela Brown Auditorium
part of the Brown-Forman Series
Days after 9/11, the few surviving employees of an investment firm based near the top of the Twin Towers gather in a New Jersey warehouse. Shell-shocked and grief-stricken, they work around the clock to reconstruct what’s left of their company with determination, pen and paper, and a temp who just wants to help. But as they struggle to recoup their losses, they wonder: what does getting “back to normal” really mean?
Deborah Stein is a playwright, director and collaborative theatre maker. Previous work at Actors Theatre includes Fissures (lost and found) and HEIST! (both 2010 Humana Festival) and Brink! (2009 Humana Festival). With Suli Holum, she is co-artistic director of Stein | Holum Projects, where she wrote and co-directed The Wholehearted (ArtsEmerson commission; world premiere at Center Theatre Group and La Jolla Playhouse) and Chimera (HARP commission; Under the Radar 2012; UK Premiere at The Gate in London, 2014). Other collaborations include six plays with Pig Iron Theatre Company, and most recently directing Keith Wallace’s The Bitter Game for La Jolla Playhouse and Under the Radar 2017. Her work has also been produced and developed by Z Space, Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, The Theatre @ Boston Court, Live Girls! Theater and Workhaus Collective. Awards include a Bush Artist Fellowship, two Jerome Fellowships and a McKnight Advancement Grant. An alumna of New Dramatists, she received her M.F.A. from Brown, where she studied with Paula Vogel. Originally from Queens, New York, she currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the University of California San Diego.
Do You Feel Anger?
by Mara Nelson-Greenberg
directed by Margot Bordelon
March 9 – April 8
in the Bingham Theatre
Sofia was recently hired as an empathy coach at a debt collection agency—and clearly, she has her work cut out for her. These employees can barely identify what an emotion is, much less practice deep, radical compassion for others. And while they painstakingly stumble towards enlightenment, someone keeps mugging Eva in the kitchen. An outrageous comedy about the absurdity—and the danger—of a world where some people’s feelings matter more than others’.
Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s work has been developed at Playwrights Horizons, Clubbed Thumb, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Dixon Place, Theatre Intime and WildWind Performance Lab, among others. She is a member of Youngblood at Ensemble Studio Theatre, a New Georges Affiliated Artist and an alumna of Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers’ Group. She co-wrote the web series End Times Girls Club, which was produced by Broadway Video and Above Average and released in March of 2016. She received her B.A. from Princeton University and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. at the University of California San Diego under Naomi Iizuka.
Evocation to Visible Appearance
by Mark Schultz
directed by Les Waters
commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville
March 16 – April 8
in the Pamela Brown Auditorium
part of the Brown-Forman Series
You wanna know what the future looks like? Samantha, 17 and possibly pregnant, longs for solid ground—but she’s haunted by the sense that nothing will last. Her college-bound boyfriend wants to go sing on The Voice, her dad’s asleep on the couch, and her older sister’s in treatment. When Sam befriends a tattooed musician, has she found someone who understands this fallen world? With black humor and black metal, this gripping new play gives form to a gathering darkness.
Mark Schultz is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of Rising Phoenix Repertory. His plays include The Blackest Shore, The Gingerbread House, Ceremony, Deathbed, Gift and Everything Will Be Different: A Brief History of Helen of Troy. His work has been performed or developed by Soho Rep, Playwrights Horizons, Rising Phoenix Repertory, MCC Theater, The Catastrophic Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre (UK), Actors Touring Company (UK) and Tiyatro Yan Etki (Turkey). He has received the Oppenheimer Award and the Kesselring Prize, commissions from MTC/Sloan, Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville and The Exchange, and was selected for a Royal Court Residency. Schultz holds an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, a diploma from Berkeley Divinity School, a certificate from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and an M.F.A. in playwriting from Columbia University.
we, the invisibles
by Susan Soon He Stanton
directed by Dámaso Rodríguez
March 23 – April 8
in the Victor Jory Theatre
Stirred by a controversial case in which a West African maid’s accusation against a powerful man is dismissed, Susan, a playwright working a survival job at a luxury hotel, starts interviewing fellow employees from around the world. She feels compelled to give voice to other hotel workers’ rarely heard stories—but as her investigation deepens, this documentary project becomes an unexpectedly personal journey. Funny, poignant, and brutally honest, we, the invisibles explores the complicated relationship between the movers and shakers and the people who change their sheets.
Susan Soon He Stanton’s plays include Today Is My Birthday (Page 73), Takarazuka!!! (Clubbed Thumb and East West Players), Cygnus (WP Theater Lab), Solstice Party! (Live Source Theatre Group), and The Things Are Against Us (Washington Ensemble Theatre). She is a two-time Sundance Theatre Lab Resident Playwright, and she was recently awarded the inaugural Venturous Playwright Fellowship at The Lark, as well as the Leah Ryan Prize. Her work has been included on The Kilroys List from 2015-2017, and she is currently under commission at Yale Repertory Theatre, South Coast Repertory and Ensemble Studio Theatre. Writing groups past and present include Page 73’s Interstate 73, The Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group, and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, among others. She writes for Succession (HBO). She received an M.F.A. in playwriting from Yale School of Drama and a B.F.A. from New York University.
You Across from Me
by Jaclyn Backhaus, Dipika Guha, Brian Otaño and Jason Gray Platt
directed by Jessica Fisch
performed by the actors of the 2017-2018 Professional Training Company
commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville
March 23 – April 8
in the Bingham Theatre
We gather at tables on good days and bad, for ordinary rituals and once-in-a-lifetime encounters. But in polarizing times, what does it really mean to come to the table? Does it bring us together, or reveal just how far apart we truly are? With electric wit and fierce imagination, four writers explore this surprisingly complicated act, and the many ways we connect, confront and compromise.
Jaclyn Backhaus is a playwright and co-founder of Fresh Ground Pepper. Her play Men on Boats (Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks, Playwrights Horizons) was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and is published by Dramatists Play Service. Other works include Folk Wandering (Pipeline Theatre Company, upcoming), People Doing Math Live! (Under the Radar Festival’s INCOMING! series at The Public Theater), The Incredible Fox Sisters (Live Source Theatre Group) and You on the Moors Now (Theater Reconstruction Ensemble, The Hypocrites). Backhaus has received commissions from Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Ars Nova, and was the 2016 Tow Foundation Playwright-in-Residence at Clubbed Thumb. She is currently in residence at Lincoln Center Theater. She received her B.F.A. from New York University and hails from Phoenix, Arizona.
Dipika Guha was raised in India, England and Russia. Her plays include Yoga Play (South Coast Repertory, The Kilroys List 2017), The Art of Gaman (The Ground Floor at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Kilroys List 2016, Relentless Award semifinalist) and Mechanics of Love (Crowded Fire Theater). She is under commission at South Coast Repertory, the McCarter Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Barrington Stage Company, American Conservatory Theater/Z Space and Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! project (The Merry Wives of Windsor). Her play Azaan premiered at Oregon Symphony this fall. Guha received her M.F.A. from Yale School of Drama, studying under Paula Vogel, and is a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. She currently writes for the series American Gods on Starz.
Brian Otaño grew up in New York City, where he worked as a playwright and a scenic artist at the Metropolitan Opera before moving to Los Angeles. His plays include Tara, Zero Feet Away, The Ocean at Your Door, What We Told the Neighbors and Between the Sandbar and the Shore. His work has been performed, developed and workshopped with New York Theatre Workshop, Roundabout Theatre Company, Page 73, Ars Nova, Atlantic Theater Company, New Dramatists, INTAR, The Amoralists, The Parsnip Ship, Lark Play Development Center, IAMA Theatre Company (L.A.) and Celebration Theatre (L.A.). Residencies & Fellowships: New Dramatists Van Lier Playwriting Fellowship, Interstate 73, New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Play Group and SPACE on Ryder Farm. Education: Otaño received his B.F.A. in dramatic writing from SUNY Purchase.
Jason Gray Platt’s work has been produced and developed around the country by American Repertory Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center Theatre Company, The Flea Theater, Round House Theatre, TheatreWorks, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, The Playwrights Realm, Prelude NYC, Page 73 Productions and Red Bull Theater, and through residencies at The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He received a Helen Hayes Nomination for The Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play in 2013 and was the runner-up for the 2007 Princess Grace Award in Playwriting. Originally from Arizona, Platt now lives in Los Angeles. He is a Core Writer at the Playwrights’ Center and a member of Woodshed Collective. He received his B.A. from Vassar College and his M.F.A. from Columbia University.
You Across from Me is supported in part by The Roy Cockrum Foundation.
About the Professional Training Company
Now in its 46th year, the Professional Training Company (PTC) is the cornerstone of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s commitment to education. One of the nation’s oldest pre-professional training programs, the PTC is a one-of-a-kind immersive program designed to transition recent college graduates into careers by teaching the business and the art of being a theatre professional. Members of the Company work directly with Actors Theatre artistic and administrative leaders, as well as visiting guest artists, to receive hands-on training in their respective fields. The PTC is a diverse community comprised of 42 talented individuals who are the next generation of American theatre.
Events
Humana Festival Kickoff
Thursday, February 22, 2018 from 5:30 – 8 p.m.
Join Actors Theatre for a fun celebration to bring in the Festival with much-deserved fanfare! This event is free, but ticketed.
Ovation Celebration
Saturday, March 31, 2018 at 10 p.m.
Join us at this free, casual gathering, where you’ll meet local theatre enthusiasts and welcome the theatre industry’s finest.
Encore Bash
Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 10 p.m.
Come and help us celebrate the closing weekend of the Humana Festival! An evening of food, drink and entertainment throughout Actors Theatre’s lobbies, the Bash is an opportunity for patrons, producers, artists, critics, Actors alumni and more to send off this memorable season in style!
Panel conversations and keynote speakers will be announced at a later date.
Tickets
Festival Ticket Packages will be on sale beginning November 16, 2017 and are available for the following weekends, enabling you to see a variety of Humana Festival plays and access special events: March 16-18, March 23-25, March 30-April 1, and April 5-8, 2018. Packages are available for theatre lovers and practitioners on all Festival weekends, and for college students and professors the weekend of March 23-25, 2018
Actors Theatre’s Season Ticket Holders can access single tickets and package add-ons during a special pre-sale beginning on Wednesday, November 15, 2017.
Single ticket prices start at $25, and tickets will be on sale beginning January 3, 2018. For more information or to purchase Humana Festival weekend packages, visit ActorsTheatre.org or call 502.584.1205.
During the month of July the Kentucky Artisan Center will present demonstrations by four Kentucky printmakers who will show visitors an array of print techniques and printing processes.
Beginning on July 1, Steve Wiggins, of Lexington, will demonstrate how he cuts linoleum blocks to create relief images. He will then print these images onto paper and fabric using a small tabletop press. Wiggins has been drawing since he was a child and worked with acrylics and oils before settling on printmaking.
On Saturday, July 8, Elizabeth Foley, of Louisville, will demonstrate how she creates and prints her one-of-a-kind monotypes from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Artisan Center. Foley taught art at the Sayre School in Lexington for 20 years and she exhibits her artwork throughout the U. S.
On Saturday, July 8, the Kentucky Artisan Center will offer visitors free guided tours through the center’s gallery exhibit, “225: Artists Celebrate Kentucky’s History” and in the lobby, “Agates: Kentucky’s Jewels.” Tours are at 11 a.m. and again at 2 p.m. and include a tour of the Center’s outdoor sand sculpture “The Sands of Time,” with information on its construction by artist Damon Farmer.
On Saturday, July 15, three members of the Berea Welcome Center Carvers will demonstrate a variety of woodcarving styles and techniques from 10:30 to 3:30 at the Center.
On Saturday, July 22, printmaker Nick Baute, co-owner of Hound Dog Press, a full service letterpress shop in Louisville, will demonstrate printmaking from 10:30 to 3:30 at the Center.
In operation since 2008, Hound Dog Press specializes in custom invitations, greeting cards, stationery, posters, art prints and design. All the press’s finished works are printed on vintage letterpress equipment with handset metal and wood letters used for printed type. All of their illustrations are made by hand carving wood and linoleum blocks.
On Saturday, July 29, artist Marta Dorton, of Lexington, will demonstrate collograph printmaking techniques from 10:30 to 3:30 at the Center.
Dorton states, “After 10 years of printmaking, I still marvel at the surprise on the paper as I pull off the print. I apply ink or paint onto the plate I have created – and run it through the press, each time creating a one-of-a-kind print. I love the planned and the unexpected outcomes.”
The Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea is located at 200 Artisan Way, just off Interstate 75 at Berea Exit 77. The center’s exhibits, shopping and travel information areas are open daily, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information about center events call 859-985-5448, go to the center’s website, or visit the center’s Facebook page.
Louisville Metro Public Art together with the Commission on Public Art has announced two new projects developed by Louisville artists. The public art projects are focused on pedestrian and cycling experiences in Louisville, and will invite community involvement and participation. Artists Lance Newman and Todd Smith were selected for their innovative approach to public art in the form of poetry and technology, and how we encounter art in our city sidewalks, streets, and bridges.
“Public art can take many forms. As our city grows and changes, so do the artists and their unique approach to contemporary topics,” Public Art Administrator Sarah Lindgren said. “We are thrilled to partner with Lance and Todd whose projects will captivate Louisvillians and visitors. These artworks will enhance our daily experience as we walk to work, catch the ZeroBus, go to a concert, or cross the Ohio River.”
Descriptions of both projects are below:
Love in the Street: This project supports Louisville’s growing poetry scene and enhances the pedestrian experience on 4th Street for tourists, employees, concertgoers and more. Louisville poet Lance G. Newman II is the artist and curator who conceived the project to invite place-based poems and stamp them into the 4th Street sidewalk between Broadway and Chestnut in conjunction with the forthcoming streetscape project in 2018. A call for poems will be announced this summer.
Bike Sense Louisville: This project connects cyclists, technology and sound to capture and reflect data in real-time. Artist Todd C. Smith will use sensor units attached to the handlebars of 100 volunteer cyclists to create a web-based data visualization and a sound composition that will be streamed online and on the speakers of the Big Four Bridge. The sound composition will be determined by the activity of the cyclists. Along with general location, the sensor units on the bikes of volunteer cyclists will also gather ambient temperature and carbon monoxide gas data. The project will take place over one year starting in summer 2017.
The citizen cyclists will represent a cross-section of bike users in Louisville, from hobbyists to regular commuters. To volunteer as a cyclist, please visit https://www.bikesense.net/
During the month of June the Kentucky Artisan Center will present “The Sands of Time” a 10 ton sand sculpture by Damon Farmer; a reading by Kentucky’s new Poet Laureate Frederick Smock, demonstrating artists creating handmade artist books, and authors Crystal Wilkinson and Terry Foody signing copies of their books.
The month begins with a demonstration on June 3, by Whitney Withington who joins recycled wood, decorative handmade papers, waxed linen threads and hand-torn archival pages with Coptic stitch binding. Her journals give creative space for people’s drawings and stories.
The Kentucky Artisan Center celebrates Kentucky’s 225th Anniversary with the creation of an original sand sculpture by internationally known sand sculptor Damon Farmer, bringing Kentucky history to life in sand.
Beginning on Saturday, June 3 and continuing on June 4, June 5 and June 6, Farmer will sculpt a huge pile of compacted sand into intricate imagery. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on June 4, 5, and 6, visitors are invited to watch Farmer carve and shape sand using only the simplest of tools. Carving from top to bottom, he will carefully sculpt the wet sand to illustrate moments in Kentucky’s history. Come watch!
On Friday, June 9, the Kentucky Artisan Center will celebrate the completion of a historic sand sculpture by Damon Farmer, with an open to the public event beginning at 10:30 a.m. The artist will be present along with guest speakers including Tourism, Arts and Heritage Deputy Secretary Regina Stivers, Travel and Tourism Commissioner Kristen Branscum and newly designated poet laureate Frederick Smock, of Louisville, reading selected poems. The celebration will continue all day long as visitors can enjoy free birthday cake, a candy tasting by Ruth Hunt Candy and cheeseburgers for $2.25 all day.
Then on Saturday, June 10, artist Linda Kuhlmann, of Berea, will demonstrate how she creates her one-of-a-kind books from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Kuhlmann began making journals in response to the way the process of writing is changing in society. With acronyms and emoticons are being used instead of words, Kuhlmann hopes that the handmade journals she makes will speak to the more personal and artistic side of writing.
Also on June 10, the Center will offer free guided gallery tours of the exhibit “225: Artists Celebrate Kentucky’s History” at both 11 a.m. and again at 2 p.m.
On June 17, three members of the Berea Welcome Center Carvers will demonstrate a variety of woodcarving styles and techniques from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Then on Saturday, June 24, to help celebrate books, well-known author Crystal Wilkinson and newly published author Terry Foody will be signing copies of their books from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Center.
Wilkinson recently won the Ernest J. Gains Award for Literary Excellence and her book “The Birds of Opulence” was named the winner of the 2016 Weatherford Award for Fiction and the 2017 Judy Gaines Young Book Award..
Author Terry Foody has worked in community health in New York State and Kentucky, taught nursing at
Kentucky State University, and coordinated research projects at the University of Kentucky. She has lectured about cholera for the Kentucky Humanities Council and written the book, “The Pie Seller, The Drunk, and the Lady: Heroes of the 1833 Cholera Epidemic in Lexington Kentucky.”
Both Authors will be available to talk about their writing and sign copies of their books from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day at the Center.
The Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea is located at 200 Artisan Way, just off Interstate 75 at Berea Exit 77. The center’s exhibits, shopping and travel information areas are open daily, year-round, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the cafe is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free. For more information about center events call 859-985-5448, go to the center’s website, or visit the center’s Facebook page.
Kentucky students are much more media literate than they are given credit for, said Bighill media artist Bob Martin. Martin is a teaching artist in the media arts category in the Kentucky Arts Council’s adjudicated Teaching Artists Directory.
“They want to be witnessed. They have a lot to offer regarding how they see our society,” Martin said. “Just about every young person has a camera in their pocket. Storytelling through social media is a wonderful opportunity to engage them.”
Those opportunities will become plentiful with more media artists to share their knowledge and experience, he said. To achieve that, the arts council is looking for media artists to add to the council’s Teaching Artists Directory.
“Media, by definition, is the plural of medium, and it’s through using multiple media that are evolving, adapting and unfolding that we get our stories across,” Martin said. “It’s up to us to fill the need of students for media art instruction, and help young people engage critically with art through media.”
Martin, who works regionally in theater and film, has been a teaching artist in the directory for about three years. Bringing media arts lessons to Kentucky students through the residencies offered through the arts council’s Teaching Art Together program is a source of satisfaction for him, and he said he thinks his fellow media artists will find the same level of fulfillment.
“I believe in the state creating spaces for artists to be able to make a difference in their communities as performing or teaching artists,” Martin said. “It’s a valuable use of state resources to say we value artmaking, creation and creative visioning as an investment strategy. I appreciate participating in that.”
The application deadline for the Teaching Artists Directory is April 13.
For more information or to apply, visit the Teaching Artists Directory program page of the arts council website, or contact Jean St. John, arts council education director, at jean.stjohn@ky.gov or 502-892-3124.
The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, fosters environments for Kentuckians to value, participate in and benefit from the arts. Kentucky Arts Council funding is provided by the Kentucky General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.
On Saturday, April 15, Hunter S. Thompson fans from all over will gather at the LFPL’s Main Library at 301 York St to celebrate the life, work, and legacy of the Gonzo journalist creator. Expanded panel discussions, spoken word and poetry performances, and an all-local musical lineup set this year’s festival apart from previous years.
GonzoFest Louisville will host two different panel discussions on the topics of The Literary Impact of Hunter S. Thompson and Freedom of Speech/Media Literacy. Dr. Lee Remington Williams JD, PhD, of Bellarmine University will lead a 45-minute lecture titled Politics: Decadent and Depraved, followed by a question-and-answer session.
Journalist Michael Lindenberger will moderate the panel discussions and lecture. All panels and spoken word performances will take place inside the Main Library.
GonzoFest Louisville will also feature an all-local lineup with music by Nellie Pearl, Otis Junior, Brother Wolves, Satellite Twin, Brooks Ritter, and Sativa Gumbo. All bands will perform in the library parking lot on York St. Juan Thompson, Hunter’s son, will be here as well, signing copies of his book Stories I Tell Myself: Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson. Additionally, the festival will host a screening of Where the Buffalo Roam, the semi-biographical film based on the experiences of Hunter S. Thompson starring Thompson’s friend Bill Murray. Dean Otto, Curator of Film for the Speed Art Museum, will introduce Where the Buffalo Roam.
The 2017 GonzoFest Louisville celebration is from noon until 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 15. The festival will take place both on the exterior grounds of the Main branch and inside the library. Admission is free, but attendees are encouraged to make a $10 donation when entering the festival. A portion of the proceeds will benefit LFPL.
Learn more at GonzoFestLou.com.
